The boom times of World War I still prevailed when the 192’ four-masted schooner Freeman was launched in the spring of 1919 from the old Cobb-Butler yard (reorganized a year earlier as the Francis Cobb Shipbuilding Co.) at the foot of Mechanic Street in Rockland. Nearly 300 workers were employed at the time, spread out to complete the two vessels that show on the stocks behind the Freeman—the schooner Lucia P. Dow and the steam freighter Ripogenus. The curtain dropped for schooner building a year later, in 1920, with the launching of Rockland’s last four-master, the Josephine A. Mcquesten, the final vessel launched from that site.
Rockland, ME
Catalog Number LB2013.21.413