Olive Corbett Duncan

Nautical Memories

It seems it is desired that I recount a few of the memories of my life on the deep blue waters.

I took my first steps across the booby hatch of my father’s sailing ship, the Olive Thurlow, in the harbor of Adelaide, Australia.

I’ll begin with my agnate great-grandmother Moley Tyler Thurlow of Cutler, Maine. She was a remarkable woman. She dyed, spun and wove her wool, made the bread, rugs, et cetera. She came down from the Pepperills, my loyalist forebears of Kittery, Maine. My great-great-great-grandmother was a sister of Sir William Pepperell of Louisburg fame in the French and Indian wars; however, Moley’s own father, Belcher Tyler, fought on the Revolutionary side.

To return to the sea, Moley Tyler Thurlow brought forth eleven or twelve children and lived to be nearly ninety-one. Some of her sons followed the sea.

Boys, in Maine, became men at an early age. Many ships were well built in Maine and sailed to the far corners of the earth.

One of Molly’s sons and his young bride started out for the West Indies. He, also called Tristram Thurlow, after his Revolutionary soldier great-grandfather, was the captain. He had made a wager with a Canadian sea captain of a “lime juicer,” as those ships were called. Tristram, evidently put on too much sail trying to reach the Indies first. He, his wife, crew and new ship were never heard from again.

My paternal grandfather, Captain Daniel Corbett, although he was not supposed to do so, put his hand to the ropes in a very fierce hurricane, thereby breaking a blood vessel, which caused his death. He lies buried in Nassau in the Bahamas.

My father, Captain Tristram Thurlow Corbett, then only twenty-five years old, took over the command of the brigantine, the Lena Thurlow. We have a watercolor of the Lena Thurlow painted in Marseilles, France, in 1871.

The marshes along the river leading to Santos, Brazil, were infested with yellow fever mosquitoes. People were dying by the hundreds with yellow fever. My father’s brother, Captain Daniel Elwin Corbett, also of Cutler, Maine, died from this frightful fever. My father went down in to the thick of the scourge and brought back my uncle’s new ship, the “Eleanor M. Williams,” barkentine rigged. He turned his own ship over to his mate, Captain Gooding of Yarmouth, Maine. Since those days, the bad conditions approaching Santos have been made sanitary.

On my Philadelphia mother’s side ship captains also existed. Her father was Captain Samuel Willeby. We still have the mahogany sea chest which, full of treasures, he brought to his young bride in 1847. My mother’s maternal grandfather was Captain Charles Hale, who sailed his clipper ship to China. He was born in 1789 and died in 1879 at 90 years of age.

On the long voyages of the sailing ships, one finds plenty to keep one’s interest. Many memories of long ago come to mind. Everything was of note: the moaning of the restless sea, the hovering, stormy petrels, the porpoises, tumbling through the waves, the blue, yellow finned dolphins leaping from the water in pursuit of the silvery flying fish, the Portuguese men-of-war – really jellyfish – which, my father said, would shoot us if we weren’t good.

Maine sea captains played with their children. The coiled ropes were our nests and father, bearing goodies and flapping his arms, was the big father bird.

These are a few of the thoughts that returned to me.

My sister, Eugenie Abigail, and I used to have the sailors put metal hooks into long poles and, with the ship well heeled over, we’d sit in her lee and capture seaweed from the Sargasso Sea. Such treasures would glean – coral, shells, sea life!

It is said to be bad luck for a hen to crow. One day “Neotie” (we called her “Neotie” she objected to having the sailors smear her with green paint), our dear gray and white, pet hen, hopped onto the railing, crowed and flew overboard. There was quite a swell on the ocean, but we put up such a pother, my father had the sailors, much against their will, man a lifeboat to rescue “Neotie.” Alas! Poor “Neotie” had gone down three times and was beyond recall. The sailors insisted they could revive her if only my father would give them certain spirits from his medicine (captains had to be the ship doctors, too) chest. The request was not granted so a shoe box was “Neotie’s” casket and wood shavings, the flowers. With prayful ceremonies, she was sadly consigned to the deep.

Then there was the terrific hurricane off N.Y. City – just before Thanksgiving – the fog – everything ice coated, the decks awash – all hands at the pumps. Each 40 to 50 foot tidal wave threatened to founder us. I can see those high walls of water even now. Only a goosewing top sail could be up.

And again, I think back to the 92-day voyage to reach Montevideo. The South American council had cabled the U.S. that we were all lost. We had to continually tack ship to keep from going on to the N.E. coast of South America. Here, often tiny non-singing birds of brilliant plumage were blown off the shore and sought sanctuary in our rigging. It was an exciting moment when the sailors easily caught the exhausted birds for us.

When outside the Rio de la Plata, we were held off for two weeks by a pampero blowing wildly from the pampas. With flags we spoke to a Norwegian ship whose crew was suffering from scurvy, as they lacked potatoes. We gave them potatoes and they gave us casks of water, as we had been drinking boiled rainwater for weeks.

Natives, in twin hulled catamarans, and schools of turtles were sighted. Alas, we did not possess the proper equipment with which to capture the vulnerable reptiles from which tortoiseshell is obtained. I can assure you we greatly appreciate it the delicious steaks we got on reaching the hotel in Montevideo after ascending the muddy, penguin-filled river.

I think again of my climb, aloft, at five years of age, to the high cross-trees and the clinging in fright over the swaying ship – finally reached by the sailors and then, to find my mother and her hair brush awaiting me.

I remember the forty-foot monster of the deep sea that lay across our stern. It was covered with barnacles and was accompanied by a fourteen-foot shark and its pilot fish or remoras. The use of a harpoon would have been of no avail as well as dangerous.

I recall the heavy swells near Cape Horn, the distant icebergs, the snow ice cream, carefully rationed – the water spouts!

We had a marvelous mother who read to us. Bible tales, Sara Crew, Dickens stories and others. Ashore we’d try to match the people we saw to the different characters remembered from mother’s readings.

The aforesaid are just some more reminders of formes, experiences.

It is said the Persians held the sea holy and the Greeks gave it a special Deity.

I can still feel the heave of the ship as I leaned on the taffrail and watched the scudding spume wend its lacy way from the white wake of the ship.

These voyages have long since faded into time gone by, but the lessons in understanding can never be taken from me. The perpetual joy and wealth of it all remain with me as I relive it once more.

Source: Duncan, Olive Corbett. (Personal memoir. Previous publication unknown).

Mrs. Olive Corbett Duncan of [Rockville Centre, New York] died at her home at the age of 94 years.

Born in Philadelphia on August 28, 1880, Mrs. Duncan was the daughter of the late Captain Tristram Thurlow Corbett and Clara Willeby Corbett, who resided [in Rockville Centre].

In 1883, she accompanied her parents around the world aboard her father’s bark, the Olive Thurlow of New York, and in 1894 sailed with her family to Montevideo, Uruguay, aboard the barkentine Eleanor M. Williams.

One of the last surviving members of the class of 1898 at South Side High School, she graduated from State University College, Brockport [New York], in 1901.

Mrs. Duncan taught for four years at Bayshore High School, and for 43 years for the New York City public school system. She retired in 1947.

Her ancestors fought in the revolutionary war, and she was an active member of the William Dawes Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Mrs. Duncan also was a member of the First Baptist Church, the Fortnightly Club, and the Machiasport (Maine) historical society.

Mrs. Duncan was the sister of the late Willeby T. Corbett and Eugenie C. Dunn of Rockville Centre, whose husband was a former mayor of the village.

Source: Dunn, Daniel. (Publication unknown).