THE YACHT JESSIE SOLD.
She Will, at Once Be Turned Into a Columbia River Pilot Boat.
HER OWNER TIRED OF HER.
Commodore Macdonough Accepted Less Than a Fourth of What the Yacht Cost.
December 31, 1895 – The yacht Jessie has been sold, and no more will she fly the house flag of Commodore Joseph Macdonough. The gallant yachtsman has tired of the sea, and no more will he be seen in the lead in forthcoming regattas. During last season the Jessie was not -in commission half the time.
It. soon became known that the Jessie was for sale and offers for her came from all parts of the country. She is known as a fast yacht and is fitted out’ in a luxurious manner. When anchored off Sausalito and ready for her trial
trip the Jessie stood on her owner’s books at a valuation of $25,000. That is the sum it cost to build and equip her. Of course no such sum as that was expected when she was placed on the market, but when the Columbia River pilots offered $10,000 for her Commodore Macdonough thought the figure too small and refused it. This was several months ago, and the Oregon men began looking around for another boat. In the meantime the expenses on the Jessie kept mounting up, and Macdonough being tired of her wrote to the pilots, stating that he would accent the $10,000 offer. The answer came in the nature of a surprise. The pilots said they were negotiating for another boat and that they would not pay more than- $6000 for the Jessie. The commodore thought the matter over and finally came to the conclusion to let the yacht, go. .He consequently accepted the $6000 offer, and in a few days the crack schooner yacht Jessie will sail for the Columbia River in charge of one of the pilots. Her future home will be Astoria, and the Oregonians will now be able to claim a fleet boat with which to defend their pennant. The Jessie is one of the last schooner yachts turned out by Captain Turner from his yards at Benicia. She is 86 feet long over all, 74 feet 6 inches on the water line, 24 feet beam, 10.60 feet draft and registers 75 tons. She is speedy, comfortable and thoroughly seaworthy, and at the’ figure she is a wonderful bargain. In all the regattas the Jessie was so successful that the palm for speed was generally conceded to her. In the friendly brushes between the Lurline, Aggie, Chispa and Macdonough’s yacht the Jessie usually won over a long course. The Aggie is a centerboard yacht and in short work she frequently outsails the crack.
Commodore Macdonough has a number of trophies won by his boat, and in a week or so these will be all he will have left to remind him of the merry times and glorious cruises he had on the stout yacht Jessie. When James V. Coleman bought the English-built yacht Miranda Macdonough challenged him to race for $5000 a side. Coleman replied that ne was going to keep his yacht in Eastern waters, so no race was possible. At that time the Jessie’s qualities were very generally discussed and the opinion of yachting men was that the Macdonough yacht was the fastest yacht of her class outside of a racing machine. Her i weatherly qualities will be well tested on the Columbia River bar.
* Noteworthy
1759 – Arthur Guinness signs a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum and starts brewing Guinness.
1857 – Queen Victoria chooses Ottawa, then a small logging town, as the capital of Canada.
1862 – American Civil War: Abraham Lincoln signs an act that admits West Virginia to the Union, thus dividing Virginia in two.
1878 – Karl Benz, working in Mannheim, Germany, filed for a patent on his first reliable two-stroke gas engine, and he was granted the patent in 1879.
1879 – Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting to the public for the first time, in Menlo Park, New Jersey.
1951 – The Marshall Plan expires after distributing more than US$13.3 billion in foreign aid to rebuild Europe.
1999 – The United States Government hands control of the Panama Canal (as well all the adjacent land to the canal known as the Panama Canal Zone) to Panama. This act complied with the signing of the 1977 Torrijos–Carter Treaties.