Port biscuit booted by Nabisco

It would appear as if some cracker invented in Newburyport is off the market. From the (AP) story in the Daily News:

For the second time in a little more than a decade, Nabisco has halted production of its Crown Pilot Crackers, the hard, rectangular biscuits that were invented in Newburyport and that generations of New Englanders loved to crumble into seafood chowder.

Has anyone ever actually had one of these crackers? Every time I get any kind of chowder, it is accompanied by those obnoxious oyster crackers.

Without disclosing specific figures, the manufacturer said sales of the regional brand had declined sharply, to the point where they were half of what they were about a decade ago.

Well, no wonder. Nobody knows what the hell the thing is.

The large crackers, known generically as ship's bread or hardtack, have been a staple along the New England coast and were first made commercially in 1792 by a Newburyport company that became part of the National Biscuit Co., or Nabisco, in 1898.

If I'd known such a thing existed, I might have bought the damn biscuit. Nevertheless, I miss it already.