Painting of Brig Carrie F. Dix - Lisbon 1882

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Painting of Brig Carrie F. Dix - Lisbon 1882

The paper upon which the drawing was made seems to have been embossed with a cartouche encircling the word, "Evadne."

"My [great] grandfather John Dix (1829-1858) was a sea captain, and my grandmother [Celestia Gertrude Dix] always said that he was once shipwrecked, but she didn’t know where. She was just a little girl at the time, and she couldn’t remember much about it. She thought it might have been “on the Jersey coast.” Anyway, he lost his ship, and it took him two years to get home. The story went that he had traded one vessel for another one at Blue Hill, and she almost sank before he got her home to Bartlett’s Island across the bay. She’d been down in the Caribbean and hadn’t been coppered, so she was worm-eaten. Even though she was a fairly new vessel, they had to fix her up before they could use her.

I’m not sure whether this was the same ship he lost or not, but I’ve got a picture of a brig that was drawn by Fred W. Dix, who was lost at sea in 1886 and who was some kind of cousin to my great grandfather. It’s just a picture on a piece of lined paper, hand colored. On the back it says “Built in New Haven, 1882,” and it says “Carrie F. Dix” on the flag.

[Frederick William Dix (1861-1886) was John Dix’ nephew, the son of John Dix’ brother, William Dix (1826-1910)]

Now, Carrie F. Dix was my grandmother’s sister. Carrie married Dr. Joseph Dana Phillips, but she died in childbirth. Dr. Phillips sent my grandmother and her other sister, Vienna, to school at Coburn Classical Institute in Waterville. Then my grandmother taught school on Tinker’s Island for a time, and she also taught on Bartlett’s Island, where she lived.

[Carrie Frances Dix (1863-1892), later Mrs. Joseph Dana Phillips, was the daughter of John Dix and the first cousin of Frederick William Dix]

On the back of this picture of the brig it also says, “First trip to Faroe Isles and then to a place in Norway.” After that, the writing fades out, and the rest of it is illegible. I’ve tried using a black light to read it, but I can’t make it out. It says something about some port in Spain, so John Dix was probably bound down through the English Channel.

Whether he was wrecked on the Channel Isles and spent some time on the island of Jersey, I don’t know. If the ship had been lost off New Jersey, it wouldn’t have taken him two years to get home. I do know that the whole crew was rescued by breeches buoy. But I bet my grandfather was shipwrecked on the Channel Isles, and he might have had to stay on the island of Jersey.

Now, he might have been hurt or might have had a nervous breakdown over losing that vessel, because it took him two years to recover enough to get home. He had no money. When he got back to Maine, his spirit was broken and he never went to sea again. He had to run that little farm on Bartlett’s Island, and his family was very poor. When his daughter Emily Bartlett died, John Dix came off the island and lived in Southwest Harbor with another daughter, Vienna Lawler. When he died, they had Emily’s body brought over and buried with his, down at Mount Height Cemetery." - “Ralph Stanley : Tales of a Maine Boatbuilder” by Craig S. Milner and Ralph W. Stanley, published by Down East Books, Camden, Maine 2004, p. 136-137.

Portugal, Lisbon

Portugal

1882