Jacob A. Westervelt Jacob Bell
Clipper-Ship Builders
Baltimore, Mystic, Medford, Newburyport, Portsmouth, Portland, Rockland, Bath, and other ports contributing to the fleet. These splendid ships—the swiftest sailing vessels that the world has even seen or is likely ever to see—sailed their great ocean matches for the stake of commercial supremacy and the championship of the seas, over courses encircling the globe, and their records, made more than half a century ago, still stand unsurpassed.
After carrying their cargoes to California at the enormous rates we have given, these ships would return round Cape Horn in ballast for another cargo at the same rate, as they could well afford to do, or would cross the Pacific in ballast and load tea for London or New York. Many of them more than cleared their original cost in less than one year, during a voyage round the globe, after deducting all expenses.
The central points about which the great ship-owning interests collected were New York and Boston. Here, too, were the most famous shipyards. All along the harbor front at East Boston and the water-front of the East River from Pike Street to the foot of Tenth Street, New York, were to be seen splendid clipper ships in every stage of construction; and beside the ship-building yards, there were rigging-lofts, sail-lofts, the shops of boat-builders, block-and pump-makers, painters, carvers, and gilders, iron, brass, and copper workers, mast-and spar-makers, and ship stores of all kinds, where everything required on shipboard, from a palm and needle, a marlinspike or a ball of spun yarn, to anchors and chains, was to be found. The ship-yards were great thriving hives of industry, where hundreds of sledge-hammers, top mauls, and caulking mallets, swung by the arms of skilful American mechanics, rung out a mighty chorus, and the fresh odor of rough-hewn timber, seething Carolina pitch, and Stockholm tar filled the air with healthful fragrance. They were unique and interesting localities, the like of which have never existed elsewhere—now long passed away and all but forgotten.
The principal shipping merchants in New York were William T. Coleman & Co., Wells & Emanuel, Sutton & Co., John I. Earl, and James Smith & Son, all of whom managed San Francisco lines and usually had one or more clippers on the berth, loading night and day for California. The old Piers 8, 9, and 10, along the East River, were scenes of great activity, and throngs of people visited them to see: these ships. At all the seaports along the Atlantic coast, almost every one knew something and most persons knew a good deal about ships. They were: a matter of great importance to the community, for as late as 1860, nearly all the large fortunes in the United States had been made in shipping.
The captains and officers of the California clippers were as a class men of integrity, energy, and skill, nearly all of them being of the best Pilgrim and Puritan stock of New England, and trained to the sea from boyhood. Many of them were the sons of merchants and professional men, well known and respected in the communities in which they lived. Their ships carried large crews, besides being fitted with every appliance for saving labor: fly-wheel
