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Prepared from authentic photographs and measurements of the original vessel

THE RAM ALBEMARLE.”

HER CONSTRUCTION AND SERVICE.

By Her Bumper, GILBERT ELLIOTT,* Apsvurayt 177H N; On:

During the Spring of 1863, having been previously en-
gaged in unsuccessful efforts to construct war vessels, of one
sort or another, for the Confederate Government, at different
points in Eastern North Carolina and Virginia, I undertook
a contract with the Navy Department to build an iron-clad
gun-boat, intended, if ever completed, to operate on the waters
of Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds. Edward’s Ferry on the
Roanoke river, in Halifax County, North Carolina, about 30
miles below the town of Weldon, was fixed upon as the most
suitable for the purpose. The river rises and falls, as is well
known, and it was necessary to locate the yard on ground suf-
ficiently free from overflow to admit of uninterrupted work
for at least twelve months. No vessel was ever constructed
under more adverse circumstances. The shipyard was es-
tablished in a corn field, where the ground had already been
marked out and planted for the coming crop, but the owner of
the land, W. R. Smith, Esq., was in hearty sympathy with
the enterprise, and aided me then and afterwards, in a thou-
sand ways, to accomplish the end I had in view. It was next
to impossible to obtain machinery suitable for the work in
hand. Here and there, scattered about the surrounding
country, a portable saw mill, blacksmith’s forge, or other ap-
paratus was found, however, and the citizens of the neighbor-
hoods on both sides of the river were not slow to render me

t Elizabeth City, 10 December, 1843,

and hence was only 19 years of age when he undertook to build the Al-
bemarle After the war he practiced law in Norfolk, Va., St. Louis and
New York. He was a brother of Captain Charles G. Elliott. A. A. G.,
of the Martin-Kirkland brigade and of Warren G. Elliott, now President
of the W, & W. R R. Company. He died at Staten Island, N. Y.. 9
May, 1895. This article appeared in the “Century” Magazine. July 1888

by whose kind permission it is reproduced here.—Ep.

Nore.—Gilbert Elliott was born a