raffiques & Discoveries In which we share the joys of learning new things about the sea and seafaring, in the spirit of Richard Hakluyt's Principall Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation, first published in 1589. Crossing the Bar
"South Ferry (IRT 1905)"
This poem, a favorite of NMHS Founder Karl Kortum, was read at his memorial service aboard Balclutha of 1886 in San Francisco on 27 October and, on 8 December across the country in New York, aboard the Pioneer of 1885 at a memorial service for NMHS Honorary Trustee Richard Rath.
Member Jim Dempsey from Long Island, New York, recently sent us a card depicting this art from the South Ferry station of the New York City IRT subway line. So maritime history enters and flourishes in our modem culture, even in underground ways. If our readers find other depictions of maritime themes in everyday places, we welcome photographs for inclusion in a future Sea History.
Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar, When I put out to sea,
"South Ferry (!RT 1905)" from Subway Ceramics by Lee Stookey
But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam, When that which drew from out the boundless deep Tums again home. Twilight and evening bell , And after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark;
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For tho ' from out our boume of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crost the bar. -Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1889)
Defending the World's Longest Unarmed Frontier After the sweeping American naval victories on Lakes Erie and Champlain in the War of 1812, it is not generally appreciated that the British gained control of Lake Ontario just before the war ended, through launching the three-deck ship-of-the-line St. Lawrence in October 1814. In response, the US started construction of a very powerful 120-gun line-ofbattle ship--the USS New Orleans. Her hull , framed up and largely planked before peace was declared, stood on the ways at Sackett's Harbor, watching over Lake Ontario on the longest unarmed frontier of the world, as the decades of peaceful interchange between Canada and the United States rolled by. This ghostly remnant of the age of fighting sail stood in Sackett's Harbor into the 1880s, in a world where steampropelled warships, encased in heavy armor, carried guns that would have demolished the most powerful wooden man-ofwar in a matter of minutes. (Information from Canada' s Maritime Magazine, December 1995; photo from the US Naval Historical Center) 34
SEA HISTORY 80, WINTER 1996-97