Aryan
The Aryan was built in 1893 at the Phippsburg shipyard of Charles V. Minott, whose enterprise on the Kennebec River helped establish Sagadahoc County’s maritime leadership.
Minott constructed approximately thirty-four vessels for his own account while holding ownership stakes in nine schooners built elsewhere. His output encompassed thirteen ships, two brigs, three barks, and sixteen schooners; his first sale occurred in 1854 and his last in 1901. The Aryan, measuring 248.6 feet and registering 2,124 tons was the largest Minott ever produced.
Minott’s ambition was neither inherited nor assured. Born in 1826, he left the family farm in Bowdoin at nineteen, carrying little more than an eighth-grade education. A master builder by 1850, he had leased a shipyard in Phippsburg, bought a home and married by 1855 (age 29). The home is called McCobb–Hill–Minott House, now the 1774 Inn, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. From these early decisions emerged both the professional momentum and civic standing that would define his life.
By 1901 Minott had begun work on the Marcus L. Urann, destined to become the largest schooner constructed on the Kennebec below Bath. His involvement was cut short; injuries sustained in a carriage accident proved fatal, and he died on May 2, 1903 at the age of seventy-seven. Charles V. Minott, Jr. finished building the Marcus L. Urann and it was the last vessel built at the Minott shipyard, launched in 1904.
Minott, Jr. was born in Phippsburg in 1867, and graduated from Bowdoin College with high honors in 1891. He was interested in a career as an engineer and wanted to leave Phippsburg, but put these desires aside to help his father run the business as a secretary, accountant, and representative. Minott, Jr. also worked full time on the construction of the ship Aryan. A diaristic entry on April 19, 1893 said this of the work:
“At last the planking of the ship is furnished and we can now expect to enter in the beginning of the end. Of all clinging jobs and tasks that would be a match for the patience of Job I think this craft now on the stocks takes the cake. Ever since I came home from college I have been at work on her and there still remains more than two months more before I can expect to see the last of her. When she does finally disappear from view down the river I do not think I shall waste much time wishing her back here again.”
The Aryan was the last wooden full-rigged ship built in the US for commercial purposes. The ‘last’ is antithetical to increase. Minott, Jr.’s interests were originally attuned to the emergent world of steel and steam - the new driver of increase. Instead of pursuing the future, he would witness the gradual contraction of the family’s maritime operations. The shipyard stayed open to service the Minott fleet until 1917.
