Harry 's seafaring career began in sailing ships like the Oaklands (above). He remembered sailing her through the entrance to Port Stanley, Falkland Islands (below). Painting by J. Steven Dews, 1976.
Pacific and probably the most powerful man on the waterfront. Lundeberg, who had been a militant union organizer most of his life, was not noted for his charm. He listened glumly to Kortum's account of the difficulties over the Balclutha, then, without committing himself, promised to attend the meeting that afternoon. He showed up on time, brushed past the startled shipp ing magnates who were present and sat silently by while the leader of the
Balclutha opposition made a speech suggesting that it was folly to spend all that money for an old ship that didn't even have any scrap value. ''When Lunde berg finally stood up to speak it was in a vein that none of the steamship men had ever heard from him. 'The scrap value is no way to set a price for the last great sailing ship left on the Coast,' he said softly. Then he went on to point out that the Balclutha was a reminder of the city's maritime history, of what the port had once been, of the spirit that would make it that way again. He said he had spent twelve years in sai l and had a deep personal interest in the whole project. "Then Lundeberg sat down, there was a stunned silence, and the man sitting next to Kortum whispered, 'Have you got this guy wired?' Kortum was too relieved to answer. The committee [Board] voted to continue the chase with Mrs. Kissinger."
A few weeks later she yielded, and the Museum acquired the Balclutha from Frank Kissinger' s widow for $25,000 borrowed. Harry was crucial to Museum affairs a fourth time, in 1955, when he sent a letter to Governor Knight launching the "schooner projects," to bring in the threemaster C.A. Thayer and the steam sc hooner Wapama. We were after $200,000 of state money for this project, which later turned into the State Maritime Park . The money was to be appropriatead from tideland oil royalties returned to California by President E isenhower. These funds constituted a $65 million melon to be split up in the state capitol for new parks, monuments, etc . Competition up and down California for this money was intense. Lundeberg's letter to the Governor began: ''As you know, ships played a very large part in the development of our state." He continued, warming up: "Last fall, the Maritime Museum Association pointed out to the State's historical people SEA HISTORY, FALL 1980
that a representative steam schooner and a handsome little three-masted lumber schooner, both directly out of California's history, were still afloat and available for preservation and restoration . ... But the State Park Commission man wouldn't even discuss it with our people-the maritime angle just didn't register." The letter concluded by asking for early action, "because the bill is already in the hopper and bureaucratic resistance has a way of building up if given time to do so." Lundeberg's weight accounted for half of our success in this campaign; the other half was the go-ahead attitude of Hugh Gallagher, Matson executive, then museum president, who saw that a bill was put in the hopper at Sacramento, and Stanley Dollar, Jr., who used his old Piedmont family connections to reach and persuade Joseph Knowland, chairman of the State Parks Commission. Knowland was
publisher of the Oakland Tribune. His father had operated schooners in the lumber trade.* The fifth time Harry stepped in was when the crunch was coming in the State Captitol about whether a Ferry Building Park project or the schooner bill was going to pull into favored position. The matter was going to be decided on April 29, 1955 , in a meeting in Sacramento . . . Harry couldn 't go but he gave me permission the day before to sit down with Miss Lenz, his secretary, and work up a batch of Lundeberg-type telegrams to the Governor and to half a dozen assemblymen and our state senator. Dave Nelson, my colleague, was aghast at my militant wording but I figured it might have an effect on the opposition the following day. The point is: Lundeberg was willing to send them. We were up against the City: the Mayor and the Harbor Commission and the
*Among the vessels in which the senior Know/and owned shares was the four-masted schooner H. D. Bendixsen. When the State Park Commission had before them the Maritime Museum's proposal that the lumber schooner C.A. Thayer (a Bendixsen-built three-masted schooner) be preserved, he was wont to reminisce about his father's flotilla. Mr. Know/and spoke in a low old voice and with a twinkle in his eye: "You know my father liked to name his schooners for girls ... but we never knew who the girls were." Some of the Know/and schooners; Norma, Una , Mary & Ivy , Beulah, Lily, Loui se, Lucy, Sadie, Alvena, Caroline Irene.
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