398 HIS TOR Y ' OF COHA SSE T. 



Levi Tower, built and launched three more small schoon- 

 ers, the Shark, the Dolphin, and the Porpoise. Vessels 

 grew old and some of them would get wrecked occasion- 

 ally, so that new ones had to be made to replace them. 

 Others were sold to fish merchants in other ports, who 

 fancied them, thus making more work for our shipbuild- 

 ers. Moreover, our fishing fleet kept slowly increasing as 

 more men pressed into the business needing more vessels. 



During the six years following the great day of peril 

 in 18 14 our shipyards turned out twenty-two schooners, 

 ranging from forty-two tons to ninety-two tons in size. 

 One year there were as many as six of these launched into 

 our Cove. 



The most prominent shipbuilder of that period was 

 Captain Levi Tower, who kept building continuously, either 

 for himself or for other- owners. Besides him the other 

 master builders were James Stoddard, Bela Bates, Abel 

 Kent, Luther Stephenson, Caleb Nichols, Abraham 

 Tower, Nichols Tower, Jonathan B. Bates, and others. 



The model of these fishing schooners was a square- 

 sterned craft, somewhat broad and clumsy, but safe and 

 strong. A new style of schooner, called a " pinky " or 

 "pink" or "picky," was coming into vogue during this 

 period. Its distinguishing feature was a very high and 

 pointed stern. This new departure in the shipbuilding art 

 was first indulged here in the year 181 7 by Levi Tower, 

 when he built the Lady Washington, of fifty-two tons. 



The high, pointed stern is said to have been devised as 

 a cheap way of securing a bit of deck room high enough 

 to keep dry. The old square-sterned schooners, after 

 the fashion of building the high poop deck went out, 

 were very wet in case of a rough sea, for the waves break- 

 ing upon the bow could sweep the whole length of the 

 deck. The pinky furnished a little triangular place abaft 

 the rudderpost, high enough to keep things dry when the 

 waves tumbled in upon the deck. By pointing the stern 



