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THE HELENA The picture above is a reproduction of the oil painting of the wooden freighter HELENA (1888 - 1918) which was recently given to our Society by the Board of Harbor Commissioners of the Port of Milwaukee The 30" x 18" original has been cleaned and restored by Mr.Bracy, and will be on exposition at the December meeting. This painting of the HELENA is the work of Howard F.Sprague, a talented young dunaaa who died in New York City in 1899 at the age of 26. During his brief career Mr.Sprague had at- tained a high degree of success in depicting marine scenes. He had done about 50 paintings of Great Lakes Vessels and a score or more of yachts and coastwise vessels for patrons on the Atlantic Seaboard. At the moment we have recard of the following ras of the Lakes painted by this artist, - Strs. CHICORA (G.& M.Line,1892), CITY OF ALPENA, CITY OF MACKINAC, CENTURION, the 4 masted schooner JOHN (oly FITZPATRICK, Strs. WILLIAM H.GRATWICK i HELENA, MANITOU, MARISKA, MOHAWK, VIRGINIA and WESTERN RESERVE. Possibly some of our members can supply additional information on Mr.Sprague's works. SHIPS THAT HELENA - #95970 - coarse freight, wooden propellor, built at NEVER DIE Sheboygan, Wisconsin in 1888 by Rieboldt and Wolter. Dimensions (#40) 275.5 x 40.2 x 20.3 - 2083 gross tons, 1578 net. The HELANA was built for the Milwaukee Tug Bhat Line owned by Conrad Starke and William H.Meyer and was named for the daughter of C.Starke. The Milwaukee Tug Boat Line had entered the vessel field in 1866 when they had the propellor VERONICA built to their order at Milwaukee. The VERONICA was named for the daughter of W.H.Meyer. The original intention had been to name her "Helena" but Meyer put one over on his brother-in-law partner, Starke, and bad feeling resulted between the two men until HELENA was built. As originally constructed, the HELENA had twin smoke stacks, thwartship, and four masts, oe rigged and equipped with sails. e HELENA was sold in 1900 by the interests of Starke and Moye to the Gllsheipe Transportation Co,m of Cleveland. Two of the masts were re- moved and the others stripped to bare poles. In 1913 Gilchrist sold HELENA to the Armour Grain Co., of Chicago. Her new owners converted her into a floating grain elevator. The after spar was removed and a tall single stack