I actually didn’t plan this – this article, by coincidence, is posting on 7 February 2026, which happens to be the 125th anniversary of my grandmother, Hazel Ethel (Coleman) Adams’ birth.

Hartwell Thomas Coleman (1869-1938) was her father and Hazen Raleigh Coleman (1895-1954), her brother and only sibling.

Hazen died when I was a baby, so I wouldn’t remember him even if we had ever met. I knew that, like his father, Hazen was a master mariner.

However, I’ve never even see a photo of him.

Hartwell Colemen followed in the footsteps of his own father to become a captain, a master mariner, of tugboats that guided boats and small ships in and out of the St. Lawrence River seaway, which borders Maine and New Hampshire.

Later in life, in the 1920s, Hartwell moved to Massachusetts and also served as a tugboat captain guiding boat traffic in and out of the busy Boston Harbor.

Hazen then followed his father, first working the waters around northern Maine and New Brunswick, Canada before his move to Massachusetts and a job in Boston Harbor.

Full-text search on FamilySearch brought up a fairly unique document. Yes, I’m very aware that boating and shipping records include crew manifests, but I never expected to find one for my great grandfather and granduncle:

I, H.T. Coleman, Master of the said American SS. Wesley A. Gove, do solemnly, sincerely, and truly swear that the within List contains the names of all of the Crew of said vessel, together with the places of their birth and residence, as far as I can ascertain the same.

Hartwell T. Coleman, Master

Port of Calais, Maine
Subscribed and sworn to this 8 day of Feb, 1916 before me,

H.R. [???], Deputy Collector

The second image is the crew list:

George E. Waite, Calais, Mate, Calais, 46, 5’2″, light, Light, Blue
George Whitenack, Calais, Engineer, Calais, 30, 5’10”, Dark, Dark, Blue
Clarence Bohannan, Calais, Fireman, Calais, 38, 5’10”, light, light, blue
Hazen Coleman, Calais, Cook, Calais, 19, 5’10”, light, light, blue

A dive down another rabbit hole, the Library of Congress, turned up a photo of the Wesley A. Gove in its digital collection:

Detroit Publishing Company photograph collection (Library of Congress)

The Wesley A. Gove was built in 1901, but this photo is undated. Too bad – if it was taken in 1916, then Cappy Coleman, as he was known, might have been piloting her.

This definitely was a fun find and documents that Hazen got his maritime start as a cook!