The coastland times. [volume] (Mnateo [i.e. Manteo], N.C.) 1947-1959, 1952-08-08
By BEN DIXON MacNEILL

Wnen so many people ana years
and places and things get involv-
ed in such q tale as this, which
is concerned with great ships and
Americas gained and lost and re-
gained mastery of the seas, it is
pretty difficult to know just where
and with whom to begin. The tale
begins with the Clipper ships and
comes eventually down the years
to proud day when America is
again and triumphantly master of
the oceans.
One solution of the problem,
and as good as any, is TO let it
begin atop the scuppe .nong vine
on the Latham farm a little ways
out of Belhaven forty years ago.
If it had not been for the grape
vine the chances are that Mr.. La
than would not have been invited
to ride on the shake-down cruise
of the United States some weeks
back and there would have been
no story and no picture of Mr..
Latham as, for one unforgettaple
nterlude, master of the great
ships bridge.
In brief, no grapev!ne-no story.
There is nothing mysterious
Mr.. Latham did not dream-he is
not much of a man for dreams
forty years ago that because he
was indulgent with a neighbor
boys appalling appetite for SOUP
pernong grapes that he would be
invited to ride as guest upon a
great ship that no man, in that
day, had yet dreamed about. But
the boy remembered and Mr.. La
than went cruising on a trip that
will go down in the history books.
Six weeks after the boy got to
be II years old-it happened in
March and there were no grapes
on the vine to detain him-the
boy enlisted in the United States
Navy and presently discovered
himself in the thick of war. He sur
Evived that and continued a sea-
faring man. He is now Capt. S. J.
Topping, Jr., Marine Superinten-
dent of United States Lines.
That will account for how it
came about that the first man in
North Carolina to win the Master
Farmer Award from State Col
lege came eventually to find him.
self seated in the commodore's
chair on the bridge of the worlds
greatest ship in the year that he
became 80 years of age. And will
account, too, for the fact that Mr..
Latham became acquainted with a
new word. The word is atavism.
1t has been in the dictionary a
long time but Mr.. Latham had
not any need for such a word.
A Fathers Example Repeated
And that takes the tale back
for another, and necessary, begin
ming. Back to his father who was
born not far from Belhaven in 1921
and, when he was a good sized
youngster, did what so many be-
fore and after him, have done. He
went away to sea and for long
years he sailed the oceans in the
great clipper ships that had won
maritime supremacy for America.
Mr.. Latham was a long time rea-
lizing it, but he was born with
sea-water in his veins and this
newly found kinship with the sea
is sort of atavism.
Whatever it is Mr.. Latham likes
it and he is proud of it. Not that
he feels that he has wasted the
years between his first awareness
of the sea, which his father began
to teach him before he can re-
member. He maybe does have, hid
den away, some sort of regret that
he did not claim his heritage ear
lier, but he has been satisfyingly
busy with other matters in the in
term and this trip on the great
granddaughter of his fathers
Clippers has been one of the
browning things of his life.
His father was 81 years old
when Mr.. Latham was born 80
years ago. The father was a man
of eager and inquiring enthusiasm.
He was an able seaman, with a
zest for life. Otherwise he could
not have survived a seizure of yell
low fever in New Orleans, or the
storms his Clipper met when roun-
ding Cape Horn enroute to Ore
gon Territory long before there
was any notion of gold in the val
ley of the Moon in California.
But men weary of the sea and
Sailor Latham came home. He
bought a farm on Pungo river
five miles from the site of the
unborn town of Belhaven. At sea
he had carried with him books Of
many sorts and when he came a.
shore he had fine theoretical &C
quaintance with the science of
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