My PG Exhibit

The Historic American Merchant Marine Survey was a Federal project of the Works Progress Administration employing unemployed naval draughts- men and shipyard workers to take-off and draw-up the lines and details of old American watercraft. The work produced by the Survey is preserved in the Water- craft Collection of the United States National Museum-Smithsonian D. C. Blueprints of drawings and prints of photographs may be ob- tained at cost from the National Museum by ordering in accordance with instruc- tions contained in a brief list sent without charge upon request. T HE suggestion for a nation-wide survey of remaining examples of old types of American watercraft to be executed by unem-, ployed shipyard and boatyard workers was made by Eric J. Steinlein. The plan as finally put into operation provided for the actual execution of the work by the Works Progress Administration. The United States National Museum in the nominal position of co-operating sponsor acted only in an advisory capacity toward the actual work, and undertook to preserve in the Watercraft Collection the material to be produced. Upon Mr. Steinlein, as Director of the Survey, rested the entire responsibility for the organization and execution of the work. With little precedent for the organization of a project of this kind, the first step was to divide the coasts and inland waterways into what ap- peared to be reasonable subdivisions and endeavor to find supervisors and personnel to carry out the work in each. Museums, libraries, schools and individuals co-operated splendidly in recommending supervisory personnel and the Director soon had offices established in about eight of the sixteen regions tentatively marked off. The policy of the Survey in regard to what types of vessels should be surveyed was very general. Supervisors were asked to report all old ves- sels in their regions which appeared to them to have historical interest, keeping in mind the desire to make the greatest effort to survey types of vessels about which information was not otherwise readily available. 64 AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE SURVEY Upon receipt of these reports, which included the name, type, date, con- dition, and availability of the vessel for survey, the Director indicated the order of work, on a basis of obtaining early surveys of the vessels most likely to become unavailable. Included in the reports were sources of data other than actual vessels, which included plans and builders' models in the possession of shipyards, sail-makers, collectors and mu- seums. The desirability of working up material from these sources was determined upon the basis of the historical interest of the material, its lack of accessibility to students generally, and the danger of its becom- ing lost. It was recognized that almost everything of this nature could be worked up advantageously by the Survey but selections had to be made in order to employ the limited facilities of the Survey where it could ac- complish the most. Frequently in actual practice the subjects of the surveys were determined by their availability, the weather, lack of other material, the qualifications of the personnel and other reasons in no way related to the desirability of the material. The operation of the Survey was effected by sending parties of men to the vessels or the material to make measurements of the vessels, copy drawings and plans, or lift the lines of half models. This information, with various sketches and notes on the construction and histories of the vessels, was returned to the offices, where the finished drawings were made and the reports written. In some regions the field work and office work was performed by the same personnel: in others there was a divi- sion of the work. Wherever possible a vessel was measured on a railway or, if a small craft, on the beach. The sources of all information were carefully noted in each instance. Except for sail plans from sail-makers' draught books no survey was completed or catalogued unless the lines of the hull were obtained. An average objective in a survey of a vessel was to obtain a drawing of its lines, including waterlines, body plan and profile, a sail plan andjor outboard profile, a deck plan, inboard profile and midship section showing construction. Photographs were recognized as an important part of the Survey but the funds were not available to equip the offices with the proper photo- graphic supplies. As a result the workers made photographs as best they could, using their own cameras. The photographs were largely confined to details of unusual construction, carvings, rigging, etc., and include relatively few that would interest the collector of photographs of ships and boats. These photographs, the original field notes and sketches, and the descriptive reports on the vessels are filed in loose-leaf notebooks AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE SURVEY 65 paralleling the files of drawings. All of these may be readily consulted at the National M useurn. For those interested, there is available a Catalogue of Drawings and Photographs Produced by the Historic American Merchant Marine Survey for the Watercraft Collection. This lists the vessels by survey number, name, type and date, arranged in groups according to the regions in which the surveys were made. This means that vessels are not always listed in their horne regions. Some Chesapeake types were surveyed in Florida and a number of vessels built in New England were sent in from the San Fran- cisco office. The catalogue indicates the number of drawings and photo- graphs in each survey and attempts to describe the details contained in the surveys without indicating what is shown by each individual sheet or print. The completed work of the Survey now in the Watercraft Collection includes surveys of 426 different vessels, totaling I,044 drawings and 550 photographs. The variety and scope of these is wide as will be in- dicated by considering the work of the various regions. The headquarters office for Region I, Maine, was established at Port- land a short time before the work terminated and only seven surveys were completed there. These include the freight and towing steamer Pejepscot built at Bath in I907 by the Portland Railway and Shipbuild- ing Company for the Bay Shore Lumber Company; the screw river steamer Louise built at South Portland for the Songo River Steamboat Company, register not found; the coasting schooner David Torrey built by Richardson and Stubbs at Bath in I873 for W. S. Jordan; the three- masted coasting schooner Nimrod built in I8gi by George Christenson for R. C. F. Hartney, for the coasting trade; the kettle-bottom ship Mount Washington, probably built in Maine about I84o, records not found; one unidentified vessel; and the auxiliary schooner joseph Warner for which no report was received. All of these consist of lines, only, taken from half models. Many more half models and plans were available to this office than could possibly be drawn up during its short existence. Fortunately the lines were lifted from some two hundred and thirty models in and about Portland and about sixty at Bath. These are principally large schooners, ships and barks of the late nineteenth century. They include a few ex- amples of other types large and small and one as early as I8I I. These models and plans were courteously made available by their owners, among whom are builders, collectors and the Penobscot Marine Mu- seurn at Searsport. It should be noted that these are not in form to per- 66 AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE SURVEY mit ready reproduction and prints cannot be furnished. They are well indexed, however, and can be used freely at the Museum. A few of these, such as the lines of Hampton fishing boats, and the ocean barge built at Bath in 18g6, were drawn up in finished form by the Cahforn1a regional office. The history of the watercraft and shipping of New England has been the subject of such lively and persistent scrutiny that it is difficult to WORKS PROGRESS AOMlNISTRA.TION SMITI-ISOHIAN IH:JTIT;JTIQl\1 HAHP TON BOAT U. S. N"TION•l. MUSEUM Hampton boat. Sail plan of about 1897 From a sketch by H. R. Stiles, Lt.-Col., U.S.A. Retired. Specimen drawing produced by the Historic A merican Merchant ·Marine Survey. Actual size 17 by 23 inches point out many types of fresh interest. Even the smaller local types have been made familiar through the yachting activity there and the pages of the boating papers. Of the vessels surveyed, the Hampton fishing boat is one of the few that appear to have escaped wide notice. These are small open boats, 20 to 25 feet in length in which trips of two and three days' duration were made to banks forty miles southeast of Portland in almost any weather. Mr. Steinlein was acquainted with the type and Howard I. Chapelle, who was Regional Director of the Survey for New England, produced AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE SURVEY 67 two half models from which several early boats had been built. These, and a sail plan reconstructed by H. R. Stiles, Lt.-Col., U.S.A. (Ret.), who had in 1897 owned one which was then old, were used as data from which to prepare two surveys of the type. These show the old Hampton boat to have had a high bow, plumb stem, straight sheer and deep drag. It was decked over forward and rigged with bowsprit and jib, a loose-footed sprit mainsail and a small jigger spritsail set with a boom. A small center- board was located well forward. Colonel Stiles makes the following comment regard to their sailing: The full rig of three sails was used only in light weather and when sailing free. The mainsail alone did the work for anything but very hard winds, for, though it could not be reefed, the loose-footed sail could be trimmed so that the boat would go to windward well with nothing but the after third of the sail drawing, the balance of the sail being backwinded, though not shaking, and in running off, the mainsail without the sprit, set sufficiently well to be of good driving power. When it blew so hard that nothing could be done with the backwinded main- sail, the boat could be taken tct windward in a very hard chance with the jigger stepped as shown and nothing else on her. Jib and jigger were never used. It is hard to convince yachtsmen that this was possible but I have done it and seen it done time and time again. It has to be blowing hard and the boat has to have a certain amount of weight in her. The high bow of the hull, plus the extreme drag at her heel and the small forward centerboard seem to make it possible for a boat of the model of the Hampton to carry this after sail and be manageable to windward. The Maine office also sent in fifteen 5 by 7 inch negatives of four-, five-, and six-masted schooners built at Bath about 1900 to 1908. These are of the not uncommon type of fine photographs of vessels ready to launch or on their trials. The principal regional office for New England was that of Region 2, located at Wollaston, Massachusetts, under Mr. Chapelle as Regional Director and D. Foster Taylor, Supervisor. The work produced by this office which operated in New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, consists of eighty-three surveys including about one hundred and seventy finished drawings. Outstanding in these are the survey of half models of the vessels operated by the firms of William F. Weld & Company and Weld & Baker, built between 1849 and 1868, and the survey of Piscataqua River gun- dalows. Each of these is of particular merit because of the careful and full reports by Foster Taylor which accompany them. The Weld surveys consist of the lines of twenty-two of the twenty-six half models in the col- lection of Mrs. Charles Goddard Weld, Brookline, Massachusetts, who 68 AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE SURVEY courteously made the models available. The vessels of which the draw- ings were completed include those built for the Weld firms from the bark Fenelon of 1849 to the ship java of 1868, probably as complete a record as exists of the designs of vessels procured by an active and wealthy shipping firm during the period in which American sailing ship- building and operating is thought to have reached its peak. It would be interesting to compare the earning records and efficiency of these vessels with their designs, which include examples of the pre-clipper, extreme clipper, medium clipper, and modified clipper types. The surveys of the gundalow include the lines and sail plan of the Fanny M7 the last old one to sail, and now abandoned, the lines of a model and the lines of one now building. Foster Taylor's report is a description of the type, its evolution and use, so complete that it should be published. It will not be described here in the hope that Mr. Taylor will prepare an article on this and the beautiful model of the gundalow Fanny M that he made for the Peabody Museum of Salem. A nicely made, rigged model of the type was procured for the Watercraft Collec- tion from Captain Edward H. Adams, the last active gundalow captain. Other types surveyed by the Wollaston office include the No Mans Land boat, the Friendship sloop, the New Haven sharpie and the White- hall boat, all of which have been described by capable writers in the past. The survey of the No Mans Land boat was made from an earlier survey by Marion and Dorothy Brewington of an original hull and another from an existing builder's model. A model of a Tancook whaler was made available for a survey and subsequently presented to the Museum by George H. Stadel, Jr. Several fine schooners designed by Captain Thomas F. McManus and built by Tarr and James in the early nineteen hundreds were obtained from the designer's drawings in the builders' possessiOn. The officers of the Peabody Museum of Salem, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Portsmouth Atheneum and the Penobscot Marine Museum, Searsport, very gracious in granting permission to use their collections and the lines were taken off of a number of most interesting half models in each of these. Though the activity was in no sense a records survey, clerical personnel of the Wollaston office copied enrolment records for the port of Gloucester in the Essex Insti- tute. The first twenty-five volumes of these, covering the years 1789 to 1870, were condensed to ten readily handled manuscript volumes. The New York office of the Survey produced only two surveys origi- nating in the region, but performed a substantial volume of draughting AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE SURVEY 69 for other regions not staffed with draughtsmen. One of the surveys is of a Hell Gate pilot's row boat of 1886, the other is of the lines and sail plan of Griffiths' ship Sea Witch of 1846. These were made from small drawings or tracings in the possession of Griffiths' granddaughter. Two surveys of considerable interest that could be credited to the New York region though by the administrative procedure they were not, are those of Connecticut River dragnet boats. These were made llno.o •k;w., '"' thi• ,..,... .-{ L•k•" fnm ....,.r In OL.CK PLAN 0 Schooner Anna 1\.J. Frome. Built at Greenwich Piers, New Jersey, 1904 Inboard profile and deck plan. Specimen drawing produced by the Historic American M erchant M arine Survey. A ctual size 17 by 23 inches from half models borrowed for the purpose by Charles A. Goodwin of the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford. Both are by the same designer, Captain Adrian Tooker, though one is of the Red Jacket of 1900 and the other a boat building in 1938. Mr. Goodwin also sent in several fine old photographs of dragnet boats which were usually found racing when not shad fishing. At Wilmington, the office established for the region of Delaware and southern New Jersey, produced about thirty surveys of a wide variety of types large and small. Wooden shipbuilding on the Delaware in the 70 AMERICAN IHERCHANT MARINE SURVEY last quarter of the last century was well represented by the work of the Jackson and Sharp Yard at Wilmington. Surveys made of half models at this yard include the large three-mast schooner Daniel S. Williams, .Jr. built in 1877 for the coal trade, the three-mast schooner Emelie F. Bird- sall built 1874, the steam-propeller john G. Christopher built in 1892, and the bark Sarah S. Ridgeway built in 1877 which made fine runs of twenty-six days from Rio de Janiero to New York loaded with coffee and from Hong Kong to New York in ninety-three days with tea. This vessel had a medium clipper hull. The South Jersey oyster schooners are represented by the Elsie M. Reichert built at Bridgeton in 1898, the Anna M. Frome of 1904 and the Nordic of 1926. All of these surveys with . the exception of the Elsie M. Reichert were made from half models, sev- eral of which were obtained for the Watercraft Collection. The Nordic is a spoon-bow type of schooner representing the invasion of these waters by the modern fisherman profile. Under water, however, it is still a cen- terboard oyster schooner. The sail and deck plans of this survey were made from the vessel. Many interestingsmall types of the region not readily found in the liter- ature include oyster-tonging and clam garveys, sharpie-rigged and motor- powered sturgeon skiffs, a schooner's yawl boat and a pot-fishing skiff. The work of recording the Chesapeake Bay types was divided be- tween an office at Baltimore and one at Hampton, both within Region 5· In this region the problem was not so much one of finding the older types of vessels as it was to find them where they could be surveyed. Smaller boats such as the log canoes were relatively easy to secure and a fair variety of these was surveyed. Others, such as the pungies were not . finally obtained out of water until after the Survey terminated. How- ever a total of thirty surveys was completed including bugeyes, skipjacks, round-bottom sloops, centerboard schooners and canoes. The timeliness of the Survey is indicated here by the fact that three vessels that were active on the Bay when surveyed are no longer available. The schooner Smith K. Martin built in 1899 has been lost; the William Wesley, almost the last of the round-bottom sloops, built in 1 874, has gone from the Bay and rumor has her abandoned or cut down into a power boat; and the pungy Amanda F. Lewis has been rebuilt into a power trawler and gone menhaden fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. (The survey of this last has not been completed and is not available for distribution.) The Hampton office contributed part of the above and in addition did a Chincoteague sailing bateau of 1928; a crab car with a hinged propeller shaft for land- ing on the beach, and a Staten Island oyster skiff. The Mariners' Mu- AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE SURVEY 71 seum kindly permitted several of their original full-size craft to be sur- veyed and in addition made available the collection of George Steers' half models. Among these is the famous pilot schooner Mary Taylor built at New Yo1;k in 1849. South of Hampton no opportunity was found to organize offices other than the two in Florida. This omits from the Survey the vessels of the coasts of the Carolinas and Georgia and the Gulf Coast west of Florida. The best practicable effort that could be made in this direction was to detail Philip Sawyer, an artist a,ttached to the Washington office, to make a quick trip along the coast from Virginia to Texas, sketching and photographing as he went. Though not an orthodox or scientific pro- cedure it did result in a fair sampling of available material. Mr. Sawyer photographed several North Carolina sharpies and meas- ured one, the sharpie schooner Chase, completely enough to constitute an adequate survey of the type, though it has not been drawn up for dis- tribution. The Chase was built at Moorehead City, North Carolina, in 1903. From the other end of his swing, he brought back several dozen small negatives of the scow sloops fishing out of Port Isabel, Texas. Boat- builders all along the coasts were very generous and gave him a total of about forty half models for the Watercraft Collection. Many of these are of types of commercial fishing vessels now building in the yards, includ- ing a variety of tow boats and small power boats of many kinds, but others are of older types saved by the successive generations of builders at the yards where they were found. Identification of these earlier ones is not complete but they include a Louisiana lugger of about 1890, several Biloxi-built schooners dated from about 186o to 1917, the oyster sloop Spectre built at Berwick, Louisiana, in 1883, and the stern-wheel Florida river steamer Thomas A. Edison built at Appalachicola in 1901. Where he could, Sawyer collected old photographs of sailing vessels and their activities and made dozens of photographs of everything now work- ing that came to his attention. Unfortunately none of the material collected by Mr. Sawyer is in- cluded in the Catalogue mentioned above and can only be used at the Museum. It is described here chiefly because it represents a substantial endeavor to fill a void in the record left by the inability to operate the Survey in important and fertile regions. Unfortunately not even this much was accomplished in the Mississippi and Ohio River regions and in several other smaller but also important places. In Florida the project was almost an 'American' survey in itself. The Maine schooners Lydia 1879; and William 1902; the Long 72 AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE SURVEY Island sand-bagger racing sloop 1872; the sloop Charry fo!merly registered as a schooner, built at Moriches, New York, in 1866; the topsail schooner Meta built for a yacht at Pamrapo, New Jersey, and for many years a St. Johns River pilot boat; the Philadelphia-built iron tow boat Philadelphia, 1883; several Chesapeake Bay types; the schooner Virginia built at Mobile in 1865; the Biloxi schooner Mary 1902; -r--/./v/ _..// / . .• : •.•.•.•, · : . . .: ; : : __ Ltn es .!l i..l! .B IL 2! '! SC HO O N E R .f rom b uil der '• mo d.o J. .- - - - - l . . . . . - : : . ·1'""""- Biloxi shrimp fishing schooner Lines from model made at Handsboro, Mississippi, before 1924. Specimen drawing made and presented to the Watercraft Collection by E. C. Seibert, Commander (C.E.C.), U.S.N. Actual size 17 by 23 inches two Bahama fishing sloops of uncertain age; and a Nicaraguan cayuca; indicate the variety of the 'foreign' vessels surveyed in.Florida waters. The remainder of the fifty-two surveys represent the native Florida types reasonably well. Early sponge vessels are illustrated by the double- ended schooner place and date of building 'Unknown' but cer- tainly one of the early ones, and a survey of the rigged model called Hydra which tradition says is a model of one of the first two lateen- rigged, one-mast, double-enders of the Mediterranean type introduced into the sponge fishing industry about 18g8. Later sponge vessels in- Scow schooner Augustus. Buil_t at Spoonville, Michigan, 1897 Photogmphed entering Ludington Ha1·bor Sloop Zingara. Built at Bodkin Creek, Maryland, 1852 Photographed on a railway at Baltimore, Maryland, 1937 PLATE 8 PLATE 9 Schooner Treanclrea (ex Elias). Built at Tarpon Springs, Florida, 1918 Steamer De Pere. Built at Manitowoc, Wisconsin, 1873 Photographed entering Manitowoc Harbor. Photograph by courtesy of Captain E. Carus AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE SURVEY 73 elude the schooner Treandrea (ex Elias) built at Tarpon Springs in 1918, the sloop Century of Progress built in 1931, and a number of sponge dinghys dated 1923 to 1930. Schooners built in the Keys are represented by the keel schooners Hero and Louisa built at Key West in 1868 and 1870 and the centerboard schooners Island Home said to have been built at Plantation Key in 1885, the Newport built at Key West probably 1885, and the Speedwell built at Marco, 1896. The Hero was a pilot boat during its first years and is said to have been the pioneer sponge fisherman in the Gulf of Mexico. The Louisa owns her share of the legendary fame that attaches to any old schooner in southern waters but her history gives the usual hurricane stories an added flourish by having her go 'aground' on an even keel in the crotches of two dogwood trees. She was easily refloated by means of a staging built up to her. A number of sloops built at Abaco and Currant Island in the Ba- hamas, at Key West and Key Largo, and several sharpies, catboats and dugouts were included in the work. Though they are an interesting col- lection of plans most of them were not registered and their dates are not all well established. The Pilot's Bride build at Cedar Key in 1886 as a centerboard sloop and later converted to a keel schooner is said to have been one of the fast pilot vessels of her time. It would be hard to find more barnlike examples of marine architec- ture than the stern-wheel river steamers Okahumkee., 1870, and the Hia- watha., 1898, but glamour touches everything in Florida and they carried the tide of golden tourists in the lush days of the last century. Similarly the workaday tow-boat service of the steam tug Three Friends built at Jacksonville in 1895 does hot suggest her filibustering career in the Cuban revolution under 'Dynamite' John O'Brien, or as a correspond- ent's dispatch boat 'rung-up' on many a forced run in the best Richard Harding Davis tradition during the war with Spain. H. L. Long was the Regional Director for Florida, John H. Hyde and· A. E. Ferdinandsen were Supervisors. Mr. Ferdinandsen turned in a brief but interesting report on the use of the so-called 'cork tree' for frames, and knees, in small-boat building at Key West. It seems that much small stuff that has been described as madeira wood or horseflesh in Key West boats might actually be cork tree (Thespesia populnea) which grows right in the town where a natural crook for a stem piece or-frame can be selected for almost any repair. The Great Lakes region was divided into two sections of which Michi- gan east of Alpena was one with all of the Lakes region west of Alpena in / the other. Both of these were worked from the Chicago office under John R. Dalenberg, Regional Director, and the work produced is de- scribed together, here. About eighty-two surveys were received from both regions, nearly half of which are of small steamers of various kinds, with sixteen of large schooners, two classes of vessels that developed along lines dictated by the peculiar conditions of Lakes navigation and independently of developments on the coasts. . The earliest schooners in the survey are the Mary Stockton, the CZipper City both built in 1854, and the 1856, all three by S. Bates &Son, shipbuilders at Manitowoc, Wisconsin. These were designed by Wil- liam Wallace Bates who was John W. Griffiths' western correspondent and partner in the publication of the U.S. Nautical Magazine and Naval journal. The lines and sail plan of the Clipper City appeared in the Nautical Magazine (Vol. III, No.5, February 1856), and the survey was prepared largely from these with reference to the mold loft notebook ofW . W . Bates preserved in the'Wisconsin State Museum, University of Wisconsin cam- pus at Madison. This book contains notes and tables of offsets for the three schooners. The Clipper City was described as a successful depar- ture from previous designs and was a fast schooner. The only vessel surveyed which might illustrate the older design is that of the Vermont built by J. Keating at Huron, Ohio, in 1853, the lines of which were lifted from the builder's half model. The remainder of the surveys of schooners are of vessels built between 1871 and 1894. All of these have the flat-floored and wall-sided midship sections typical of Lakes schooners, but there is a decided difference in sharpness and rig among them. The three-mast schooner George M. Case built at Saugatuck, Michigan, in 1874 was a bluff-bowed 'canaller' de- signed to have the largest carrying capacity within dimensions required for navigating the Weiland Canal. In contrast to this type, the Lizzie A. Law built at Port Huron in 1875 had a so-called clipper-bow and a repu- tation for a fine appearance. She originally carried lee-boards but after losing them in a storm and narrowly escaping the shore a centerboard was put in. Many Lakes schooners upon reaching an advanced age were cut down and converted to tow barges but some like the schooner Grampian built at West Bay City, Michigan, in 1894 were built for short rigs and began as barges. The Grampian was a three-mast schooner without bowsprit though it carried a jib. The Cora A built at Manitowoc in 1889 was a fast schooner that in 1897 sailed from Chicago to Alpena a distance of four hundred and sixty miles in forty hours. In 1915 she went to 74 AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE SURVEY AMERICAN JI.1ERCHANT MARINE SURVEY 75 Montreal for a cargo for Europe and on 6 March 1918 foundered off Cape Hatteras. A photograph of the Cora A shows her with a full Lakes three-masted rig with a large squaresail on the foremast which also car- ries a square-topsail and topsail-yard with a triangular raffee above and a large fore-and-aft foresail. She carried three headsails and main- and mizzen-topsails. Sail plans copied by the Survey include a number of variations of the Lakes schooner rig. One is of the David Dows} 1881, said to be the only five-mast barkentine on the Lakes. Several including that of the City of HORNET Schooner yacht Hornet. Built in Maryland, 1819 Lines from half model. Specimen drawing Historic American Merchant Marine Survey Actual size 17 by 36 inches Grand Haven} 1872, are of the so-called Grand Haven rig, a two-mast rig in which the fore- and mainmasts are located about as the fore and miz- zen of the three-mast rig with a staysail carried on a stay from the top of the mainmast to the deck just aft of the fore-boom. The Alice Royce} built at Saugatuck in 18go, is a 40-foot, two-mast schooner described as a 'lumber hooker' that traded along the east shore of Lake Michigan. Surveys of two sailing scows were received, one of a scow schooner, approximately 118 feet in length with considerable dead- rise to its floors, drawn from an unidentified half model, the other of a flat-bottom river scow of about the same length prepared fron1 drawings of lines, sail plan, construction, etc., lent by Angus Smith of Algonac, Michigan. The writer's father sailed on scow schooners on the St. Law- 76 AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE SURVEY renee River, when a youngster, and he has mentioned several instances in which old schooner captains in their retirement would acquire sailing scows and retain some measure of activity and interest trading in them, along the Lakes and river shores. Small-boat surveys include several Mackinaw fishing boats and a river logging bateau built about 18go. Most of the surveys of steamers consist of lines made from builders' models or drawings that have been preserved by collectors or long-estab- lished building firms, and a few include old photographs. The oldest vessels represented are the sidewheel, passenger and freight steamers Huron and Planet built at Newport (now Marine City), Michigan, in 1852 and 1855· The lines show that both had flat-floored, straight-sided, shal- low hulls with very sharp waterlines fore and aft. In the photographs both have freight decks covered from bow to stern with sides extending over the guards so that the paddle boxes are flush. The cabin deck in each is open at bow and stern with cabins amidships. The Huron had angular hogging trusses made up of posts and rods. The Planet had these and also curved Bishop frames that extend well above the cabin roof. The lines of the Union designed and built by W. W. and S. Bates at Manitowoc in 1861, were drawn from the builders' model. It is the oldest Lakes propeller in the Survey in addition to being an unusual design. The hull is flat-floored but the curve of the bilge is full and the sections flare to a knuckle seam from which they go up flat with a slight inboard slant. The rabbet turns up at the stem in an easy curve and returns inside of its foremost point before turning up and forward. Nine steamers built by Greenfield S. Rand at Manitowoc in the sixties and early seventies are represented, including the sidewheelers Orion, 1866, 1867, and 186g, and the propellers 1870 and 1872. The Oconto was accused of starting the Green Bay fire in September 188o and the Navarino was destroyed in the Chi- cago fire of October 1871. Of the three steam barges included, the Anna Smith built at Algonac in 1872 and the E. A . ]r. built at Sheboygan in 1892 are repre- sented by their lines only but the survey of the Herman H. Hettler (ex Walter Vail) built at West Bay City in 18go, rebuilt in 1913, consists of three excellent drawings showing an open-deck, three-mast, steam pro- peller with a square pilot-house and texas over the forecastle. The boiler and engine were in the stern. This vessel carried as much as 1,163 tons of hard coal from Toledo to Milwaukee and 1,ooo,ooo feet of hem- lock from Bayfield, Wisconsin, to Cleveland. There are about a dozen more passenger and freight steamers in- AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE SURVEY 77 eluded, and a variety of other types including fishing tugs; a fire boat, the Cataract of 1889; tow boats; the C. F. Bielman, Jr. designed and built in 1907, for a marine post office on the Detroit River; the Flora M. Hill, 1874, formerly the lighthouse tender Dahlia, and the small iron steamer Shearwater built in 1909. Four stern-wheel river steamers include the 119-foot yacht Fortuna, 1903; the Portugal Durao built at Chicago for South America about 1908; a Yukon River steamer; and the Thomas A. Edison, 1903. This last was a Florida river steamer designed at Chicago but built in Florida where Mr. Sawyer obtained the half model and an old photograph from the builder. The survey was made from the de- signer's plans in Chicago where the machinery was built. Photographs of about fifty-five Lakes steamers dating from the eighteen-sixties were received. West of the Great Lakes the only office of the Survey was located at San Francisco. A well-staffed office, there, under Walter S. Place, pro- duced nearly one hundred surveys of a good variety of vessels. The most complete surveys of large ocean sailing vessels were produced in Cali- fornia. The bark Emily F. Whitney built at East Boston in 188o, and still afloat, was made the subject of a survey consisting of thirteen drawings and twenty-eight photographs, old and new. This vessel was operated in succession by J. H. Flitner & Company of Boston, an unidentified British firm, Alexander & Baldwin of San Francisco and finally, as a salmon packer, by the Alaska Packing Company. Another, the bark 0 lympic built at Bath, Maine, in 1892, was a fishing barge at Los Angeles when surveyed. D. W. Dickie of San Francisco in 1910 made measurements and drawings of the ship Chateaubriant built at Bordeaux, France, in 1901 and these were available for a survey. Less complete surveys are those of the bark Newsboy built at San Francisco in 1882, the Star of France, 1877 and the Hans built at Port Glasgow in 1921. There are no lines of the last two. Large West Coast schooners and barkentines built between 1890 and 1917 for the lumber and general cargo trades are well represented. The schooner Commerce built at Almeda in 1901 for the lumber trade and the barkentine Kohala built at Fairhaven, California, the same year, were and made good subjects for extensive surveys. The schooner Newark built by Mathew Turner at Bernicia in 1887 was surveyed in some detail by Mr. Dickie in 1916 and this information was used for an- other complete survey. The latest these is the steam schooner Edna Christenson designed by D. W . & R. Z. Dickie and built in 1917. The original plans for this were available. About twelve four- and five-mast 78 AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE SURVEY schooners and barkentines including several steam schooners designed and built by Hall Brothers of Seattle, Washington, from 1889 to 1907 were drawn up from the builders' plans. These consist of lines and sail plans of schooners, most of which are about 200 feet in length. An equal number of sail plans for vessels of these types were made, some un- identified. rum filiirilmiD VI£.,W 'LJ-Lf HIO.:SHIP .SE.CrtON ».4• WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION SMITH50ro1AN IISTITVTIOI'I • U. S, N,o.TION'AL MUSD.I... P L A N (. Pk?OFILE SAILING SCOW-'E.LSIE.' Scow sloop Elsie. Built at Philadelphia, 1874 Specimen drawing produced by the Historic American Merchant Marine Survey Actual size of drawing 17 by 23 inches The lumber schooner Lily built by Dickie Brothers, at San Francisco in 1882 and rebuilt to represent H.M.S. Bounty for the film Mutiny on the is included. The four-mast tanker schooner Katharine built at Belfast, Ireland, in 1887, was surveyed from the builders' plans. Smaller schooners are well represented by the pilot schooners Caleb Curtis built at Boston in 1859; and the still active Gracie S. designed and built by James Dickie at San Francisco in 1893; the oyster schooner Louisa Morrison built at Coos Bay, Oregon, 1868, surveyed in part from the model at 'the De Y oung Museum; and the auxiliary schooners Atlas and Monet. The Atlas built at San Francisco in 1911 was a Philippine Island Steam schooner Roosevelt. Built at Verona (Bucksport), Maine, 1905 Photographed 1936 River steamer Thomas A. Edison. Built at Apalachicola, Florida, 1901 PLATE 10 PLATE II Steamer Victoria (ex Parthia) in an Alaskan port Since this jJhotograph was made an observation room has been added on the boat deck, immediately abaft the mainmast Steamer Parthia, built in 1870 for the Cunard Line PhotograjJh in F. B. C. Bmdlee Collection, Peabody Museum of Salem AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE SURVEY 79 trading schooner; the Monet built in 1910 was employed as a cargo vessel at T ahiti. Two famous exploring vessels were surveyed by the.California office- the Norwegian-built 1872, in which Captain Amundsen made the Northwest Passage in 1903-1906, and the steam schooner Roosevelt built at Verona (Bucksport), Maine, 1905, used as a base ship by Admiral Peary in his successful dash to the North Pole in 1908-1909. The Gjoa has been preserved at San Francisco. A complete restoration is now in progress. The Roosevelt was in active service as a tug until 1937. Both have inter- esting features of construction required to meet the conditions of Arctic exploration. Scow schooners have been engaged in carrying cargoes of many kinds in San Francisco Bay for sixty-five to seventy-five years and a number, with power installed, are still in use. About ten were surveyed and with copies of old sail plans and photographs made the subject of a brief but interesting report on the type. What is reputed to be the last of the lateen- rigged feluccas, used by Italian fishermen in the Bay, was also surveyed. Mr. Henry Rusk of the De Young Museum was most helpful in giving advice, encouragement and aid in establishing and operating the San Francisco office. Altogether the Survey was a fine example of unselfish co-operation on the part of many individuals and organizations of standing in the field of marine research who gave freely of their talents and advice to further the work. They cannot be named here but it is hoped that they are repaid in part by the satisfaction of having contributed to a work that appears to have a lasting and increasing value. They may be assured that their help was appreciated by those who operated the Survey. The work of the Survey in producing the material has been terminated for several years and it is not contemplated that it will ever be revived. There are·however a number of individuals continuing to survey old types of watercraft for their own purposes, some of whom have been doing this work for years. It is hoped that their number will increase and that the work of the Survey will prove of enough merit to induce them to continue to send copies of their surveys to the writer for preservation in the Watercraft Collection. In this way the Survey will prove a good start toward the building of a comprehensive and easily used national collec- tion of accurate drawings of all types of American watercraft.