It would be impossible to name the handsomest of these ships, for while they were all of the same general design, each possessed her special type of beauty; and beauty, as we all know, is elusive, depending largely on fashion and individual taste. In order to attract the favorable attention of shippers and to secure the highest rates of freight, it was necessary that these ships should be handsome as well as swift. Ship-owners were content to spend large sums of money, not only upon refined decoration, which was but a small portion of the expense, but also in carefully selected woods, such as India teak and Spanish mahogany for deck fittings, and in the finest shipwright’s and joiner’s work about the decks, which were marvels of neatness and finish.
Ship-builders certainly had every incentive to exercise their best skill upon these vessels; they received pretty much their own prices for building them, and each ship, as she sailed out upon the ocean, held in her keeping the reputation of her builder, to whom a quick passage meant fame and fortune. Six of the clipper ships launched in 1851, the Flying Cloud, Comet, Sword-Fish, Witch of the Wave, Ino, and Northern Light, established speed records that have not yet been broken, and as time rolls on, the probability that they ever will be, becomes less and less.
The Flying Cloud was originally contracted for by Enoch Train, the good friend of Donald McKay, but while on the stocks she was sold to Grinnell, Minturn & Co., under whose flag she sailed for a number of years. Mr. Train used to say that there were few things in his life that he regretted more than parting with this ship. She was 1783 tons register, and measured: length 225 feet, breadth 40 feet 8 inches, depth 21 feet 6 inches, with 20 inches dead-rise at half floor. Her main-yard was 82 feet and her mainmast 88 feet in length, and like all the large clippers of her day, she carried three standing skysail yards; royal, topgallant and topmast studdingsails at the fore and main, square lower studdingsails with swinging booms at the fore; single topsail yards, with four reef bands in the topsails; single reefs in the topgallant sails, and topsail and topgallant bowlines.
She was commanded by Captain Josiah Perkins Creesy, who was born at Marblehead in 1814. Like most boys who were brought up along the coast of Massachusetts Bay, he began his career by being skipper and all hands of a borrowed thirteen-foot dory, with the usual leg-o’-mutton sail, and steered by an oar over her lee gunwale. In these dories water was carried in a strong earthen jug with a stout handle to which a tin drinking-cup was usually attached, while a wooden dinner-pail, such as the Gloucester fishermen used in those days, contained provisions. When the rode line was coiled down clear with the killick stowed away forward, and the dinner-pail, wooden bailer, and water jug had been made fast with a lanyard to the becket in the stern sheets, the famous Cape Ann dory was about ready for sea.
Joe Creesy was a genuine boy, large and strong for his age, freckled, good-tempered, and fond of rowing, sailing, and fishing. When he got to be thirteen or fourteen years old, he used to get some one to lend him a dory, and in this, during his summer vacation, he would make short cruises to Beverly and sometimes to the neighboring port of Salem. Here he would loiter about the wharves, watching an Indiaman discharge her fragrant cargo, or perhaps some ship fitting out for another voyage to India or China; and he would gaze up in wonder and admiration at the long tapering masts, with their lofty yards and studdingsail booms, and what appeared to him to be a labyrinth of blocks and slender threads. The ships’ figureheads, especially those representing warriors and wild animals, pleased Joe mightily, and the spare spars, gratings, capstans, boats, guns, and shining brass work, all delighted his heart. Occasionally he would behold a sea-captain who had really sailed to Calcutta and Canton, and the bronzed mariner was to him a being quite apart from other mortals.
At that time Salem retained much of the spicy, maritime flavor of the olden days, and these pleasant summer cruises to the old seaport naturally captivated the boy’s imagination, until he yearned for the time when he, too, might stand upon the quarter-deck in command of a noble ship. It would, of course, have been sinful to keep a boy like this on land, so he was permitted to follow his inclination and ship before the mast on board of a vessel bound for the East Indies. He advanced steadily through all the grades on shipboard, and became a captain at twenty-three.
When Captain Creesy was appointed to command the Flying Cloud, he was well known in New York, as he had commanded the ship Oneida, for a number of years in the China and East India trade, and bore a high reputation among ship-owners and underwriters, many of whom were his personal friends and associates.
The Flying Fish was owned by Sampson & Tappan, who, with George B. Upton, were the leading Boston ship-owners of their day, and between them owned the largest and finest clipper ships belonging to that port. These firms were composed of men in the prime of life, who enjoyed owning fast and handsome vessels. They cared for nothing but the best in design, construction, and equipment, and fitted out their ships with spare gear, stores, and provisions upon a most generous scale. The Flying Fish was 1505 tons register and measured: length 198 feet 6 inches, breadth 38 feet 2 inches, depth 22 feet, with 25 inches dead-rise at half floor. Her commander, Captain Edward Nickels, had sailed out of Boston for a number of years in command of the ship John Quincy Adams, and was a fine seaman and navigator. He was fond of entertaining his friends while in home and foreign ports, and his jolly little lunches and dinners were regarded as models of refined hospitality on shipboard. Commander John A. H. Nickels, U. S. N., is a son of Captain Edward Nickels.
Mr. Webb’s Challenge, a still larger merchantman than had yet been constructed, was regarded with pride by the shipping men of New York. The Challenge registered 2006 tons, and measured: length 230 feet 6 inches, breadth 43 feet 6 inches, depth 27 feet 6 inches, with 42 inches dead-rise at half floor. Her mainmast was 97 feet and mainyard 90 feet in length, and the lower studdingsail booms were 60 feet long; with square yards and lower studdingsails set, the distance from boom end to boom end was 160 feet. She carried 12,780 running yards of cotton canvas, which was woven especially for her by the Colt Manufacturing Company. Her mainsail measured: 80 feet on the head, 100 feet on the foot, with a drop of 47 feet 3 inches, and 49 feet 6 inches on the leach. She had four reefs in her topsails, and single reefs in her topgallant sails, and carried skysails, studdingsails, and ringtail. She was owned by N. L. & G. Griswold, of New York, and was commanded by Captain Robert H. Waterman, late of the Sea Witch.
The Invincible, owned by J. W. Phillips and others, of New York, was 1767 tons register, and measured: length 221 feet, breadth 41 feet 6 inches, depth 24 feet 10 inches. She was commanded by Captain H. W. Johnson, a gentleman who possessed a merry wit and a vivid imagination. Some of his experiences by land and sea, as related by himself, were certainly startling, and he told them with a minuteness of detail and an earnestness of manner that carried conviction equal to the most realistic illusions of the drama. There was one story about a mutiny on board the British brig Diadem, of which vessel Johnson said he was second mate. This craft carried a Lascar crew, and was in the Bay of Bengal, bound from Calcutta to Hong-kong with a cargo of opium, when a mutiny broke out in which all hands took part with such ferocious valor that the second mate and the serang, both badly wounded, were the only survivors.