Yankee Platter

Hand-painted Terra Cotta Majolica with cast pewter rim and turned wooden handles   She is America's midwife, in a sense.  Yankee ushered many thousands of new-born Americans from the wombs of immigrant ships at Ellis Island and cradled them across a bustling Hudson to New York's new world.    Our great, great, grand fellows wobbled and toddled the gangplank with a wink to the "then" and blink to the "now" of a mighty Manhattan.  And whilst children riffled through satchels, sacks, and excitements to find their own, the Yankee turned from her berth, with a creek and a nod under her own steam, back, to fetch the rest...again, and again and again...   Born to a Portland shipyard in1907, her debut launch was in ferrying for Casco Bay and the Calendar Islands off Maine. Yankee was the fairest ferry of her day.  But it wasn't long till she was stripped of her crystal, soft kid and mahogany, to be painted Navy Grey.    In "The War to End All Wars," she was put out as a packet ship to watch fo