I think all of us appreciate and seek out spectacles that we rarely see, though I’m sure the varieties differ. When I was young and when my children were young, we delighted in the low-flying P-3 Orions which flew over our East Boothbay house from the Brunswick Naval Air Base or Station, as we called it. Those big, lumbering planes were seeking Russian submarines during the cold war. The P-3s’ distinctive tails were the business end of the planes’ detection apparatus. And the air shows in the summer at the base brought us and many 1,000s of other spectators to tour the base and watch the precise acrobatics the Blue Angels and other planes performed.

Where the Presidential Yachts Could Visit

In an earlier era, notable federal vessels would occasionally stop in Boothbay Harbor to the delight of the townspeople. Before the age of air conditioning, navy vessels cruised the coasts to gain what natural heat and cold were brought by the seasons and to get accustomed to the looks and features of the coast. Large vessels had customary ports with all the amenities they needed, including harbor depths of 40 feet. Bar Harbor’s deep harbor and summer social life was the no-brainer Maine draw for the Navy. It usually took some persuasion by a local political figure with influence over the armed forces to get them to drop anchor for a visit at an unfamiliar or difficult harbor.

The larger vessels, which normally burnt coal in the early 1900s, couldn’t be further than three days or so from a coaling station, unless they were accompanied by a collier to resupply them. That transfer entailed a laborious process. Boothbay Harbor sold coal in a couple places but not in the amounts needed by large vessels. Additionally, the depth of Boothbay Harbor, 10 to 12 feet, did not accommodate the depth/draft of many vessels’ keels. Those with deep keels had to stay out by Squirrel Island, three miles out from the harbor wharves. Between the refueling and draft limits, Boothbay was normally not a candidate for a visit.

Squirrel was a Candidate

In the 1880s Squirrel Island became a summer colony through the interest of principally Lewiston lot buyers. Fairly well-off for the times, some of the purchasers were politicians with state positions or even national connections. It was simple for Squirrel Islanders to request and be granted permits and favors from municipalities and the state and federal contacts through their well-connected resident summer neighbor. For instance, in August 1900 Senator Frye of Squirrel, who served as McKinley’s vice-president, had the battleships Kentucky and Massachusetts make an appearance as close as possible in Boothbay Harbor. If such requests ever came from an unknown group of miscellaneous farming, housebuilding, and seagoing families, probably they lacked the pull to get a good result.

I believe that before the 1880s presidential travel was mostly done by rail or carriage. Starting in 1880, America’s presidents also sailed aboard Navy vessels to meet with people along the eastern seaboard or to use the naval vessel designated for presidential use as a private getaway spot for celebratory parties or dinners very near Washington, D.C. There were at least three naval vessels that were used by presidents between 1880 and 1896. Not having been designed and built for entertaining and meetings with groups of official visitors, the steamers the presidents used were generally austere.

Three Early Presidential Yachts

The first was the 298-foot Despatch, acquired in 1873 by the Navy and used mostly on the eastern seaboard. She did go to the Mediterranean Sea to deliver personnel and documents during the Ottoman Empire’s war with Russia late in the 1870s. Upon her return, her maritime tasks on the seaboard included serving as the first presidential yacht, a training ship, a hydrographic survey vessel, transport for ceremonial events, transport for troops and sailors, a vessel to tow or destroy wrecks, and an escort during new vessels’ sea trials. Despatch sank in a storm off Virginia in 1891.

The second naval vessel to serve as a presidential yacht was the 256-foot USS Dolphin. She was built in 1884 in Chester, Pennsylvania, one of the first of the Navy’s steel vessels. Beginning in 1885, her many duties included the same as the Despatch’s, but she exceeded them: going around the world on a goodwill voyage stopping at more than 12 ports; blockading Havana, Cuba in 1898 during the Spanish-American War, and providing cannon support when attacked or aiding U.S. troops under fire in Guantanamo Bay. She had connections with most of the notable events on the seaboard and in the Caribbean during the first two decades of the 20th century. In 1907 Dolphin’s wireless operator received the first live radio singing performance while she was in New York Harbor. She was decommissioned in late 1921 after 36 years of service and sold to Mexico in 1922. She was scrapped a few years later.

The third presidential yacht was the 123-foot USS Sylph, built in 1898 at Chester, Pennsylvania for the Navy. She alternated with the prior two yachts, Despatch and Dolphin, carrying out mostly pleasure cruises for international and national figures on the Potomac River. She was decommissioned in 1929 and served as a deep sea fishing boat and ferry around New York City until 1950 when she was abandoned in Brooklyn. Storms and fires destroyed her to the waterline over the years despite occasional attempts to save her. Next time: presidential yacht Mayflower visits Boothbay.