They clustered in every Atlantic port and were built in the yards of New England, New York, New Jersey, and Virginia,--built by the mile, as the saying was, and sawed off in lengths to suit the owners' pleasure.

They carried the coal, ice, lumber of the whole seaboard and were so economical of man-power that they earned dividends where steamers or square-rigged ships would not have paid for themselves.
As soon as a small steam-engine was employed to hoist the sails, it became possible to launch much larger schooners and to operate them at a marvelously low cost.

Rapidly the four-master gained favor, and then came the five- and six-masted vessels, gigantic ships of their kind.
Instead of the hundred-ton schooner of a century ago, Hampton Roads and Boston Harbor saw these great cargo carriers which could stow under hatches four and five thousand tons of coal, and whose masts soared a hundred and fifty feet above the deck.

Square-rigged ships of the same capacity would have required crews of a hundred men, but these schooners were comfortably handled by a company of fifteen all told, only ten of whom were in the forecastle.

There was no need of sweating and hauling at braces and halliards.