Video
Brief History of Schooner Ernestina-Morrissey
Transcript
00;00;05;03 - 00;00;35;00
Speaker 1
Effie M. Morrissey was launched February 1st, 1894, after only four months of construction. They sailed out to the banks of Newfoundland, the Grand Banks, and on November 8th, 1894, they came back with a record breaking haul of 250,000 pounds of cod and 2,000 pounds of halibut, and that was under her first captain, William Morrissey, and Effie M. Morrissey was the name of the ship after his daughter.
00;00;35;03 - 00;01;10;25
Speaker 1
The following year, Clayton Morrissey took over Williams son, 19 at the time, and in Gloucester, the Fisherman's statue is Clayton and the helm that we still have today, which is really cool. So she kept on fishing and breaking records for a while off the Grand Banks of Gloucester for quite a few years before moving up to Nova Scotia, pretty much to do the same until Harold Bartlett bought the ship, and he used Effie at the time to freight and packet goods up and down the Labrador just before 1926.
00;01;10;25 - 00;01;36;20
Speaker 1
I don't know the exact year he sold it to his cousin, Bob Bartlett, who was famous for turning the Morrissey into an Arctic exploration vessel. And that was from 1926 onward until about 1945, I believe almost every year going up to the Arctic, doing exploration, research of students there’s the Bartlett boys who were young students, like 13 years old, just going up.
00;01;36;27 - 00;02;09;14
Speaker 1
We still have the windlass from that time in our warehouse and I think either a bowsprit or a piece of cap real that a polar bear scratched up because they're just getting animals doing what they could, having fun, probably almost dying a few times, but that's okay because they didn’t. And then in 1947, after being sold by Bob Bartlett, or I believe he died and the ship was sold to some brothers who wanted to take the vessel south for packet and everything.
00;02;09;16 - 00;02;30;06
Speaker 1
But they decided that she wasn't any good for it, and they didn't want to deal with that. And then the mysterious galley fire broke out. Quote, unquote on “mysterious”. We're pretty sure it was a tax fraud or whatever. Insurance scam, I should say that's the theory. I can't confirm if that's true for this. So they sunk her at that point.
00;02;30;06 - 00;02;56;01
Speaker 1
December 3rd, 1947, rose her again, and Louise Mendes bought the vessel for her father in law, Henrique Mendes. He renamed the vessel in 1947 to Ernestina after his own daughter. So we're no longer Effie M. Morrissey, we're just Ernestina. And she became a Cape Verdean packet vessel going across the Atlantic from Cape Verde, which is islands off the north West Coast of Africa.
00;02;56;04 - 00;03;20;13
Speaker 1
So, that's a lot of the importance of the ship in New Bedford because there is a large community of Cape Verdean Americans whose families or who personally was on the vessel immigrating. A gentleman who was on the vessel and immigrated told me that the professional crew was very small and they would pay for your immigration by being crew on board for eight runs back and forth.
00;03;20;16 - 00;03;54;01
Speaker 1
So then eventually Henrique Mendes got another vessel, a motor vessel, the vessel began to slow down. So each of her trips took longer and longer, and it just wasn't becoming profitable when Henrique Mendes had another motor vessel that's doing the same trips more efficiently. So Ernestina, unfortunately was tied up to a dock where she stayed for quite a few years until it was handed over to whatever government power would own the ship.
00;03;54;01 - 00;04;19;24
Speaker 1
And eventually the Prime Minister of Cape Verde gifted the vessel back to the people of the state of Massachusetts as a sign of shared friendship and shared history, which is really awesome. Since then, she has been the state ship of Massachusetts, an education vessel until around 2005, when she lost COI (certificate of inspection) and things looked really bad like not safe to sail at all.
00;04;19;26 - 00;04;41;04
Speaker 1
Then come 2015 began a restoration. And here we are. What we see today most closely resembles how she looks when she is fishing. But when the Arctic exploration came, they sheathed the hold in Australian greenheart, which is a really, really strong type of wood that can handle ice like that. And they also added her first engine in 1926.
00;04;41;06 - 00;05;01;06
Speaker 1
I don't know if they added this, but I known other wooden Arctic exploration vessel that sheathed the bow in metal to cut through ice. I don't know if that's true for this vessel. Then for the packet they made her rig smaller, so our mast about 70 ft. They cut those down just to make it easier to handle going back and forth.
00;05;01;09 - 00;05;32;10
Speaker 1
All the mail would be in the fish hold or the engine room. They took out her engine for a packet, so she had it for Arctic exploration, lost it for packet sailing and then gained it again for education. I think the total price of the restoration was $12 million coming from, I believe, some from the Academy, I know for sure in recent years a lot from SEMA the Schooner Ernestina-Morrissey Association raising funds and a lot from the state as well.
00;05;32;11 - 00;05;55;15
Speaker 1
Her name first was Effie M. Morrissey then became Ernestina, which is Ernestina-Morrissey to combine both those histories now. So it was a huge community push for sure, coming from a lot of different sources. Every day we have people walking up to the boat asking for a tour and usually, yeah, they know, sorry, but then they go on about how the vessel means so much to them and are so happy that we're back and are doing the work that we're doing.
00;05;55;18 - 00;06;09;02
Speaker 1
Last week it was Cape Verdean Week for New Bedford. We hosted a tour and had a whole party and everyone walked up to me like my family came on board this vessel. Thank you for being here. It was just really exciting.
Descriptive Transcript
The video begins with a black background. It then transitions to another black background with all text centered on the screen. The white text at the top reads: "Brief History of." Below it, a green horizontal line divides the text. The bottom line reads: "Schooner Ernestina-Morrissey" in white. The title page text shrinks to a smaller size and moves to the top left corner. The black background remains, and white closed captioned text appears in the center of the screen, double-lined in a large font size.
Description
This video provides a brief yet insightful history of the Ernestina-Morrissey, highlighting its diverse roles as a fishing schooner, Arctic explorer, transatlantic packet, and educational vessel. Discover the significant milestones and remarkable journeys that define the legacy of this historic ship.
Duration
6 minutes, 10 seconds
Date Created
05/30/2024
Copyright and Usage Info