This one’s a bit of a shocker.

Earlier this week, we learned about Vedal Pooler, victim of political violence in 1904. Today’s story is about his grandfather, also named Vedal Pooler (with the same multiple variations of name spellings I griped about before).

This Vedal is my great-great-great grandfather. He is Dad‘s grandmother Alice Pooler Vayo’s grandfather. He was born in Canada in 1828, give or take.

Vedal immigrated to Maine with his wife, Angelina. First, they lived in the town of Belfast and then settled in Orono, where he worked in a sawmill. They had eight children.

By the 1880 census, Vedal is listed as a widower.

Eight years later, Vedal was in all the papers. It seems he’d gone to Boston to visit his youngest daughter, Lena, and her husband, George Carter. The three of them boarded the steamer Katahdin to make the trip back to Maine together. All was fine for the first 90 minutes.

The date was June 30, 1888:

Here’s the text, including the error in the spelling of the dearly departed’s name:

Died On His Way Home. Betel Pooler’s Heart Stops an Hour and a Half from Boston. Bangor, Maine, July 1: Betel Pooler of Orono, aged 63, embarked last night at Boston on Steamer Katahdin, bound for this city, dropped dead about an hour and a half after the steamer sailed of heart disease. His remains were brought to this city. His daughter and her husband were on the boat with him at the time.

The Commercial newspaper in Bangor provided additional details, better spelling, and improved sentence structure.

It seems Vedal was fine – until he wasn’t. He stepped out from his stateroom and suddenly collapsed.

Poor Lena was only 23 years old. Witnessing her father’s collapse and death must have been awful.

In a wild coincidence, that very day, the Call Bulletin newspaper in San Francisco, California, ran a front-page feature story headlined Old-Time Steamboats.

The article told the story of Captain Stanford and the “famous steamer Katahdin.” The steamboat was built in 1863 and weighed more than 1200 tons.

The steamboat was named after the highest mountain in Maine. Katahdin means great mountain.

This L.V. Newell photo of the steamer was taken in January of 1886.

The piece stated Captain Sandford, a native of New Haven, Connecticut, was a “lucky” ship-master, in that he’d never lost a passenger. Of course, death by heart attack doesn’t count, but the brag sounds rather foreboding, given the timing of the article.

It’s heartening to know Lena and George were on board Katahdin with Vedal that day, to comfort him in his final moments. A few years later, they moved back to Maine to farm. They were especially close to Grandpa Vayo‘s family for the rest of their days.

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