Page:1898 NB Magazine.djvu/107

Saxby gale, in Bliss harbor, down the Bay, those who sailed in her could tell many a tale of adventure and of many a time of deadly peril. For the "Rechab" was one of the famous pilot boats of half a century ago, and some of the famous pilots sailed in her. It has already been told how the "Rechab " and some of her crew figured at the time of the wreck of the ship "England,"^[1] and there were other incidents which have made the name of the pilot boat remembered by the old timers down to the present day.

There were several noted pilot boats during the forties and fifties. In 1847, those to the front were the "Rechab," "Grace Darling," "Cygnet," and "Charles Stewart," and of these pictures adorned the four sides of the first gas lamp put up at Reed's Point in that year, on the spot where the three-lamp signal was placed in the following year and remains, with some modern improvements, to the present time. The "Rechab" and the "Grace Darling" were both fast boats, and there was a good deal of rivalry between them. In the autumn of 1848 they had a race for a stake of three hundred dollars, the course being from St. John harbor down the Bay of Fundy, around The Wolves and back, a distance of some 80 English miles. The boats were evenly matched, and kept each other well in sight over the whole course. On the return the "Rechab" had a slight lead, but there was very little between them as they came into the harbor. Darkness had then set in, but there were excited crowds along the shore in the vicinity of Sand Point, and many boats were around the racers. As luck would have it, the "Grace Darling" got into a run of the current which carried her ahead at the last moment, and she reached the Beacon Light just in advance of her competitor, amid the cheers of the Carleton crowd. Her crew, of course, claimed the