All of the Cleveland fleet disposed of their cargoes to good advantage. Six of them returned with cargoes of crockery, bar iron, pig iron, and salt. This part of the trip also proved successful. It was the intention of the owners to sell some of the vessels in England, but the shipping interests were so prostrated that it was impossible to dispose of the ships at anything like a fair price. They therefore still remained in the hands of Cleveland owners, but four of them did not return to the Lakes. The D. B. Sexton went up the Mediterranean; the H. E. Howe went on a voyage to South America, the Harvest to the West Indies, and the C. J. Kershaw was employed in the Mediterranean trade. Wherever any of the Cleveland vessels went, they called forth complimentary remarks by their fleetness and steadiness in heavy weather. In the following year, other vessels were sent out and made successful trips. The remarkable sea-going qualities exhibited by these lake-built crafts, outsailing, as they did, ocean clippers and weathering gales that sent sea-going ships flying helpless before the storm, attracted the attention of Eastern ship-owners, and orders were received for vessels to be built for the Atlantic coasting trade. The outbreak of the war gave a severe check to the direct trade, which passed into the hands of an English firm who still continue to run vessels between Cleveland and Liverpool, and in the depressed condition of the American carrying trade on the ocean there was no longer a demand for new vessels for the coasting trade. With a revival of business in that line, and an enlargement of the canals between Lake Erie and tidewater, so as to allow the passage of larger vessels, there is a probability that a brisk demand for Cleveland vessels for the salt water will yet spring up. [Illustration: Respectfully, S. W. Johnson] Seth W. Johnson. The name of Seth W. Johnson has for more than thirty years been closely and prominently identified with the ship building interests of Cleveland. He saw the business in its infancy, was largely accessory to its growth into the important proportions it at last assumed, and though no longer engaged in the business, his withdrawal from it is so recent that the mention of his name suggests, to those familiar with the affairs of the city for a number of years, the incessant tapping of the shipwrights' hammers and visions of skeleton ships gradually assuming the form and substance in which they are to carry the commerce of the great West to market.