The Postcard
A postcard that was published by J. B. & S. C. The card was posted in Bristol using a one penny stamp on Sunday the 3rd. April 1904. It was posted to:
Mrs. N. Blakemore,
S.S Mississippi,
c/o H. Rels (Butcher),
15 Market 15,
Bremerhaven,
Germany.
The S.S. Mississippi
The Mississippi was built for the Atlantic Transport Line as passenger cargo vessel with four masts. She entered service early in 1891, and in September of that year was reportedly one of the four vessels most likely to be placed on the new line then being organized from New York.
She made 44 voyages to New York for passenger service between August 1892 and December 1897. An article in the New York Times records that her consumption of coal was 35 tons per day.
Under the command of Captain McNeally in September 1894, the Mississippi rescued the nine-man crew of the sinking Norwegian bark Hakon Jarl, and on the 27th. May 1897, she collided with, and damaged, the Thingvalla Line ship Hekla in fog off the Newfoundland Banks.
In September 1897 the Mississippi, under the command of E. G. Cannons, was briefly stranded. Reporting the incident, the New York Times noted that:
"To avoid collision with a small coal schooner,
the Atlantic Transport Line steamship Mississippi,
bound in from London, ran her nose into the mud
south of Fort Wadsworth."
With half of her length in the mud, efforts to haul her off proved unsuccessful, and with ten feet of water in her hold part of her cargo had to be offloaded.
The Mississippi was by this time the smallest vessel in the Atlantic Transport Line fleet, and the only one remaining with a single screw.
The first officer of Mississippi at this time was Llewelyn Crouch, who lost his life as chief officer of the SS Mohegan in 1898. The Mohegan was a steamer which sank off the coast of the Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall, on her second voyage. She hit The Manacles on the 14th. October 1898, with the loss of 106 out of 197 on board. The Mohegan was way off course, and the disaster was ascribed to human error.
Items belonging to Crouch were auctioned in Plymouth, England, in 1990. Chief among them was a painting of the Mississippi by the celebrated marine artist Antonio Jacobsen.
The Mississippi was transferred in 1898 to the subsidiary National Line, but continued on the London to New York service. In the summer of 1898 she was one of the Atlantic Transport Line ships purchased by the U.S. government for use as a transport in the war with Spain, but she was not converted in time to serve in the conflict.
After the war however she was one of the ships retained to form the new permanent Army transport service. She was refitted for this permanent role at Newport News in 1899, and emerged with two tall masts replacing her four steel pole masts.
She was also renamed as the U.S. Army Transport Buford. She served principally on the San Francisco to Manila line, and was one of three transports used in the harbor as temporary storehouses for the supplies coming into San Francisco by sea in the weeks following the devastating earthquake and fire in 1906.
In April 1912 Buford was sent to the West Coast of Mexico to bring away Americans who wanted to leave on account of the unsettled conditions there. In early May 1912 the Buford was ordered to take on board also any British or Spanish refugees she might encounter.
However according to the New York Times:
"Buford was sent more for the moral
effect than for any actual necessity
now existing."
Another report noted:
"She failed to find any
willing to leave."
January 1919 saw her transferred to the Navy as USS Buford, and in that service she made four trips to France and brought home more than 4,700 troops. Buford shipped personnel and cargo between the U.S. and the Panama Canal in August 1919 before being decommissioned early in September and returned to the Army.
Buford participated in the forced deportation of potential subversives during the first Red Scare of 1919-20. Dubbed "the Soviet Ark," she carried 249 "undesirable aliens" to Hango in Finland, from where they were taken by sealed train to the Russian frontier.
Buster Keaton and 'The Navigator'
The Buford was sold in 1923 to John C. Ogden and Fred Linderman of San Francisco, proprietors of the Alaskan Siberian Navigation Company.
When Buster Keaton's Technical Director Fred Gabourie was in the area scouting for ships which could be converted into Elizabethan galleons for a project (The Sea Hawk) he spotted the retired Buford and sensed an opportunity.
On his own initiative Keaton leased the old ship for $25,000 and engaged a team of writers to create a screenplay around her. The resulting movie, The Navigator, was released in 1924 and proved to be Keaton's most successful project in financial terms and one of his personal favorites.
It was shot in Avalon Bay off the coast of Catalina Island in the space of just ten weeks.
The Scrapping of the Buford
The Buford was finally scrapped in Japan in 1929.
S.S. Mississippi/Buford Technical Details
-- Sister Ship: S.S. Michigan
-- Builder: Harland & Wolff, Belfast, yard number 231
-- Launched 29th. August 1890
-- Delivered 18th. October 1890
-- Hull length: 370' 9"
-- Beam: 44' 3"
-- Tonnage: 3,732 tons gross
-- Masts: 4, schooner-rigged
-- Holds: 26' 7" deep
-- Power: single screw; triple expansion engine
-- Coal consumption: 35 tons per day.
The Dutch House
The Dutch House was a large timber-framed building situated at Nos 1 and 2, High Street Bristol, England. It was a well-known local landmark until its destruction in 1940.
History of the Dutch House
The Dutch House (often given the prefix 'Old') was built or rebuilt as a private residence in 1676, and dominated the medieval crossroads of High St, Wine Street, Broad Street and Corn Street in the heart of ancient Bristol.
Sitting on top of medieval vaulted stone cellars, which also ran out under Wine Street, the more prominent part of the structure was No. 1 High St. This was of rectangular plan, two bays by one, and originally five stories tall; an attic storey was added later.
This building had facades on both Wine St and High St. The Wine St façade was two bays wide and consisted of a square bay window to the full height of the original building (except the ground floor), with a flat façade to its right. The High St. façade consisted of a bay window, narrower than that on the Wine St façade and with splayed sides, but similar in all other respects. Both facades were ornately carved.
The adjoining house at No. 2 High St. was incorporated into the premises at some point before 1860. This four-storey gabled house was considerably less ornate than No. 1.
In 1810 the Dutch House became the Castle Bank, and subsequently had a succession of retail and office uses. By 1866, under the auspices of hatter Mr T. W. Tilly, it had gained fake battlements with cannon, a weather vane, a flagpole and a Grenadier Guardsman sign (now in the care of the City Museum).
It seems likely that Mr Tilly was also responsible for altering the façade of No. 2. A watercolour drawing of The Dutch House by Bristol-born artist Blanche Baker was exhibited at Bristol in 1885. The battlements, incongruous on a timber-framed building, had been removed by 1917.
In the early 1900's traffic engineers planned to demolish the building to ease the flow of traffic between High St and Wine St. These plans were dropped after the Lord Mayor used his casting vote against them, however the lower storey was cut back by 8.5 feet (2.6 m) in 1908 to accommodate the pavement so that the junction could be eased.
During these works the timber frame of the unified building was restored with much new woodwork, and a 5 storey inner steel skeleton was inserted. This included a 35 feet (11 m) diagonal beam to support the cantilevered weight of the upper floors, and corrected hundreds of years of sagging timber as the building was now very much supported by the steelwork.
The plans from this time also show a new winder staircase surrounding an elevator in the southeast corner of the building.
The shop's final occupier was the Irish Linen and Hosiery Association.
The building was a well-loved landmark of the city and featured in pre-war guide books and in many photographs and postcards.
The Origin of the Building's Name
The name 'The Dutch House' was used from about 1860, when T. W. Tilly took over the shop. It is thought that he may have given the building the name, and started the story that its timber frame was constructed in Holland and then brought over and assembled in England.
This story does not bear close scrutiny. Both of the original houses, though different in style, reflect the local vernacular; for example the High St. facade of No. 1 has many similarities with the surviving Llandoger Trow pub in Bristol.
Some of Bristol’s timber-framed buildings were however constructed in part from recycled ship’s timbers, so it is not completely out of the question that some of the timber frame may have come from a Dutch ship.
The Bombing of The Dutch House
On Sunday the 24th. November 1940, the Dutch House was almost completely consumed by the fire from incendiary bombs which fell during the 5-hour air raid by over 135 German bombers, part of the Bristol Blitz which destroyed much of Bristol's pre-war shopping area.
A photograph taken immediately after the raid shows that only 4 of the 5 storeys of the High Street facade and a small section of the Wine Street return remained, the inside having been completely burnt away and the tottering facade only held up by the inner steel skeleton (badly twisted in the fire) which had been inserted in 1908 as part of the rebuild.
Three days later on the 27th. November 1940 an army demolition team pulled the remains down by cables attached to a lorry to make the corner safe. According to an eye-witness account, the demolition took considerable effort because the steel frame was connected to the boundary walls of the Jones and Company department store on either side in multiple places.
With Wine and High Streets massively widened between 1956 and 1963, the site where the building stood is now occupied by an extension to Broad Street where it intersects with High St and Wine St. This new junction was further altered in 1976 when the east end of Corn St was pedestrianised. The Wine St/High St corner of the medieval carfax (crossroads) now sits 130 feet diagonally back from where the missing 4th. corner was.
A Novel Papal Blessing
So what else happened on the day that Nellie posted the card?
Well, on Easter Sunday the 3rd. April 1904, Pope Pius X sent his apostolic blessing to the Diocese of Venice by telephone, the first time a Pope had sent such a blessing by phone in the history of the Catholic Church.
Gabriel Voisin
Also on that day, Gabriel Voisin successfully flew an Archdeacon glider at Berck-sur-Mer, Picardy, France.
9-year-old Jacques Henri Lartigue, who would later become a well-known photographer, witnessed Voisin's flight.
A Bank Explosion
In Albia, Iowa, an explosion at the Citizens' National Bank killed three people.
Iron Eyes Cody
The day also marked the birth, in Kaplan, Louisiana, of Iron Eyes Cody.
Cody, who was born Espera Oscar de Corti, was an American actor of Italian descent who falsely claimed Native American ancestry. Cody died in 1999.
Sally Rand
Also born on the 3rd. April 1904, in Elkton, Missouri, was the American dancer and actress Sally Rand.
Sally, who was born Helen Gould Beck, died in 1979 of congestive heart failure.
Sante Tani
The Italian soldier and partisan Sante Tani was also born on that day, in Rigutino, Arezzo, Italy. Sante was murdered in 1944.
Ernest Monnington Bowden
The day also marked the death of the Ernest Monnington Bowden. Ernest, who was born in 1860, was an Irish inventor.
Princess Edward of Saxe-Weimar
Princess Edward of Saxe-Weimar also died on that day, of acute pneumonia. She was born in 1827.
William Justice Ford
Another individual who died of pneumonia on that day was
William Justice Ford.
William, who was born in 1853, was an English schoolmaster, cricketer and sportswriter.