CHAPTER I
THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP
Just half a century had elapsed since, cutting down the virgin forestto make room for the ways, they laid her keel blocks in the clearing.With the cunning brain of Henry Eckford, one of the greatest of ourshipbuilders, to plan, and the skilful hands of the New Englandshipwrights to execute, with timber cut by the sturdy woodsmen fromwhere it stood in the forest, the giant frames rose apace, untilpresently, in an incredibly short time, there stood upon Ship HousePoint a mighty vessel ready for the launching.
Ship House Point--so called from the ship--was a long ridge of landsloping gently down from a low hill and extending far out into LakeOntario. It helped to enclose on one side a commodious lake havenknown in that day, and ever since, as Sewell's Harbor, from old GeorgeSewell, a hunter, fisherman, innkeeper, and trader, who had settledthere years before.
Thither, in the busy warlike days of 1813-14, had resorted dashingnaval officers in their ruffled shirts, heavily laced blue coats, withtheir huge cocked hats, skin-tight kersey pantaloons, and tasselledhalf boots. In their wake rolled ancient tars in blue shirts andflowing trousers, their mouths full of strange oaths and tales ofdistant seas; some of the older veterans among them still wearingtheir hair in the time-honored pigtail of an already disappearing age.
On the bluff across the harbor mouth, and just opposite to Ship HousePoint, a rude log fort had been erected in 1812, a central block-houseand a surrounding stockade, mounting a few inconsiderable pieces ofartillery. From a tall staff on the parade the stars and stripesfluttered in the wind, and nodded in amicable salute toward a similarensign which the patriotic builders had hoisted on the Point.
Government storehouses filled with munitions and supplies of variouskinds, both for the naval forces on the lakes and for the armiesdesigned for the long projected invasion of Canada likewise, stoodback of the wharves crowded with the miscellaneous shipping of thesuddenly thriving little town. Soldiers from the fort, therefore, inblue and gray uniforms mingled with the ship-carpenters, wood-cutters,pioneers, sailors, and traders, and the spot speedily became one ofthe busiest in the then far Northwest.
Sometimes in the offing the white sails of the English or Americansquadrons could be seen, and on the summer days from the distanthorizon might have been heard the dull boom of cannon telling a taleof some spirited engagement. And more than once thereafter amelancholy and shattered ship brought in a ghastly cargo of dead,dying, and wounded, the care of which heavily taxed the resources ofthe community; and the women of the village--for there were womenthere from the beginning--had grim lessons, learned sometimes throughbreaking hearts, that war was a more serious business than the gayofficers, the bright uniforms, the beautiful flags, and the braveships had indicated.
The town had sprung into being around Sewell's store and tavern, amidall these activities and undertakings, almost as if by magic--quite asthe great ship had risen on the shore, in truth. Men did things in ahurry in those days, and no one was much surprised when, some thirtydays after the keel was laid, the indefatigable Eckford informed stoutold Commodore Chauncey, the American commander on the lakes, that the_Susquehanna_--for so the ship-of-the-line which was to establishfinally the American preponderance of force over the British on LakeOntario was called--was ready for launching, and great preparationswere made in the very early spring of 1815 for this important andinteresting ceremony.
A few days before the appointed time, however, there came to theimpatient commodore, the persevering builder, and the busy workmena messenger bearing a heartrending despatch, long delayed intransmission, from the Secretary of the Navy. That official announcedthat the war was over, that peace with England had been declared atthe close of the preceding year, and directed that the preparationsfor launching and completing the vessel must be at once abandoned. Itwas a sore grief to Eckford and his fellow-shipwrights, a greatdisappointment to Chauncey and his brave seamen, and a terrible blowto the thriving town. It had grown and flourished in war, and it wasto languish and die in peace--a reversal of natural law apparently!But there was no help for it. The orders had to be obeyed. Thewar-ships on the lakes were broken up, or sold, and a few were laid upin ordinary, the officers and men were detached to the more congenialsalt-water stations, and the ship-carpenters were withdrawn to theseaboard towns whence they had been collected. The fort wasdismantled, the garrison mustered out of the service, and thestorehouses emptied and closed.
The young ship-of-the-line, hastily housed over, was left alone withthe abandoned town. The busy place, its reasons for being gone,speedily sank into a state of public decay. The deserted storehousesfell into ruin; the once noisy wharves, unvisited by any save anoccasional small vessel, rotted away; the merchants and traders closedout their stocks and departed; the hunters and pioneers moved fartherwestward into the vast wilderness extending its mysterious beckoningcall to their adventurous souls; the grass grew thick in the silentstreets, and it seemed as if the death-sentence of the village hadbeen written.
But as years sped away some of its pristine life came back to it. Thefarmer again speeded his plow and planted his corn in the clearings.Sheep and cattle once more dotted the fields. A new order took theplace of the old. Country churches rose; little feet ploddedunwillingly toward a small red school-house, where childish laughterand play at recess mingled with tears over puzzling lessons andunsolvable problems. The stores were opened one by one, and a fewvessels came back to the harbor. On market days the farmers crowdedthe square with their teams, the village awoke from its long sleep andbecame a modestly thriving little country town again,--drowsing oninto life once more. And although the very oldest inhabitants,remembering the busy days forever gone, were not satisfied, theyounger people were content and happy in their pretty little hamlet.
Meanwhile, what of the ship in all these changing years? Time was whenShip House Point had been covered with a virgin forest extending evento the water's edge. It was now bare of trees, for the massive trunkshad been wrought into the fabric of the ship, and no others had cometo take their places. There, neglected and unnoticed, she had stoodnaked and gaunt for a long time, for the flimsy ship-house coveringher had been the first thing to go. Through the swift years theburning sunshine of many summers fell upon her green, unseasonedplanks, and the unsheltered wood shrinking in the fierce heat openedher seams widely on every hand. Upon her decks the rain descended andthe snow fell. The storms of bitter winters drove upon her insuccessive and relentless attacks. The rough spring and autumn galestore from her huge sections of timber, leaving gaping wounds, whilethe drying rot of time and neglect penetrated her very heart.
Rust consumed the bolt-heads and slowly ate up the metal that held hertogether. Yet in spite of all she still stood, outwardly indifferentalike to the attack of the storm or the kiss of the sun,--a mightymonster towering high in the air, unfinished, incomplete, inchoate,disintegrating, weaponless, but still typifying strength and power andwar. In spite of her decay, in spite of her age, she looked themasterful vessel she was designed to be.
The waves broke in winter in icy assault upon the rocky shore on theseaward side, as if defying the ship to meet them. They rippled on theshoals, on the other hand, in summer with tender caressing voices,wooing her to her native element, stretching out white-fingered handsof invitation. And the air carried the message of the waters intoevery hidden recess in the most secret depths of the ship.
In some strange way, to those who grew to know her, the ship seemed tolive; they imbued her with personality, and congenial spirits seemedto recognize her yearning for a plunge into that all-embracing inlandsea. She hung poised, as it were, like a bird ready for flight, andwatchers standing within her shadow divined her longing for that madfirst rush from the ways.
The ripple of the water had never curled along that ship's massivekeel; her broad bows had never buffeted a way through the thunderousattack of the storm-waves; she had never felt the ocean uplift; thelong pitch and toss, the unsteady roll and heave which
spoke ofwater-borne life had never been hers; yet, looking at the gracefullines, the mighty frames, the most unimaginative would have said thatthe old ship lusted for the sea, and, in futile and ungratifieddesire, passed her shore-bound days in earth-spurning discontent.