The daily Alaskan., 1917-01-22
OLD SHIP CARVERS
Their Occupation Gone, Theirs Is
 Now a Lost Art.
FlGUREHEADS OUT OF DATE.
These Famous Old FaneifuI Figures, ElaborateIy Fashioned In Wood, Find No Place In the Decorative Scheme of a Modern Wind djammer.

of Modern WlndJammer
 While there is a revival of wooden shipbuilding in Maine, giving employ ment to the carpenter. rigger and sail maker, there is not on the whole length of the coast any job for the carver the sculptor in wood who used to make the figureheads. That is an occupation now entirely gone, for the igurehead is out of date and Its carving a lost art.
 One of the most famous of the ship carvers was the late William l.. Sea yey of Bangor, who fashioned figure heads for the best square triggers that ever left Maine. He learned his trade in a Bangor shipyard when the banks of the Penobscot bristled with new vessel frames, piled his cleaver, chisel and gouge through all the years of America's greatest maritime glory, witnessed the decline of our ocean commerce and lived to see his occupa- ton entirely gone.
 For forty years or more did Seayey carve angels and cherubs, kings and queens, mermaids and dolphins, states men and warriors, not to mention an occasional lion and numerous eagles, for the adornment of down east yes sels, for every craft of any considera- ble size carried a figurehead, some sort of ornament under the bowsprit be- ing regarded as necessary to complete her outfit. But now all that is gone. Owners can see no sense in spending money on such gewgaws as blue eyed and white robed queen wearing vel low crown. When they build a vessel now-square triggers are no longer thought of-they whittle her off for ward to a billet head and let her go at that. Maybe a gilt scrollwork tops her stem, but nothing more.
 Thus 1t is that Bangor knows the wood sculptor no more. the sole re- hinder of Seavey's art being a broken and faded specimen of his work, once carried by a big ship, but for many years mounted as a sign over his shop door in Exchange street In the days of her youth this statuesque lady, whittIed and chiseled from a pine log, had golden trimmings on her Grecian robes and in one dainty hand held aloft a golden goblet. Now she Is weather worn and grimy, and the goblet hand Is gone. but she Is the most striking memorial of Seavey, all his other paint ed beauties being scattered to the seven seas under foreign flags or gone to the port of dead ships.
 One of the finest fgureheads in It's day was that of the clipper ship West ern Belle. It was the full sized figure of a woman, with her left arm out stretched. carrying a few spears of wheat. Her right hand gathered the folds of her skirt, the drapery of which considering that the material was wood. was admirably executed.
 From the general outline no less than from the careless curl lying along the breast 1t is suspected that the car yer had worked in marble or was natural genius. His name was Samp- son. He neglected to cut hls first name on his masterpieces He lived and toiled in Bath, the home of Amer lean shipbuilding, where the Western Belle was built in 1876.
 His handiwork was carried by Bath built ships to the most remote parts of the world, and it is related that south sea island chief was so impress cd with the Yankee carver's skill that he sent him a commission by friend ly skipper to make set of idols to meet the theological needs of the chiefs heather subjects.
 The Western Belle is spending the evening of her days as coal barge, but the lady who graced her prov was retired from the sea and now occupies a place in a garden. One of her pecu- IarIties was a detachable arm, the one in which she held the wheat During voyages it was unscrewed so that the seas might not break it, being replaced when the ship was about to make port. This was not known in the more elaborate of the old wooden figure heads, especially f-men-Of-war, where danger of shattering was greatest
 Some figuCeheads were Illustrative Of the vessels name, others were whims of the owners or the captains and still others symbolic of events oc- curing at the time the vessels were built. The schooner War Eagle, for in- stance, was built in wartime, and she had for her igurchcad q fierce looking eagle, perched on Q heap of cannon balls and with arrows clasped in It's talons. The War Eagle was destroyed some years ago at Boston by an eXplo- sion of naphtha in her cargo. The schooner American Eagle was decorat- ed with a gorgeous bird of freedom. and the brig American Union was llD- orally ornamentcd, stern and bow. with symbols of this nation.
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