(telescope 25C VOL. 5 JANUARY 1956 NO. I ” s sassssBasBBassssssss^sssi saaasaaaagsaBaaaaaaaaaaaasaaaaaaaa U.S. YANTIC This picture shows the Yantic pretty much as she appeared when she came to the Great Lakes. Only her top-sail yards have been removed. Later her fore, main and mizzen masts, each with its own top-mast, were removed and two pole masts installed instead. Her bowsprit and jib boom were sawdd off, her smoke stack, and ventilators raised, and an ungainly superstructure built to replace a very uncomfortable open navigator's bridge. A spar deck was added, with additional deck houses on top of that, rendering her forever incapable of again setting a single piece of canvas. Beginning on page 3 you may read the life story of this fine old vessel which was known in every port on the Great Lakes fifty or more years ago. R # H. Davison, J.F,. Johnston, (H rlra m p r PUBLISHED BY Editor: Associate Editor G reat L a k es M o d e l S hipbuilders' G uild Membership $3*00 BILL! ISLE DKTHOIT 7, MICHIGAN Subscription $2.^0 Supported in part by the Detroit Historical Society. EDITORIAL LEST WE FORGET Recognition for service to society can only be evaluated in terms of what has We have built a wonderful world. A won­ gone on before. The preservation of what derful push-button world, of ease and com­ has gone on before, we call history, and fort, and wealth beyond the dreams of men history is Society’s memory and the mother of a hundred years ago, or even eighty of Society’s tradition. Without traditions years ago when the first iron-hull bulk no society has prospered. carrier began an era the end of which we While we have been developing a push­ cannot yet see. Out of the economies that button world, what have we been producing stemmed from modern methods of transporta­ in the way of men. Marquette, and Jackson, tion,* and manufacturing technique, b u t hold part of the answer, in Michigan. I principally transportation techniques, ask you: Had those men there, at Marquette since manufactures, without transportation and at Jackson possessed honorable tradi­ are of little value. tions to live up to, would they be where What we, as a community, and as a nation they are today? owe to Great Lakes Shipping men is beyond Our traditions shape our code of ethics, computation. SURE - they have all been and unless we preserve traditions, and paid well for their services. Some of them histories, of the good and the great, we have amassed millions for their contribu­ are in danger of losing goodness and tion to progress. Let us be grateful for greatness. a form of government, and a way of life, Somehow, a very important part o'f our that permits such things. But you know, national history has almost passed un­ as I know, that money alone is poor pay noticed - - the history of the development for a life of service. The greatest remu­ of shipping on the Great Lakes. We have a neration, the most satisfying recompense literature on the winning of the West; on for service is recognition. the California Gold Rush, and that of the There is no man with soul so dead that Klondike. We have a literature on the At­ he is not made a better man for having re­ lantic seaboard colonies, and on the South ceived for his life*s work,the recognition but where is our literature on the Great of his fellow man. Deny him that and he, Lakes Region, and what would our United of necessity, turns to material rewards, States be without this region. Pause a and material rewards only, as a self­ moment and reflect upon this, will you justification. please. See page 16. THE GUI ID ORGANIZED IN 1952 TO LOCATE. ACQUIRE. AND PRESERVE INFORMATION AND OBJECTS RELATED TO THE HISTORY OF SHIPPING ON THE GREAT LAKES AND TO MAKE SAME AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC THROUGH THE MUSEUM OF GREAT LAKES HISTORY AND THE COLUMNS OF TELESCOPE. THE CONSTRUCTION OF AUTHENTIC SCALE MODELS OF GREAT LAKES SHIPS IS ONE OF THE PRIME OBJECTIVES OF THE ORGANIZATION. WHICH HAS BROUGHT INTO BEING THE LARGEST EXISTING COLLECTION OF MODELS OF THESE SHIPS. THE MUSEUM OF GREAT LAKES HISTORY. LOCATED ON THE SHORE OF BELLE ISLE. IN DETROIT. IS OFFICIAL HEADQUARTERS FOR THE ORGANIZATION AND THE REPOSITORY OF ALL OF ITS HOLDINGS. THE GUILD IS INCORPORATED AS AN ORGANIZATION FOR NO PROFIT UNDER THE LAWS OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN. NO MEMBER RECEIVES ANY COMPENSATION FOR HIS SERVICES. DONATIONS TO THE GUILD ARE DEDUCTIBLE FOR TAX INCOME PURPOSES. ------ ----la . a n w ...aw I fay OFFICERS Robert L.Ruhl.......... President John K.Helgesen.Sr Vice President Joseph E.Johnston, Secy-Treas. DIRECTORS Robert H.Davison....... .Ferndale. Walter Massey,......LaSalle,Ontario. John F.Miller,... Grosse Pointe . Leo M.Flagler, Windsor.Ontario. Carl G.Ammon, Detroit. Frank Slyker,......... East Detroit. The "Yantic" died of old age. sailor made his first obeisance Quietly and painlessly, during to the flag as he stepped over one of the autumn gales, her her side. brave soul fled. Specifically, In her younger days, she was a she sank at her dock, without reigning belle in the Navy. She warning and in five minutes was designed as a yacht for time. Even the august naval President Lincoln and she had board that investigated t h e the lines of a yacht— with a sinking could assign no cause well deck and plenty of sheer. for it. Since boards of inquiry She made her debut as a bark, are not sentimental, this one with towering masts and wide- could not report that she died spreading yards. The day she when her time came just as old slipped down the Delaware River men die. Lieut. Com. Richard T. from her birthplace in Philadel­ Brodhead, commanding the Mich­ phia, with all her kites flying, igan Naval Reserve, holds the old sailors said that she was opinion that one of the large the prettiest thing that had concrete blocks dumped over­ ever been seen in those waters. board, when the city was clear­ That was in 1864. The Navy ing off the land near the Belle needed ships more than President Isle bridge approach, purchased Lincoln needed a yacht when she for park purposes, slid down in­ was ready to be commissioned and to her slip and punctured her her destinies were suddenly side as she weaved and wallowed changed. Instead of serving as in the storm. What difference an occasional refuge for the does it make, since she is gone? tired man in the White House, Even conceding the fact that it she was sent to join the fleet. was a concrete block that punch­ Of course, she wasn’t considered ed the hole through which the a big ship even in those days as river claimed her, the theory she was only 186 feet long with that she died of old age still 32 feet of beam. But she had holds good, since only because pivot guns fore and aft and some her timbers had rotted away from lighter guns on the broadside the inside in her long years of and, as gunboats went, she was a service could this be possible. formidable vessel. For 65 years the "Yantic" had She got her baptism of fire in served the United States Navy the attack on Fort Fisher and faithfully and well. The Seven even the great Admiral David Seas had known her; there was Dixon Porter said that she was a scarcely a port of the world smart ship. She participated in that she had not visited. Born some other minor engagements as in the stirring days of the Civ­ a member of the North Atlantic, il War and built of stout live blockading squadron under Porter African Oak, she had a heritage and though she wasn't built un­ of courage and stamina. She had til the third year of the war, lived through three wars but had she was able to consider herself heard the screech of hostile a real veteran when Lee surrend­ shells in only one of these, for ered. she was sequestered on the Great With the end of the war, she Lakes during the Spanish -Ameri­ settled down to the routine but can War and World War I. But never monotonous duties of a though she did not smell powder naval vessel in time of peace. in these latter wars, she did From time to time she was assign­ her part, for she was used to ed to every station that the train recruits. Many a gallant Navy knows. Now she would be 4 Greely, it will be remembered, tossing in a North Atlantic attained the farthest north point then on record in May, gale; again riding a typhoon in the China Sea. She knew the 1882,when he reached 83 degrees, blistering heat of the equator 24 minutes. His expedition suf­ and the pitiless cold of the fered terrible hardships after arctic circle. Her officers and it had gone closer to the north men were true cosmopolites, for pole than anyone else ever had their lot might be thrown either penetrated, and when rescued in in one of the gay capitals of 1884, the party had lost 18 of Europe or on a coral atoll in 25 men. The "Yantic" did not actually find the survivors, the South Pacific. The "Yantic" always had steam that honor falling to the "Bear" power but in her heyday mostly commanded by William H.