06/09/2026
Photo from Maine Memory Network
Twenty cargo sailing vessels shown in Portland Harbor in 1910.
Included are the tug Ben Hur, the Ruth Merrill (the six-masted schooner), Cora F. Cressey (the five-masted schooner), Strawbridge (a four-masted schooner), Coronet (two-masted schooner), and Kingdom (barkentine).
The Cornet and the Kingdom carried members of Frank W. Sandford's "Holy Ghost and Us" group on their trips around the world intended to prepare people for Christ's second coming. Several people starved to death on the 1911 trip and Sandford, a native of Bowdoinham, was convicted of causing their deaths.
In 1896, Sandford founded the controversial Shiloh community in Durham, which included a Bible School and community of followers.
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The Kingdom, a three-masted barkentine freighter, lay anchored off South Freeport. Religious leader Frank Sandford purchased the vessel—originally named the Rebecca Crowell—to carry supplies and members of his Shiloh community in Durham to Jerusalem and other foreign missionary destinations.
On August 23, 1907, the Lewiston Evening Journal reported that the Kingdom remained anchored in Casco Bay near the mouth of the Freeport harbor while awaiting funds for its voyage to the Holy Land. The missionaries had expected to depart around August 1. Sandford was already touring the region that summer in his yacht, the Coronet. The Kingdom wrecked off the coast of West Africa in 1911.
