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Old Eliot is very interesting, and recalls many persons whom I knew, and names familiar in my boyhood.

No event has a more prominent place in my memory than the Launch of the Berwick. This ship was built by Capt. Hanscom in 1832, at the lower-landing in South Berwick, a few rods north of the old Hamilton House, as seen in Miss Jewett’s Old Town of Berwick.

At the launching of the Berwick I was sprinkled with wine from the bottle broken by Capt. Hanscom in christening the ship. Once I could repeat his eulogy; but my memory retains now but two lines:

Her timbers were taken from Agementicus broad back,
So firmly joined that Old Ocean can’t wrack!

Old Ocean, however, did wrack, for she went down in mid-ocean, in 1833-4, with all on board. I was then ten years old, and the oft-repeated story of her supposed disaster, made a deep impression upon my mind.

The Berwick was built by Capt. Theodore Jewett, expressly for his son, young Capt. Thode, as the town’s people called him. Tim Ferguson may have had an interest in her. I was present when the young Captain said good-bye to his father, and left for Portsmouth to take command of his new ship.

The fate of the Berwick has never been definitely demonstrated. The Master of a home-bound ship, reported that in a certain latitude he encountered a gale; about midnight an unusually high wave struck him as he was running free ; and when his ship fell, she struck a ship as it was sailing upon an opposite course. The next wave carried him completely over the ill-fated stranger.

The course of the Berwick, so often sailed over by the elder Capt. Theodore, and his knowledge of the usual winds and tides, impressed him with the belief that the Berwick must have been in the latitude described. Time passed without any tidings of his boy; he lost all hope ; the luster faded from his mild blue eyes. I think of him sitting in his favorite slat-back chair tilted against the counter of his store, toying the fobchain and seals that hung by his side, dreamily waiting the coming of the great night that should give him rest forever! God bless my memory of his many kind words and acts to a poor boy!