William Hadlock Gooding (1 June 1856 - 7 September 1936) was born and died in Yarmouth, Cumberland County, Maine. In 1884, he married Marion Mortimer Gooding (b. October 1860 in England, d. 1958). The couple took a cruise together on the SS
Antonia from Southampton, England to Quebec, Canada from 25 August to 3 September 1927. During part of his life, he lived on the sea as a purser on the barkentine
Olive Thurlow (1891-1897) and also with the bark
Grace Deering (1901-1902). He is listed as a captain on his tombstone.
Olive Thurlow was built and launched in Calais, Maine in 1876, and was registered as 577 tons burden. The vessel was originally owned by James E. Brett, whose name appears regularly in the logbook. It was initially built and rigged as a bark, but later converted to a barkentine rig by the second owners, the Pendleton Bros. Co. On a trip from Charleston, S.C., to New York City on 5 December 1902, carrying a load of Southern pine lumber, the ship became stranded in Cape Lookout Bight, N.C. two miles northeast of the Cape Lookout Life-Saving Station. The ship eventually broke up and six of the seven crew members were saved.
Grace Deering was constructed in 1877 in Knightville, Maine, and was originally a bark of 733 tons. The ship was later converted to a barge of 627 tons. On 1 November 1906, the vessel foundered off the coast of Miami, Fla.
Sources:
American Lloyd’s Register of American and Foreign Shipping, 1878. New York, N.Y.: The Society of American Lloyds’s, 1878. Available online:
Mystic Seaport: The Museum of America and the Sea.
Border Crossings: From Canada to U.S., 1895-1956 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Original data:
Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, RG 85. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration.
Michaud, Jean. "William Hadlock Gooding (1856 - 1936) - Find A Grave Memorial." N.p., 10 Apr. 2013. Web. 06 Feb. 2014.
Singer, Steven D.
Shipwrecks of Florida: A Comprehensive Listing. Sarasota, F.L.: Pineapple, 1998.
Smith, Robert K.
The Shipwreck of the Olive Thurlow. Ed. Mark Wilde-Ramsing. Morehead City, N.C.: Carteret County Historical Society, 1997.