USA > Massachusetts > The maritime history of Massachusetts, 1783-1860 > Part 25
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And wished to share and keep all square, but then the workers would n't.
A meeting of the whole was called, the question put and tried, Our Constitution voted down, our Bye Laws null and void.
Now carpenters can take a job and work for what they please, And those who do not like to work can loaf and take their ease And squads can form for travelling, or any thing they choose, And if they don't a fortune make, they 'll not have it to lose.
And can chat, chat, sing, sing, chat, chat away,
And take all comfort that they can in Californi-a.
Within three weeks of landing on California soil, every emigrant company dissolved into its separate, individual elements. For a treasure-seeking enter- prise like that of '49, in a setting of pioneer individual- ism, communism was about as well suited as to the New York stock exchange or the Supreme Council of the League of Nations.
The Massachusetts forty-niners did not go to Cali- fornia to settle. The average man's intention was to make his pile and return home rich. A few did come back to dazzle the natives, and a few became Cali- fornia millionaires; but the greater part went broke. It was not the miners who made the big money in '49- '50, but the men who exploited the miners.
Of the many stories of fortunes lost and won by
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The Best Chance Yet, for CALIFORNIA!
A Meeting will be held in COHASSET, at the Office of'
H. J. TURNER,
On SATURDAY, January 27th, at 11 O'Clock, for the pure pose of forming a Company, to be called the "South Shore and California Joint Stock Company ;" to be composed of 30 Members, and each Member paying $300.
COHASSET, JANUARY 24, 1849.
Propeller Power Presses, 142 Washington St., Boston.
POSTER ADVERTISING AN EMIGRANT COMPANY
OH! CALIFORNIA
emigrating Yankees, that of Dr. Samuel Merritt, of Plymouth, is typical. Liquidating his property, he purchased a brig and loaded her with merchandise and passengers. At the last moment he decided to invest in tacks for the California market, and started on horse- back for the Duxbury tack factory. On the way he was overtaken by a messenger, who recalled him to attend an accident, immediately after which he had to sail, without the tacks. They were selling for five dollars a paper at San Francisco when he arrived. At Valparaiso, on the way, another fortune was missed by failing to fill up a hole in the cargo with potatoes, of which the San Francisco market was totally denuded. But the bottom had fallen out of the market for every other article in his cargo. However, within a year his medical practice at San Francisco brought him forty thousand dollars.
Hoping to become the Frederic Tudor of the coast, Dr. Merritt chartered a Maine brig to load ice at Puget Sound and bring it to San Francisco in time for summer. His captain discovered that Puget Sound was not Maine, but returned with a load of piles in lieu of ice. Piles happened to be much wanted then for wharves, and the venture proved profitable, as did a second of the same nature. Vessels began to flock northward for piles, so the Doctor wisely decided he had had the cream, and would let them take the skim milk. He directed his shipmaster to take Puget Sound timber to Australia, to exchange for coal. Again the captain used good judgment. Instead of coal, he re- turned with a load of oranges from the Society Islands, and made another killing. Dr. Merritt then closed his office, purchased a large tract of land across the Bay, created the city of Oakland, and in due course became a multi-millionaire, mayor of the city, and owner of the finest yacht on the Coast.
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A stranger fate was that of John Higgins, of Brew- ster, forty-niner who never reached California. Work- ing his way out on a steamer, he was wrecked on the Australian coast, shipped as second mate on a brig, was shipwrecked again, and drifted to the Wellington Islands, where the natives received him with open arms. He married the chief's daughter, established a trading business with the whalers, and left two sons to continue his work of civilization, which even the missionaries acknowledged to be more successful than any black-coated brother possibly could have done.
Many Massachusetts shipowners sent their vessels with full cargoes to San Francisco in time to obtain the prices of '49 that seem fabulous even to-day - forty- four dollars a barrel for flour, sixteen dollars a bushel for potatoes, ten dollars a dozen for eggs that had been around the Horn, one thousand per cent profit on lumber. Freights rose to such figures that the ship Argonaut, built at Medford in 1849 for John E. Lodge, paid for herself before casting off her lines for her maiden voyage. When reports of these prices reached the merchant-shipowners, they rushed cargoes of every sort and description around the Horn, until in 1851 the market became glutted and unopened cases of dry goods were used for sidewalks in the muddy streets of San Francisco. Between June 26 and July 28, 1850, there entered the Golden Gate seventeen vessels from New York and sixteen from Boston, whose average passage was one hundred and fifty-nine days. Yet on July 24 there arrived at San Francisco the little New York clipper ship Sea Witch, just ninety-seven days out. Every mercantile agency in San Francisco began clamoring for goods to be shipped by clipper, and the shipyards responded to their demand.
CHAPTER XXII THE CLIPPER SHIP
1850-1854
THE golden sands of California were a quickening force to the shipyards of Massachusetts. For four years they teemed with the noblest fleet of sailing vessels that man has ever seen or is likely to see.
Massachusetts launched her first clipper ships in 1850, from the yard of Samuel Hall; the Surprise 1 for the Salem Lows, then of New York; and the Game- Cock 2 for Daniel C. Bacon, of Boston.
Samuel Hall, now fifty years old, was the most emi- nent shipbuilder in the commonwealth. Of an old Marshfield family, he served his apprenticeship on the North River, and at his majority left for Medford with a capital consisting of a broad-axe and twenty- five cents. After pursuing his trade on the Mystic, the Penobscot, and at Duxbury, he became, as we have seen, the pioneer master builder of East Boston. The Game-Cock and Surprise were designed by a twenty- three-year-old Bostonian named Samuel H. Pook,3 the first independent architect of merchant vessels in New England.
Well did Sam Hall choose the name of his first
1 Surprise, 183' 6" × 38' 8" × 22', 1261 tons.
2 Game-Cock, 190' 6"X 39' 10" X 22', 1392 tons.
3 Samuel Hartt Pook (1827-1901) designed three of the eighteen California clippers that made a voyage of less than one hundred days from an Atlantic port to San Francisco before 1861 - the Surprise, Witchcraft, and Herald of the Morning; and the Northern Light, which has the record from San Francisco to Boston. An early advocate of iron- clads, he became, like his father, Samuel Moore Pook (1804-78) a naval constructor, U.S.N., and remained in the service until 1889.
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clipper ship. One surprise of her launching was a banquet, not for owners and bankers and all bumble- dom, but for the mothers, wives, and sweethearts of the workingmen who built the ship. The next sensa- tion came when she was launched fully rigged, with her gear rove off, all three skysail yards crossed, and colors flying. Water-front pessimists expected her to capsize with such heavy top-hamper. Others said she would slide into the harbor mud and stick there. But with half Boston cheering, and the bells of every church and meeting-house jangling out a welcome, the Surprise clave the water with her sharp stern, shot out into the harbor, swayed gently to get her balance, and paused, erect, with the air of a young and insolent queen.
She was the first clipper ship commanded by Philip Dumaresq.1 He came of a long line of merchant- captains. His mother belonged to the Gardiner-Hallo- well family, and Philip was born on one of their great Kennebec estates in 1809. But like his only peers on clipper quarterdecks, Captains "Bully" Waterman, of New York, "Nat" Palmer, of Stonington, and "Perk" Cressy, of Marblehead, Captain Dumaresq had followed the sea since his teens, and worked his way up from before the mast. At twenty-two he re- ceived his first command, and in Russell & Co.'s China fleet became noted for his expert navigation, for quiet, effective discipline, and for getting the ut- most speed out of a vessel. The Surprise, under Captain Dumaresq, again fulfilled the promise of her name. On her maiden voyage she knocked a day off the Sea Witch's record to San Francisco, which conserva- tives had ascribed to Waterman's luck. But the new mark of ninety-six days did not last long.
1 Pronounced "D'merrick."
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CLIPPER SHIP SURPRISE IN THE ENGLISH CHANNEL
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THE CLIPPER SHIP
On a bitterly cold December afternoon in 1850, Donald McKay launched the Stag-Hound, his first clipper. Pioneer of a new fifteen-hundred-ton class, the Stag-Hound both by her appearance and her per- formance 1 placed Donald McKay at the head of his profession. Before many months passed the head of the New York firm of Grinnell, Minturn & Co. visited Mckay's yard, and took a fancy to a ship that was being built for Enoch Train. He offered double the contract price to the owner, who could not afford to refuse. It was a good bargain for Grinnell & Minturn; for this was the Flying Cloud.
McKay built faster clippers and larger clippers; but for perfection and beauty of design, weatherliness and consistent speed under every condition, neither he nor any one else surpassed the Flying Cloud. She was the fastest vessel on long voyages that ever sailed under the American flag.
Her dimensions were 229 feet length on deck, 40 feet, 8 inches breadth, and 21 feet, 6 inches depth; reg- istered tonnage 1783. Her figurehead was a winged angel blowing a trumpet just under the bowsprit. Captain Josiah Perkins Cressy,2 of Marblehead, thirty- seven years old but fourteen years a shipmaster, was her commander. On her maiden voyage in the summer of 1851 the Flying Cloud made a day's run of 374 miles, logged 1256 miles in four consecutive days, and arrived at San Francisco eighty-nine days out of New York. This run was only twice equaled, by herself in 1854, and by the Andrew Jackson in 1860. On her
1 The Stag-Hound (209' X 39' 8" × 21', 1534 tons) holds the record of thirteen days from Boston Light to the equator, no other ship having come within three days of it, whether from Boston or Sandy Hook. She has second-best record, eight days, twenty hours, from San Francisco to Honolulu.
2 Pronounced "Creecy."
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return passage, having crossed the Pacific to Canton for a cargo of tea, the Flying Cloud made the two thousand miles from that port to Java Head in six days, almost halving the previous record. In addition, she has the best average for three, four, and five voy- ages from an Atlantic port to San Francisco.
Donald McKay was an unusual combination of artist and scientist, of idealist and practical man of business. With dark hair curling back from a high, intellectual forehead, powerful Roman nose, inscruta- ble brown eyes, and firm lips, he was as fair to look upon as his ships. His serene and beautiful character won him the respect and the affection of his employees, and made the atmosphere of his shipbuilding yard that of a happy, loyal family. His ships were alive to him, and when permitted to name them himself by a wise owner, he invariably chose something fitting and beautiful. Stag-Hound and Mastiff for two power- ful, determined clippers that could grapple with every element but fire; Flying Cloud - her rivals knew what that meant, when she tore by them at sea; Flying Fish and Westward Ho! - both of the California fleet; Romance of the Seas for a ship whose sleek, slender beauty reminded the old salts of their youthful visits to Nukahiva; Sovereign of the Seas for a stately clipper that made a marvelous record against head winds and hurricanes; Great Republic for the ship of ships; Light- ning for the fastest sailing vessel ever built, and Glory of the Seas for his last, and in some respects his best, creation.
Experience, character, and mathematics self-taught were the firm soil from which the genius of Donald Mckay blossomed. He designed every vessel built in his yard, and personally attended to every detail of her construction.
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THE CLIPPER SHIP
... First with nicest skill and art, Perfect and finished in every part, A little model the Master wrought, Which should be to the larger plan What the child is to the man, Its counterpart in miniature.
From the model the lines were taken off, enlarged to their proper dimensions, and laid down in the mold- loft. When the great frames were in place, Donald Mckay would inspect the ship's skeleton from every angle, clothing it in imagination with skin of oak; and if anything looked wrong by perhaps an eighth of an inch, he chalked a frame for shaving off or filling out. By such methods were designed these great clipper ships that moved faster through the water, laden down as they were with heavy cargoes, than any sailing yacht or fancy racing machine designed by the scientific architects of to-day.1 Eight knots an hour is considered good speed for an America's cup race of thirty miles. The Red Jacket logged an average of 14.7 for six consecutive days in the Western Ocean; the Lightning did 15.5 for ten days, covering 3722 miles, and averaged II for an entire passage from Australia to England. A speed of 12.5 knots on a broad reach in smooth waters, by the Resolute or Shamrock, excites the yachting reporters. The Light- ning logged 18.2 for twenty-four hours in 1857, and there is a tradition that the James Baines on an Australian voyage in 1856 logged 21 knots for one hour. 2
1 No disparagement of modern naval architects is intended; they have progressed far beyond the designs of the fifties in fishing schooners and yachts. Yet, I am informed by one of the most eminent among them, no one to-day could make an essential improvement over the Mckay clippers, for a sailing ship of their size.
2 In justice to the improved full-bodied vessels built at this period, it
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The records show conclusively Donald McKay's supremacy over any other builder, and the supremacy of Massachusetts builders over those of any other state. Only twenty-two passages from an Atlantic port around Cape Horn to San Francisco, in less than one hundred days, are on record. Of these, seven were made by Mckay ships - Flying Cloud and Flying Fish, two each; Great Republic, Romance of the Seas, and Glory of the Seas. Only two other builders, Samuel Hall, of Boston, with the John Gilpin and Surprise, and Westervelt, of New York, have even two voyages in this honor list. Including the Witchcraft, built by Paul Curtis at Chelsea, and the Herald of the Morning, built by Hayden & Cudworth at Medford, we have one-half of these record voyages over the longest race- course in the world, to the credit of Massachusetts- built vessels. Of the rest, four belong to the other New England states, and seven to New York.1
There were a dozen or more Massachusetts builders besides Donald McKay and Samuel Hall, who built clipper ships that were a credit to the commonwealth. Edward and Henry O. Briggs, of South Boston, grand-
should be remarked that they too made some remarkable passages. In 1854 the barque Dragon of Salem, 289 tons, Captain Thomas C. Dunn, built at Newburyport in 1850, made the 16,670-mile run from Salem to the Fiji Islands in eighty-five days; an average of 8.2 knots for the entire voyage. Few tramp steamers to-day could do better.
1 The list of all California outward passages between 1850 and 1861 made in 110 days or better (in Captain Clark's Clipper Ship Era, Appendix II) gives the same result. Nineteen are by Mckay ships. His nearest competitor, Webb, of New York, has fifteen. All the other Boston builders together have twenty-two, all the other New York builders, twenty-three. Medford builders have seventeen; other Mas- sachusetts builders, seven. Yet out of 171 California clipper ships and barques listed by Captain Clark, McKay built only ten; Samuel Hall and Briggs Bros., of Boston, and Webb, of New York, each built eleven. In addition, Mckay built the great Australian clippers which do not figure in this list, and which no builder, American or foreign, equaled.
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THE CLIPPER SHIP
sons of the North River builder of the Columbia, spe- cialized in medium clipper ships, a class somewhat underbred in appearance compared with the Flying Cloud and Surprise, but with carefully designed water- lines and small displacement which often produced remarkable speed. Their Northern Light,1 under the command of Captain Hatch, completed a round voy- age from Boston to San Francisco in exactly seven months. On the homeward passage, off Cape Horn, she passed the New York clipper ship Contest, which had sailed a day earlier; and with skysails, ringtail and studdingsails set on both sides, alow and aloft, she slipped into the Narrows of Boston Harbor on the evening of May 27, 1853, just seventy-six days, five hours, from San Francisco. That record remains good to this day.2
Other bright lights of Briggs Brothers were the Boston Light, Starlight, and the ill-fated Golden Light, which, ten days out on her first voyage, was set afire by lightning, and abandoned at sea.
Robert E. Jackson, of East Boston, built the Winged Racer, John Bertram, Blue Jacket, and the Queen of Clippers,3 "one of the finest and largest of these ships," wrote Frank Marryat, the English traveler, from San Francisco. "She is extremely sharp at either end, and, 'bows on,' she has the appearance of a wedge. Her accommodations are as perfect as those of a first-class ocean steamer, and are as handsomely decorated; and,
1 Northern Light, 171' 4" X 36' × 21' 9", 1021 tons; built 1851.
2 In San Francisco voyages the homeward passage was much easier than the outward owing to prevailing westerly winds. Consequently the outward passage is always selected as a test of a vessel's performance, and the Northern Light's feat by no means equals the Flying Cloud's record of eighty-nine days to San Francisco. But she made Manila in eighty-nine days from Boston in 1856.
3 Queen of Clippers, 248' 6" × 45' × 24', 2360 tons; built in 1853 for Seccomb & Taylor, of Boston, but sold to Zerega & Co., of New York.
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as it is worthy of remark that great attention has been paid to the comfort of the crew." Paul Curtis's Witchcraft was a fast and handsome clipper, with a grim Salem witch for her figure-head. Medford build- ers like J. O. Curtis, Hayden & Cudworth, and S. Lapham have more fast California passages to their credit, considering the number they built, than those of any other place. Several smaller clipper ships were built by the Shivericks, at East Dennis, by J. M. Hood & Co. at Somerset, and by the experienced builders of Newburyport, who surpassed all others for careful work and finish. The Dreadnaught, built by Currier and Townsend, became the most famous Liverpool packet-ship, and was the only clipper to have a chanty composed in her special honor. Captain Samuel Samuels, of New York, unexcelled as a driver of men and vessels, commanded this "saucy, wild packet" for almost seventy passages across the At- lantic, in which she made several eastward runs under fourteen days.1
One finds many new names in the list of Massachu- setts owners of clipper ships. Their great initial cost and maintenance expense brought about a separation of shipowner and merchant. The clippers were really
1 Dreadnaught, 220' X 39' × 26', 1400 tons. Captain Clark (Clipper Ship Era, 246), by printing her actual log as given in three Liverpool papers, has definitely exploded the myth of the Dreadnaught's nine-day seventeen-hour passage, from Sandy Hook to Queenstown in March, 1859, which Captain Samuels never claimed until the twentieth cen- tury. For evidence on the cther side of this famous controversy, see F. B. C. Bradlee, The Dreadnaught (2d ed., 1920). Mr. Bradlee has dis- covered a second "nine-day passage" in the Illustrated London News, July 9, 1859, which states that the Dreadnaught "arrived off Cape Clear on the 27th ult., in nine days from New York." But the New York Herald of June 17, p. 8e, reports by telegraph from "Sandy Hook, June 16, sunset, . . . the ship Dreadnaught, for Liverpool, passed the bar at 12} P.M. Wind SW, light." On July 19, p. 8c, it reports her arrival at Liverpool on July 2.
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THE CLIPPER SHIP
large packet-ships, whose owners depended for profit on freight and passage money, not on speculative car- goes of their own. And profit they certainly did make, in the flush days of 1850-53, for the glut of 1851 at San Francisco did not last long. Freight ranged as high as sixty dollars per ton, and it was an unlucky ship that did not pay for herself by her first round voyage to California. The Surprise did so, and made fifty thousand dollars to boot.
Many of the most famous Massachusetts-built clippers were owned by New York or British firms, and never saw Boston after their first departure. Others, owned by Boston or Salem firms, were oper- ated out of New York. But there were still a goodly number that plied regularly from Boston to San Francisco, and then crossed the Pacific to bring tea, hemp, and sugar to England and America. Several clipper ships were owned on shares, like the old-timers, but operated by regular packet-lines. Such a one was the Wild Ranger,1 built by J. O. Curtis at Medford in 1853 for various Searses and Thachers of Cape Cod, and commanded on two California voyages by one of their number, twenty-four-year-old J. Henry Sears, of Brewster.
In May, 1853, an intending passenger for San Fran- cisco, perusing the shipping columns of the Boston "Daily Advertiser," would be embarrassed to make a choice. Winsor's Regular Line offer the "first-class clipper ships" Belle of the West and Bonita, and the "half-clipper barque" Cochituate. Timothy Davis & Co.'s Line advertise the "half clipper ship Sabine"
1 Wild Ranger, 180' X 35' 4" X 23', 1044 tons. She was chartered to Glidden & Williams's Line. The ship Mary Glover, here depicted to show the contrast between a clipper and a contemporary full-bodied ship, was 595 tons, built by Briggs Brothers, at South Boston, in 1849. She was a very successful ship, and was reported still alive in 1900.
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and the "new and beautiful clipper ship Juniper." 1 Glidden & Williams make the bravest display with the "magnificent first-class clipper ship White Swal- low," to be followed by the Wild Ranger and John Bertram; the "new and beautiful half clipper ship West Wind" and the "first-class and well-known packet-ship Western Star." This was the greatest of the Boston firms operating clipper ships. Its San Francisco line also contained, at one time or another, the Witch of the Wave, Golden West, Queen of the Seas, Westward Ho!, Morning Light, and Sierra Nevada. Sampson & Tappan owned the Flying Fish, Winged Racer, and Nightingale, a supremely beautiful extreme clipper built in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and named for Jenny Lind. George Bruce Upton owned the Stag-Hound, Reindeer, Bald Eagle, and Romance of the Seas. James Huckins & Sons had most of the Briggs Brothers' "Lights." Baker & Morrill owned the Star- light and Southern Cross; and John E. Lodge (father of Senator Lodge), the Argonaut, Don Quixote, and Storm King; William Lincoln & Co., the Golden Eagle, Kingfisher, and White Swallow; Curtis & Peabody, the Meteor, Cyclone, Saracen, and Mameluke. The Fear- less, Galatea, and two named Golden Fleece, carried the black race-horse flag of William F. Weld & Co., a house which outlasted most of the merchant-ship- owners of Boston, and after the Civil War owned the largest sailing fleet in America.
Two famous Boston firms of Cape Cod origin were
1 One will search in vain for several of these "clippers" in authorita- tive lists like Captain Clark's and Dr. O. T. Howe's, for when the clipper ships became popular, every new vessel of a certain size was advertised at least as "half-clipper." A rigid distinction is made in the early American Lloyds' Registers between clipper ships, and sharp ships, medium ships, and full-bodied ships, only the extremest of clippers falling in the first class.
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CENTRAL AND INDIA WHARVES IN 1857 Mediterranean Fruiters at left; Coasters at right; Clipper Ship Defender in Center
THE CLIPPER SHIP
Howes & Crowell, who owned the Climax, Ringleader, and Robin Hood, and D. C. & W. S. Bacon, who owned the Game-Cock, Hoogly, and Oriental. Daniel C. Bacon was a link between the Federalist and the clipper periods, having been mate under William Sturgis in the old Northwest fur trade. In 1852 he was elected presi- dent of the American Navigation Club, an association of Boston shipowners and merchants, which offered to back an American against a British clipper for a race from England to China and back, £10,000 a side. Although the stakes were subsequently doubled, no acceptance was received.
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