The first schooner was the Hannah, lying at Hedge’s, now known as Pilgrim wharf, which then had two or three warehouses on it, one of them containing fish. On a dark night an industrious gang of men quietly loaded the vessel from the warehouse, but unluckily, before their work was completed, the tide fell so that the Hannah grounded, and could not get to sea that night as intended. Next day the custom house officers noted that the vessel did not rise buoyantly with the tide, so going on board they lifted the hatches, and at once discovered “what was the matter with Hannah.” Felicitating themselves that they had caught their mouse, and determining that there should be no escape, they stripped the vessel “to a girtline,” that is, they removed all her sails together with the running and standing rigging, leaving nothing aloft but a single block on each mast through which a line was rove for the purpose of hoisting a man when the craft was to be re-rigged. All the gear was carted away, and, while the fish were left on board, the Hannah being absolutely reduced to bare poles, the officials were perfectly certain that they had made it impossible for her to take her cargo to the West Indies. Of course the laugh went round town at the expense of the defeated owners, and the officials were “cocky” over their smartness. Weeks went by and the incident passed out of mind, the deeply laden Hannah meantime lying in her berth and daily rising and falling with the tide. All the same her voyage to Martinique was made up, her captain and crew engaged, and the man who was to rig and take her out of dock had his gang picked for the purpose, and only awaited his opportunity. This man was Capt. Samuel Doten, father of our townsmen, the late Major Samuel H. and Capt. Charles C. Doten, one of the most energetic shipmasters of his day, whom nothing ever daunted, and who liked nothing better than a bit of dare-devil business, being perfectly competent for anything pertaining to seamanship or calling for executive ability. These qualities were well known in this town, so naturally he was “in it” with the Hannah. Capt. George Adams, another old sea dog, was his right-hand man in the part he had to do, and there were two or three others, who could handle a marlinspike and make a knot or seizing as well in darkness as at noonday.