Six Pensacola Lads To Buy an Aeroplane
Result of Recent Salvage Case
It became known yesterday that the six juvenile members of the Anclote Boat Club, who were recently awarded ten thousand dollars salvage in the Honduras mahogany schooner wreck, have determined to put a part of their treasure trove into an up-to-date aeroplane. Thomas Allen and Robert Balfour, nineteen and eighteen years old, and president and secretary of the club, respectively, have been delegated to go to New York to select the airship.
It also became known at the same time that there is a decided objection to this on the part of the parents of more than one boy. But the youngsters seem determined, and there is a strong probability that parental objection will be defied.
Tom Allen, president of the club, said yesterday: ‘You bet we are going to do it. Every one of the six members of the club risked his life to earn that money and why shouldn’t we spend it as we like? We are going to use five thousand dollars to buy an aeroplane, one thousand dollars to fix up our club house over on Anclote Island, and divide the rest. The court awarded us the money, and we’re going to beat the men of Pensacola by bringing an aeroplane down here before they wake up.’
Then followed nearly a column story that set Roy’s nerves tingling. It reviewed the history and adventures of the Anclote Boat Club. This juvenile organization of boys, ranging in age from sixteen to nineteen years, had for a couple of winters maintained a sort of winter quarters on Anclote Island about five miles off the west Florida coast and north of Tampa.
In the previous February the club members had, in a bad sou’wester, been instrumental in saving a three-mast schooner loaded with mahogany and driven out of her course on a voyage from Honduras to Mobile. This had been done with the help of the “Escambia,” an old lifeboat rebuilt and converted into a power boat by the addition of a ten-horsepower motor.
The details of the salvage trial in the U. S. Court were also given briefly, and then followed various anecdotes about the club, which had, apparently, afforded a number of adventurous tales to the local newspapers. When Roy finished the long story his face was aglow with more than perspiration.