Something new is taking shape on the Wiscasset waterfront, the name HESPER has risen on the lawn alongside the memorial pier.

Nick Dalton hopes his sculpture, a working water fountain, will rekindle memories of the Hesper and Luther Little, the “last of the four-masted schooners.” The old ships were landmarks on the waterfront for decades.

Dalton and  wife Cynthia live on Bradford Road. He was at work on the sculpture Thursday afternoon, May 25. He said, weather permitting, he hoped to have it finished by Memorial Day. It took him several days to assemble the six-foot high by 24-foot long sculpture crafted from PVC pipe. Attached to the end is a drinking fountain. When finished, it will be dimly illuminated with solar-powered lights that may make it visible from the Donald E. Davey Bridge, although the name will be spelled backwards.

The sculpture will be dedicated during Wiscasset’s first Summer Art Walk of 2017, Thursday evening, June 29. In December, selectmen approved the sculpture funded through a “Kindling Fund” grant administered through SPACE Gallery of Portland.

Dalton grew up in Wiscasset and has many memories of the old ships that came to be synonymous with the town. He works full-time for Peter and Teresa Fogg at Fogg Art Restoration on Two Bridge Road. Two Wiscasset-based contractors, David Sawyer Plumbing and Heating and Dalton Insulation, helped construct the model that will be on display from May 1 until Oct. 1 and then taken down.

In 1932, Frank W. Winter of Auburn bought the Hesper and Luther Little at auction and had them towed to Wiscasset harbor. Winter planned to use them in conjunction with his narrow gauge rail line, the Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington Railroad. His plan was to carry timber cut in northern Maine by rail to Wiscasset and then rely on the ships to transport it to markets in Boston and New York. Unfortunately for Winter, the venture never got out of the planning stages and failed, partly due to the Depression-era economy. After arriving in Wiscasset, the Hesper and Luther Little never took to the open sea again.

In the spring of 1940, the ships were floated ashore during a flood tide and winched closer to their final resting place. A row of rotting piling marks the spot where they once sat, not far from Dalton’s sculpture. In 1998, the town had the ships demolished and carried away to the landfill.

They were back in the headlines a year ago when there was talk of restoring the few remaining pieces, including the bollards, turnbuckles and sections of masts that were saved. Wiscasset Middle High School had expressed an interest in becoming involved in the project which never got off the ground.

Dalton hopes his sculpture might renew interest in putting some of schooner remains on display at the waterfront.