A Famous “Blubber Hunter” to be exhibited at Chicago.

December 10, 1891 – At one of the wharves of New Bedford, Mass., lies in a half dismantled’ condition the old whaler Franklin. She is but a 73-ton schooner, yet she was famous In the palmy days of whalers and sealers, was built at Eastport, Me., in 1838. and has taken in one short voyage off Newfoundland enough oil, bone and skin for the captain’s share to amount to 124,000. And now that captain intends to take her to Chicago, refitted as in her best days, and make her a part of the groat exhibit at the World’s fair. Captain Henry Clay is one of those retired seamen who make so large a part of the population of New Bedford, and takes much pride in the old schooner that served him well. She will start next summer rigged and manned as though for a whaling voyage, and make the trip by way of the St. Welland canal and lakes, exhibiting at all the principal cities on the way. On her deck will be the boilers and other apparatus used in rendering whale fat into oil, and all the available interior will be a museum of objects in the whaling line, from a whale’s head and bones to harpoon and knives, and such will be her exhibit on Lake Michigan. Captain Clay says that in eight years the Franklin netted him $85,000 in oil, bone and ambergria, yet her most famous voyage was toward the south two years ago, when commanded by Captain Rose. On the night of July 15,1880, Captain Rose and crew reached and rescued twenty-five passengers of the schooner Antarctic, which had burned at sea, for which congress awarded the vessel $8,500.

*Noteworthy

1868 – The first traffic lights are installed, outside the Palace of Westminster in London. Resembling railway signals, they use semaphore arms and are illuminated at night by red and green gas lamps.

1869 – John Campbell, governor of the Wyoming Territory, approved the first law in U.S. history explicitly granting women the right to vote. Commemorated in later years as Wyoming Day, the event was one of many firsts for women achieved in the Equality State

1884 – Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is published.

1898 – Spanish–American War: The Treaty of Paris is signed, officially ending the conflict.

1906 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt wins the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the mediation of the Russo-Japanese War, becoming the first American to win a Nobel Prize.