8 minute read
Ships Of The Aroostook
A popular name for vessels
by Charles Francis
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The Aroostook has a maritime tradition. I do not mean this in the sense of a non sequitur: a humorous device used by writers or a logical fallacy. I am referring to the fact that a small number of vessels bear or have borne the name Aroostook. In particular, I am referring to U.S. Navy vessels named Aroostook and one notable fictional vessel named Aroostook. I make the preceding qualifying statement to indicate that I am limiting the scope of this piece to vessels of which there is some significant written record.
The U.S. Navy named three vessels Aroostook. In so naming them, the Navy was keeping with established tradition. A great number of Navy vessels have had or now have names of U.S. political divisions or geographic features. The fictional Aroostook appears in the title of a best-selling book, The Lady of the Aroostook.
Given the progress of the discussion so far one might assume that the vessels under consideration were named for Aroostook County, a political designation. I do not have this view. It is my contention that the naval vessels bearing the name Aroostook were named for the Aroostook River. Specific U.S. Navy records pertaining to the naming of at least one Aroostook, the third, would seem to bear this out. As to the fictional Aroostook, that is — as they say — a horse of different color. My mixing of metaphors with the latter statement is deliberate as I am speaking of a literary creation. We will begin with a consideration of the naming of the third U.S. Navy vessel bearing the name Aroostook.
The third Aroostook (AOG-14) was built at Newport News, Virginia as the single-screw, steel-hulled, diesel-electric, tank barge Esso Delivery No. 11. It was built for Standard Oil. It was the first all-welded construction tanker owned by Standard Oil. The Navy acquired the Esso Delivery No. 11 in April of 1943. It was commissioned al-
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most immediately as Aroostook. Naval records point to the Aroostook River as the source for the name. These records contain a brief commentary on the river as does the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, which describes the Aroostook River as meandering in a “generally northeasterly direction through much of the northern tip of [Maine] before entering the Canadian province of New Brunswick and joining the Saint John River.” There is the additional statement that “Aroostook is an Algonquian word meaning a bountiful and unobstructed river.”
For those who may be unfamiliar with the exact location of the Aroostook River, it rises in northeastern Maine where Millinocket Stream and Munsungan Stream join in Township 8, Range 8. This is northern Penobscot County. From its point of origin the river winds in an easterly and northeasterly direction through Aroostook County. It passes through Ashland, north of Presque Isle, and east of Caribou. It joins the Saint John River in Aroostook, New Brunswick. In the late 1830s, the territory comprising the Aroostook River’s drainage area was the scene of the Aroostook War, the boundary dispute between the United States and Great Britain. This latter point was made deliberately. It may relate to the naming of the first USS Aroostook.
The Aroostook War takes its name from the river. The same is so for the Aroostook region, the designation of Aroostook County before it was a county. The U.S. Navy had a tradition of naming vessels for battles well before the Civil War.
The first Aroostook was a gunboat. It was built in 1862 in Kennebunk. The connections here are clear. The first Aroostook was built just over twenty years after the Aroostook War. It was built in Maine. Its name honors a recent conflict, a conflict that takes its name from the Aroostook River. There
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is a story of the first Aroostook that just may have made its way back to Aroostook County from Virginia.
Have you ever heard Aroostook County or an Aroostook County resident referred to as “Rooster” or “Old Rooster?” Well, the first Aroostook was affectionately known as “Old Rooster.”
In the early summer of 1863 the Aroostook was stationed in the James River region. Lt. Samuel Franklin was the ship’s commander. One day the Aroostook was in the James when it came upon a group of runaway slaves. Lt. Franklin offered the refugees sanctuary on the Aroostook. When Franklin asked one of the runaways if he and his companions had not been afraid of being shot for attempting to escape, the man confidently replied, “No, saah, when we seed de Old Rooster coming along, we knowed we was all right.” From this time on the crew of the Aroostook called their ship “Old Rooster.” Did this story somehow make it (cont. on page 24)
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(cont. from page 23) back to Aroostook County? And if so, how? Is it happenstance and mere coincidence that “Rooster” and “Old Rooster” are used in Aroostook County today? Or is there a direct link with the first vessel bearing the name Aroostook and the county?
The second Aroostook was a World War I mine-planter. It was originally constructed as a passenger steamship, the Bunker Hill, in 1907. The Bunker Hill was owned by the Eastern Steamship Lines. It was commissioned as the Aroostook in 1917.
The Navy has named a number of ships for geographic features in Maine. The most used geographical feature is the Piscataqua, the river forming part of the Maine-New Hampshire border. Piscataqua has been assigned to five vessels. Aroostook as a vessel name is not far behind. This leaves us with the fictional Aroostook.
The Lady of the Aroostook was written by William Dean Howells in 1879. The story involves an innocent nineteen-year-old girl who travels from Boston to stay with an aunt in Venice, Italy. The ship she travels on is named the Aroostook. The name Aroostook would seem to have little or no significance to the tale. Why did Howells choose it? It is a name that only has significance in northern Maine, and to a much lesser extent New Brunswick, and in the naming of naval vessels.
William Dean Howells had no ancestral ties to Maine and most definitely no ties to Aroostook County. He did, however, summer at Kittery Point. In 1902 Howells bought a summer home overlooking the Piscataqua River. He returned there every summer until his death twenty years later.
The use of the name Aroostook for the ship of The Lady of the Aroostook has intrigued general readers and literary scholars for generations. One story has it that when Howells was asked why he chose the name, he simply smiled. One might conclude that Aroostook as a name has intrigued countless people for generations, whether they be runaway slaves or those who named naval vessels.
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