Captain Dow also commanded:  

Barks
Colorado
Auburndale

Schooners
Everglades
Albert L. Butler
Bark
Stampede

Capt. Dow's Obituary
from the March 21, 1919
Melrose Free Press

Death of Captain George Washington Dow

One of the few remaining old-time sea captains passed away at his home 345 Upham St., Melrose, Monday evening when Captain George W. Dow bid his family goodbye and passed to the great beyond.

He was born in Trenton on Mt. Desert Island, of a seafaring family in 1847, and became a shipmaster at the age of 21. For years he sailed the Spanish Main before modern shipping and its methods were much known. He sailed for several shipping firms, but the greater part of his life was spent on the employ of J.S. Emery & Co. of Boston.

Capt. Dow was considered one of the lucky captains by seagoing people until he took command of the schooner Thomas W. Lawson, on which he nearly lost his life when she wrecked on the Scilly Isles in 1907. He was saved as by a miracle after being tossed about for hours in the seas and finally being rescued with difficulty from some rocks upon which he had managed to climb. Since 1910 he has lived a retired life, at his home in Melrose where he has resided for a quarter of a century.

He leaves his wife and one son, Richard E. Dow, of California, who came to Melrose during this last illness of his father.

Funeral services were held at his late home on Wednesday afternoon, Rev. Thomas J. Horner, his former pastor, now at Manchester, NH, officiated."

Excerpts from The Ellsworth American
Aug. 4, 1926 by T. C. Moon

At 6 p.m. it was still raining. The captain (George Dow) ordered the flying jib taken in and furled, and the schooner (Stampede) brought by the wind with the jib to windward.  The wheel was put hard down and lashed.  The schooner lay nearly head to the sea on the port tack.  One man was on lookout and one at the pump.  It was my watch below from 6 to 8 p.m.  The captain was up and down watching the weather.  The barometer was rising.  He said it would clear off after midnight.

About 7:30, I was sitting in the cabin waiting to go on deck at 8 o'clock, when the captain came down, went to his stateroom and got his pipe.  He stood in the cabin filling his pipe.  He stood with his feet wide apart to steady himself, as the schooner was rolling badly.  He began to tell a story.  The cook had come in, and he sat beside me to hear the captain, who could tell a good story.

All at once the man on lookout shouted, "Breakers!  All hands on deck!"  The captain dropped his pipe and ran up the after steps to the wheel.  The cook and I ran up the forward steps to the deck.  We could hear the roar of the surf on the reef.  The captain shouted, "Wear ship; lower the main peak!"  He rolled the wheel hard up.  I gave the order to lower the main peak, and started for the peak downhaul.

The captain shouted, "Hold on the main peak, and every man look out for that sea!"  I looked for ward and I saw a sea like a small mountain coming.  Up went the bow of the schooner, until I thought she was standing on her stern, than down went her bow until the jib boom and captain were under water, but up she came.  Then another sea came over here, then the third, not quite so heavy.  These seas came a little on the le box, and that made stern way on the schooner and, acting on the rudder, turned the schooner so she went in stays and filed away on the starboard tack.  That saved the schooner for if we had worn ship, it would have taken so long we would have gone ashore, and the schooner would never have been heard of.

As soon as we had steerage way, the captain ordered me to get the deep-sea lead, and see how much water we had under us.  I got the lead and ordered two men to take it to the fore chains, and when ready to heave, to let me know.  As soon as the man was ready, the captain luffed the schooner into the wind so as to stop her headway, and then gave the order to heave the lead.  I watched the line run through my hand until it stopped at twelve fathoms.  It took three men to haul in the lead.  The captain gave the schooner a hard pull and drove her all she could go.  In twenty minutes we hove the lead again, and could not reach bottom after thirty fathoms had run out.  We could not hear the roar of the breaker any more.  The breakers we had heard were on a coral reef out some three or four miles from an island, and if we had not hove in when we did, we should have run head on the reef.  But our time had not come, so we escaped.

Two days after we were nearly wrecked, we arrived in Port au Prince, and discharged the deckload as soon as possible.  Before it was all discharged, the leak stopped, so we knew that the leak was near the top.  When the cargo was all out, I found the leak and stopped the place where the oakum had worked out of the seams.  We loaded with logwood for Boston, where we arrived in April, 1876.

Captain Dow was one of the best ship masters that the State of Maine has produced.  He was a native of Hancock.  His father was a ship master.