1929-1930The last schooner, Gertrude L Thebaud, was built for the fishing industryEconomy and Industry, Maritime & Fishing Industry

The Gertrude L. Thebaud cost $60,000. Louis Thebaud and other investors were interested in obtaining a vessel to win the International Fisherman’s Cup. In 1933, it sailed from Gloucester to Chicago by way of the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes to serve as the Massachusetts exhibition at the World’s Fair. In 1937, the schooner was chartered by Commander Donald B. MacMillan, the noted explorer, for a trip to the Arctic. During World War II, it served in the Coast Guard patrol. It finished as a freighter in the Caribbean, being wrecked off Venezuela on February 6, 1948. With the Thebaud, the three-hundred-year-old shipbuilding industry of Cape Ann virtually came to an end.