Historic Schooner Mercantile Starts Her 100th Sailing Season

Rockland, Maine- On Sunday the historic schooner Mercantile slipped back into the waters of Penobscot Bay ready to start her 100th sailing season!

The most common American vessel type was the two-masted coasting
schooner. Developed in the mid-to-late 18th century, these vessels reached a more or less standard form by the mid-19th century, a design that continued to be built into the first decades of the 20th century. The only variation of note in the
two-masted schooner, aside from the underwater form of the hull, or the lines, was the presence of a centerboard. Tens of thousands of these vessels were built and operated on the Pacific, Atlantic, and Gulf coasts, and on the Great Lakes in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The "freight trucks" of their time, the coasting schooners carried coal, bricks, iron ore, grain, oysters, and numerous other bulk products between ports. In addition to Mercantile, there are now only four surviving two masted coasting schooners in the United States Lewis R. French
(1871), Stephen Taber (1871), Governor Stone (1877), and Grace Bailey (1882), all the subjects of separate studies.

In 1943, Mercantile became a member of the fleet of windjammers developed by Frank Swift for the commercial conveyance of passengers along the Maine coast. Its significance, therefore, lies not only in its design and association with maritime history, but equally for its association with Swift's early and unique approach to the preservation of historic vessels.

Mercantile was built by the Billings family in Little Deer Isle, Maine, over three winter seasons, finally being launched in 1916. Like the Bailey, she is a shoal draft, centerboard schooner, drawing 10 ' 7" with the centerboard down and 5' with the centerboard up. She was owned and operated by the Billings family from 1916 to 1943, and then was briefly in the coasting and mackerel fisheries trades in the Narragansett Bay area of Massachusetts. In 1943 she was purchased by Captain Frank Swift of Camden, Maine, for use as a "windjammer." [MARITIME HERITAGE OF THE UNITED STATES NHL THEME STUDY LARGE VESSELS NFS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) 0MB No. 1024-0018 MERCANTILE (Schooner) United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service]