new sails by hand on the dock in Providence, using the tradition al skills of needl e and sail palm. By the 1960s, Ernestina was tired. Although she was still sailing a hundred trips a year beMoored to pan ice in the Bering Sea, Stoll McCracken Expedition, 1928 rween the islands, she made only one rounding veterans, the Effie trip voyage to New England. She began M. Morrissey had some hogging and her decks were totally worn / hard times after the war. down. Captain Mendes could no longer I Captain Bartlett died in afford her maintenance costs. So valuable 1946. His ship was sold. was her service, however, that the Cape Then she caught fire in Verdean governm ent stepped in and paid New York and sank from for $25,000 of repairs in 1963. Her frames, the water flooding her keel sections, and hull timbers were reb uilt hold from fire hoses. Fo r in 1972 and she sailed commercially for most vessels, this wo uld rwo more yea rs. have been the end of the lin e. For the Effie In 1976, under the auspices of the The schooner logged 200 miles in rwenry M. Morrissey, it was just the prelude to her National Maritime Historical Society, hours (under just the foresail for the last fourth career. the Friends of the Ernestina/Morrissey was A veteran sea captain in the Cape formed to raise funds for acquiring and reeight). Even today, with a fresh breeze blowing, sailing aboard her is like riding a Verdean packet trade bought her, repaired storing the ship and planning for her fu and restored the ship. H e took out the en- ture. A yea r later the Government of Cape freight train . By the 1920s, the Effie M. Morrissey gine and set sail for the Cape Verde Islands Verde offi cially gave the ship back to the made her way to the Canadian Mari times. off the west coast of Africa carrying sevenry US as an expression of good will to honor Luckily for the local cod, she didn't stay to ns of cargo. H e registered the schooner the ties berween the rwo countries and Erlong. In 1924, Captai n Robert Bartlett, in Cape Verde and re-named her Ernestina nestina's role in it. Cape Verdeans worked by th en a fa mous ship captain, navigato r, in honor of his then-teenage daughter. For locally to restore the vessel to a seaworthy and arctic explorer decided it was time for the next quarter century the Ernestina- condition to make the passage back to the the Effie M. Morrissey to change careers. under sail power alone-carried cargo and H e sheath ed her hull with greenheart and passengers amongst the islands and across install ed her first diesel engine. For rwenry the Atl antic to New England. The stories of her tra nsatlantic voyages years, the Morrissey was an explorer. Sailing from New York C iry, she was home to ex- include details that give us a glimpse into peditions of American Museum of Natural the realities of our nation's immigratio Histo ry, the Museum of the American In- policies and rwentiethth-century seafardian, the National Geographic Sociery, the ing, making these histories real and perSmithso nian, and others. T he ship's com- sonal. For example, the ship, sailing wit pany conducted experiments and stud- no auxiliary power, endured coundes ies in oceanography, anthropology, and gales and hurricanes. She was dismasted arM•~ brought back countless samples of Arctic least rwice-once a crewmem ber rowed a plants and an imals. In 1940-at nearly small boat ten miles to shore to get help. fifry-she set yet another record. Bartlett Some passages we re torturously slow at 54 steered his ship to 80° 22' north latitude, days across the Atlantic; others took hal under 600 miles from the North Pole. No that long. For Cape Verdean com munities in woode n sailing vessel had ever-or would southern New England, Ernestina providever-co me so close to the Pole. During World War II , the Effie M. ed, for many, their only links to family and Morrissey, naturally enough, enlisted. She homeland an ocean away. People regularly carried suppli es to Arctic naval and air flocked by the hundreds to greet the ship bases and made a number of hydrogra phi c when it arrived in port after a transAtlanresearch missions. Like many return- tic. In the 1950s, crew mem bers still built
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SEA HISTORY J06, WINTER 2004