The ships and sailors of old Salem

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

Captain Driver

Letter to Captain Driver from the “Bounty” Colonists after he had carried them from Tahiti back to Pitcairn Island. (See foot note on page 538.)

A little later in the voyage the Glide hit a reef and her captain decided that she must be hove down and repaired. How small these old-time vessels were is shown in this process of heaving them down, or careening on some sandy beach when their hulls needed cleaning or repairs. In the Peabody Museum of Salem there is a painting done by one of the crew, of the Salem brig Eunice which was hauled ashore on a South Sea island. After stripping, emptying her and caulking her seams, the crew discovered that it was a task beyond their strength to launch her again. What did they do but assemble all the spare timber, cut down trees and hew planks, and after incredible exertion build a huge cask around the brig’s dismantled hull. It was more of a cylinder than a cask, however, from which the bow and stern of the craft extended. Lines were passed to her boats and the windlass called into action as she lay at anchor close to the beach.

Then with hawsers rigged around the great cask, every possible purchase was obtained, and slowly the brig began to roll over and over toward the sea, exactly as a barrel is rolled down the skids into a warehouse. In this unique and amazing fashion the stout Eunice was trundled into deep water. As soon as she was afloat, the planking which encased her was stripped off and she was found to be uninjured. Then her masts were stepped and rigged, her ballast, stores and cargo put aboard, and she sailed away for Salem. The painting of this ingenious incident tells the story more convincingly than the description.

The account of the heaving down of the Glide is not so unusual as this but it throws an interesting light upon the problems of these resourceful mariners of other days. “To heave down the ship was an undertaking requiring great caution and ability,” the journal relates. “A large ship to be entirely dismantled; a large part of her cargo to be conveyed ashore; a floating stage of spars and loose timbers constructed alongside; ourselves surrounded by cannibals, scores of which were continually about the vessel and looking as if they meditated mischief. It was well for the Glide that her captain not only knew the ropes but had been a ship carpenter and could use an axe. He had not, like many masters of vessels nowadays, climbed up to the captain’s berth through the cabin window. He was fully equal to this emergency.”

The ship, having been hove down without mishap, was made ready for opening a trade in beche-de-mer, a species of sea slug, which was dried and carried to China as a delicacy in high repute among the people of that country. A safe anchorage was found, and the king of the nearest tribe “made pliable” by numerous gifts after which a contract was made with him for gathering the cargo. He assembled his people and set them at work erecting on the beach the row of buildings needed for storing and curing the sea slugs.

When this was done the warriors of nearby friendly tribes began to appear in canoes, bringing their wives and children. They built huts along the beach until an uproarious village had sprung up. Its people bartered tortoise shell, hogs and vegetables for iron tools, and whales’ teeth, and helped gather beche-de-mer in the shallow water along the reefs. Two of the ship’s officers and perhaps a dozen of the crew lived ashore for the purpose of curing the cargo. Their plant was rather imposing, consisting of a “Batter House,” a hundred feet long by thirty wide in which the fish was spread and smoked; the “Trade House” in which were stored muskets, pistols, cutlasses, cloth, iron-ware, beads, etc., and the “Pot House” which contained the great kettles used for boiling the unsavory mess. In putting up these buildings the king would make a hundred of his islanders toil a week on end for a musket—and he kept the musket.

“The business aboard, the din of industry ashore, the coming and going of boats and the plying of hundreds of canoes to and from the sea reef, gave much animation to things,” writes the chronicler of this voyage of the Glide.

“Indeed I could not but regard the scene, among islands so little known to the world, as highly creditable to the commercial enterprise of the merchants engaged in the trade. Where next, thought I, will Salem vessels sail? North or south, around Good Hope or the Horn, we find them, officered and manned by Salem men. The Glide’s company were thirty men, most of whom were young, strong and active, a force sufficient with our muskets, pistols, cutlasses, etc., to resist any attack from the natives. Though without a profusion of ornamental work, the Glide was a beautiful model, as strong as oak and ship carpenters could make her. At anchor in the harbor of Miambooa, she had a warlike appearance. Heavy cannon loaded with a cannister and grape shot projected from the port holes on each side. In each top was a chest of arms and ammunition. On deck and below, weapons of defense were so arranged as to be available at short notice. Boarding nettings eight or ten feet high were triced up around the ship by tackles, and whipping lines suspended from the ends of the lower yardarms.”