Page:The history of yachting.djvu/269

 Rh Robinson instantly replied, "A scooner let her be." From which time, vessels thus masted and rigged have gone by the name of "schooners"; before which, vessels of this description were not known in Europe or America.' This account was confirmed to me by a great number of persons in Gloucester. The strongest negative evidence corroborates these statements. No marine dictionary, no commercial record, no merchant's inventory, of a date prior to 1713, containing the word 'schooner,' has yet been discovered; and it may, therefore, be received as an historical fact, that the first vessel of this class had her origin in Gloucester, as stated by the respectable authorities above cited.

"The result of my explorations in these fields may interest some readers. Let us begin at home. In the ten years immediately preceding 1713, more than thirty sloops were built in the town, but no schooner. The first mention of a vessel of this class in our records occurs in 1716, when a new schooner belonging to the town was cast away at the Isle of Sables. In the inventory of the estate of John Parsons, who carried on the fishing business, we have, in 1714, '⅓ of a fishing vessel, £19; ½ of a shallop, £15; of an open sloop; £20'; but among the effects of Nathaniel Parsons, deceased, in 1722, are given 'Scooner Prudent Abigail; £180; scooner Sea Flower, £83; and scooner Willing Mind, £50.' The notes of my examination of the Essex Probate Records show, from the inventory of Capt. Beamsley Perkins of Ipswich, 1721, a 'skooner, £200; small ditto, £22'; the