USA > Rhode Island > The "Old Stone Bank" history of Rhode Island, Vol. II > Part 22
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making it their business to stand upon the wharf just prior to the departure of the "Firefly" on her regular trips down the Bay and offer to carry all passengers to New- port for a quarter, or for nothing at all if they could not beat the time of the "Fire- fly." These captains knew well that their packets were capable of beating the slow little steamer, and after a short while they succeeded in driving the "Firefly" from this port.
This triumph was to be short-lived, how- ever, for by 1821 the steamboat had come to stay. In this year the first steamboat ex- cursion was made by the Robert Fulton and steamboats were no longer an oddity on the water route between Providence and New York. The packet owners tried to in- troduce two bills into the Rhode Island As- sembly, one restricting the landing of pas- sengers from steamboats on the shores of the State and the other imposing a 50c tax on all passengers on steamboats. Needless to say, neither became a law.
The early sound steamers, the "Fulton" and the "Connecticut," made one round trip each week between New York and Providence until November, when the "Ful- ton" would be removed, the "Connecticut" continuing until hindered by the ice.
During the ten or twenty years immedi- ately following the action of the packet captains, new steamers appeared regularly. In 1825, the "Washington" was put into service. She was 131 feet long and was the first steamer to have a pair of beam engines, each independent of the other. Two years later the "Chancellor Livingston" was taken off the Albany-New York route and
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placed on the Providence run as an oppo- sition boat to those who had begun to be- come successful. In 1828, the "Benjamin Franklin" was brought to Rhode Island waters by the rivals of the "Chancellor Livingston." Between these two vessels oc- curred the famous race to New York, which the "Benjamin Franklin" won. There was very little difference in speed between the two, however, and they were as fine steamers as were in existence at that time.
In 1831, the "Chancellor Livingston" ran down and sunk the "Washington" dur- ing a fog in the sound. To replace her, the "Boston" was built under the supervision of Captain Comstock. She was the first steamer to be constructed without masts and sails. As a sister ship a new boat called the "Providence" was built by the Providence Steamboat Company. With the "Boston" she went into service on one of the lines out of Providence, while the "President" and the "Benjamin Franklin" formed the mainstays of the opposition line. The "Connecticut" and the "Chan- cellor Livingston" had both been assigned to other lines outside Rhode Island.
With the coming of the year 1832, pros- pects were bright indeed for all the steam- boat lines. They had greatly influenced the stage coach routes already in existence and made possible the establishment of more. The popular way to travel to New York was via Providence, using the coaches and the Providence steamboats. However, in 1832, an epidemic of cholera in New York made a quarantine necessary on all shipping, and the steamboats were forced to suspend their activities for the greater part of the year.
In 1835, Cornelius Vanderbilt construc- ted the steamboat, "Lexington" and began to take a decided interest in the navigation in Narragansett Bay. The following year, Captain Comstock was the builder of the "Massachusetts" which his brother com- manded. She was one of the first boats of the famous Transportation Company, founded by Vanderbilt, and made the trip to New York in thirteen hours. Then be- gan the worst kind of competition between rival steamship companies. Rates were slashed without discrimination in the mad effort to monopolize all the business. This business war extended to all the subsidiaries
of the steamboat lines. The Stonington Railroad, opened in 1837, was the cause of the opening of the Stonington steamboat lines to New York. The railroad came up to the west side of the Bay about opposite Fox Point, where a small ferry carried the passengers across to the Boston trains.
In 1851, a line of freighters was estab- lished. These steamboats were the first to get away from the use of paddle-wheels, being equipped with single screw propel- lors. While this new company did abso- lutely no business for many months, gradu- ally a trade was developed which grew to tremendous proportions and necessitated the building of even more ships. In the winter of 1856-1857, the Sound was frozen solid and steamboats were unable to reach Newport. The vessels of the commercial line finally literally sawed a channel through the Sound to New York.
But what of the many little steamboats which were sailing up and down the Bay? There were many of them, from the time of the "Firefly" on. One of the first built, by a man named Wadsworth, was named after him. It had a special type of safety boiler somewhat similar to a later principle developed by the Herreshoff Company of Bristol. Following, in the order named, were the steamers "Rushlight," "Balloon," and "Iolas." These made regular trips be- tween Providence and Newport, with side- stops at Warren and Bristol, carrying pas- sengers principally on excursions which lasted through afternoons and evenings. In the 1850's, the Bay was a hubbub of navi- gation. Steamboats were coming and going between Providence and New York, and the presence of the many little excursion boats from Providence and Fall River only added to the confusion. Nor was the Bay exactly the best type of a port. Much delay was caused the steamboats because of the shoal in the channel below Fox Point which had only 41/2 feet of water at low tide.
These, then, were the days of the early steamboats in Narragansett Bay. There was a great spirit of joviality on board those pioneer vessels. After the evening meal the passengers would gather on the decks and join in song in a complete democracy of spirit. There would be the flagons and de- canters upon the tables and the true spirit of good comradeship existed. The round
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trip to New York at first cost $10, and was considered a great event in the life of anyone lucky enough to take it.
One of the early excursions of the steamer "Connecticut," advertised as a fishing trip for ladies and gentlemen to Block Island, was disastrous in some ways, yet was not entirely without humorous aspects. To
quote the Providence Journal of 1877: . As the boat started in haste back to Newport it was a touching sight to see the codfish swimming along beside the boat, occasionally looking up with a smile at the seasick party and then diving down a mile or two into the deep in a tumult of deliri- ous joy."
THE PASSING OF LINCOLN
T' HREE-SCORE and five years ago, on an April night, the vast majority of people in the Northern States went to bed with thankful and relieved hearts. For, on April 9th, Lee had surrendered to Grant at Ap- pomattox. President Lincoln, on the fol- lowing day, had returned to Washington from the seat of War, and Washington had gone mad with joy at the now certain end of the long strife. This joy had spread, of course, all over the loyal States, for now the cruel war was over; the boys in blue would soon be coming home hoping that years of peace would follow the years of conflict.
There had been happy hearts in the White House on that April day, and President Lin- coln had permitted himself some terribly needed relaxation. He had driven out with Mrs. Lincoln that afternoon, and, as they rode, husband and wife had planned hap- pily for the coming years when the great burdens of the nation should have been taken from his shoulders.
He had even consented to add to the re- laxation of the drive an evening at the the- atre, for he had ever dearly loved a good play and could this night see his way clear to enjoy one with a contented mind.
Here, in the city of Providence that night, the citizens who had lain down with thank- ful and relieved hearts were rudely awak- ened some time after midnight by a wild alarum of pealing bells. Their long and in- sistent clangor brought weary men, perhaps grumbling, out of their warm beds. "What could be the cause of the alarm? Was not the war over at last? Was a man never again to enjoy a well-earned night's rest?" One old man, a child in the cradle that night, remembers well hearing his parents tell how
his father roused and dressed and hastened to the centre of the city to ascertain the cause of the clamor. Soon he returned with white face to tell his family the news. He threw open the outside door and, standing on the threshold, announced in solemn voice: "The President of the United States has been shot by an assassin!"
Next morning came the news of the Pres- ident's death, and the wildest excitement prevailed. There was much uncertainty at first. Men did not know how widespread might be the plot to destroy the heads of the Nation. Perhaps the comforting words had not yet reached them: "God reigns, and the Government at Washington still lives."
Mr. Lincoln was shot on April 14th, which was Good Friday. When the news of his death was received on the following day, the bells of Providence tolled for an hour, and minute-guns were fired by the Marine Artillery. This was repeated in the evening, when the bells tolled again and the minute- guns sounded from 5.30 to 6.30 o'clock.
The students at Brown assembled that morning at 10.30 o'clock in Manning Hall, and Professors Diman, Harkness and Dunn addressed them.
Committees were appointed from the classes to work with the Faculty in drafting resolutions of sympathy and the gathering adjourned singing: "Oh God, Our Help in Ages Past."
At eight o'clock on Saturday evening a procession of citizens, numbering probably 1500 people, formed on Westminster Street near the bridge and marched, under the di- rection of Ex-Governor Hoppin, in a drench- ing rain and to the mournful music of the American Brass Band to the home of Ex- President Wayland, who addressed them.
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The Providence Journal of April 17, 1865, printed the following editorial :
"Such scenes were never before witnessed in this City as we beheld on Saturday. There was lamen- tation in every household as tho death had crossed the threshold. The men of business forgot their buying and selling, and shed tears of grief as they met each other on the public streets. We never saw a community so weighed down with sorrow Long before evening nearly every house and store and public building bore testimony to the universal sadness. Yesterday, although it was the glad Easter Day, the churches were dressed in mourning and some of the clergy and almost every worshiper wore badges of some kind, expressing grief .
"President Lincoln, at this proud hour of his triumph and glory, when it seemed that he was about to enjoy in peace and quietness the fruits of his four years' arduous toil, has perished by the hand of a miserable miscreant. Too early, alas! for us he has fallen, but not too early for him. He will stand in all history as a canonized martyr to the Cause of Liberty and Human Right!"
With words like these in our ears it is hard for us, who have seldom heard the name of Lincoln mentioned save with rever- ence, to realize what he had in life to bear.
Mrs. Maud Howe Elliott has told us that she once fled in burning indignation to her mother, saying: "Mother, did you ever, in all your life, know of anyone so maligned as is our friend Mr. Roosevelt?"
The aged Julia Ward Howe deliberately withheld her answer and took a moment to look back down the years of her long life. Then her answer came with decision. "Yes, I knew one." "Who was he, mother? Who could it have been?"
And Julia Ward Howe replied with sol- emn emphasis : "Abraham Lincoln!"
And let us add the testimony of another of America's greatest, the word of the late Edward Everett Hale. Dr. Hale wrote: "With the news of the murder of Lincoln, there came to New York every other terrible message. The office of the New York Tribune, of course, received echoes from all the despatches which showed the alarm at Washington. There were orders for the ar- rest of this man, there were suspicions of the loyalty of that man. No one knew what the rumors might bring.
"In the midst of the anxieties of such hours, to Mr. Sidney Howard Gay, the acting editor of that paper there, entered the fore- man of the type-setting room. He brought with him the proof of Mr. Greeley's leading article, as he had left it before leaving the
city for the day. It was a brutal, bitter, sar- castic, personal attack on President Lincoln, the man who, when Gay read the article, lay dying in Washington.
"Gay read the article and asked the fore- man if he had any private place where he could lock up the type to which no one but himself had access. The foreman said he had. Gay bade him tie up the type, lock the galley with this article in his cupboard, and tell no one what he had told him. Of course no such article appeared in the Tribune next morning.
"But when Gay arrived on the next day at the office, he was met with the news that 'the old man' wanted him, with the intimation that 'the old man' was very angry.
"Gay waited upon Greeley. 'Are you there, Mr. Gay? I have been looking for you. They tell me that you ordered my leader out of this morning's paper. Is this your paper or mine? I should like to know if I cannot print what I please in my own paper.' This in great rage.
'The paper is yours, Mr. Greeley. The article is in type upstairs and you can use it when you choose. Only this, Mr. Greeley, I know New York, and I hope and I believe before God, that there is so much virtue in New York that if I had let that article go into this morning's paper, there would not be one brick left upon another in the Tribune office now. Certainly I should be sorry if there were.' Mr. Greeley was cowed. He said not a word, nor ever alluded to the subject again."
Before the end of that tragic April, Booth had been captured and had died from a bul- let wound. In the brief interval between Mr. Lincoln's death and the assassin's apprehen- sion it is said that the latter had access to newspapers and was astounded to find that instead of acclaims for his deed from the South, the South joined the North in a feel- ing of horror at his crime. Now, more than a half-century after his death, the probable concensus of opinion is that Booth was not a fiend. He was a fanatic. After his death his diary was taken from his pocket and in it was found written: "I am sure there is no pardon in Heaven for me, since man con- demns me so." One who knew him well has written, “. . . he was no common assassin. Some overpowering force of evil must have been at work within his frenzied brain.
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Amid his associates and with those who knew him well, he was loved for his kindly nature, his generosities, and the qualities of a refined gentleman."
After Booth's miserable ending at least nine other persons implicated in the plot were indicted. Of these, four were executed on July 7, 1865, three were sentenced to hard labor for life, one to hard labor for six years. The ninth person escaped and fled across the ocean and we find no record at hand to tell if he was ever apprehended and punished.
At the close of the Civil War, Francis Wilson, in his "Life of John Wilkes Booth," says of Lincoln: "He had labored amid dis- trust, toleration and contempt against al- most irresistible opposition from within and without. He now stood revealed to the world as the most gentle, most magnani- mous, most Christ-like ruler of all time."
But, in closing these notes of his death what words could be more fitting than the words of Stanton at the moment of Lincoln's passing? Secretary Stanton said:
"NOW HE BELONGS TO THE AGES."
BUILDERS OF THE CUP DEFENDERS
T HOUGH Rhode Island, up through the middle of the 19th century, was almost predominantly a maritime state, history and historians have been more prone to elabor- ate upon the achievements of the stalwart men who sailed and commanded her ships than upon those who built them. Yet there are two shipbuilding firms, one whose star has set but another whose star is still in its zenith, whose names should never be omitted from the annals of Rhode Island, and even national, history.
The greatest Rhode Island shipbuilding firm of the past, and one which was among the most important in all the colonies, was Brown & Ives of Providence. It was an out- growth of the shipbuilding and commercial house begun back in the 1720's by James and Obadiah Brown and carried on by the four Brown brothers, Nicholas, Joseph, John, and Moses. Joseph Brown later with- drew to pursue philosophical studies, and John Brown also left the firm to establish his own shipbuilding and merchant com- pany. The latter soon took as a partner Thomas Poynton Ives, who was also the first president of the Providence Institution for Savings, and thus the name Brown & Ives came into existence. For many years this great firm built ships that carried goods to all parts of the world, and established the names of Rhode Island and the Provi- dence in distant foreign ports.
The other Rhode Island boatbuilding company, which we have mentioned, is the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company of
Bristol, and it is of this company that we shall speak at length. Little has been writ- ten about the Herreshoffs, those men who have given Rhode Island the lead in yacht design and perfection. As a family they have been characteristically reticent, pre- ferring to let their proud and graceful yachts be their proxies in receiving all acclaim. But there is an unusual tale of the development of their genius that should not be left to linger longer in obscurity.
Charles Frederick Herreshoff, the founder of the family in America, came to Rhode Island in 1790 from his native land, Ger- many. Inasmuch as "Herr" in German is the same as our common title "Mr." it is very probable that at one time the surname of the family was either Shoff or Eshoff and that American colloquialism was long ago responsible for the name as it is now known. This man was an engineer by pro- fession but had the additional accomplish- ments of being both an excellent linguist and a talented musician. Because of his versatile ability he was invited to the home of John Brown almost immediately upon his arrival in the colony, beginning a friendship with the famous Rhode Islander that resulted not only in the entrance of the young German into the firm of Brown & Ives but also in his marriage (after an eleven year courtship) to John Brown's daughter, Sarah.
The son of this union, named for the father, was born in 1809, and in the course of time married Julia Ann Lewis, the
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daughter of a Boston sea captain who then held the record for ocean crossing in a sailing vessel. Thus, the nine children of Charles Frederick Herreshoff, Jr., and his wife Julia Ann were born with a strong percentage of maritime blood in their veins. And it was this generation of Herreshoffs that was destined to revolutionize all yacht designing and building and give to the world vessels whose like had never before been seen, among them the "Vigilant" and the rest of that long line of successful de- fenders of the America's Cup.
The story of the Herreshoff Company must start with John Brown Herreshoff. At the time of his birth in 1841, the Herres- hoffs were living at Point Pleasant. He showed a great deal of energy and ambition for a boy, having his own rope walk, work- shop, and foot lathe. It was natural that his dominant interest should have been in boats. It was in his blood, and in addition it was stimulated by the activities of his father, who had considerable of a reputa- tion as an amateur boat builder. At the age of fourteen John B. was at work on his first boat, a little craft which he was building for his own use, when an accident totally deprived him of his eyesight.
Such a fateful handicap would have dis- couraged many a more mature individual, but the boy only passed through a brief period of despondency before taking hold on things once more and setting out to fin- ish his boat. Of course his father and other brothers helped him a good deal, but it is remarkable how quickly he learned to man- age without eyesight and to perform much of the work himself. Soon he was making fresh plans and continuing with his ambi- tions just as though nothing had happened.
About this time the Herreshoffs moved across the bay to Bristol, and John B. had greater opportunities to continue with his boat-building and mechanical work. He constructed a new and longer rope walk, fitted up a larger workshop in a room ad- joining his father's house, and very shortly took over another large room for boat building. With the increased facilities of four lathes, one power-driven, he set about building several craft, but his first triumph came when he was eighteen. At that age he built the catboat "Sprite" which turned out to be the fastest boat on the Bay. Not sat-
isfied with this achievement, he constructed a larger craft, 26 feet long, which he named the "Kelpie." This vessel was directly responsible for the founding of the Herre- shoff Manufacturing Company, for after having had a race with Thomas Clapham and beaten him, John B. received from this famous yachtsman an order for a new yacht to be built along the lines of the victorious "Kelpie." With the building of this yacht in 1863, there began the industry which has since attained such great fame.
Bristol was a logical place for an in- dustry of this sort to have its home. From Bristol had come many of the noted old time mariners who made history with their daring voyages, among whom were Simeon Potter, "Nor'west John" DeWolf, John Willard Russell, Mark Anthony DeWolf, and Benjamin Churchill. And Bristol had been a ship-building town as well. Many of the square-riggers, schooners, sloops, packets, and whalers which sailed out of Narragansett Bay were launched from its shores.
The commission of Thomas Clapham was not the only one which John B. had to fulfill, and he secured the "Old Tannery" as a shop and hired enough men to start his industry. In his first year of work he launched not only a new "Qui Vive" for Clapham but eight other boats as well. By 1865 he took as partner, Dexter S. Stone and changed the name of his young com- pany to Herreshoff and Stone. But the name was changed back again when Mr. Stone withdrew two years later.
Lumber was hard to procure in those days, and John B. decided to have a saw- mill of his own and cut his own lumber as he needed it. For this purpose he bought the old building of the Burnside Rifle Com- pany, located at 100 yards from his boat- shop, and fitted it with power planers and saws. The second floor of this building he converted into a shop for the building of small open boats, but discarded this enter- prise very soon after he had started it.
By 1866 John B. had settled down to the business of building larger yachts and schooners. These were all sailing vessels up to 1868, but in that year he constructed his first steamer, the "Annie Morse." Two years later he built the "Seven Brothers" for the Church brothers of Tiverton, and it
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was this vessel which was the pioneer fish- ing steamer on the Atlantic Coast. For these two vessels the machinery had been bought, but for the next, the steam launch "Anemone" the plans and designs were made by Nathaniel Greene Herreshoff who was then employed as a draftsman for the Corliss Steam Engine Company. Taking his brother's plans, John B. then built the engines in his own shop.
During the next few years the business turned almost entirely to the building of steam craft and their subsidiary machin- ery. In 1874, another Herreshoff brother, James B., invented a new sort of tubular boiler which proved successful in all ex- periments. Four years later the "Estelle," a gunboat, was built, creating no end of excitement in Bristol for it turned out that Cuban insurgents were her buyers and the Federal Government immediately seized her after her first trial run.
In the same year, 1878, Nathaniel Greene Herreshoff left the Corliss Steam Engine Company and joined his fortunes with those of John B. Then the business truly pro- gressed. Both men were geniuses in their line. Occasionally Nathaniel would build a sailing vessel for his own diversion, but during the early eighties the company con- tinued work on steam vessels, making many important experiments with engines and boilers that were of inestimable value to the maritime world.
New additions had to be made to the ex- isting shops, special foundries for building boilers and machinery and larger shops for constructing the hulls themselves. The "Old Tannery" had to give way to a newer struc- ture, and the whole aspect of the plant changed. When there were contracts to fill in the nineties for the U. S. Navy, which included the building of several torpedo boats, even more room was needed. It was impossible to stop work then going on in order to make alterations in the plant as it stood, so a new building was constructed right over and around the old Burnside Rifle building, involving the very minimum of delay.
In 1898 and 1890 a sail loft and a new foundry for iron, brass, and lead castings were added. And in the latter year there was a return to the building of sailing yachts when the Herreshoffs were commis-
sioned to build two yawls for Commodore E. D. Morgan. Soon the "Gloriana" was built for Commodore Morgan from new de- signs of N. G. Herreshoff and proved over- whelmingly successful as a racing sloop
In 1891 Nathaniel conceived and built the first yacht with a metal plate keel and heavy lead bulb, beginning an era of fin- keel yachts. Other orders for large yachts began to come in during the following year, and then, during the winter of 1892-93, the Herreshoff Company went to work on two trial sloops for the international races with Great Britain for the America's Cup. Both sloops, the "Colonia" and the "Vigilant," were completed that winter and in the spring of '93 were ready for the water. In the trials the "Vigilant" proved superior to her sister sloop and was entered in the international race which she won easily, defending the America's Cup successfully.
She was the first of a line of victorious cup defender yachts to be built by the Herreshoffs, a line whose unvarying suc- cess has carried the name of this Bristol boatbuilding company all over the world. In two years the second one was designed and built. She was the "Defender," a rac- ing sloop of 90 foot water line with many new novelties in both hull design and rigging. Four years later the "Columbia" was launched and was victorious in the in- ternational races of both 1899 and 1901. The "Reliance" followed in 1903, and then there was a long interval before the "Reso- lute" was sailed to victory in 1920. She had been launched about four years earlier, but the World War caused a postponement of all races. Last of all, and still fresh in the memories of all Rhode Islanders, is the victory of the "Enterprise," built in 1930 and the winner of four out of seven races off Newport with Sir Thomas Lipton's "Shamrock V."
These were the leading boats turned out by this Rhode Island organization, but from 1900 on the Herreshoffs were busier than ever before. Into Bristol harbor they launched scores of vessels, ranging in size from small sailing craft to large steam yachts. And in all this they have main- tained all the old traditions of the famous Rhode Island seaport ... traditions of fine sailing ships, built and sailed on every sea and into every port.
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John Brown Herreshoff, the blind founder and president of the company died in 1915, and Nathaniel carried on the work alone. Then for a number of years a syndi- cate took over the business, until it was finally sold to a group of nationally promi- nent yachtsmen headed by Mr. R. F. Haf- fenreffer who now controls the destinies of the company.
Such, then, is the story of this great Rhode Island boat-building company, begun back
in 1863 and still continuing to turn out scores of superb sailing and power craft every year. "Ship-shape and Bristol fash- ion" was high praise in the maritime world during the days when men like Simeon Pot- ter and "Nor'west John" sailed square- riggers out of Bristol. The phrase might well be revived and used in high approba- tion of the beautiful new successors of the old time sailing craft ... the yachts built by Herreshoff in Rhode Island.
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