Sea-Going Vessel Built in Land-locked Ambler

Since 1933, residents of Ambler as well as Reading Railroad  commuters watched with interest a small vessel taking shape on North Main Street.  And now, on a Fall morning in 1948, many are surprised to find the vessel, a forty-six foot sea-going sail boat, no longer in its usual spot next to Brooke Johnson's Machine Shop  The 16-ton craft has been loaded onto a twelve-wheeled trailer for transport to the waters of the Delaware River. Long-time dreams of  Brooke Johnson and his son David are finally being realized, as the first step of a planned five-year trip around the world gets under way.  Later, as the vessel is being lowered by crane into the waters of the Delaware River at Allegheny Avenue, Brooke's granddaughter Nancy Morgan christens it "Dearest". 

Following these ceremonies, the Gloucester type two-masted schooner is taken to New York to have sails fitted to her 40-foot mast.   Two of their pet dogs are to accompany the Johnsons on this journey, "Pete" a brown Alaskan sled dog, and "Rags" a black & white wire-haired terrier.  

Brooke Johnson started in business in Ambler way back in 1897 in a small frame structure on Butler Avenue near the railroad.  The building had been moved there from Main Street on the Ambler Park Hotel property.   Here he opened his first machine shop, for bicycle and general light repair work, with business brisk during this popular year of the bicycle.  That same building served in later years as a shoe repair shop next to the Ambler Palace building, erected in 1900 by Abram Stillwagon as his restaurant and cigar factory.  

In the early 1900's Johnson purchased property at Main Street near Tennis, where he erected a modern machine shop.  It was here the ship-building project began in 1933, neither father nor son having had prior experience in boat building. Dave had a nautical background, having left high school to join the School Ship Annapolis, from which he was a graduate. He was a member of the crew of the last square-rigger to leave the Port of Philadelphia in 1928, later serving in World War II as a lieutenant in the Merchant Marine. 

For years, 82 year old D. Brooke Johnson, and his son, 47 year old D. Brooke Johnson, Jr., had dreamed of this globe-circling trip. The younger Johnson, better known as Dave,  was a familiar figure around town, remembered as wearing a derby when he rode his bicycle through the streets of Ambler. 

The elder Johnson, considered a genius by many, had been called in, on more than one occasion, to solve manufacturing problems that no one else could correct.  An oft-told story concerns a problem at the Keasbey & Mattison Company's plant.  Production came to a halt when a  critical part on a machine failed to function.  When hope was given up by company officials, Brooke was called in. Working behind closed doors, he soon had the equipment up and working so that production could resume.  His bill submitted for fifty dollars was questioned by K&M officials with the following: "You've fixed our machine with a simple part that costs no more than fifty cents, and yet you've given us a bill for fifty dollars.  How can you explain charging us so much?"  To this, Brooke replied, "You're absolutely right.  The part cost only fifty cents, but the extra $49.50 charged was for knowing what to do with that fifty-cent part." 

In November of 1947, just a year before the launching, the machine shop and the vessel experienced a devastating fire which damaged the shop and threatened one side of the ship.  This meant additional work to prepare the vessel for the approaching trip.  

Unfortunately, Brooke Johnson's dream of the trip around the world was never to be fulfilled, for on the trip south by way of the inland waterways, son David felt his father's  health would not allow for the strain of the long trip, so he packed up his father and sent him back to Ambler, continuing the trip south alone.  Soon Brooke was back at his old Main Street Machine Shop, with business as usual.  The planned trip never came about for father or son, with the vessel becoming a shrimp boat on the Gulf of Mexico.  Whereabouts of Brooke's boat "Dearest" are unknown today, according to granddaughter Nancy Morgan Ewing, who  recalls the christening more than half a century ago.    She remembers that the champagne bottle refused to break until several attempts. We are certain of one thing only, that the dreams of father and son of that trip around the world were never realized