Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1910-01-06
The kennebeC Frozen Over
wednesday at Bath.
Five Inches Of Ice in Aoekn.
mock Bay Steamer DELAYED,
Main River Closed from Bluff Mad
To behring's ShIpyard,

Bath, Me-, Jan. 5.-The Times tb,s.
afternoon says:
The intense cold yesterday and last
night came near closing Baths har.
Dor UP tight, but although navigation
in all directions was difficult this
morning, all the steamers succeeded in
performing their daily tasks
This morning Long Reach was
frozen from shore to shore. but NOT
so SOLELY but that the powerful H..
tie Hockomock of the Peoples Ferry
Co. was able to pillow her way across.
The Maine Central ferry Hercules had
harder time and was caught once in
the middle Of the harbor but managed
to free herself without assistance.
The steamer Island Belle from
Booth5ay Harbor got through to Bath
late in the forenoon after one of the
most strenuous struggles of her life.
She was four hours from wharf to
wharf.
The first ice met by the Belle on her
way TO Bath was at upper Westport
landing and the eastern end of Hook
omock bay, and it was the first time
in all his long steamboat experience
that Capt. Brewer had been bothered
by ice in that locality where the water
is salt and the current strong. From
the jetty just above Upper He'll Gate
to Arrowsic bridge the steamer had
TO back off and buck the ice field Is
times and in the gut in the short dis
lance between the bridge and the open
water of the Kennebec she was stop
ped IL times.
Some Of the passengers left the
steamer and walked over the ice to
the bridge and thence to the ferry,
and the mail was sent to Bath by the
same route, indicating how solid the
ice was. Capt. Ira Lewis of Five Is.
lands. who was one of the passengers
who walked ashore. said that in Hook.
onlock bay the ice was five inches
thick.
The experience of the steamer Vir-
ginia on her way from Popham Beach
to Bath was still more remarkable, for
while the steamboat service between
Bath and Boothbay has ordinarily been
discontinued through at least part
of the winter, it is extraordinary for
the main Kennebec channel from Bath
to the sea to be blocked.
This morning the Virginia encoun-
tered solid ice at lakewood Farm just
above Bluff head. and it extended to
behring's shipyard. distance of be-
tween four and five miles.
Fortunately. the little steamer had
been built with view to just such an
emergency, and in this, her first en-
counter with an ice field, she proved
herself all that her designers expected
as an icebreaker. At each dash she
would throw herself into the field
about half her own length, rising on
the ice and breaking it down by her
weight. 1t was nevertheless, a tedious
process. She was two hours smashing
her way through the barrier in Fid-
dler's reach and in all about seven
hours from wharf to wharf. She tied
up at Bath at 2 o'clock this afternoon.
The experience of the Island Belle
this morning results in the discontin-
uance' of the Boothbay-Bath service for
the winter, as Agent Greenleaf of the
Eastern Steamship Co. announced TINS
afternoon that today would be the
morrow she will commence running to
Wiscasset, as usual in the winter, con.
Meeting there with the Maine Central