Headline in The Boston Globe, 17 July 1901. [Newspapers.com]
Updated on 20 August 2026 | Addison Center (1830-1892) is a Who, not a Where. Captain Center was a prominent citizen of Gloucester in the mid- and late 19th century. “He was at the front during the Rebellion [Civil War] for upward of three years,” one newspaper account stated. “When the Rebellion broke out, he was a member of the Legislature, and left his seat to respond to the first call for troops. … At the battle of Roanoke Island, in the charge across the swamp on the enemy’s battery, he was badly injured internally, from the effects of which he has never recovered.”1 He entered the war as captain of Company G of the 8th Regiment of the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, and was later given command of Company C of the 23rd Regiment of the Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.
After the war, he returned to the family stationery business in Gloucester. He was elected a representative to the Massachusetts General Court in 1866, as a Republican, and served as deputy collector for the Port of Gloucester from 1868 to 1885. But he thought of himself first and foremost an artist, and in that pursuit, he was certainly — let’s say — capable. He is perhaps best known for an oil portrait of Ulysses S. Grant that’s in the city art collection.
Center’s namesake was a 75-ton schooner built in Essex in 1875 for D. C. & H. Babson of Gloucester. James Jameson was the first captain. Addison Center came to Provincetown when it was purchased in 1888 by Joseph Matthews. Manuel Caton (d1918), a native of the Açores, was given command. One of its most troubled trips (as reflected in the headline above) occurred in July 1901, when it was enshrouded in heavy fog about 20 miles off Chatham. Six men, in three dories, lost their way back. “Every effort was made to find the men, without avail” The Boston Globe reported. “Horns were blown at short intervals, and the vessel was sailed about over the ground the men had covered, but no trace of the lost dories was found.”2
Addison Center sailed into T Wharf with flag at half-mast in morning. But good news awaited. Two men, Joseon Brazil and Joseph Bent of Provincetown, had been rescued by the schooner Oakley A. Curtis of Norfolk after a 30-hour ordeal with nothing but a jug of water to sustain them. More good news arrived the next day with word that the sloop Lear C. of Provincetown had rescued the four remaining men and landed them. During a gale four months later, Addison Center was washed ashore at Race Point, where it was “entirely broken up.”3
1 “A Collector Removed,” The [Lynn] Daily Item, 6 November 1885, Page 2.
2 “Adrift in Fog; Two Craft With Flags at Half-Mast; Members of Their Crews West Astray in the Dories; Addison Center Lost Six of Her Men; Found Two of Them Had Been Picked Up,” The Boston Globe, 17 July 1901, Page 10.
3 “Disasters in the Gale,” Boston Post, 11 November 1901, Page 1.