Name/Title
SignEntry/Object ID
1993.023.008Description
Sign, named Eagle Wing, 49 1/2 inches x 26 1/2 inches x 2 1/2 inches, bordered on the front with 1/2 inch rope; wooden panel 45 inches x
21 1/4 inches in the middle of the sign and framed with black wood approximately 1 1/2 inches wide. The background of the panel is painted light blue with white smudges resembling clouds. The center of the panel contains the painting of an eagle. The beak, head, breast, forpart of the wings and talons are painted in gold color. The shoulders and part of the back are painted blue with white stars. The back of the wings and tail are painted in white and red horizontal stripes. The eagle is shown holding a gold colored staff with a pennant painted red at both ends and blue and partly white in the middle. Two gold stars are painted in each of the red areas of the pennant. In the middle are the words: "Passages 106 & 117 Days" Below the eagle is the caption "EAGLE WING". Above the eagle is the caption "Merchants Express Line of Clipper Ships for San Francisco For Fast Passage Calif. Gold Fields". To the left of the eagle is the notice "Capt. Scott now loading pier 14 E.R. or apply Dick Steele, 77 Wall Street, N Y City", and below this, "The Well-known Clipper". To the right of the eagle is the following: "Capt. Scott of Islesboro, Maine is known World Wide as a Safe and Dependable Capt. to take you to California. Dick Steele - Maine."
The very top and bottom centers of the panel contain 4 stars each -- Top: red, blue, red, blue Bottom: blue, red, blue, and red. The upper right and lower corners each contain a red circle with a gold star in the middle. The left upper and right corners each contain a black silhouette of anchor.
PERSONAL ASSOCIATIONS: Dick Steele's information on his grandfather and grandmother that he wrote on the back of the Eagle Wing sign.
"My grandfather Capt. Winfield Scott was lost off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina in the great hurricane of 1898. His 3 masted schooner and all hands lost at sea. My grandmother Laura (LV?) Scott (She was a Williams ? was left without any means of support. But she always believed he would someday appear. I can remember her sitting in the kitchen window on Islesboro allways looking up the road (dirt roads than - no cars) telling me (?) someday he will walk right up to my window.
"She knit nets for 10 (cents mark) a piece in order to survive. Also she would catch butterflies in the summer and put them on a bed of white milkweed and weave a willow frame around them under glass. I will give my grandmother the supreme credit for turning me on to the wonderous things nature has to over (offer). So I am dedicating this small item to both of them. God Bless Them! Dick Steele Maine"
Note: Spelling is left as he wrote it. However for clarity the corrent spelling for over, meaning to give is in parenthesis. JLH