FOREST AND STREAM. 
20-FOOT WATERLINE KNOCKABOUT SECTIONS DESIGNED BY JOHN R. BROPHY, 1902. 
T have every reason to believe to be true. 
During the last quarter of the last century the farm 
adjoining the hotel property on the south side of the 
mouth of Woodbury Creek, fronting on the Delaware 
River, was the homestead of John Wilkins, one of the 
judges of old Gloucester County, New Jersey. He had 
four sons, one of whom was named Benjamin, and who 
was elected sheriff of the county in the year 1818. He 
was allotted this farm and occupied it after his father's 
death. An indentured apprentice, Joseph Curtz, father 
of the author of this history, was trained to manhood 
with these hopeful boys. The father being wealthy and 
having a large business could afford to allow his boys to 
spend their lime in making bateaus and skiffs and sailing 
them on the river and creeks when not engaged in other 
light employment. The farm adjoining Woodbury Creek 
en the north was at this time owned by John Whitall, 
who had a son named Mark. He was a friend of the 
Wilkins boys and like them_, spent much of his time in 
beating. The Whitall- farm is the well known Red Bank, 
the site of Fort Mercer, where the Hessian regiment was 
repulsed by Colonel Christopher Green with his Rhode 
Island regiment on October 22, 1777. It is a remarkable 
coincidence that Red Bank's defenders should belong to a 
place famous in later years for sailing yachts. Of the 
many cruises taken by this party in their small boats, one 
is worth mentioning. They were present at the execution 
of the two pirates convicted in 1799, who were hung on 
the lower end of Windmill Island, which at that time 
extended to a point opposite Washington avenue. 
The Wilkins boys at an early day began to experiment 
with a board slid through the bottom of their skiff. How 
much they were aided in this manner by Mark Whitall 
and young Curtz it is impossible to say. This was then 
termed the slide in the keel or in common parlance, slid- 
ing keel. In a few years the neighborhood termed it 
centerboard, which name it has retained to the present. 
The first large boat built by these boys was the property 
of both families and was built on the Whitall farm in or 
about the year 1820. She was very properly named Red 
Bank, and was used for carrying produce to market, in 
fact none of the craft ever built by these families were de- 
signed as racing machines. The centerboard proved so 
sv.ccessful that this craft outsailed all the Philadelphia 
boats on the lower Delaware. After the Philadelphia 
races were won they went to Baltimore on a challenge 
to race with boats on the Chesapeake. After the first 
Baltimore race was over one of the beaten crew said to 
the owners of the Delaware boat, "You have got some- 
thing stuck down through the middle of your boat ; I 
know it for no boat can sail so close to the wind with- 
out something to hold her and I have come here to see 
what it is." "Here is the board that holds her," exclaimed 
Captain Wilkins, "a Jersey invention and one you will 
have to adopt." For the first time he saw a centerboard 
boat, the invention of Wilkins and Whitall. In the winter 
of 1821-2 two boats were built, one named Mark Whitall 
and owned by that family, the other named James Law- 
rence, in honor of the naval hero in the war of 1812 and 
owned by the Curt', brothers, Peter and Joseph, who then 
occupied farms in the neighborhood. The dimensions of 
these boats I an. unable to give, the owners and designers 
being unostentatious, and therefore never dreamed that 
they were making history. It is believed that they were 
about the same size and had but little variation in the 
style of their centerboards. The height of the Law- 
rence's mast I learned incidentally. After the U. S. S. 
North Carolitia was launched she was taken down the 
river and laid for some days at Fort Mifflin. Father 
Curtz visited her, going there in the Lawrence. In after 
years I heard him remark that the gunwales of the ship 
were just thirty feet above the water and the top of the 
Lawrence's mast was just on a level with it. The fourth 
boat with a centerboard was named "Count Donop" in 
honor of the Hessian Colonel, who commanded the at- 
tacking force at the battle of Red Bank, and who is 
buried there, having died the day after the battle. This 
craft was owned entirely by Benjamin Wilkins, who 
built it in the spring of 1828. She lasted about 20 years, 
being known from the Bay up to Bordentown, and she 
served as a model for all the centerboard boats of the 
age. Of course she was the favorite of the neighbor- 
hood, but the principle having become thoroughly 
adopted, retirement from business caused it to be the last 
boat built by the inventors. In later years, racing having 
become a popular sport, the rules governing it became 
fixed on what was deemed just principles. One was that 
boats were restricted to a certain length and allotted to a 
class consistent with their length. Therefore, Rufus G. 
Wilkins, son of Benjamin, who was in the boat building 
business in Camden where he started nearly sixty years 
ago always constructed his boats in a shape that resembled 
an inverted flatiron approximately. A boat named Me- 
gonigal was brought out by Wilkins in 1854. In a certain 
regatta she outstripped the fleet so much that her fame 
reached the seaboard towns of the Eastern States. Two 
gentlemen interested in the racing of yachts came from 
Rhode Island specially to see the Megonigal. They were 
shown the craft by Captain Wilkins and on seeing it they 
said they were boatmen and not greenhorns and had come 
in the interests of other yachtsmen, their object being to 
see the boat in order that they might obtain some points 
that would enable them to construct craft of greater 
speed than those they had at the time. Captain Wilkins 
took them to Cooper's Point Hotel nearby and had his 
boat and himself identified and his truthfulness guaran- 
teed. 
About fifty years ago a Mr. Clark of a New York 
boat building firm attempted to claim the invention of the 
centerboard as belonging to a Rhode Island party. Cap- 
tain Wilkins took up the matter and opened correspond- 
ence with Mr. Clark. His father was then alive and he 
furnished all the details which were sent to the New 
York parties. Mr. Clark at once yielded the claim 
squarely and honorably, remarking that he felt sure that 
it was a Yankee invention and that he did not hereto- 
fore know that the inventors were Jersey Yankees. 
It is astonishing that an invention so simple should not 
have been generally used long before it was. A century 
has passed since the Wilkins boys began their experi- 
ments. It was adopted in their neighborhood when their 
market boats became .known. They never applied for a 
patent. In this respect they were like Professor Henry, 
who, when a college boy at old Nassau Hall, invented the 
magnetic telegraph, that is, the little magic coil of wire, 
designated as the magnetic stop. This is the soul of the 
principle. While using the invention to communicate be- 
tween the college and his boarding house, a prominent 
citizen said to him, "Why, professor, do you not get out 
a patent for your valuable invention?" "I am not a patent 
man, he replied : "I can earn as much money as I need 
without taking out patent rights, therefore, if this inven- 
tion is of any use to the public they can take it and use 
it as they please," So with the Wilkins family, they 
imitated Jefferson, then the country's President, and 
despised the patent sj'stem. Mark Whitall was very 
enthusiastic over the invention. On a certain occasion 
when at a hotel in Philadelphia, now known as the Ridge- 
way House, he was told of a circumstance of fast boat 
sailing in some other waters, perhaps in the Delaware 
Bay. His informant declared that neither Philadelphia 
boats nor any other could beat her. "Can't beat her! 
Can't beat her!" exclaimed Mark, warming up and in- 
stantly springing to his feet. "I will take Christ Church 
steeple, put on a cat rig, run a centerboard through it and 
beat it to hell." An old Quaker happened to be standing 
near, and being horrified at this profanity, laid his h-.nd 
on Mark's shoulder and solemnly said, "Ah, my young 
friend, thee can beat it to hell, but thee will have a hard 
beat back." It is proper to tell the reader to observe that 
the boats which thus served as pioneers of the idea were 
not mere racing machines. Utility was never sacrificed 
in their construcf^ion or their safety, and carrying qualities 
were always well considered. 
The reason the invention was not generally adopted 
is mainly owing to the force of precedent. Notwithstand- 
ing the fact that John Bull was perhaps clumsy, he was 
mostly looked to by New York and New England men 
for the model in boat building. This in turn tended to 
deceive the English people and led them to believe that 
a cutter was the ne plus ultra principle. Had the owner 
of the yacht Thistle gone to Philadelphia and South Jer- 
sey to investigate the merits of the centerboard, the chef 
d'oeuvre of American yachtsmen, he would never have 
brought a cutter here to win a race. Whenever modesty 
■?r.d merit come in contact with approbativeness the latter 
is apt to meet with disappointment. Had a New York or 
New England man invented the centerboard it would 
have been adopted long ago in En<?land ; but South Jer- 
sey and its trading metropolis, Philadelphia, were looked 
upon by them as the Jews looked upon Nazareth. The 
hesitancy with which New Englanders adopted the cen- 
terboard evidently tended to lead the English people into 
their mistake. In concl"sion I wish to say that it seems 
strange to me that this history has not been brought forth 
before, as these are well-known facts in the neighborhood 
where they occurred. 
H. L. Shaw. 
Philadelphia, Pa , Liec 29. 
Boston Letter. 
Boston,, Jan. 13. — A meeting of the Executive Commit- 
tee of the Manchester Y. C. was held last Tuesday at 
which it was voted to allow the yachts of other clubs to 
compete in the trial races to select a challenger for the 
Seawanhaka challenge cup. It may be well doubted, how- 
ever, if the yachtsmen from other clubs will be very 
anxious to build boats under the conditions laid down by 
the committee. While it is provided that outside yachts 
can compete, it is stipulated that the handling of any of 
the boats may be confined to one crew selected by the 
Manchester Y. C, and that this crew skall have the whole 
say in regard to which boat shall be selected. The sense 
of the vote upon the question is as follows : 
"Whereas, the agreement between the Royal St. Law- 
rence Y. C. and the Manchester Y. C. contains the follow- 
ing clause : 
" 'Article 22. — The provisions stating that the helms- 
man must be named in writing 24 hours before the firsr 
