Stonington lobsterman Mike Billings was hauling traps by himself on July 8 when, much to his shock and delight, he snagged a 6-foot-long iron anchor that likely dates back more than a century.
He realized what he’d caught only after the cross-piece of the anchor popped out of the water, covered in barnacles and coral-like material
“It was almost like magic,” Billings recalled. “At first I didn’t know if I had a car axle or something, but then I was like, ‘This is an anchor! I can’t even believe what I’m seeing now.’”
Billings, who was just north of Farrel Island, quickly tied multiple lines around the relic. He then went slowly as he hauled the anchor roughly three-quarters of a mile back to shore, his 37-foot fishing boat leaning to the side under its weight — which he estimates to be “a few hundred pounds.”
“It was a good thing it wasn’t rough,” he said. “And it’s a good thing I was pretty close to home.”
Billings brought the trap back to where he sells his catch, at Greenhead Lobster, and enlisted several people to help him hoist it out of the water. He has now taken it home and coated it in a material to prevent it from rapidly corroding.
It’s not the first anchor that fishermen have hauled out of the water in recent years. Just last November, two Maine lobstermen hauled up another big, old anchor about 10 miles southwest of Matinicus Rock. Even larger ones have been caught off New Hampshire and Prince Edward Island, Canada over the last decade.
In Billings’ case, he has tried to determine where his anchor may have come from. He has consulted with a staffer at a nearby maritime museum who, he said, estimated it might be 150-years-old.
One theory suggested to him by some veteran fishermen is that it could have come from the Royal Tar, a steamer that was chartered in 1836 to carry a menagerie of circus animals — including an elephant, a tiger, two camels, exotic snakes and birds — along Maine’s coast, according to the New England Historical Society.
But in late October of that year, after it had left Eastport with a full crew, the Royal Tar caught fire near Vinalhaven, eventually killing 32 people and all the animals, and forcing survivors to flee in lifeboats for Isle au Haut, according to the Society.
The Royal Tar sank, but before that happened, Billings said that a southwest wind might have driven it back towards Stonington.
If it wasn’t the Royal Tar, Billings’ next guess is that the anchor came from a ship waiting to haul granite quarried at Crotch Island, which is just south of Stonington.
As for what Billings will do with the piece of history, he said someone on Facebook offered to buy it for $1,000, but he declined. He’s now hoping to donate it to someone who could repurpose it as a monument to Stonington’s heritage industries — as well as its ongoing status as a major lobster port. He noted the ongoing challenges to the industry, including devastating storms that heavily damaged some local fishing piers last winter.
“When that thing came up, it just instantly made me think of the old days and our ancestors, you know, the fishermen, the granite workers, the boatbuilders, the carpenters, all of the industry that basically built this island community and the whole entire coast,” he said. “And when I started thinking about it, it made me realize this thing is a symbol for a way of life.”
