The Republican journal., 1909-10-21
One of the Last Ship Carvers.
Is Still Doing Some NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
of the Old DAYS.


of the Old Days.
With the disappearance of the old
time wooden vessels also went out the
art of the ships wood carver. In the
old days every vessel carried a fanciful
design of the person for whom she was
named There We're the days of clipper
stems-long curved bows that left plenty
of room beneath the bowsprit and taper
ing jibbooms for such fancies. Later
on, after the Civil war, came in the era
of straight stems; the fgureheads then
gave way TO merely the name on the
bows, or, IN some cases, to termination
of the stem termed scroll-work. This,
in seafaring phraseology, was called "a
fiddlehead," because Of its resemblance
to the neck of violin.
The fgurehead, however, lasted for
many years. For long time the Booth
lines steamships, which dock at Martins
stores, carried sculptured representa-
tives of dignifed- looking men, each with
a hand thrust impressively into the
breast of his frock coat. Few of these
were ever carried away by stress Of
weather More than score of years
ago the bark Janet Court of Glasgow
was towed into Pinto's stores utterly
dismasted. She was an iron vessel with
iron spars. She was loaded with nitrate
of soda on the west coast of Africa, but
in the Caribbean sea was caught in
hurricane. All her spars snapped at the
deck like clay pipestems. There was
nothing left but the bowsprit, and, be-
meath it. the round face of Janet Court,
which smiled just as her prototype had
when the bark was launched in "Glasgie"
many years before. The crew had been
taken off. Later the bark was picked up
and considerable salvage recovered, al
though an evident attempt had been
previously made to set the derelict on
fire But, though laden with nitrate,
the Janet Court refused to be burned,
and with the fgurehead of her name
sake intact, from her maiden snood to
her buckled shoes, Janet came into port,
little weatherworn, but still smiling,
when everything above decks had been
swept away.
Much money was spent on the figure
heads and ornamentation of vessels
stems and counters in past days. The
deal on these parts of their ships, and
some of the carvings and gilded work
were most elaborate.
Probably the most singular figure ever
perched on a vessels stem was that on
Col. J. H. Payne's fine yacht Aphrodite.
Venus, in heroic size, in the attire in
which she rose from the sea, was fash
toned under the bowsprit, one hand shad-
ing her eyes as she gazeo out to sea. The
goddess looked neither as handsome nor
as comfortable as in her usual pose on the
waves. The figure, which was said to
have been designed by woman artist,
was finally cut away, and smaller one
substituted The first one is said to
have cost a large sum of money
About the last singular figurehead
seen on an iron clipper ship was at the
Clinton wharf, Atlantic dock The YES
sci was named Kingfsher, and sure
enough, there was perched an effigy of
that wary little hunter just beneath the
bowsprit. Even the navy department
has recently ordered the removal of the
gold decorations on bows, on the grounds
that these big castings are too heavy, and
tend to pull down the head of the ship.
Most people undoubtedly like to see
some ornament on the stem of a vessel,
but that the era of the ship carver's art
is gone forever is admitted by Charles
Brown of II Summit street, the last Of
the men who made this kind Of orna-
mental ship construction a speciality. He
is now 68 years old and just as active as
he was 40 years ago. Surrounded by a
number of fine edged tools, he talked to
an Eagle reporter couple of days ago.
Yes" he said, ''the ship carving
business is thing Of the past, so far as
large vessels go. The Dutch, Italian
and Spaniards keep it up, but they are
about the only ones that do. The iron,
or steel, ship of any class, with straight
stem, put an end to the business, and
guess l am about the Oldest Of the men
who made speciality of carving figure
heads and other ornamental work on the
stems and counters Of vessels. In recent
years the work has been practically con-
fined to tugboats and yachts, including
motor boats.
81 designed and executed the orna-
mental work on hundreds of boats of all
classes, and may say that all the yacht
designers ask me for my views and to
submit designs. made the decorations
for James Gordon Benefits first yacht
Namouna; for the Sultana designed by ].
Beaver Webb; for the Sovereign and for
number of others.
1.-THE last work of the kind that l did
was on the Carnegie Institutes non
magnetic survey yacht Carnegie, now
supposed to be on her way to Hudson's
bay, which was built at Tebo's yard in
South Brooklyn. That work is done in
relief on the trailboards and gilt 1t was
one of the designs submitted to Henry
J. Gielow, who designed the boat, and he
was much pleased with it.
f'Of course, there is some taste and a
good deal of work attached to ship cary
ing. Practically do all the work my
self. l first lay out the design in my
mind, then sketch it out in chalk and set
to work. The material used is white
pine. as rule, it being easiest to work,
but it requires good deal Of anxious
care to get out your work properly. See
those two eagles there on the floor? I
have just finished them for the New
York Central Railroad Co. They meas
. ure five feet across the wings spread,
and make many of them every year for
the boats of that company, also for the
Pennsylvania Railroad Co., and, in fact,
for ali the harbor boats. So, you see, l
am kept pretty busy all the time. But
the work Of the ship carver is fast dying
out, just as the business of the wooden
shipbuilder has disappeared, except for
the construction of coasting vessels, tugs
and harbor boats. And these are going.