BACK THEN

Ernestina: Last of the Bankers

The schooners that fished of-shore in New England after the Civil War became the most productive sail-powered fleet in American history by the turn of the century. They also very likely represented the peak of production for hand-line fishing in human history.

The banks schooners and Grand Bankers, which fished the Grand Banks off Newfoundland, are a major part of the fishing, commercial, and economic history of the Northeast. The large numbers of these schooners built over decades, the many fishermen who fished from them, the many shipyards that built them, the great prosperity they brought ashore and the colossal tragedy wrought when a storm sent many to the bottom on the banks, is what has embedded them in the popular imagination of the nation.

These two-masted schooners, about 100 feet in length, contributed to bringing commercial fishing in New England to its greatest height at the turn of the 20th century. Many of the builders of Maine and Massachusetts built them. In the latter part of the 1800s fishing on the banks was done using hand-line trawls set from dories. Schooners were built to take dories and fishermen out to Georges Bank or the Grand Banks to fish until the schooner was full or they ran out of food and water.

Schooners had long been the mainstay of coastal shipping and fishing. The New England fishing boom brought in designers who sought speed and great looks for owners. One of them was, Edward Burgess, the son of a wealthy Boston merchant whose “good life” in European salons ended abruptly when his father suddenly died broke. Burgess returned to Boston and began designing yachts. He moved into commercial vessel design for the banks fishing industry.

Burgess designed the schooner Fredonia in 1889. That ship became the model for many banks and Grand Banks schooners, including the last operable Grand Banks schooner in America, the Ernestina. The Ernestina went down the ways at the James & Tarr Shipyard in Essex, Massachusetts in 1894 as the Effie M. Morrissey. It was a Fredonia-style schooner, two-masted, 114' on deck, a sparred length of 156', a 76' main mast, a 68' boom, and carried 8,223 square feet of sail.

Most of these great vessels fished until the day they went down with all hands on the banks, or until they were sold down to lesser uses as barges, or tied up, tired and worn, to rot at the wharf or a remote beach. One survives, and the Ernestina has had a life, thus far, like none of the others. She drifted more than once into the near death experiences that killed so many of these great ships, but just as she was about to go, a puff of salvation filled her sails.

The Effie M. Morrissey fished very successfully on the banks for decades for the Morrissey family, being refitted and refitted again. In 1905 she was sold to new owners out of Digby, Nova Scotia. During a record run from Portland, Maine to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, when at times she reached 16 knots, she was dismasted, but made it to port. In 1914 she was sold to Harold Bartlett of Brigus, Newfoundland.

A career shift occurred when George Putnam, of Putnam Publishers, NY, sponsored an Arctic exploration. The first Arctic exploration was in 1926 when the Morrissey sailed out of New York. The Smithsonian Institution sponsored an exploration to Greenland in 1931. In 1940 the Morrissey became the first vessel to sail within 578 miles of the North Pole.

When World War II started the Morrissey became an Arctic supply and survey ship for the U.S. Navy. The Navy was surveying the northeastern reaches of North America to locate an airfield from which war supplies could be flown to Europe, avoiding the German subs that were sinking hundreds of cargo ships.

The Jackson brothers bought the ship in 1946. They planned to fit her out for inter-island trade at Tahiti in the South Pacific. But in 1947 there was a fire while she was tied up in Flushing, N.Y. and her career nearly ended. However, she was raised and sold to Henrique Mendes of the Cape Verde Islands off West Africa in 1948. At this time her name was changed to Ernestina. The following year Ernestina began life as a trans-Atlantic packet, shipping passengers and goods from Cape Verde to the U.S. Many Cape Verdians made their way to the U.S. aboard the Ernestina.

Sailing in heavy seas between Fogo and Santiago, Chile, the Ernestina was again dismasted. A falling spar nearly killed Henrique. In 1957 she was hauled for major repairs when 28 carpenters worked for almost a month on her. Seven years later she made her last trans-Atlantic voyage as a packet. But she was kept busy between 1965 and 1970 carrying cargo and passengers between Mindelo, Brava, Sao Nicolau and other South American ports.

On the way to a bicentennial in 1976 at Cape Verde, she was dismasted a third time and had to be towed to Cape Verde. The following year, efforts were organized to raise money to restore the ship. In 1982 the people of Cape Verde presented Ernestina to the people of the U.S. After more restoration in 1984 she began her fourth career as a sailing school ship and historical museum. National Historic Landmark status was gained in 1990, in 1992 she went to New Bedford, and in 1994 began her second century.

During the Tall Ships 2000 events, Ernestina sailed from Chesapeake to Nova Scotia. As the oldest surviving Grand Banks schooner, the Ernestina has taken title to many lasts. She is one of two surviving Gloucester fishing schooners, the only remaining operational Fredonia-style schooner, she was the last sailing ship to bring immigrants to the United States, and is the last surviving sail powered Arctic explorer.

But more than that, she has title to an important first. The Ernestina is the first to formally represent a not so distant past when hundreds of these schooners fished, when thousands of fishermen supported families, communities and businesses, when high productivity was achieved alongside sustainability. The Official Massachusetts website describes her this way: “Next to the USS Constitution, the Ernestina is perhaps the most significant surviving sailing vessel in our nation’s maritime history.”

After restoration work at the Boothbay Harbor Shipyard in 2009 the Ernestina was sailed to her new home in New Bedford, where decades ago she brought so many immigrants to their new homes. The Ernestina will be at the Commercial Marine Expo in New Bedford, June 9 & 10.