Howard Leavitt Horton (1904-1983) extensively annotated the back of this photograph of a three-masted schooner tied up at Hingham Harbor over one hundred years ago, melding an image, a business transaction, and a cherished childhood memory.

Schooner Lizzie C. Lane . . . Built at Searsport, Maine 1874. Burned at West Dublin Bay, Nova Scotia, June 3, 1921. 231 gross tons.  115.8’ x 29.8  x 9.2.  Crew of 5.

Called at Hingham – Geo Kimball Lumber Co. about 1914 or 15 as arranged by James Wiley Gilroy, lumber merchant and nephew of my grandmother Annie Eaton Horton of Elm Street (Mrs. Geo. W. Horton), my grandfather’s second wife, who was like a mother to me after my mother’s death in 1911.  I sat in Geo. Kimball’s office at the Harbor while Mr. Kimball and Mr. Gilroy made the business deal for a load of lumber shipped from Lunenberg, N.S.  I saw the schooner come into Hingham a couple of months later and dock at Kimball’s Wharf and went aboard. Mr. Hough, uncle of Karl Hough, was an employee of Kimball Lumber Co. at this time.

[Signed] Howard Leavitt Horton, Sr.

P.S. This was before World War I or before U.S.A. was involved.  I was in Lincoln School, 6^th grade, so it was around 1914.