Island Patriarch Cligns to Ship - 1954 or 55 - Henry Edward Sullivan

Page Eighteen "Cut Teeth on Schooner" Reads as follows:
"Island Patriarch Clings to Ships" by Sara Marstellar Journal Staff Writer

High Island, Nov. 16 - Henry Edward Sullivan has been going down to the sea in ships for as long as he can remember.
     "Cut my teeth on the mast of a schooner - owned a boat ever since I was 14, and don't aim to go out of the boat-owning business as long as I'm able to get around under my own power," declares this rugged old mariner.
     The patriarch of High Island, just past his 96th or 97th birthday, is busy rigging up a boat for fishing in the gulf as soon as spring breaks.
   HE'S SPENT THE greater part of his life on the water, and he doesn't think he's old enough to spend time sitting around the fireplace spinning yarns about the sea.
    Records of Mr. Sullivan's birth were lost during the Civil War. It has been determined, however, that he was born in New Orleans either in 1858 or 1859.
    His father joined the Confederate forces in Louisiana, but at the conflict's end he was in Galveston. He sent for his family and established a home there.
    Mr. Sullivan thinks he inherited his love for the sea from his father.
    "Worked on a schooner with my father running lumber from Lake Charles to Galveston before I was knee high," Mr. Sullivan recalls.
    He went to High Island in 1880 when there were three families living there.
    He made good money in those days hunting and taking his game to Galveston to sell to hucksters.
    When High Island began to grow, Mr. Sullivan set regular sailing days when he went across the bay to Galveston with a load of produce from his garden and those of his neighbors. He often carried as many as 800 pairs of ducks to Galveston markets.
   SOME SELF-IMPOSED restrictions he has adhered to all of his life, thinks Mr. Sullivan, may have contributed to his longevity.
    He has never used tobacco in any form, and he has, he says, always kept away from any type of alcoholic beverages.
    He never went to school a day in his life and he doesn't think he missed much by not going.
    He's never been sick many times, and can recall only one time when he ever really needed a doctor.
    He's lived on the same spot on "the hill" here since 1880. He likes the site because he can sit on his porch and watch the waves roll in on the white beach a block away.
    HE HAS HIS OWN teeth, sees well without glasses and says his hearing has never been impaired.
    He's had 17 children, 10 of them are still living. The oldest, Frank, 72, resides in Beaumont.
    The "baby" lives in High Island. He is 30.
    "May have to slow up a bit before long, my knees are getting kind of wobbly, guess old age is finally catching up with me," says Mr. Sullivan rather sheepishly, as he explains why he steadies himself with a cane.
    He works on his boat, dry-docked in his yard, every day.
    "Putting in a new keel, didn't like the looks of the old one," he says.
    HE'S AIMING, HE says, to have the craft fit as a fiddle before spring.
    "Children think I'm too old to go fishing and oystering, but by March I'll be sittin' in her right out in the middle of the bay, digging for oysters. Goin' alone too, got no mind to share my earnings with a passenger.

Photo caption: PATRIARCH OF HIGH ISLAND - Henry Edward Sullivan will be ready for a busy fishing season come spring. He plans to do lots of oystering in his boat.