One of our volunteers, genealogist Jackie Dunham, has recently finished a major research project for the South Portland Historical Society. Jackie spent several months researching the Brown family, for which Brown’s Hill in South Portland is named. She created a family tree for the society, starting with John and Hannah Brown who moved here in the early 1700s when this area was known as Purpooduck or Falmouth, and the various descendant families who remained in South Portland. She also included other Brown families who moved here when we were known as Cape Elizabeth. Because the Brown name is a relatively common one, it was a challenging project, but one that helps us to identify relationships throughout our community. Our column this week covers two of these Brown descendants, Clifford Brown and his son Wilbur Brown, who were both owners and operators of the Brown Ship Chandlery in Portland for many years.

Clifford C. Brown was born in Cape Elizabeth in 1885, the son of Albert Brown and Frances “Fannie” Jordan. After graduating from South Portland High School, Clifford got a job with W.S. Jordan ship chandlers in Portland in 1909. He would soon marry a schoolteacher, Eleanor Blake, in 1910. They had at least four children – Wilbur, Donald, Frances and Albert Gordon Brown – and for many years lived at 535 Preble St. in South Portland, which Clifford purchased in 1921.

After gaining some experience in the business, Clifford went to work for C.T. Swett ship chandlers on Commercial Street in Portland. He worked his way up in that business, becoming the store manager and, in 1926 when C.T. Swett failed, Clifford bought the assets at auction and established himself in business as a grocer and ship chandler under his own name. To come up with the money to purchase the business, Clifford put up the Preble Street home as collateral for two loans – one from Falmouth Loan & Building Association and the other from Frank Roberts of Westbrook.

Brown’s ship chandlery business did fine in the first years. In addition to supplying ships, he sold groceries, meats, dairy, vegetables and other products to the public from his store at 130 Commercial St. Like most Americans, he experienced hard times during the Depression years, and he also had some unfortunate events that further hurt his business. In the summer of 1931, on the delivery boat that he used to supply ships, the engine backfired and gasoline fumes ignited. The explosion and fire damaged the boat and sent his employee, Fred Loveitt, to the hospital. Brown was able to have the boat repaired and put back into service.

In August of 1932, Clifford borrowed more money to make ends meet, putting up his home again as collateral for a third mortgage.

Another engine explosion occurred in 1933; this time it was his son Wilbur who was injured. The news reporters found the incident somewhat comical because, prior to the explosion, Clifford and Wilbur had been talking to reporters on Portland Pier and, after hearing that it was essentially a slow news day, Wilbur had joked that he would make up a story for them. Less than 10 minutes later, Wilbur was on the Brown ship chandlery boat Marburn when, according to the Portland Evening Express, “Brown was trying to start the engine in the Marburn, tied up for the Summer on the East side of Portland Pier, when the explosion catapulted him through the engine-room hatch onto the narrow cat-walk on the pier edge.” The reporters rushed to the scene, where Wilbur had a number of injuries, including possible fractured ribs and injuries to his shoulder and ankle; he was taken to Maine General Hospital and treated.

In 1934, with only $5 to his name, Clifford Brown had to file for bankruptcy. In 1935, with some of his debt discharged, he emerged from bankruptcy, but sold the business later that year to another ship chandlery, the Harris Company. By 1936, Clifford and Eleanor had moved to Limerick where he operated a grocery store and managed a hotel for several years.

Wilbur Brown, born in 1913, went to work for the Harris Company in October 1935 as a captain, running supplies to vessels in the harbor. In the summer of 1936, he went to work for a different ship chandlery, Sargent, Lord & Company at 10 Commercial Wharf.

In 1941, plans were afoot for creating another ship chandlery. It appears that much of the funding for the new business was put forward by Capt. Lewis Watson, who had also been working at Sargent, Lord & Company. Clifford and Eleanor Brown moved back to Portland. In August 1941, Brown Ship Chandlery Inc. was incorporated with Clifford Brown as its president, Wilbur Brown as vice president and Lewis Watson as treasurer and general manager. The new company was located at 175 Commercial St. (although it changed locations many times over the years). It is unclear how the ownership of the company was divided in the first years. It was further complicated as Wilbur enlisted in the U.S. Navy and left to join the war effort. When he returned from the war, Wilbur rejoined the business.

Wilbur appeared in the news in 1946 when he commissioned a new boat for the business that was constructed in South Portland. The boat was called “radically-styled” because it featured a monohedron hull, a new design that was not familiar to locals but which had been used in military boatbuilding. “Featuring a bluff, rounded bow and a nearly flat bottom, the craft, to be used chiefly in transporting supplies to anchored ships, has an overall length of 40 feet, a beam of 15 feet, two inches, and an approximate draft of four feet. Planned to carry 15 tons of ship-bound cargo with ease, her draft will increase but one inch for every ton of load, according to her enthusiastic prospective owner who handled many similarly hulled boats during the war.” When the boat was completed and launched, they christened her Thor. The Thor was later destroyed in a fire at the Crandall Boat Yard in South Portland in April 1960, and was replaced by the Thor II. Wilbur Brown would serve as the captain of both the Thor and the Thor II.

Clifford Brown retired and left Brown Ship Chandlery around 1950. For the next five years, until his death in 1955, he would help his brother Vernon run a strawberry farm in Cape Elizabeth.

At least from the time that Clifford Brown left the business, Lewis Watson owned a 2/3 share in the company. In 1953, Watson sold his controlling interest to C.N. Carver of Searsport, Maine, and his sons John A.H. “Jack” Carver and Clifford Carver of New York City. Arlton L. Griffin became the company vice president (Griffin had previously worked for Harris Company, and would establish his own A.L. Griffin ship chandlery business in 1955). Lewis Watson remained on with the company as its general manager until his retirement in 1957. He was succeeded as general manager by his former assistant, Laurel “Pop” Burnham, a minority stockholder.

Wilbur Brown remained working for Brown Ship Chandlery until about 1964. After leaving, he tried his hand at several different jobs, but was known for his water taxi and charter boat business that he ran for many years with his boat, the Venturer. He was popular and active in the community, a member of the Portland Propeller Club and the Portland Marine Society, where he served for a time as its president.

Throughout his lifetime, Wilbur was known for his storytelling. In one amusing story in the Portland Evening Express on April 26, 1947, “several waterfront men were passing the time of the day in the Portland Pilots’ office the other morning, and the talk somehow drifted around to the late war. Wilbur V. Brown, ship chandler and boatman, a naval veteran, was asked about a Japanese bombing raid during the Marshall Islands campaign which he went through. Brown, who was wounded during the bombing, bared his arm in telling how a magnet later was used to remove the steel splinters. When a sharp ‘click’ was heard on the floor, everyone leaned forward expecting that another piece of metal had dropped out of Brown’s arm – but it was a button off his shirt.”

Brown Ship Chandlery continued in business for many years. The Carvers sold the business in December 1984 to the Proprietors of Union Wharf (owned by the Poole family). According to Charlie Poole, his family had just opened a market on Union Wharf and thought that a ship chandlery would make for a complementary business. They moved the ship chandlery to Union Wharf in 1987. As the ship chandlery business in Portland Harbor dwindled over the years, however, they found that business was sporadic. Most other chandleries closed. In order to keep the workers at Brown Ship Chandlery busy, they ended following a new path. Charlie’s dad, Parker Poole Jr., had friends at Waites Landing who needed a new float, so he had the Brown Ship Chandlery employees construct it. Then someone who saw that float wanted one, so they built another. A new business was created – Custom Float Services. As that business began to grow and flourish, and as the ship chandlery business dwindled, it was just a matter of time before a natural end to the ship chandlery came about. Around 2016, they moved Custom Float Services to its current location at 11 Wallace Ave. in South Portland, and Brown Ship Chandlery ceased operation that same year.

If you have information or photographs to share about Clifford or Wilbur Brown, or any other interesting aspect of South Portland’s past, please reach out to the South Portland Historical Society by email at sphistory04106@gmail.com, by phone at (207) 767-7299, or by mail at 55 Bug Light Park, South Portland, ME 04106.

Kathryn Onos DiPhilippo is the executive director of the South Portland Historical Society.

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