E-text prepared by deaurider, Barry Abrahamsen, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 57081-h.htm or 57081-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/57081/57081-h/57081-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/57081/57081-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/cu31924024551156 Transcriber’s note: Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). THE MEMOIRS OF CHARLES H. CRAMP [Illustration: CHARLES H. CRAMP] THE MEMOIRS OF CHARLES H. CRAMP by AUGUSTUS C. BUELL Author of “Life of Paul Jones,” “History of Andrew Jackson,” “Life of Sir William Johnson,” Etc. [Illustration: Publisher’s Logo] Philadelphia and London J. B. Lippincott Company 1906 Copyright, 1906 By J. B. Lippincott Company Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PREFACE ❦ IT is not often that the memoirs of a man cover the history of threescore years of active manhood. Still more rare is it that the period covered happens to be the most fruitful of progress known in the annals of mankind. And yet more remarkable, even to the point of the unique, is it that such a career, in such an epoch, should be inextricably interwoven with the history of one of the fairest arts and one of the most fascinating sciences,—Naval Architecture and Ship-building. All this is true of the subject of this memoir, Charles Henry Cramp. Such phrases as “prominently identified with” or “an acknowledged leader in” his sphere of creative activity do not adequately express Charles H. Cramp’s personal and professional relation, or rather his individual identification, with the maritime and naval history of his country. Those phrases applied to his status and his rank would be commonplace. His impress is far deeper than that, and the association of his name and his personality with the art and its triumphs have become a symbol.