The ships and sailors of old Salem

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

Hon. Jacob Crowninshield

This method of nautical education was of course open only to those of considerable influence who wished to fit their sons to become merchants as well as shipmasters. It seems to have been remarkably efficient in training the five Crowninshields. One of these shipmasters, Benjamin W., became Secretary of the Navy under Jefferson, and United States Congressman, while another brother, Jacob, was a Congressman from 1803 to 1805 and had the honor of declining a seat in Jefferson’s Cabinet. Jacob Crowninshield, however, earned a more popular kind of fame by bringing home from India in 1796, the first live elephant ever seen in America. It is probable that words would be wholly inadequate to describe the sensation created by this distinguished animal when led through the streets of Salem, with a thousand children clamoring their awe and jubilation.[26] It is recorded that this unique and historical elephant was sold for ten thousand dollars.

The eldest of these brothers, Captain George Crowninshield, who served his years at sea, from forecastle to cabin, and then retired ashore to become a shipping merchant, was the patriotic son of Salem who chartered the brig Henry, manned her with a crew of shipmasters and sailed to Halifax to bring home the bodies of Lawrence and Ludlow after the defeat of the Chesapeake by the Shannon. Those who knew him have handed down a vivid description of his unusual personality. He was robust and daring beyond the ordinary, and a great dandy in his small clothes and Hessian boots with gold tassels. “His coat was wonderful in cloth, pattern, trimmings and buttons, and his waistcoat was a work of art. He wore a pigtail and on top of all a bell-crowned beaver hat, not what is called a beaver to-day, but made of beaver skin, shaggy like a terrier dog.”

Captain George has the distinction of being the first American yacht owner. As early as 1801 he had built in Salem a sloop called the Jefferson in which he cruised for several years. She was turned into a privateer in the War of 1812. While the Jefferson was beyond doubt the first vessel built for pleasure in this country, and the first yacht that ever flew the Stars and Stripes, her fame is overshadowed by that of the renowned Cleopatra’s Barge, the second yacht owned by Captain Crowninshield, and the first of her nation to cruise in foreign waters. The Cleopatra’s Barge was a nine-days’ wonder from Salem to the Mediterranean, and was in many ways one of the most remarkable vessels ever launched.

Her owner found himself at forty-nine years in the prime of his adventurous energy with his occupation gone. The shipping firm founded by his father had been dissolved, and this member of the house fell heir to much wealth and leisure. Passionately fond of the sea and sailors he determined to build the finest vessel ever dreamed of by a sober-minded American, and to cruise and live aboard her for the remainder of his days. There were no other yachts to pattern after, wherefore the Cleopatra’s Barge was modeled and rigged after the fashion of a smart privateer, or sloop-of-war.

When she was launched in Salem harbor in 1817, at least a thousand curious people visited her every day she lay in port. Her fittings were gorgeous for her time, what with Oriental draperies, plate glass mirrors, sideboards, and plate. She was eighty-seven feet long, and in dimensions almost the counterpart of the famous sloop Mayflower of modern times. When she was ready for sea, this yacht had cost her owner fifty thousand dollars. She was rigged as a brigantine, and carried a mighty press of sail, studding-sails on the fore-yards, sky-sail, “ring-tail,” “water-sail,” and other handkerchiefs now unknown.

With that bold individuality of taste responsible for the yellow curricle in which Captain George was wont to dazzle Salem, when he drove through the streets, he painted his yacht in different colors and patterns along her two sides. To starboard she showed a hull of horizontal stripes laid on in most of the colors of the rainbow. To port she was a curious “herring-bone” pattern of brilliant hues. Her stern was wide and pierced with little cabin windows.

With his cousin Benjamin as skipper, and a friend, Samuel Curwen Ward, the owner sailed for the Mediterranean on what was destined to be a triumphant voyage. He had prepared himself with no fewer than three hundred letters of introduction to eminent civil, military and naval persons of Italy, Spain and other countries. The cook of the Cleopatra’s Barge was a master of his craft, the stock of wine was choice and abundant, and if ever an open-handed yachtsman sailed the deep it was this Salem pioneer of them all.

The vessel was the sensation of the hour in every port. Her journal recorded that an average of more than three thousand visitors came aboard on every pleasant day while she was in foreign ports, and that in Barcelona eight thousand people came off to inspect her in one day. Wherever possible the owner chartered a band of music or devised other entertainment for his guests. His yacht was more than a pleasure barge, for he had the pleasure of beating the crack frigate United States in a run from Carthagena to Port Mahone, and on the way to Genoa she logged thirteen knots for twelve hours on end.

It was at Genoa that an Italian astronomer of considerable distinction, Baron von Zack, paid a visit on board and several years later recorded his impressions of the Cleopatra’s Barge in a volume, written in French, and published in Genoa in 1820.