THE PALMER FLEET
About the beginning of the Civil War and for several years thereafter, there were many four and five masted schooners built and operated in the coal carrying trade along the North Atlantic coast.
Capt. Wm. H. Palmer and Associates built and managed a fleet of this class of schooners, which were known as the “Palmer Fleet.” Each vessel when built took on the name of some member of the Palmer family. Capt. Palmer became the managing owner. These were great, beautiful vessels, and when with a favoring breeze they sailed gaily up and down the coast, presented a picture worth going many miles to see.
About that time and for some fifteen years thereafter, the coal carrying business from Philadelphia and Baltimore to Boston and ports beyond was very good, and much money was made in the business, and these large schooners were built especially to handle this trade along the Atlantic seaboard.
The Palmer fleet did not by any means include all the four and five masters engaged in this transportation business. There were other firms that, in addition to handling four and five masters, were building and operating six masters.
Of all the six masters, I do not know of a single one afloat on the New England coast today, and the four and five masters are very few indeed. Following are the names of the schooners of the Palmer Fleet, and so far as I know there is not one of them afloat today, December 15th, 1927.
The first of this fleet, the Jane Palmer, was built at Harbor View, East Boston, and she had a carrying capacity of 4400 tons of coal. Her draft was 29 feet, that is, she required more than 29 feet of water in which to float when loaded.
The others were Paul Palmer, Baker Palmer, Dorothy Palmer, Singleton Palmer, Davis Palmer, Fuller Palmer, Elizabeth Palmer, Prescott Palmer, and Harwood Palmer, these were the ten five masters, and the Maud Palmer and Marie Palmer were the two four masters.
The Davis Palmer was the largest of the fleet and had a carrying capacity of 5000 tons. The four masters carried only 2800 tons each.
There were two schooners named Paul Palmer. The first one was stranded on the Jersey Coast, later was floated and re-named George P. Hudson. The second Paul Palmer was totally destroyed by fire five miles east of Race Point Light.
The Davis Palmer was lost in the terrible Christmas blizzard of 1909, and with her entire crew of nine officers and men went to the bottom in Broad Sound, in Boston Harbor.
SIGHTED BY SHIPS OFF CAPE COD