But my story of Yankee vessels is not all told. On my way down the coast of the Mediterranean a fellow passenger on the steamer, an Englishman named James Buchanan, was constantly boasting of the superiority of English vessels over all others. Of course I defended my own, nor was it difficult, in those days at least, to find fault with the squat sails, short top gallant masts, clumsy blocks, poorly set up spars, and if at anchor with sails furled, the untidy bunts which often looked like bundles of rags on the yards of the Englishmen. As we came to an anchor one morning in the harbor of Genoa, I pointed out to Mr. Buchanan a very trig looking bark, anchored near by, which had a familiar look. “She’s a tidy craft,” said he, “and she’ll be English, of course.” I knew better, and calling a boatman, directed him to row to the vessel. As we rowed round her stern I was not very much surprised to read, “Truman of Kingston,” in hospitable letters. I had often seen the Truman, Capt. Doane, as well as her sister ship, the Cecilian, Capt. Dawes, belonging to Joseph Holmes, and I spent a pleasant hour with the captain in his cabin before going ashore for a day’s stroll before leaving for Naples in the evening. It was singular that the only three American vessels visited by me in nearly a year’s absence from home, should have hailed from Plymouth, Kingston and Boston, and that all should have been commanded by men whom I knew. Another American vessel not actually visited by me during my trip to Europe in 1846, but seen under interesting circumstances, emphasized the environment enveloping me associated with home. On the second of May in the above year, Capt. John Eldridge of Yarmouth, Mass., master of the New York and Liverpool packet ship Liverpool, on which I was a passenger, sighted a dismasted vessel. She lay ahead of us directly on our course, and in answer to our hail as we rounded her stern, we found her to be the bark Espindola of and for New York from Liverpool, with four hundred steerage passengers, and commanded by Capt. Barstow of Hanover, Mass., fourteen miles distant from my house. Capt. Barstow reported that while he was in his cabin at eight o’clock on the morning before, the ship under full sail with a light northerly wind, without warning, was struck by a whirlwind, and completely dismasted. She wanted spars and provisions. The subsequent scenes were full of interest.
Luffing up into the wind and running close hauled about three miles, while spare spars were got out and lashed outside, and provisions were got in readiness, we ran back and layed to to the windward of the wreck. With a picked crew, under the command of the mate, the life boat was sent off in a rough sea, the mate holding in his hand a coil of lanyard attached to a Manila line that would float, fastened to the spars. When all was ready the lashings of the spars were cut, and when the boat was near enough the coil was thrown on board the wreck, and the spars pulled alongside. The mate backing up to the bark jumped into the chains, when she rolled to windward, and soon had the supply of meats and other provisions put on board. Capt. Barstow learning that a Plymouth man was on board the Liverpool, sent his compliments to me, and after about three hours’ detention, we were again on our course. I afterwards saw that the Espindola obtained more spars from the packet ships, Ashburton and Hottinger, and reached New York after a passage of forty days.
The Tyrian, commanded by Capt. Daniel Lothrop Jackson, met an untimely fate. During the Irish famine she loaded with corn for Glasgow, and after her departure from New York no tidings of her were ever received. Of the Iconium I have a story to tell, as I received it from Capt. Turner’s own lips on his way from Boston to Plymouth, the day after his marvelous escape from shipwreck in Boston Bay. It must have been in the month of March in the early 1850s that he came round the Cape with a load of cotton for Boston, and with a strong northeast wind, without rain or snow, he expected to find his way without trouble into lighthouse channel. But as the day wore on the wind increased to a gale, while the weather became so thick that to haul off shore, if possible, was the only safe course to pursue. With a light cotton ship, the sagging to leeward made it necessary, as night approached, to come to an anchor. With both anchors down and a long scope of cable, Capt. Turner hoped to ride out the gale. As near as he could judge he lay a mile and a half northeast and by north of the outer Minot’s Rocks. The wind veered a little to the southeast, but as it veered it increased in intensity until about midnight one chain parted. He then cut away his spars, hoping that with an eased ship the other cable would stand by. But at daybreak the gale still increasing, the last cable parted, and the ship drifted, stern foremost, toward Strawberry Hill. The wind had veered at this time still more to the south, so that if the bow could be twisted to the northward and westward, and steerage way be got on the ship, it might be still possible to enter the harbor. Capt. Turner managed to set a piece of canvas on the foremast stump, but it did no good, and the ship continued to drift stern foremost. At this time the air had cleared, but the gale had not abated, and as a last resort he carried his kedge anchor aft, and dropped it over the stern, thinking it barely possible that it might catch long enough to turn the ship on her heel and give her steerage way. It worked as he hoped, and with the wind still veering, and hundreds on the shore awaiting a final disaster, he crawled along between Hardings and the breakers and rounded Point Allerton without a fathom to spare. A station pilot boat lying at anchor in the roads put a pilot on board, and Capt. Turner, as he told me, went into his cabin and crying like a child, thanked God for his deliverance. Not long after this he retired temporarily from the sea to recruit his enfeebled health, and was succeeded in the Iconium by Capt. William Davie, but in 1861 was commissioned Sailing Master in the Navy, and while in command of the storeship Relief, bound to the East Indies, he died at Rio Janeiro, August 5, 1864. In just appreciation of his seamanship and skill, the Boston Underwriters made him a present of five hundred dollars.
Daniel Jackson, the senior member of the Jackson house, died July 1, 1852, Abraham Jackson died February 6, 1859, and Isaac Carver Jackson May 23, 1875.
CHAPTER V.
Finding it difficult to define the ownership of vessels engaged in commerce, with which other counting houses on Water street were at various times within my memory associated, I shall subjoin a list as accurate as I have been able to make it, of all vessels except those engaged in the cod fishery hailing from Plymouth since about the year 1828. Those vessels in the list engaged in whaling will be referred to more particularly in a narrative of the whaling industry, while it was carried on in Plymouth. Those vessels engaged in the cod fishery, which only occasionally engaged in commercial pursuits, are not included in the list, but will be spoken of in a separate chapter. Packets and coasters and smacks are included in the list, but the packets will be further considered under their own head.
| SHIPS. | |
| Arbella | Massasoit |
| Granada | Mayflower |
| Hampden | Persian |
| Harvest | Sydney |
| Iconium | Thracian |
| Isaac Allerton | Tyrian |
| Levant | |
| BARKS. | |
| Abagun | Laura |
| Brontes | Liberia |
| Charles Bartlett | Mary and Martha |
| Chilton | Osprey |
| Condor | Plymouth |
| Crusoe | Triton |
| Edward Cohen | Victor |
| Fortune | Volant |
| BRIGS. | |
| Attila | Massasoit |
| Aurora | Maze |
| Autumn | Miles Standish |
| Chase | Minerva |
| Cobden | Oceanus |
| Cybelle | Old Colony |
| Cyclops | Plymouth |
| Daniel Webster | Plymouth Rock |
| Eurotas | Reindeer |
| Ganges | Rhine |
| Garnet | Rollins |
| Hannah | Santiago |
| Isabella | Sarah Abigail |
| James Monroe | Waverly |
| Janus | William |
| Jennie Cushman | William Davis |
| John Fehrman | Violet |
| Junius | Yeoman |
| Levant | Young America |
| Lucy | Washington |
| Maria | |
| SCHOONERS. | |
| Anna D. Price | M. R. Shepard |
| Atalanta | Maracaibo |
| Capitol | Mary |
| Eliza Jane | Mary Allerton |
| Emma T. Story | Mary Eliza |
| Emma Winsor | Mary Holbrook |
| Exchange | Martha May |
| Fearless | Mercury |
| Glide | New York |
| Grace Russell | Rainbow |
| Independence | Sarah Burton |
| Janus | Sarah E. Hyde |
| J. H. Racey | Sarah Elizabeth |
| John Eliot | Shave |
| J. R. Atwood | Speedwell |
| John Randolph | Vesper |
| Leader | Wm. G. Eadie |
| Louisa Sears | Wm. Wilson |
| PINKIES. | |
| Charles Augusta | Industry |
| George | Independence |
| SLOOPS. | |
| Actress | J. W. Crawford |
| Argo | Pennsylvania |
| Belus | Planet |
| Betsey | Polly |
| Comet | Russell |
| Coral | Sally Curtis |
| Eagle | Spartan |
| Emerald | Splendid |
| Falcon | Susan |
| Harriet | Thetis |
| Hector | Wave |
The four following ships, Granada, Hampden, Massasoit and Sydney in the above list were managed by Capt. John Russell, who bought or built them with the aid of contributions from Sydney Bartlett, William Perkins, William Thomas, Thomas Davis of Boston, and Thomas Russell of Plymouth. I think the Massasoit was the only one of the four built in Plymouth, and she was lost on Point Allerton on her return from a Calcutta voyage in February, 1843. A Mr. Holbrook of Dorchester, either passenger or supercargo, was lost. The negro cook calling himself Professor Steamburg, some years afterwards opened a barber’s shop in the Danforth building at the corner of North street, having been attracted here by the name of the town to which the ship belonged on which he was wrecked.
Exclusive of the packets and smacks, some of which were also built in Plymouth, a large majority of the vessels in the above list were launched in Plymouth yards. There were building yards in Plymouth as early as the beginning of the eighteenth century, one of which was at the foot of Middle street, and another on the site of the electric plant at the foot of Leyden street. The last must have been a well known and much used yard, and was situated on the northerly shore of the Mill pond, which was then an arm or cove of the harbor, with a broad entrance which was later traversed by the causeway and bridge existing today. At the beginning of the Revolution John Peck, a naval constructor, was sent to Plymouth to design and build two vessels of war, which were named Belisarius and Mercury, the latter being put in the command of the noted Capt. Simeon Sampson. It is probable that in early days, when only vessels of light draft of water were required, building yards were located on shores in close proximity to the woods, from which with short hauls building materials could be obtained. Thus the ship building industries of the south shore of Massachusetts Bay were established and continued active until the exigencies of commerce demanded larger vessels, and the construction of railroads and the transport by water rendered it easy to supply with timber the yards of East Boston and Medford and Newburyport. I have no conclusive record to guide me, but I am inclined to think that up to the time of the civil war as many vessels were built in Plymouth and Kingston and Duxbury, and on the North River as in all the remainder of New England.
Some indication of the extent of the building of vessels in Duxbury may be seen in the following record of the industry in that town from 1826 to 1831, inclusive. In 1826 thirteen square rigged vessels, and three schooners were built; in 1827, seven square rigged and one schooner; in 1828, two ships, three brigs and five schooners; in 1829, two ships, six brigs and two schooners; in 1830, one ship, two brigs and eight schooners, and in 1831, four ships, three brigs and eight schooners.