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The Loss of the Portland

from From Boston Harbor by Crosscurrents Music

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about

"The Titanic of New England" sank in 1898 as the namesake of the Portland Gale, that claimed 400 lives and over 150 vessels. In 2008 five divers reached the vessel on Stellwagen Bank, and I received several emails encouraging me to commemorate the largest loss of life of any New England shipwreck. The tune began its life as the well-known New England dance The Portland Fancy.

lyrics

In eighteen hundred and ninety-eight
The battle was over tween sail and steam
Those flying clouds were early or late
And the pocketwatch packet was reigning supreme.
She was tall and white as a wedding cake
The S.S. Portland was her name
A Portland fancy for passengers sake
The pride of the packets from Boston to Maine.

CHORUS:
So blow ye winds from Boston town
She s steaming down east with the Portland mail
Those autumn winds they brought her down
Giving her name to the Portland Gale.

Thanksgiving was over and Saturday come
To India Wharf they did all repair
Time to be saying farewells for home
Two hundred brave souls went on board her there.
The wind did rise at the dogwatch bell
But the Portland Steam Packets they sail on time
Her whistle did sound as the first flakes fell
The last that was heard of a ship in her prime.

She made Cape Ann with her course outside
But the nor easter drove her across the Bay
He d capsize her sure if she went broadside
So he ran out to sea for to hope and to pray.
With her narrow beam and her shallow draft
She could run the rivers with grace and ease
But from stem to stern she pitched fore and aft
And the sidewheeler labored in heavy seas.

Lost that night was the James B. Pace
Lester A. Lewis and Addie Snow
Schooners and clippers that lost the race
Four hundred lives that gale laid low.
The news reached Boston by way of France
Across the Atlantic in sad relay
From New York to Paris, a telegraph dance
For the Cape Cod cables were carried away.

Their watches were frozen at nine-fifteen
Was she lost on the first watch or next forenoon?
Had that pocketwatch packet been early or late
On her final run down to Davy Jones?
A wedding cake sliced by the knife of the wave
She sleeps in the deep where the gale laid her low
The waves they roll o er the Portland s grave
On Stellwagen Bank where the whalefishes blow.

credits

from From Boston Harbor, released June 9, 2022
© Lynn Noel

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Crosscurrents Music Boston, Massachusetts

Lynn Noel brings traditional song and heritage arts online to create community. Lynn has a voice of striking clarity and power, equally at home in rhythmic chanteys and flowing ballads.

Lynn is a respected song session leader on both sides of the Atlantic and the producer and host of the Mermaid's Tavern online folk club. She is currently Program Chair of the New England Folk Festival (NEFFA). ... more

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