Mayflower

In 1896 a graceful 320-ft. yacht was built at J. & G. Thompson's shipyards, Clydebank, Scotland, painted white, launched as the Mayflower, sold to Manhattan Landlord Ogden Goelet for $1,250,000. Two years later the U. S. Navy bought her for $430,000, ran her as a dispatch & gunboat in Cuban waters. Thereupon the naval auxiliary Mayflower cruised in U. S. waters and abroad, carried such potentates as Edward VII, Kaiser Wilhelm, made history as the signing place of the peace treaty following the Russo-Japanese War. In 1902 she became the Presidential yacht of Roosevelt I.

For 27 years the Mayflower's planks were trod by U. S. Presidents. Taft was too large to use the marble bath presented to his athletic predecessor by Italy. Wilson had an elevator installed, Harding had it removed. Paper cigar-holder in mouth, yachting cap on head, Calvin Coolidge spent some of his happiest hours aboard her. Then Herbert Hoover ordered the Mayflower sold. Six times the Navy called for bids before a syndicate bought her fire damaged hulk, laid her up for seven years. Auctioned off this month at Wilmington, N. C. for $16,000, rumors of the Mayflower's reblossoming were thick around her wharf last week. But the 42-year-old beauty seemed doomed at last as final purchasers were announced, Virginia's Suffolk Scrap Iron & Metal Co.

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