a life on the sea
The Kennebec River was central to Hallowell in the days of sail, indeed the river was the highway connecting Hallowell, Maine literally to the rest of the ports in the known world. Seamen from Hallowell sailed ships along the coast and across the seas to Europe and Asia.
Captain John H. Drew (1834-1890), born in East Hallowell (today’s Chelsea) was a seaman and ship’s Captain for his entire life. John first went to sea at age 11 and took his first longer voyage to Louisiana as ship’s cook when he was 18. He spent 45 years on the world’s oceans, captaining ships around the Cape of Good Hope 40 times on route to the East Indies and navigating the notorious Cape Horn more than a dozen times on voyages to San Francisco, Hawaii, and China.
Captain Drew was the son of Allen Drew. The Drew family had been building ships for 160 years in Kingston, Massachusetts, when in 1799 William Drew moved to Hallowell and continued the family shipbuilding business with his son Allen. Allen became particularly well known as a ship carver.
I painted Captain Drew at the helm of one of his ships, racing another clipper home.
artist, Chris Cart
The “Kennebecker”
Captain Drew had sailed and seen so much of the world on his voyages, and yet he once wrote, “Hallowell is one of the dearest places in the wide world.”
Under the moniker “The Kennebecker” for 17 years from 1876 to 1889 Drew wrote Letters from the Sea, articles about his many voyages that were published in Boston Journal Newspaper.
One letter “Hallowell in China” recounts one of his voyages to the Far East. Another published in the Boston Journal, Saturday, March 29, 1879, “The Kennebecker in Ireland Or, the Cruise of the ‘Sandwich,’ Capt. A. M. I. Knott” mentions Herman Melville after Drew saw a large whale skeleton in Dublin.
Initially we could not find any images of Captain Drew to find his likeness. So I asked around to find a “ship’s captain” type. A friend didn’t hesitate in suggesting Dave Pottle, with his rugged features and full beard.
artist, Chris Cart
After the mural was all but completed a photo of the real Captain Drew turned up—he did indeed have a full beard. I left Dave Pottle standing in for him, though. I liked the connection of a modern Hallowell man posing for the 19th century seaman.
My friend Buddy Iaciofano posed for the seaman shown hauling the halyard to trim a sail. Buddy also suggested Dave Pottle as a stand-in model for Captain Drew.
artist, Chris Cart
Buddy died in June of 2023, just a week before we installed the mural. I will always regret he didn’t see the mural up on the wall. He will always be missed.
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