The Shipbuilding Expert of Machias, or Finding Out I’m Gullible

The Machias Hardware Co., at left, was the Hoyt family business, and backed up to the Machias River where tall-masted ships once docked to load lumber from nearby mills. With proximity like that, you'd think the Hoyt family would know a lot about shipbuilding. Well, you might not think that, but I did... Photo courtesy Wikimedia

Giddy with anticipation of moving to Maine, before we even pulled out of Texas I volunteered to help with Machias’s 250th birthday celebration, happening in 2013.  

Sharon, who was planning the sesquicentennial extravaganza, let me orchestrate a history lecture series, already planned to include presentations from the Passamaquoddy tribal historian, a local colonial historian, and an expert on Samuel Champlain. But there were still quite a few dates to fill.

I hit the ground running.

Thinking of Machias’s history with lumber, and the region’s history with ships, I set out to find speakers on each subject. Again and again, I was told the leading expert on lumbering history had recently passed away. Shipbuilding was still a possibility – check with Michael Hoyt, someone suggested, a well-known Machias shopkeeper and local historian in his own right.

Michael was one of a handful of locals who remembered us from visit to visit in the years before we moved here full-time. We frequented his family’s business, the Machias Hardware Co., a favorite of mine, but especially of my father’s, who never passed a good hardware store without going in. 

No one would describe Michael as chatty. From behind the old wooden counter, he didn’t talk your ear off, but from what he did say, it was clear he had a sense of humor. And, the best Downeast accent.

So basically we were besties. I felt free to call and make the request.

“Michael, I’m putting on a history lecture series, and I understand you’re an expert in shipbuilding history,” I said. “Would you be able to give a presentation?”

“No,” he said, instantly.

“Uh…do you want some time to think about it?” I pressed, by then joking. Less than a nanosecond had filled the space between my request and his, “No.”

“No.”

Hopefully – daringly – I went on. “Well, Michael, a lot of people here say you’re very knowledgeable and I know they’d love to hear you present on shipbuilding!”

“Well you tell them I don’t do presentations,” he said.

That felt like a real No. 

I stopped pestering him to present on shipbuilding, shifting gears to pester him for my personal shipbuilding history needs.

Chatting at the register, I might ask, “Did the shipbuilding happen in Machias?”  Or, “What was the most popular kind of ship they built here?”

Michael would just shake his head.

Months later, letting the kids pick out their Lindt truffles, I might have asked him if ships were also built in Machiasport? His sister Sandra would ring up the candy, and Michael would shake his head.

“I don’t know.”

Hmm. 

One of my less-celebrated personal qualities is a love of needling quiet people. But my efforts to get some shipbuilding information out of Michael were starting to remind me of a game our 100-pound chocolate lab would play with our 15-pound mini schnauzer. 

The game consisted of our lab, Gillie, holding a stick Flossie wanted in her mouth. Gillie would then simply turn in a slow, endless circle, and Flossie would run the perimeter, yipping and barking, unable to catch the stick.

Flossie wasn’t learning much. Neither was I.

Eight or nine months later, standing at the register again, I thought of another question Michael could answer, drawing on all of his shipbuilding expertise.

“Michael! We keep finding all this brick on the beach,” I shared, delighted. “Do you think it’s brick that people threw into the ocean as junk? Or, could it be ship ballast that’s in the ocean from sunken ships?”

I must have looked like an excited puppy. Sandra took pity on me and turned to her brother before he could answer or, more correctly put, not answer.

“LORD Michael, DON’T tell her it’s from sunken ships!”

Michael tried to stifle a laugh. I was confused.

“I don’t know anything about shipbuilding,” he said, grinning.

“What!? But everyone said you were a shipbuilding expert!”

“No.”

“You don’t know anything about shipbuilding?” I pressed, disbelieving.

“No.”

“And you let me ask you shipbuilding questions all this time?!” I was astonished.

And amused.

“Yes.” 

Finally, a yes.

Recently, Michael texted me to say someone reached out and asked him to teach a local class.

“Let me take this one,” I replied. 

And this time, we both laughed.