Chilmark in enduring April as is most of New England. Anyone trying to get outside chores done has to deal with wind, occasional rain and cold hands. Just a reminder that we never trust April anyway.

I hope by now you have all met Jim Malkin, who is running for selectman this month. Many thanks to Jonathan Mayhew, who is retiring after his most recent two terms. He is a valued Chilmarker who had done good work in all of his four terms. We send him many good wishes for his retirement. Jim has served Chilmark on many boards and is known to many of us as a hard worker. He and his wife have been seasonal Chilmark folk for many years and in recent years, have been here year around. Both he and Joan are active in many aspects of Vineyard life.

The annual town meeting will be on April 25 and voting is on April 27, both at the community center.

Part of my visit to Melbourne, Australia included a day spent in Williamstown, a suburb of Melbourne founded by the early Australian navy on Hobsons Bay, a part of the greater Port Phillip Bay. Williamstown today still is a home to shipbuilding and repair. The small town is proud of its early naval history and many historic sites are marked. We were first surprised at the painting on the side of an early building. It was an oval painting of a sailing ship and read The CSS Shenandoah 1865. The first painting we saw was weather-worn and faded but the American and Confederate flags were clear. We found that the original picture had been recently re-painted on another side of the same building. This led us to the information center for more. Seeing this picture immediately triggered the recollection of the Shenandoah—a two-masted schooner clearly different from the steamship before us—that currently graces Vineyard Haven harbor. So the mental games began.

Minimal research tells us that Robert Douglas, owner of the Vineyard’s Shenandoah, had her built in Maine at the Harvey Gamage boat yard in 1964. She was built on the lines of a U.S. Customs cutter of the Revenue-Marine Service, which became the U.S. Coast Guard service and served the Union in defense of the U.S. east coast throughout the Civil War. The plan of the cutter, Joe Lane, was modified for Capt. Douglas and, for whatever reason, was named Shenandoah.

But, wait, my connection to Australia is through the whaling era, so back to those pictures on the wall.

In 1863 the Confederate Navy secretly purchased and refitted the cargo vessel Sea King as a Confederate steam ship renamed Shenandoah. James Iredell Waddell became the commanding officer when she was commissioned on Oct. 19, 1863.

The Shenandoah sailed through the South Atlantic and into the Indian Ocean and along the way, captured nine U.S. flag merchant vessels between October 1863 and the end of 1964. All but two were sunk or burned. Captain Waddell took the Shenandoah to the colonial waterfront town of Williamstown for repairs and provisions. He was allowed to illegally conscript 42 additional seamen from Melbourne. He and his crew were warmly welcomed and entertained. They left Williamstown in February, headed for an attack on the American whaling fleet in the South Pacific. He found the fleet dispersed so he set off for the Bering Sea. There, between June 22 and 28, the warship captured 24 vessels, destroying all but a few. He did not know that the Confederacy had collapsed and the war was over by that time.

Some small amount of research completes the connection between Melbourne, the CSS Shenandoah and Martha’s Vineyard. A quick check of crew lists and ship lists of those whalers in the Bering Sea that summer tells us that of 24 ships captured and destroyed, six of them had Vineyard men in their crews. Altogether 14 Vineyard men were listed as crew on six of the whalers. Further research is necessary to determine how many survived to return home. Fred Mayhew was the seaman listed from Chilmark. He was aboard the whaling ship Hector.

The welcoming of the Confederate navy ship to Melbourne proved to be a costly mistake for the British government because an international tribunal awarded damages against Britain of 800,000 pounds, millions of dollars in today’s money.

Don’t you love it? There is always a Vineyard connection!

Send Chilmark news to slaterjn@comcast.net.