85. Lemuel Green Means Captain
Lemuel went to sea when he was 12 years and became the master of the brig
MARTHA WASHINGTON when he was only 19. He commanded a number of clipper ships owned by Vernon H. Brown & Co. of New York, which company was an affiliate of the Cunard Line of Britain. Among the ships he commanded were ALICE BALL, INDUSTRY, and JAMES CHESTERTON. His last ship was the ZOUAVE, which was 1203 tons and 182 feet in water-line length. He sailed to Europe, the Mediterranean and the Far East. He experienced an attack by pirates in the South China Sea and on another occasion a mutiny by some of his crew while sailing with valuable cargo from Hong Kong. His first son, Edgar Leland, (from his first marriage) was lost at sea near the Azores in 1864 at the age of 19. His first son from his second marriage was also named Edgar Leland, in memory of the lost offspring. During the mutiny, mentioned above, his second son, Edgar, slipped away from the confusion of the rebelling deck hands who had been hired temporarily for the trip, and returned with a loaded revolver which enabled Lemuel to defeat the attempted mutiny. The mutiny had been planned by some of the deck hands as a piracy scheme to steal the valuable cargo of goods being shipped from Hong Kong.
As a youth Lemuel, his siblings and parents lived in Jonesport, Maine. After he became a sea Captain, he lived at Millbridge, Maine, and after his retirement (about 1882 or 1883) he moved to Portland, Maine where he lived with his daughter Jenny (Mrs. George F. West) until his death.
Died in childbirth.
The first son of Captain Lemuel G. Means by his first marriage. This son was
washed overboard and lost at sea near the Azores in 1864 when he was 19 years of age. When Captain Means started a second family after marrying the widower Mary Jane Gay Wood, their second child was a boy and he was also named Edgar Leland Means.
She accompanied her husband to the Far East, South America and Europe on the
clipper ship ZOUAVE. While on a trip to the Far East, she acquired the cabin servant SIADA, who was a young native girl of about 14 from Sulu (recorded as Zulu) in the southern Philippines. Siada had earlier been acquired by the wife of a Captain of another clipper ship. When that wife suddenly died, Mary Jane then agreed to take Siada "into the family" on board the ZOUAVE.
Mary Jane was born at the Gay farm outside of Millbridge on Nov. 6, 1828.
She was married quite young to John W. Wood and she apprenticed as a tailoress. John Wood was an English sailmaker from St. Thomas. They had three children, Clarinda, William, George, all of whom died young. After she was widowed, Mary Jane married Captain Lemuel Means, who also was a widower. Their two children, Jennie Estelle and Edgar Leland accompanied them to sea even when very small children.
Siada was purchased in Sulu (recorded as Zulu) in the Southern Philippines for
$8 by an English sea captain. She was about 8 years old at the time (1879).
When the captain realized he could not take care of her, he was anxious to
place her with a good woman in a good family. Arrangements were made for her
to join the Means family aboard the clipper ship Zouave. She lived with the
family until Mary Jane Means died, after which she went to work in a stocking
factory at Ipswitch, Massachusetts. When she died she was buried in the Means
plot in Milbridge.
Based on Hoar ancestry @ Ancestry.com