Cutler's museum vision caught on in San Francisco in the late 1940s.
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meetings. There were, in time, others told him there were two of them, wooden Cutler, the president of the upcoming who joined the work. built and still bark-rigged in San Fran- world' s fair on Treasure Island, urging Buildings were donated (hi storic, but cisco in my day , Emily F. Whitney and that the splendid old downeaster St. Paul, run-down), land was donated, and col- Pactolus, and another, the Charles B. the last of her kind left afloat and rigged on lections .... Carl describes a scene w hich Kenney, an unused tow barge. The masts this coast, be brought here for the Exposiis fa mili ar: of the Pactolus and Whitney were fe lled tion . Neither effort worked. At the Golden " ... there was no heat and it was hard by ship breakers in 1939 and the Pactolus Gate International exposition, when it hapto get an opportunity to paint and fix the was immediately burned for her metal; pened, I lamented all the "plaster" and a building up. It took a long time to do it. the Whitney survived until December of splendid little harbor there unused. Mrs. Cutler and our children used to come 1940 before being put to the torch. Like Diary, at the fair, March 1, 1939: up and we would scrnb and paint by the the Packard, they made it to the end of the "My idea of an exposition here would hour. There was a lot of floor to cover and decade-barely. Cari told me that he had be less plaster and land structures and a lot of wall to go over, and we had to put made a voyage to New Zealand in 1898 in instead a lagoon running into the heart of two coats on everything. After that was one of these vessels, the wooden bark the island with a dozen historic ship types done I began to get our ship half-models Alice, built in Weymouth, Massachusetts, anchored in it, San Francisco bay scow and ship pictures on the walls." schooners running expeditions in beAll maritime mu seums start out tween the mighty windships and each the same, it seems. Or most of them. day the majestic ceremony of a little I have photographs of my wife Jean paddle tug passing the line aboard a busy with the paint brush amongst different ship, the crew manning the our vo lunteers. I recall Norma capstan with a chantey sung out across Stanford busy with the brush at South the waters, the anchor rising ... and Street Seaport in 1967. the sh ip getting under way and being The Charles W. Morgan made towed to a replica of a picturesque old Mystic famous, and after the war CutSan Francisco dock .... " ler added another square 1igger, the It was appropriate that Mystic was one of the levers I used in 1949 Joseph Conrad. In California I was enormously stirred by all this, and to get the San Francisco museum Carl Cutler and I corresponded about project in motion . Reprints of an illustrated article about Mystic in the retrieving theKaiulani, by then a barge in the Philippines, for his harbor scene, Saturday Evening Post became my but it was not to be. At other times we selling tool. After tries with a society weighed the Star of India, then lanfigure, Mrs. Spreckels, and with the guishing without much hope in San Mayor failed, I tried once again. Third Diego, and the Constellation. time ' s the charm , as my grandmother Cutler told me in 1960 that the used to say. Third time was Scott vessel that he would really liked to New hall , an ed itor at the San Franhave saved was the Benjamin F. cisco Chronicle, and his response Packard, a full-rigged American ship was mag nificent. He not only enbuilt in Bath, Maine, in 1883, and until After working to save the C harl es W. Morgan, Cutler dorsed the idea, but, year after year, the year 1900 engaged in the Cape told Kortum that he really wanted to save the Benjamin supplied his own brains and energy F. Packard, but there was "too much wood" in her. The Horn trade. By 1939 she was in use as truth ofthat statement is evident in this photo ofPackard 's to get the project properly launched . a dance ha!I in Long Island Sound, the shapely transom and stern taken at the Todd Dry Dock But then, he was a sailor. His brother last intact "downeaster" wi thin reach in Seattle in 1921. Hall Newhall had been in thefo'c's ' le and close to being the last one anyof the Kaiulani with me. We had a similar success with the where. But Cutler said that he had to back in 188 1. In his letters he would mention away fro m her-he was obliged to be his time as a sailor with some pride. restoration of the Balclutha and used it as practical and not overly stretch the reCutler's museum vis ion caught on in an example to widen ship preservation sources of a small museum. There was San Francisco. Back in the mid ' 40s worldwide. Over the decades we have "too much wood" (that perishable sub- when I first learned that he had acq uired successfully urged ship preservation in stance) in the 2 156-ton Packard. a second square rigger, the little Joseph Honolulu, Bristol, Melbourne, Sydney, The Morgan' s tonnage was 3 13 . Conrad, on the way toward creation of New York and Galveston. Each place So the Packard was short! y afterward an old-time New E ngland seaport, my now has a vessel with square yards crossed. towed out into Long Island Sound and juices were set to flowing . The widening of interest in such scuttled . She was the last " American On the West Coast I had been similarly projects is like rippl es from a pebble cast ship" (in the old formal usage) but one, distressed by the passing of the sailing in a pond-and the pebble was Carl St. Paul. Both had the ship rig sti ll largely ship. In thesummerof 1937 I tried to trade Cutler' s (and Harry Neyland 's and Col. in place. "Downeaster" is a more catchy our Petaluma Sea Scout barge for the Green ' s and Clifford Mallory ' s) whalelabeling than "American ship" and I barkentine City of Papeete out of the sh ip. But it is more than a pebble; the have always liked it, but I gather that it is pages of Robert Louis Stevenson, with an granite of New England is to be fo und in coll oq ui al and akin to slang. We talked idea to preserve her. The previous year I Carl C utler' s fa ith that America was at that day in Mystic about downeasters ; I had written a six page letter to Leland its best when it was upon the sea. t SEA HISTORY 72, WINTER 1994-95
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