Five-Masted Beauty
Belfast, United States
<b>A brief shipbuilding boom</b> following WWI put the shipyard owned by the Mathews Brothers woodworking mill back in business. The building of the <i>Jennie Flood Kreger</i>, Belfast's largest and only five-masted ship, was overseen by company president Orlando Frost. Frost's eleven-year-old daughter, Katherine, recorded in her diary the events leading up to the festivities of launch day. On Wednesday March 5, 1919 with a large crowd in attendance, Katherine wrote, "All of a sudden we heard a man shout to some of the people getting off the vessel, 'Get off that plank, get off that plank! She's going! She's going!' Sure enough, there was a grinding, creaking noise and we were moving, actually moving!" Shown in this photograph is the steamboat <i>Golden Rod</i> ferrying guests to and from the ship.