Plans for restoring a piece of the legendary Hesper, one of the two “last of the four-masted schooners” were abruptly scuttled after a man claimed ownership of the weathered relic.

Jay Seigars, who grew up in Wiscasset and now lives on Westport Island, told Wiscasset selectmen Tuesday night he is the rightful owner of the relic. Seigars said he salvaged the piece of the ship’s prow 37 years ago after the Hesper caught fire during a Fourth of July celebration.

The section with HESPER carved into it is about 14 feet long and charred along the top showing where the ship burned on the night of July 4, 1978. Three members of the town crew recently rediscovered this piece, and a section of the bow sprint at the former landfill off Huntoon Hill Road.

There was a good deal of interest as far as what selectmen might do about these two pieces along with other odds and ends the town had saved when the old ships were demolished 17 years ago.

Ben Rines Jr., board of selectman chairman, briefly adjourned the meeting so the board could look over the ships’ pieces that were sitting on a trailer outside the town office. After the meeting resumed, Rines opened the floor to discussion.

Ed Kavanaugh, president of the Lincoln County Historical Association, said his organization would very much like to be involved in the restoration effort. He said the Hesper piece could be trimmed down the middle to make it more manageable and easier to put on display. Kavanaugh said LCHA would also help finance the effort.

There was also talk of inviting Wiscasset High School students to take part in the restoration project. The only sticking point was where to display the items once the work was finished. Rines said he’d prefer they not be put on display at the Old Jail Museum on Federal Street.

Seigars then stepped to the podium claiming he, not the town, was the rightful owner of the Hesper relic. He told selectmen when he was 17, he was in his boat the morning after the Hesper caught fire. He said he found the ship’s prow floating in the lower part of the Sheepscot River well beyond the Westport bridge. After spending hours towing it back to Wiscasset, Seigars continued, it was confiscated by Larry Gordon. Gordon was then serving as Wiscasset’s first selectman. “I salvaged it and by rights it’s mine,” he said, adding that he’d spent years trying to track the piece down.

Selectmen sat listening to Seigars in silence.

“I don’t know how to respond,” Rines finally said.

Seigars repeated because he had salvaged it, the prow belonged to him. From there the discussion drifted to whether the town had ever actually owned the old ships. Wiscasset did pay for their demolition and removal from the waterfront.

Selectman David Cherry felt the board was obligated to look into Seigars’s claim. “We ought to take it seriously. It ought to be investigated,” he said.

“If the town wants to restore the piece as part of a display and then give you credit for having salvaged it, would you be satisfied with that?” Town Manager Marian Anderson asked. Seigars said he’d have to think about that, and then sat down.

Rines asked Anderson to investigate the matter further, keeping both the board and Seigars informed.

Pieces of the old schooners, Hesper and Luther Little, were saved when they were razed in 1998. During their demolition, a good deal of the ship’s iron fittings and other parts were salvaged including sections of the masts, the iron bollards and two davit rails used to lower and hoist the lifeboat. The pieces were taken to the old landfill and now lie in three separate piles. A rusting “donkey boiler” that came from the Hesper is sitting behind a storage building.

For decades the Hesper and Luther Little sat grounded on the Wiscasset waterfront.