The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1904-01-21
SCHOONER AND GARDRN, TOO.

The Queer and Comfortable Craft off Old
GoWan,,s. She's so Wears Old, Is the A. f.
Howe, and for Most of That Time She
Fine Carrier-Now She's IA Drug
Factory, Home, and Several Other
Things.
The host of friends of Capt and Mrs.
Ralph E. Ellis in Searsport and Stock
ton Springs will read with much inter
est the following sketch from New
York daily, in which it appeared with
portraits of the captain and his wife
and view of the gang plank and the
schooner:
In the Government official list of
the thousands of American merchant
vessels you will find a whole line de-
voted to the craft whose number is 1913,
the tWo-masted schooner A. f. Howe,
built i'll 1851 at Searsport, Me-; home
port, New York, n Y.
The home port of the A. f. Howe.
now 81 years old, is New York, n. Y"
III more than the sense implied by the
official record. For seven wears now
she has been moored fast, through win
| ter and summer, through storm and
fair weather, at the entrance of Cow
anus Canal in South Brooklyn. And
there, unless some strange chance
shifts her tough old frame, she will rot
, to death, pro badly the strangest of all
the oddities cast up on that marine
boneyard, the South Brooklyn shore.
She is now both a floating garden
marine bower-and floating drug
factory at the same time. Besides
this, she has been the home for forty
years OF Capt. Ralph E. Ellis and his
her
Il. Unlike many of the queer sights
around the big city, the schooner isn't
tucked away i'll corner. If you should
ever go to see her, you'll probably find
| the smoke from the stack of a big
wharf locomotive curling somewhere
around her malnmaSt, and not far away
big crowd of wagons carrying away
ice, coal and other things that come in
| from the Hudson and down in Jersey.
It's busy place the entrance to Co
Wanus Canal.
She has plenty of neighbors. They
are big square rlggers, schoOnerS from
the coast, and canal boats from all
| round. But none of them is covered
with plants, vines and flowers.
| The Howe was built way back in 81,
and about ten years later Cap'n Ellis, a
husky young skipper of Searsport, and
his wife, who'd make a good first mate
for any craft, got her from the Boston
folks whose money had built her. The
schooner became their home.
When the Howe got pretty old, and
when the carrying trade didn't pay as
well as it did once, the question came
up: What are we to do for a home?
I'D rather live on water than on
land, rent Free" said Cap'n Ellis.
His wife agreed with him. Then they
tied up at the foot of Twenty-fourth
street in South Brooklyn A year or
two ago they moved to Twenty fifth
street, and there they are now.
| During all of these seven years that
the Howe has been tied up she has been
money maker. Mrs. Ellis knew the
recipe for liniment guaranteed to
cure most things. She makes it, and
/ every morning the skipper starts out to
Mate Mrs. Ellis then takes command.
ACSOAoVlAAS Wiz SldlG W lGll uOWC W DIS
the wife's idea, too Over the land end
of the gangplank they put up floral
arch which is wonder in summer.
Aboard there is perfect profusion of
green things-ferns, palms, banana, Or
ange and lemon trees-with real fruit
on them, and all sorts of other plants
and flowers. Some of them the Ellises
grew from slips and little shrubs brought
in from far-off lands by friends on the
| big square Triggers that 60 to China and
back and stop at all sorts of places.
Down in the forward hold there is a
perfect winter dollhouse. All the plants,
flowers and big shrubs and palms have
been moved in there from the frost. In
the spring they'll be out again to make
| garden spot in Gowanus.
And, lest you might think the winter
would find the schooner a cool resi-
dence, hear Mrs. Ellis and she'll tell
you it's always comfortable. Summer
and winter there's no home to these
folks like the waterlogged old schooner
A. F. Howe.