The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-09-02

America.
 old Ironsides came up Hudson river with a tug dragging her at the end of a tow line. She was tied up at West 79th street.
 Then New York went aboard. Baby carriages, dogs, youngsters munching peanuts all following a red line in and black line out. Among them was August F. Smith,
 Fifty years ago he cruised on ~Ola Ironsides" as an apprentice boy. Let Mrs Smith tell the story. "He sailed them all, he did. It was 50 years ago. It might have beeA just yesterday the way he went on when he saw her lowed into New York.
 "T'li get the old crew together Gus said, and we'll show 'em how to sail her into harbor. Call themselves sailors, do they? We'll show them"
 We'll Gus didn't do that but when came back from the market, he wasn't here. Then I found his discharge papers were gone. Then I knew where he was.
 Sure enough, when he got home he said:
 "Tt was terrible. She came up the hay with fine wind on her starboard quarter but every sail was furled. They were towing her."
 "He was ready to cry like" Holmes had written hundred years before:-
 "Oh better that her shatetred hulk tnl hax xyas Her thunders shook the mighty
 deep.
 And there should be her grave; Nail to the mast her holy flag. Set every threadbare sail, And give her to the god of storms, The lightning and the gale!" But old Gus, found at work, of- fered to guide an expedition through the old meteor of the ocean air."
 Hasn't changed a bit. That bowsprit and cat head. they're new. And the riggin'." He didn't know "old Ironsides" to-day car ries only 15 per cent of her ori- ginal timber.
 Why those are the very masts that went into her in 1797. Don't tell me"
 He was as interested as the crowding, motley assortment of sightseers that gazed at the old breech loading 24 pounders, ram rods, sponges, battle gongs, shackles and cat-o-nine tails in the brig, grog barrel and harness cask.
 Some wanted to know why can non aboard bore the insignia "G. R."
 One sailor said 1t was because the ship was built in Great Bri- tain. One said the guns had been taken from British ships. The ques- tioners were satisfied.
 "Old Ironsides' carries electric lights, and a refrigerator as concession to goth century progress but the sailors complained of the plumbing. She has no bathtubs or showers.
 Old Gus Smith who knew her history, snorted! He remembered how she withstood the shot of the Guerriere to win her nick name. how she took the Java, the Pictou. the Cyanen and the Le- want. "And they lowed her itno the harbor behind an old tug." he re- peated.
 Among those who watched Old Ironsides lowed up North River that day was George Sanford Holnes. a Providence, Denver and Washington newspaper man not related to Oliver Wendell Holmes who penned his tribute to "Old Ironsides'' a hundred years ago. Then he wrote of that tow-trip LID the Hudson:-"Give Back Her Wings
 Her tapering masts and yard-arms
 tower bare,
 Her sails are furled forever to
 the breeze.
 A tug and tow-line drag her thru
 the seas
 That once she ruled amid the
 battles glare:
 No more her muzzle-loaders belch
 and blare
 Or grappling-irons grip her ene-
 mics,
 Her peaceful mission now to float With "tattered ensign" idling in
 the air. O crippled bird from out the slori-
 ous past,
 shorn of snow piumage. canvas
 battened fast.
 Pray soon to spread thy pinions to
 the gale. Man rigging. deck and spar. crowd
 sail on eaii--
 O set her free and cut her leading l strings. ! five back to Ironsides her gcr- geous winGsi"