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![[photo]](buildings/Ern1.jpg "[photo]")
Ernestina
Photo from NPS Maritime Heritage Program collection |
Designed by George M. McClain and built at the James and Tarr Yard in Essex, Massachusetts, the Schooner Ernestina was launched on February 1, 1894, as the Effie M. Morrissey. The design of the two-masted schooner, which measured 112 feet in length with a 24.5 beam and displaced 240 tons of water, resembled the Fredonia, an 1889 fishing schooner. The Effie M. Morrissey began its career as a fishing schooner and had immense success near the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and other fishing grounds off the eastern seaboard. In 1914, Captain Harold Bartlett bought the Morrissey and converted the schooner into a cargo carrier. Robert A. Bartlett, an experienced captain and noted Arctic explorer, purchased the Morrisey in 1925 and set out for the first of several Arctic excursions the following year. After Bartlett's death in 1946, two brothers in New York City purchased the schooner and intended to sail to Tahiti until a fire in 1947 almost ended the Morrissey's career.
![[photo]](buildings/Ern2.jpg "[photo]")
Ernestina
Photo from NPS Maritime Heritage Program collection |
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In 1948, Henrique Mendes of the Cape Verde Islands and his sister, Louise Mendes of Egypt, Massachusetts bought the Morrissey, towed it to New Bedford, Massachusetts, for repairs, and renamed it Ernestina. The schooner began a new career as a trans-Atlantic packet carrying passengers and goods between New England and the Cape Verde Islands off the west coast of Africa near Senegal. Sold again in 1967, Ernestina continued with the inter-island trade but could no longer compete with steamships. The Republic of Cape Verde presented Ernestina--one of the last remaining Essex-built schooners and the last ship to bring immigrants to the United States from the Cape Verde Islands--to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1982 as a good will gesture. The U.S. Coast Guard awarded the schooner a certificate of inspection in 1994 for operation as a sailing school vessel and as a passenger carrying vessel. The schooner Ernestina is a fully operational museum and educational vessel, sailing with a licensed staff from its home port in New Bedford.
The Ernestina, a National Historic Landmark, is located at New Bedford State Pier at 89 North Water St. in New Bedford. It is owned by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and operated by the Schooner Ernestina Commission. The Commission offers multidisciplinary, hands-on educational programs tailored to meet the specific needs of schools, colleges and other educational and cultural organizations. Program offerings range from dockside visits for any age, daysails for sixth grade and up and five-day passages at sea from coastal communities of Massachusetts. Please call 508-992-4900 or visit the schooner's website to obtain the most up-to-date information about tours and educational programming.
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