On the lookout | Portlander Lemuel Moody made a pretty penny off a scenic view
Ever hear about someone starting up a business, an enterprise no one ever thought of before? You might have said something like, “Why didn’t I think of that?” Maybe you did, but you were among the many who never go further with the idea.
I was thinking of people who put their ideas into operation after reading a piece written a while ago in the Landmarks Observer, the monthly newsletter of Greater Portland Landmarks. The article concerned Lemuel Moody and the unique enterprise he thought about and then built more than 200 years ago on Munjoy Hill in Portland.
For years, Moody had been a ship’s captain, but at the age of 40 he decided to call it quits and get what government bureaucrats might call a “land-based” occupation. When politicians quit politics, they often say they want to spend more time with their family. Captain Moody probably would have said something like, “I’m sick of sailing.”
What Moody decided to do was build what we now know as the 86-foot-tall Portland Observatory. Looking through a telescope atop his tower on Munjoy Hill, Moody figured he could see ships sailing into Portland at least 90 minutes before anyone else below him. Apparently he had seen such towers in ports like Boston, Providence and Baltimore.
I have no doubt that there were scoffers who laughed when first hearing of Moody’s outrageous tower idea and who probably said it would be a waste of time and good Maine lumber. But Lemuel Moody ignored the cynics and ordered up some white pine timbers and white oak for braces and started building his tower.
When it was finished, he realized he was right in his speculation. From his lofty tower he could see arriving ships at least 90 minutes before anyone else in Portland. Why would someone want this timely information, you ask? Well, back before radios and telephones and faxes and cell phones and texting, ships had no way of giving landlubbers a heads up on their arrival time. A vessel would sail into Portland’s inner harbor and heave to with all sails luffing and its lines needing trimming and crew members manning the halyards. The ship’s owner would then have to send assistants scrambling along the waterfront looking for berthing space and then round up a crew of stevedores sober enough to unload his precious cargo.
From his new observatory, Moody could spot the vessels coming into port from way down the bay and raise the appropriate signal flag to alert the ships’ owners, who would then have a leisurely 90-minute interval to make the necessary on-shore arrangements. Ship owners and other interested parties were willing to pay Lemuel Moody an annual fee for his valuable information — which was the whole point of his unique observatory.
After reading about Moody’s Munjoy Hill “communication center,” I couldn’t help but wonder about some of the problems he must have encountered. In journalism, some slip-ups are called “typos.” There must have been times Moody raised the wrong flag on his tower, sending the wrong signal down the hill to the wrong ship owner. But I’m sure they worked it out, eventually.
Moody soon discovered that when you build an 86-foot-tall tower on a hill with panoramic views from the top, people become curious; they want to go up and have a look. Before long, people were expressing a strong desire to climb the tower and check it out.
Ever the entrepreneur, Moody began charging 12.5 cents per person for a climb to the top of his impressive observatory. I’m not sure how the experience compares to a trip today to Santa’s Village or Six Gun City, but I imagine to someone in Portland in the early 1800s with an afternoon to kill, a trip to the top of Moody’s tower was a memorable event.
Figuring he was going to spend a lot of time in the vicinity of his tower, Moody eventually built himself a home on the site. Never one to sit in his tower twiddling his thumbs and eating bonbons, he also built stables, a banquet hall, a ballroom and eventually a bowling alley. Once he started having money-making ideas, those ideas just kept on coming.
So the next time you’re heading up Munjoy Hill on Congress Street, pull over and park near the summit, get out and take a good look at Moody’s tower, an early 19th century example of what Portlanders considered cutting-edge communication technology. Even after 200 years, it’s still pretty impressive.
And it’s not even digital.
John McDonald, an author, humorist and storyteller who performs throughout New England, can be reached at mainestoryteller@yahoo.com. Read more of John’s columns at www.mainebiz.biz.
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