USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Kingston > Ships of Kingston. : "Good-bye, fare ye well" > Part 9
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HONOURED PARENT:
I rec'd your letter and my clothes. We expect to sail Sunday morning wind and weather permitting. Our crew I dislike very much, very light but pre- sume sober men or rather boys. The vessel is in good plight for sea going. I see nothing to prevent
the voyage being pleasant except absence from home. Capt. Plaskett says he does not know how long he shall stay out. We must ship for a voyage anywhere from 6 to 18 months. I shall not. If I can't do noth- ing better before that time I will quit the sea and dig clams.
They did not get to sea as expected for he writes his father again from Boston, September 26, 1826, saying:
HONOURED PARENT:
We move very slowly owing to weather. We was to have sailed Tuesday but owing to the weather and some other things we shall not sail till tomorrow. Our crew are shipped and on board such as they be. All of them light hands. We have but one able bodied man among them. I dislike some movements on board very much and shall make them known when we get well regulated, that will not be till we get
to sea. You will please keep the run of us and if any chance, write me. I expect to go from Lisbon to New Orleans, from there to Liverpool and else- where, according to the Old Man's feelings. We stay out till everybody else is wore out. I shall not write again before we sail, you will remember me to all.
From your affctnte son, Signed, P. HOLMES.
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He evidently soon got any "movements" he disliked, "regulated" on getting to sea, for nothing more is heard about the matter. He never had to dig the clams he speaks of in his first letter, but completed the voyage and continued to follow the sea constantly nearly twenty-five years longer, in command of his father's largest vessels, until he retired about 1855 to become president of the Warren Insurance Company, a marine insurance company of Boston.
In Captain Plaskett's letter to his father on his arrival at Lisbon he speaks of his ability and knowledge of things pertaining to the sea, when, as a very young man, he was show- ing a business capacity rare, even in those days of young commanders, in one of his age.
The letter of Captain Plaskett to Mr. Holmes reporting the brig's arrival at Lisbon and the quaint wording of his commendation of the mate, his son, is worthy of attention and must have been a source of great gratification to his father, although he had two other sons, older and younger, of equal, if not greater ability, Alexander and Edward.
Lisbon, Quarantine, 3rd, Dec. 1826. J. HOLMES, Esq. Dear Sir:
We arrived last Tuesday the 28th after a long passage with constant easterly gales, 35 days after passing the Western Isles a distance ran in four or five days good wind. But I think all done their duty. Other vessels have had long passages as ourselves. Business appears dull and I cannot tell our future destination till I get Prattick. My cargo will pay a fair freight and if a return one can be procured she will pay her way. She has performed her passage without accident to herself although with constant side winds and deck load, she lay all under water to lee-ward. I am as well pleased with her qualities as
ever. The latter part of the passage, she leaked some but on arrival it subsided so it must be in her upper works and easily come at. My passage except in length has been pleasant. My officers good and temperate, crew quiet, no difficulty. Your son possesses more within than his exterior to a stranger might judge. He has strong powers of mind and takes hold of things at the right end. A rough exterior many times pos- sesses a good heart, he is virtuous and temperate. I would sooner, notwithstanding his age, give him a vessel than one half the masters I have known.
My best wishes to you and to all the family, (and believe me, Sir), in true friendship I write it,
Yours truly, Signed, J. W. PLASKETT.
The vessel did not go to New Orleans as the mate expected on leaving home, the voyage lasting the full eighteen months he had signed for.
The next we hear of her is in a letter to Joseph Holmes from his son, dated September 8, 1827, from Chorillos, a little port near Callao, Peru. In this he gives an idea of what the conditions were in Peru at this time in the revolt of the Peruvians against Spain. The letter in part is:
HONOURED PARENT:
We lay at this dreadful place. We have discharged the best part of our cargo and been down to the island of San Lorenzo and ballasted our vessel. Took in two tons for the General Brown, a New York ship, that has been condemned for having Spanish property on board. She had 12 boxes of knives which were entered as knives, but they were very long I think more properly termed, swords. However, she is I think a lawful prize and MAZOS I believe universally thought so, although a beautiful ship. She sailed from Gibraltar in company with us. It was reported that the Patriot cruisers were after her guns before she got under way but it appears nothing troubled her until she got round Cape Horn.
The Spanish general holds Callao as yet. How much longer he will hold out is un- certain. It makes it very hard for the ship- ping for at this place they are exposed to a very heavy swell although in a constant trade wind, for the place lays open to the
Pacific and bottom very foul so much so that we have had to purchase a chain, for which we pay the round sum of $400.00.
SHEER AND SPAR PLAN OF THE SCHOONER Brazos OF KINGSTON, 1841
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CAPTAIN PARACLETE HOLMES
SHIPS OF KINGSTON
As to where we are going I hear some talking sometimes we are going to Panama to carry troops, at other times we are going to Valparaiso with troops, at other times we are going down the coast after a load of wood and thousands of other places too numerous to mention or sum them all up. I do not as yet know our future doom but I wish and hope that we shall come home where I can find you all enjoying good health and spirits, which is the sincere wish of your affectionate son.
Signed, PARACLETE HOLMES.
In this letter the mate speaks of their having to buy a chain. This was for a cable and at this time and for some years after, most of the cables used on merchant vessels were made of hemp, Russian hemp being the best. Oftentimes if the bottom of an anchorage was covered with rocks, or foul as it is called in the letter, the hemp cable would be chafed off, the vessel losing her anchor and going adrift, and if the weather was very bad be driven on shore and so lost. When chain cables became common no thought was ever given to the bottom of a harbor as to rocks, and few vessels were wrecked by the parting of their cables.
In addressing their letters to their father, Joseph Holmes, his sons show him the greatest respect, commencing them with "Honoured Sir" or "Respected Parent," and there was little said except what concerned the vessel or the business in hand.
At the present time this brig would be considered a very small vessel to make so long a voyage, but it was sometimes made in smaller ones and little was said of the hardships the officers and crews endured, confined for many months on board, in cramped quarters with a passage often greatly prolonged by head winds and bad weather.
One could wish more letters could have been found telling of her further proceedings on the South American coast and the voyage home. But no more is known, so it appears that soon after her return Joseph Holmes disposed of his interest.
This was the first vessel belonging to him to round Cape Horn and there is no record of any other, until 1850, when the ship Raritan, with the mate of the Sophia and Eliza, as master, went to San Francisco from Boston and return.
After Paraclete Holmes' return from the West Coast of South America, being then twenty-four years old, he was given his first command, the schooner Pamela of Kingston, 88 tons, built and owned by his father.
He writes home that the schooner sailed from New York, February 7, 1829, for Gibraltar and had a passage out of 29 days. Very bad weather for 12 days, had no sail set but a three-reefed foresail, but no damage done. From Gibraltar the vessel went to Malaga, loading for New York, where she arrived after a passage of 44 days. The freight money was $1,000 for the voyage, cargo out being flour, with deck-load of staves, and she carried a crew of six men.
The pass or indenture issued by the United States Government for the vessel's voyage, signed by the President, John Quincy Adams, and Henry Clay, Secretary of State, is owned by Alexander Holmes of Kingston, and a picture of it is shown here.
This schooner was named for Joseph Holmes' daughter, Pamela, who afterward became the wife of the Honorable Joseph S. Beal of Kingston.
In 1828, Joseph Holmes launched the full-rigged brig Roxana, 137 tons, owning her with his oldest son, Alexander. Captain Paraclete, having given up the Pamela, took com- mand of the new vessel and in the fall of 1829 sailed from Boston for Rio de Janeiro with
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Aaron Brewster of Kingston, mate. Captain Holmes writes his father that he had a 65 days' passage to Rio with light winds and never took in a royal till up to Cape Frio. The vessel arrived back to Boston in the winter of 1829, and February 27, 1830, was at New Orleans from Boston after a very hard passage. April 3, 1830, the brig was bound to New York and was there May 7. Captain Holmes writes that he is offered $4,000 for the brig and that she needs repairs. Not being sold he left, and the mate, Mr. Brewster, was made captain and the vessel repaired.
His next command was the ship Helen Mar of Kingston, as appears from a letter of instruction from John Fairfield, agent, in Boston, to Captain Paraclete Holmes of the ship Helen Mar, dated Boston, November 26, 1830. This ship was being used as a packet for freight and passengers between Boston and New Orleans, although owned in New York. Joseph Holmes, who built her in 1829, and owned her with his son, Alexander Holmes, having sold her. Captain Holmes, taking charge of her about this time, continued in her in the employ of her new owner. In those years a large business was done between these ports with a number of different packet lines and the competition was very keen. Captain Holmes' instructions were to look well after his ship so that she should be popular with passengers and shippers of freight. In Richard H. Dana's book, "Two Years Before the Mast," he says that August 20, 1834, six days out of Boston in the brig Pilgrim, bound to the west coast of North America, they spoke the ship Helen Mar of New York steering west, bound home, so at that time she was still owned in New York. It is not known how long he remained in the Helen Mar, but in January, 1835, he is at Charleston, S. C., master and part owner of his father's ship, Rialto of Kingston, with his brother Edward as mate, loaded with cotton and bound for Liverpool.
The Rialto, 459 tons, was new the year before and the largest vessel he had commanded up to this time. He remained master of this ship for several years, making many voyages from New Orleans and other southern ports to England and France, with cargoes of cotton and tobacco. In 1838, the Rialto is at Marseilles, and he writes that the ship is loaded with 300 tons of freight, 25 steerage passengers and 12 jackasses at $60 each, bound to New Orleans. The date on the oil painting of the Rialto, 1838, shows that it was on this voyage to Marseilles that the picture was painted by Pelligrini. Dana, in his book, "Two Years Before the Mast," mentions another Kingston vessel besides the Helen Mar when he speaks of an English sailor whom he met when on the Californian coast in 1835 who had come to Boston from Liverpool in the ship Rialto, Captain Holmes, and then shipped in the California for the West Coast. For a short time in 1841 he was coasting in his father's schooner September, having given up the Rialto to William S. Adams of Kingston, who had been mate with him.
In 1843, he took command of the ship Herculean of Kingston, a larger vessel than the Rialto and built by his father in 1839. During the time he was in this ship he continued to make voyages to England and France from New Orleans and other ports in the south with the usual cargoes of cotton and tobacco. The return cargoes were coal, salt and iron with as many cabin and steerage passengers as could be accommodated. If freights were good in the South he returned there at once, oftentimes in ballast, for another cargo, otherwise he would charter for New York or Boston and then go South, where if freights were very low or could not be readily obtained, vessels were obliged to lie idle sometimes for a month or more.
April 12, 1844, he writes his father from New Orleans that business as to freights was very dull and at that time there were in New Orleans 180 ships besides barks, brigs and schooners too numerous to mention. In a sea journal kept by him while in the Herculean he says, "Jan. 5, 1846, sailed from Mobile with a cargo of cotton. After a very boisterous passage arrived at Havre Feb. 23rd, discharged cargo and took on a full complement of passengers, say 216, for New York and sailed March 12th in great confusion. Arrived at New York after a very rough and long passage of 55 days. Had two passengers die and one born, May 5, 1846. Am glad to see Sandy Hook as ever I was to see anything in my life." After
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INDENTURE OF THE STEAMER Pamela
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SHIPS OF KINGSTON
arriving in New York Captain Holmes left the Herculean and later joined the ship Raritan of Kingston. Letters to his father show that February 18, 1849, the Raritan was at Mobile, loaded for Liverpool, ready for sea. There was on board 1,800 bales of cotton weighing 923,054 pounds, and the freight was 1923 English pounds. In order to carry the largest number of bales possible each bale was compressed, as they called it, to make it smaller in loading. This and the stevedores' bill were the largest items; the compressing bill being $1,033.35, and the stevedores' bill, $788.75. There were lighterage bills of $398, commis- sions procuring freight, $495.44, and bills for smaller amounts, crew's advance wages, supplies, pilotage, etc., which made a total of $3,306.11. The cotton bales were usually square sided, but sometimes, round, and in that case a higher freight was charged, as the round bales would not stow so closely, and fewer could be carried.
The expenses in port while loading a cargo of cotton amounted to quite a sum, and one loading would apply to all. Freights were higher or lower according to the demand for cotton in the foreign markets and the number of ships in port. The usual rates for cotton were from one-half to a cent a pound and on tobacco, thirty-two shillings and six pence per hogshead was a low price. London was a bad port to bring tobacco to for the consignees always made claims against the ship for damage to the tobacco hogsheads on account of close stowage and it was made hard for the captain to collect his freight money in full.
At New Orleans there was an additional expense in getting the ship to and from the sea by towing. The bar at the mouth of the river often caused delay in going to sea, if the ship were too deeply loaded, and then two steamers were required to pull the ship over the bar into deep water, as is to be seen from the towage bills. The size of the ships built by the Holmes from 400 to 600 tons seems to have been well adapted for the cotton trade from New Orleans. A larger ship with a greater draft of water would have been prevented from sailing if the river was at a low stage and so making the water on the bar very shoal. As it was, they had trouble in getting to sea. In Mobile and the other southern ports, the cargo in many cases was loaded from lighters, which really made the expenses in all these ports about the same.
February II, 1850, she sailed from Boston bound for San Francisco, where she arrived the following July after a passage of 165 days. From San Francisco the ship went to Hausco, Chili, and sailed from there for Boston, February 14, 1851.
The cargo of the ship for San Francisco was brick, cement and lumber, and some private ventures. The lumber was consigned to various parties, but on the arrival of the vessel the market was overstocked and hardly money enough to pay the freight could be obtained for it. Several lots were left on Captain Holmes' hands, which he was obliged to sell at auction to get it out of the ship in order to pay the freight. The delay in discharging the lumber caused him to lose the sale of his bricks and cement which were in the bottom of the ship, and brought out on the ship's account. On reaching San Francisco the bricks were worth $40 per 1,000, but when ready to be discharged the price had fallen so low that they were the same price in weight as ballast, which he would have had to buy when he sailed, so they were left on board.
The only Kingston, or as he says, Old Colony people that he saw in the town were Captain Theodore Cunningham, Captain Francis Jameson, Sylvanus Everson and Walter Bartlett. He speaks of some goods he brought on his own account which he sold at 100 per cent profit. Provisions were very high and all that could be spared were sold.
As in the case of all vessels arriving there at that time, the crew immediately left, but his officers remained by the ship and completed the voyage back to Boston. He speaks of them as excellent men. At this time such was the rush for the gold mines, vessels were often left by captains and officers as well as crews; in fact, abandoned. His letters are wholly about the business of the ship and make little mention of other affairs. All of his letters as to his many voyages are of the same type, a bare statement of facts; and a more detailed account of his passages and doings while in port would have been of much interest now, especially concerning the months spent in California. From his sea journal of this
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SHIPS OF KINGSTON
voyage he seems to have had the average kind of passage to San Francisco, as made in vessels of that period that were not built for speed, like the later clipper ships, with the usual heavy seas and westerly gales encountered in rounding Cape Horn. He was twenty days from latitude 50° in the South Atlantic to latitude 50° in the South Pacific, or as they say from 50° to 50°, which is called rounding the Horn, Cape Horn being in 55° south latitude.
His sea journal, under date of May 1, 1850, says, "Moderate winds, N.W., steering by the wind to W.S.W., middle part, wind N.N.W., two A.M., passed Cape Horn, bright moon- light, ten miles distant, shortly after the wind shifted to W. and W.S.W., in a squall of snow and rain. Strong gale. Close reefed. Latter part under short sail. Close reefed main- topsail, reefed foresail, main spencer and forestaysail, heading south.
'May 2nd, Standing off and on shore as the wind inclined. Wind from the west, at times blowing heavy, in squalls of hail, snow and rain.
"May 3rd, Strong gale from the west. Steering by the wind in shore under close reefed topsails and reefed coursers. At noon bore ship to the southward. Cape Horn bearing N.N.W."
The journal for these three days gives a perfect description of Cape Horn weather, which a vessel seldom escapes, bound to the westward and it was not uncommon for a month or six weeks to be spent in making this passage. Captain Holmes, by keeping close to land, did not allow his ship in spite of head winds, to be blown far to the south and so encounter ice and still worse weather, as was the case of many of the earlier vessels in their passage round the Cape. He was one of those shipmasters who were fortunate never to meet with disaster, unless it was the loss of a few sails and spars. Considering the num- ber of years he was in command at sea it seems as though Chance, as used by Joseph Conrad, in his book of that name, aided him as well as his own good judgment.
His letter to his father, reporting his arrival at San Francisco, is dated July 28, 1850. Under date of October 26, 1850, he again writes him: "We have got ready for sea at last and shall get there as soon as we can. I shall go direct I think to Valparaiso. I hope to get to sea tomorrow." The vessel sailed in ballast as no cargo could be had. Sailors' wages advanced while the cargo was being discharged, so when the ship finally sailed, they were paying men $25 to $30 per month and they were hard to ship at that price.
The next letter is from Valparaiso, Chile, dated January 3, 1851; in it the captain writes that he had engaged between 300 and 400 tons of copper at $15 per ton for Boston for the Revere Copper Company, the vessel to load at Huasco, about 40 hours' sail down the coast from Valparaiso.
She sailed from this port of Huasco, February 14, 1851, and had light to moderate winds to latitude 49° 36' S., longitude 82° 12' W., which was reached March 7, 1851. From this point to Cape Horn there were strong gales from the N. and N. W. with a large sea, as Captain Holmes calls it. He records in his sea journal of this voyage that March 10th, 1851, commences with strong gales from N.W. At four A.M. wind shifted to W.N.W. and W. with tremendous gusts. Took in close reefed mizzen and maintopsails. Middle and latter part more moderate. Clear weather, Lat. by observation, 56° 30' S. and Long. 73° 30' W.
March IIth, 1851: Fresh winds and squalls of rain and snow. Steering E. by N. At nine A.M. saw Diego Ramirez. At noon, bore N.N.W.
March 12, 1851 : Fresh winds steering N.E., by N.N.E. At six P.M. abreast of Cape Horn. Steered N.E. till two A.M., N.N.E. and N.E. by N.12N. At daylight Statten Land ahead, steered N.E. At noon, east end bore North, distance, 18 miles. Very moderate and fine.
March 13th, 1851. Moderate winds from N.N.W. Steering by the wind, northward and eastward. Clear weather. Lat. observed, 54° 4' S. Long. 61º 31' W.
March 14, 1851: First part, wind from N.N.W. heading E.N.E. by the wind. At ten P.M. come up to N.E. by N. Midnight come N.N.E. and N. by E. Set studding-sails, main-royal. Lat. observed, 52° 19' S. Long. 57º 44' W. With favorable winds the ship was only nine days from 50° to 50° in going around Cape Horn to the eastward,
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which was a good run considering she was deeply loaded. The passage around the Cape has been so often written about that little more need be said. Oftentimes a vessel bound west is obliged to be kept under short sail for many days, laboring against head seas and heavy gales, and while in this condition meeting a fleet sailing east, homeward bound with a fair wind, all sail set, with their crews lining the rails forward, and making signs of derision to their less fortunate mates, huddled in the lee of the forward house to escape the flying spray. It is said that sometimes an eastern passage is made in such good weather that the sailors go barefooted. The chart that Captain Holmes had on this voyage in the Raritan was the same one he had used when mate of the brig Sophia and Eliza, in 1826, on a voyage to Callao, Peru, and it is interesting to follow the track of these two vessels in the southern latitudes.
After a moderate passage from Lat. 50° south, the ship reached Boston the first part of May and was at once returned to the cotton-carrying trade. There is no record of any of the Holmes' fleet going to the west coast of North or South America, except the brig Sophia and Eliza, ship Raritan, and barks, Egypt and Fruiterer.
As there was no date of this letter and the number of days' passage was omitted it was probably written by Captain Holmes to his brother Alexander on board the Raritan at sea just before she made the port of San Francisco and forwarded on his arrival. The last entry in his journal of the voyage is July 28, 1850: "Light winds and foggy. At 10.00 A.M. saw the land. The land off San Francisco. 4.00 P.M. pilot came on board. At 8.00 P.M. anchored in harbor of San Francisco." This would date the letter July 28, 1850, and makes his passage 165 days from Boston. The letter reads:
St. Francisco.
MR. ALEXANDER HOLMES:
Dear Brother. For the benefit of all concerned I give a short narrative of our outward passage to this place and as you're the oldest, I address to you. We sailed from B -- as you know on the IIth Febr. with a fine fair wind which run us out clear of Georges Bank. On the 15th in the edge of the Gulph Stream - had a very heavy gale of wind from the Southern quarter which lasted about 12 hours blowing very heavy. It then gave up suddenly and exposed us to a very dan- gerous Seaway the ship entirely unmanageable from want of wind. One of our 300 gal. water casks got adrift and in its passage across deck pass'd over the Pig Pen killing 4 out of 8 of our pigs (something of a loss), also lost from the quarter a small boat. A good beginning you will say. But this is all the accident or damage we have meet with on the voyage. From this time we had excellent weather although the winds were not so favourable as I could have wished to the Equator. We reach'd this point in our passage 36 days from B --. We were now of course in the S.E. trade wind which proved moderate all the way across them. April IIth, got soundings on the Bank off the River Plate where we lay becalm'd for 2 days. We steared along the coast of Patagonia passing in side of the Falkland Islands. In fact I keept the coast close on board to Staten Land which place we pass'd on the 28th of April and hawled up for the Cape with very fine weather wind from W.N.W. to N.W. on the Ist May passed Cape Horn within 10 miles at 12 mid- night. As bright a Moonlight night as I ever saw in my life. Spoke at the same time Ship Rob Roy Cap. Holt who sailed some time before us. On May IIth called ourselves far enough to the Westward to stear to the
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