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The year is 1903. The New York social and business scene are having a bit of a rough go. In Boston though, things are moving. The Boston Americans would win the World Series. The Great Train Robbery was playing at the theater. Social events around Boston and Lake Champlain Vermont, summer playground of the rich and yachting crowds , are going at full speed. The Lake Champlain Yacht Club is looking forward to having a great Ladies' Cup race this year with the new entry of the Bowen B. "Bodie" Crowninshield designed yacht, "Witchcraft II" being brought up from the famous Lawley shipyards in Boston by William Bowditch Rogers.
Rogers, and his partner and brother-in-law, Henry F. Kellogg won one of last year's races with the earlier and smaller Witchcraft. They had no way of knowing in 1903 that Witchcraft II would have a long and colorful history, passing through and imprinting the lives of a number of the famous and not so famous till this present day more than a hundred years later.
Rodgers came by his love of the sea naturally, he was born on the island of Madeira in 1874. His father was Captain William Crowninshield Rogers, a notable captain the Clipper ship "Witchcraft." I would suspect that due to his father's fame and glory as captain of that famous (in those days) ship, Rogers thought naming his racing sailboats after her, would bring good luck.
His mother was Mary Ingersoll Bowditch. If the name Bowditch sounds familiar it's because she was a direct descendant of the famous mathematician responsible for creating the bible of navigation, "Bowditch- The American Practical Navigator."
In 1903 Rogers was a wealthy young man who had graduated from Harvard in June of 1896. In July he married the beautiful young love of his life, Augusta Kellogg on Kellogg's Island in Lake Champlain. They would summer on the island while Rodgers and his brother-in-law, Henry F. Kellogg raced sailboats. Somehow he found the time to father three children, Susan Elizabeth , William Jr. and Mary Bowditch. Mary would write a wonderful book about life on the island under her married name Mary Saltonstall called Cro'Nest (the Rogers' name for Kellogg's Island. Many of the pictures of that era came from Rogers' granddaughter.
Rogers at one time had three sailboats on the island and one motor yacht. His racing of Witchcraft was a success and he won the Ladies Cup with her in 1903 and 1905. He and his family kept and used Witchcraft from 1903 to 1920 when she was finally sold to Frank Sullivan of New York City and moved to the Harlem Yacht Club on City Island.