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Contributed by Deborah Marx 2007-06-26

Bath, ME — The multi-masted coal schooners Frank A. Palmer and Louise B. Crary collided on 17 December 1902 and their connected remains lie in the deep waters of the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. The two Maine-built vessels represent some of the largest 19th century coastal trading vessels. Each vessel is still loaded with 3000 tons of coal shipped from Virginia. In 2002, the sanctuary and the National Undersea Research Center at the University of Connecticut, located Frank A. Palmer and Louise B. Crary with side scan sonar using information provided by shipwreck researchers Arnold Carr and John Fish. The 4-masted schooner Frank A. Palmer was built by Nathaniel Palmer in Bath, Maine in 1897 to carry coal between the Chesapeake Bay and New England. The wooden-hulled vessel measured 274 feet long by 43 feet wide with a 21-foot depth of hold. Historians believe that it was the longest 4-masted schooner ever built. Frank A. Palmer had an eventful career, surviving several collisions and grounding before its loss. Three years after Frank A. Palmer slid into Maine's Kennebec River, the New England Shipbuilding Company of Bath, Maine launched the 267-foot long Louise B. Crary. It too was designed to carry coal between the Chesapeake Bay and New England. The two schooners collided on 17 December 1902 in Massachusetts Bay en-route from Newport News, Virginia to Boston, Massachusetts. Within minutes of the collision, 6 of the 21 sailors lost their lives when the schooners plummeted to the bottom. The remaining 15 sailors made it into Frank A. Palmer's lifeboat. During the following 4 nights, 5 more men perished from exposure in the open boat before being rescued 60 miles off Cape Cod, MA. Investigations of the site revealed the vessels’ hulls to be nearly intact with rigging splayed across the deck from the toppled masts. At no other located New England coal schooner archaeological site is there the same opportunity to study two vessels with such extensive preservation. How the schooners sank, and the condition of the wreck site, provide a unique archaeological opportunity to compare two similar, but slightly different vessels, engaged in the same trade. The shipwreck site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places because of its historical and archaeological significance. For more information visit: http://stellwagen.noaa.gov