A NAUTICAL DISCOVERY

 Looking casually through a throw-away ad in New York, I saw a description of an ancient wooden yacht for sale for $2,000.  I went to Passaic, New Jersey and bought it.  It was 41 feet long and at the widest, 12 feet,and was composed of three sections of white cedar wood.  The engine was a 1925 Universal eight cylinder, replacing the 1890 one cylinder naptha engine of origin.

  Eventually, I found it to be the Admiral’s Gig from the battleship MAINE, destroyed in an explosion in 1898 by a sailor smoking in a powder magazie but used by Teddy Roosevelt as an excuse to charge the Spanish with blowing up the MAINE.

  At any rate, this small ship had survived the bringing of Admiral Sampson and other officers from the sinking MAINE into Havana in 1898.

  I put a modern Chrysler Crown engine in her, and had many good local voyages, before sailing her from New York to Chicago through the canals and lakes.

  My good friend Barbara Simons accompanied me from Buffalo to Chicago.

  We anchored in the night in a shipping channel, and escaped being run down by a steel monster ship on her way to the auto manufacturers.

  At this point,I’d like to read to you her ships log:

  SHIP:  the ELIZA PEARSON

Built:  US Navy yard, Brooklyn 1892

Construction:  thrice laminated white cedar

Power:  Original one-cylinder Naptha, now 8 cylinder Chrysler

  Put aboard battleship MAINE 1893

Battheship MAINE destroyed 1898, she took survivors ashore at Havana.

  Served in World War I as admirals gig

  Bought after World War I by Carleton Potts, exCommander USN

  1959:  Potts sold her to William Walton Cobbs II ex-US Navy WWII

  Cobbs restored her at Nyack Marine Services Nyack NY

Used as personal yacht by Cobbs family

  Sailed up Hudson River march 1961 to entry to cross-country canals

 Sailed to Buffalo NY

  Picked up June 12th at Buffalo and sailed to Chicago.

Rested at Chicago until 1968

Sold BACK to Navy in 1968 and put in view at Mystic Connecticut in Naval Museum

  In Chicago, I berthed her at the Yacht Club and later at a private mooring and took her into Lake Michigan whenever the time permitted.

  In her interior she had four bunks in a stateroom aft  and a large tiller as well as a wheel in the wheelhouse.

All furnishing was from her days with the MAINE and brass, brass, brass everywhere..

  We could navigate the Chicago river and stop at a good restaurant which served you from a small dock.

She became the darling of the water set.

  Finally, we discovered the history of the ELIZA PEARSON (named after my grandmother} and the U.S. Navy repurchased her and put her in the Marine museum in Mystic, Connecticut.

  Incidentally, many stories took place during our ownership.

  Cruising off New Jersey with my wife and five children aboard and having a small speedboat on davits on our ship, we spied an elderly gentleman stuck in a small day sailer on the Jersey mud flats.

  With the dingy, we pulled him out and towed him to his home and mooring.

  He  was Dr. Albert Einstein, the famous physicist, and said not a word to us on the short journey, only nodding thanks at the end of the trip!

  Many other sailing stories graced the great old vessel, and we miss her like an only child disappeared!