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| A Christmas card from Captain Nickels to his daughter Priscilla |
A Christmas note from Captain Nickels:
As you know from my story, I was born in 1836 on a farm in Prospect,
now Searsport, Maine. My mother was from a Congregational Church family, my
father was a Presbyterian. Except for there being two different versions of the
Bible in my extended family, both contained the New Testament – so both
recognized the birth of Jesus, and therefore Christmas.
The year I was born,
Christmas was not yet a holiday in New England. That was the year it became
recognized as a holiday in the south, though, where there were a lot of Catholics
and Anglicans, and even Methodists, folks who made a much bigger deal of
Christmas than we did on the work-focused seacoast of Maine.
I grew up in a community of merchant mariners, shipbuilders,
and farmers. Of them, only the shipbuilders and farmers were in Maine for
Christmas – and it was not a holiday for them; it was a work day like any other.
The Captains and the seamen, and the Captains’ families were at sea in the
winter months, mostly trading in the South Atlantic, the Caribbean, the Indian
Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, and the South China Sea, and occasionally stopping in
New York.
When I was small, there’d be little gifts for each of us for
Christmas: hats and scarves and stockings knitted by mothers, aunts, and
grandmothers; whistles and toys carved by fathers, uncles, and grandfathers.
But otherwise, it was another work day – unless it fell on a Sunday – then it
was a Church day.
I went to sea in 1852 with my uncle. I spent my sixteenth
Christmas in Portugal, a very Catholic culture where Christmas was a colorful
and joy-filled event. It surprised me that no one was working, even on the
docks. I was never home in Searsport for another Christmas.
Eight years later, I was in Bucksville, South Carolina, on
Christmas Day 1860. I was First Mate to my brother Captain James Nickels. He was the
Master of the Brig Waccamaw. We arrived in Bucksville on December 12th,
loaded with stone and other goods from New York destined for our ship owner Henry Buck’s
plantations. Henry was a Methodist who once lived in Bucksport, Maine – just a
short way from Searsport. The Buck family decorated their home on the Waccamaw
River in anticipation of Christmas, and they were preparing to enjoy a peaceful
Christmas with their large family when we arrived.
It took the better part of the week to discharge our cargo, then
to begin loading the lumber and marine supplies we were to take to the West
Indies. James and I stayed at the big plantation with the Buck family, while
our crew stayed aboard Waccamaw to
see to the cargoes. We planned to spend Christmas and the New Year with our old
friends, then set sail for the West Indies just after the first of the year. Politics
intervened.
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| Perspective of the location of Bucksville, SC |
Eight days after our arrival in Bucksville, and five days before Christmas
1860, South Carolina seceded from the United States. That upended all of our
plans. Henry Buck ordered us to sail for Searsport as soon as possible, there to fetch his
recently married eldest son William and his daughter-in-law Desiah home to
Bucksville. More secessions were rumored, and possibly a war, Henry needed all
of his children with him at his three plantations.
Rather than the happy
Christmas the Bucks had planned, we were suddenly engaged in loading ballast
and lumber aboard Waccamaw to make a
dangerous and unwelcome mid-winter trek back home. If you’ve read my story, you
know how that all turned out.
In 1862, I became Master of the Brig Waccamaw, when James became
Master of the Bark McGilvery. Still, I was at sea or in a foreign port for every Christmas. But so were my cousins, a veritable litany of Searsport captains and seamen. We were away from our home port every Christmas, but we more often than not still had family to share our days.
In 1870,
my wife and children and I stayed in Charleston, then went upriver to Bucksville to pass the
Christmas-to-New-Year week, this time with our new Brig E. F. Dunbar. That season was made more memorable by Dunbar’s frightening demise at sea three
weeks later. You’ll recall that story, too, I expect.
In 1871, my family and I arrived in Boston from the West
Indies on Christmas Day with our Bark
Emma F. Harriman. On Christmas Eve 1874, we left Boston for Cuba. For a
merchant ship and her crew, Christmas was always a working day. Except for one or two years I happened to be in Boston or New York on Christmas Day, I spent the
next twenty Christmas seasons at sea or in a foreign port with my wife and
family.
After my girls were married, I still sailed and spent Christmas somewhere in
the world besides home. Both of my daughters married sea captains. My
granddaughter Alice spent her very first Christmas in Buenos Aires; after her
younger sister Emmie was born, they spent her first Christmas in Dublin. We
were merchantmen, and we didn’t have the notion of family Christmases at home. Our ship was our home.
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| Bark Mary E. Russell, 1875 - 1895 |
On December 12, 1895, I struck a reef and sank the Bark Mary E. Russell in Bimini. I spent Christmas that year in Nassau doing the paperwork on the accident. By then, Christmas had become a universal holiday around the world, and a far cry from the early barely-noticed early ones I spent in Prospect, now Searsport, Maine.
The first family Christmas holiday I ever spent at home with
my family was Christmas Day 1907. I was seventy-one years old. I retired from
the sea that year, then my wife died just before Thanksgiving. I lived in a large
rented home in Brockton, Massachusetts, with my two widowed daughters and my
five surviving grandchildren. Despite being saddened by my wife’s recent death,
it was the most memorable and peaceful Christmas I had ever had. There was a tree
in our living room – a first in my life – and we had gifts, gifts from the
department store where my daughter worked.
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| Front of a Christmas Card Captain Nickels sent to his daughter |
My remaining Christmases – from 1908 to 1920 – I lived at Sailors’ Snug Harbor, a retirement community for old mariners on Staten Island. They made a very big deal of Christmas at The Harbor – even the many old sailors who were not Christian by faith, believed in and loved the magic of Christmas there, and the enormous banquet we were served, and the gifts we received compliments of The Harbor.
All of us had spent a lifetime of Christmases
at sea – and it was wonderful to have that day in the fellowship of other old
seamen, and to tell our stories of Christmases past. Yes – I told and re-told
the story of my 1860 Christmas in Bucksville, and its scary foreshadowing of
that defining War Between the States.
And I heard their stories of Christmases
at sea and in ports all over the world.
It was really nice to sit snugly by the great fireplace on
Christmas Day, smoking cigars and reminiscing about ‘olden times’ and places
most folks would never see. Yes it was.
Happy Christmas,
WSN
