Page:The Clipper Ship Era.djvu/185

Rh The R. B. Forbes at that time, so to speak, was a well-known character about Massachusetts Bay, and no marine function seemed quite complete without her presence. She was generally on hand at launches, regattas, and Fourth of July celebrations, with a jolly party of Boston underwriters and their friends on board, accompanied by a band of music and well-filled hampers of refreshments. Her hull was painted a brilliant red up to the bulwarks, which were black, while the deck fittings, houses, and the inside of the bulwarks were a bright green. Altogether, with a rainbow of bunting over her mastheads, the brass band in full blast, and champagne corks flying about her deck, she contributed liberally to the gayety of many festive occasions. She was also usually the first to introduce a new-born ship to the end of a manila hawser, and for several years she towed most of the eastern-built clippers to their loading berths at Boston or New York.

But these were only the odd jobs at which she put in her time when not engaged in her more serious work of salvage operations, for she was the best equipped and most powerful wrecking steamer on the Atlantic coast, and saved much valuable property abandoned to the Boston Underwriters, for whom she was built by Otis Tafts at East Boston in 1845. She was 300 tons register, and was one of the few vessels at that date constructed of iron and fitted with a screw propeller, her engines and boilers being designed by the renowned Ericsson. Her commander. Captain Morris, not only was a very able wreck master, but