Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1897-02-09
TALE OF PIRACY.
Fate Of the Julia Baker and
Captain John Lewis.
Vessel Stolen by Sailors Captain
Was Undoubtedly Poisoned.
Strange and Almost Forgotten Story Of Booth
bay Vessel and Captain.

Boston, Feb. 8.-The Globe, today
tells strange story of an ld-timt
case Of piracy in which the schooner
Julia Baker of Boothbay Harbor and
her captain. John Lewis of the sam.
place. were concerned, the former be.
ing stolen and the latter meeting .
violent death. The story is as follows
Justice finds hard work sometimes
to mete out punishment for crimes
committed at sea. & The long trial OF
Mate Bran of the bark Herbert Full.
Ter attests anew the difficulties met in
securing positive evidence as to where
guilt lies.
just now, when the public mind is
brought by such strange chronicles as
those OF the Fuller case to consider
the inscrutable spell of the sea on the
hives of those who spend most of their
Gays IN the vast solitude of the main,
another chapter in the endless nara
tive of adventure on the deep may well
be added to the scroll.
This story has to do with the mystic
rious death of captain, and the
piratical stealing of his vessel and her
cargo. How the captain died has never
been told. Some of the men who know
1t are dead. and others Keep silent.
Twelve years have passed since the
story of the stealing Of the schooner
Julia Baker ard the death of her COM
mander Capt. John Lewis of Booth
bay Harbor. Me-, was news, but the
tale has never been told in its entirety.
few paragraphs noting the arrival
/ n 10 -Snl nj
out her captain. and of the arrest of
the mate and crew. was all that ap-
peared about the case in the newspa-
pers.
| In spite of the flight of years, there
Is at Boothbay. in little white farm
house by the road leading to Wiscas-
set. little woman who daily looks out
| over the landscape of rocky field and
wooded hills toward the village by the
sea, two miles away, hoping that she
| may see some messenger who will tell
her that her brother still lives, or. at
least how he died.
John Lewis never married. nor did
| this sister, and the two lived for one
another. He never returned from a
voyage that he did not bring home
something to her. and his letters i'm his
absence frightened her quiet home life,
and made the days seem shorter.
Capt. Lewis was SO years old when
he left home for his last voyage. a
typical Yankee skipper. sinewy.
hardened by exposure to wind and
weather. healthy and courageous. The
Julia Baker was one of the fleet of
schooners then hailing from Bocthbay
Harbor. and engaged in the fruit car
ryins trade. Capt. Lewis owned
good share in the vessel, and the other
owners were his neighbors in town,
The Baker was built at East Booth
bay. She was 102 tons net register.
She is now owned in Bucksport, Me-,
and is engaged in the coasting trade.
During the winter of lSs3-4 the Baker
carried fruit to Philadelphia for Warner
Merritt & Co. In the spring. the fruit
trade being duh. Capt. Lewis decided to
take Il charter in New York. He got one
from Tough & Van Romondt of 50 Ex-
S w,I, ,,p place to carry general cargo.
Gaudeloupe. West Indies. The cargo was
taken on at pier %. East river, near the
New York end of the big bridge.
While the vessel was being loaded the
captain shipped a strange mate. having
relied on the shipping agent to furnish a
man. as well as a crew and cook The
shipping agent had in mind a man who
had been waiting for some time to get a
place on a vessel bound for the West In
dies with general cargo. He was an ac-
ping agent he knew some men who would |
make good crew for the Baker These
men Were shipped
While the Baker lay at pier 49, the
schooner Mary e: Weber. in command |
of Capt. Gilman Hodgdon. also of Booth |
bay. lay outside of her. Capt. Hodgdon |
the strange mate and the crew came on !,
board the Baker Cant. Hodgdon shook /
his head. He believed in keeping a man
mand; Capt, Lewis agreed with him in
this. but had been obliged to part with
the mate he had first engaged for the
voyage Mage whom VIC he had known many years.
Lewis appeared to be in the best OF
health and spirits. There was a good |
breeze as the Baker dropped her tug.
ceeded under sail down the bay The
crew fell to under command of the new
mate, and soon had things taut and trim
But. strangely enough. the Baker did
not go to sea, that night. She lay at an
Choir instead off the Jersey shore. inside
next day. The vessels cargo consisted
of 500 barrels of flour. 100 barrels of cot
tonseed oil and SO barrels of bread in the
deck. This trimmed her about right for
making good time, and when she finally
got under way she bowled off merrily out
W 0dDuy I1OOk anu the IiSntSnlD, ana
into the waste of waters.
The next heard of the Baker in New
York was that she had been seen sailing
IN strange fashion among the keys Of the
Bahamas. Her course was erratic. and
she seemed to be keeping out of the way
Of other vessels
1t was nearly month after the Baker
left New York that she was first heard
from by her agents. Warner Merritt &
Co. of Philadelphia. Then Capt Hodg-
Ion of the Weber reported that he had
seen the Baker. and that he was sure
was wrong on her. After the
apse of IL years and more Capt. Hodg-
Ion still remembers his chance meeting
with his friends vessel in a spot far out
If her course. and he told the story 70 a
-slobe man not long ago at his home in
Harbor.
Il sailed a day behind the Baker"
said the captain, .and went to Baracoa.
,uha. in ballast for load of fruit. We
oaded bananas and cocoanuts and start
ID back with a good breeze, across the
I'D Bahama channel to Crooked Island
At the entrance of the passage,
rear Castle island. / saw a schooner run
ling on the course for Baracoa. AS soon
is I saw her said that If the Baker had
rot gone to Gaudeloupe should call thar
ler sure. As we got nearer l saw that ,
t was the Baker. !.
1--WE were beating up the channel and
he was running free so | did not get a i
nance, to speak her. and I proceeded .
realty mystified. | knew John had no I
usness that would call him so far ont