the development of the clipper ship · 1929.] the development of the clipper ship 51 the blessing...

1929.] The Development of the Clipper Ship 49

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THECLIPPER SHIP

BY CHABLES E. PARK

IT HAS been said that during the fifteen or twentyyears which came exactly in the middle of the 19th

Century, America was the mistress of the seas. Ifsuch a statement means that the American fiag was tobe seen in every port of the world, that Americanbottoms commanded the highest freight rates, thatAmerican vessels held all records for speed, thatAmerican ships were unexcelled in size, in beauty, andin seaworthy qualities, and that American captainswere unequalled in skill and daring, the statement is atrue one.

The type of vessel by means of which this suprem-acy on the ocean was attained is known as the ClipperShip. That designation must be understood as atechnical one. A clipper is a vessel designed for speedat the expense of carrying capacity, such design takingthe form of sharpness and slenderness of hull withclean, fiowing, graceful lines that offer the leastpossible resistance to the water at the bows, thatcreate the least possible drag or inrush of water underthe stern, and that create the smallest possible wake orswell as the vessel moves ahead. In other words, aclipper is a vessel so carefully designed as to movethrough the water with the least possible commotion,hence with the greatest ease. A ship is a vesselrigged with three masts, and with square sails on eachmast. This rig at the time of which we are speakingwas considered the standard rig for ocean going vessels.

A clipper ship therefore is a three-masted square-

50 American Antiquarian Society [April,

rigged vessel whose hull is sharp and sweetly designed,with a view to speed as the prime consideration. Sherepresents the highest refinement, the supreme achieve-ment of the science of naval architecture.meant that although yachts, pleasure craft, r'acingmachines, have been designed that would

By that is

easily out-sail a clipper ship, yet when these constant factorshave been considered, namely, that enough cargo hasto be carried to make the vessel pay, that enoughbody has to be retained in the hull to support thegreat weight of spars and canvas of the full ship rig,and make the vessel seaworthy in all kinds of deep seaweather, and enough structural strength has to besecured to prevent either hogging or sagging in thehull and to resist the multiplicity of fugitive strainsand twists to which a heavily loaded hull is subjectedon the constantly shifting ocean surface, the Americanclipper ship of the 185O's is the highest attainment innaval architecture yet reached. |

The American Clipper has permanent significancefor two reasons. First, as already stated, it was thetype of vessel by means of which our cour^try rose toher brief period of supremacy upon the ! high seas.Second, it is" one of the most, if not quite the mostcharacteristic expression of our peculiar aestheticsense which we have as yet produced. It accuratelyembodies our ideas of beauty, which insist uponthorough utility, the most perfect functionality possi-ble, the greatest possible economy of mere mass, bulk,material, without sacrifice of structural strength, andperfect co-ordination to the environment and thepurpose in view. The American artistic genius hascreated nothing that embodies these indigerious canonsof beauty more perfectly than the clipper ship.

The story of the development of this creation is onewhich reveals in a striking way those qualities ofadaptability, alertness, enterprise, and ingenuitywhich we like to think are characteristic of Americanmanhood. The story begins with the launching of


the Blessing of the Bay, on the fourth day of July inthe year Í631. This vessel, owned and built byGovernor John Winthrop, enjoys the distinction ofbeing the first vessel to be built by our New Englandforefathers. Aside from the fact that she was a littlebarque of about thirty tons burthen, we can saynothing about her except that she would fioat and sail.Governor Winthrop used her for visiting his island inthe harbor, for pleasure, possibly for visiting nearbysettlements at Braintree, Weymouth, Hingham andNew Amsterdam.

The chief significance of the Blessing of the Bay wasthat she started the ball rolling. With an abundanceof the best material, oak, ash, pine, spruce, growing attheir very backdoors, with a natural aptitude for allforms of craftsmanship, and with the sea just beforethem offering them a ready livelihood in fishing, offeringthem a means of rapid and easy communication for pur-poses of trade, it would have been strange indeed if ourforefathers had not followed their Governor's exampleand turned their attention to the possibilities in a sea-faring life. Professor Morison tells us that by 1678 therewere no less than four hundred and thirty of theselittle home-built and home-rigged vessels plying thecoastal waters of New England. Of these, one was aship of four hundred tons, a huge vessel for the times.The greater part were small craft of fifteen to twohundred and fifty tons, rigged as sloops, topsailschooners, and brigantines. In the construction ofthese vessels our forefathers were helped by skilledlabor from England. Trained shipbuilders came overin ever-increasing numbers, so that it looked as thoughsomething would have to be done to check this indus-try in New England and keep the ship carpenters athome in Old England. Yet it is hard to think thatall our American vessels were built by importedlabor. The trained ship carpenters were numerousenough to teach their trade to the colonists and toestablish certain of the more fundamental traditions


and conventions of their craft. But theije was stillroom for experiment, originality and innovation fromthose who learned the trade on this side of: the water.Thus from the very first, the art of ship ¡design andship construction was characterized by a certainfreedom from convention, a certain elasticity whichwas to prove of great value to its later development.In the year 1642 Puritanism gained the political upperhand in England, and the migration of disaffectedspirits to New England ceased, and even began to setthe other way. This fact was of the utmost conse-quence to New England, as it threw our coloniesupon their own resources, and warned them they mustmake their own living or starve. This necessity

. forced them into foreign trade. All kinds of lumber,and especially spars for vessels could find a hungrymarket in the West Indies, and could be exchanged forthe molasses and coffee and spices which were no lessin demand here. Salt codfish was always in demandin Catholic Europe. Here then was a most lucrativetrade just waiting to be developed. As I this tradeexpanded both in volume and variety, it resolved it-self into a sequence of experiences which taught ourshipbuilders, with a rather striking coin¡cidence ofemphasis, one repeated lesson—that was, the ad-vantage, the economic value of speed. Even in thoseearly days markets did ñuctuate, and the vessel thatcould get her cargo to the market while it was still goodwas the profitable vessel. Owing to the NavigationLaws then in force, much of the West Indies trade wasillicit. Smuggling was so generally practiced as to bealmost respectable. But the successful smuggler hadto be a swift sailing vessel. At a time when policingthe high seas was relatively unknown, pirates were tobe encountered on every hand. The buccaneers of

the Spanish Main, the Sallee Rovers of NorthernAfrica, the Algerian and Barbary Corsairs of theMediterranean, and the robbers of the Yellow Seawere known and dreaded by every skipper of experi-


ence. And it was only the vessel which could eitherfight off or outsail these pests that escaped the danger.Here was another grim reminder of the value of speed.Moreover, the nations of Europe were almost con-stantly at war with one another, which meant thatneutral traders frequently had to slip into blockadedports—and the blockade runner must be a swiftvessel.

Almost from the moment that shipbuilding becamean outstanding American industry, our ship designerswere put under the necessity of considering speed as ofgreat importance. For this necessity they were pre-pared by their relative freedom from conventions.But the incentive to speed was offset by the economicnecessity for cargo space. After all, a vessel could notpay just because of her speed. She must have carryingcapacity, and carrying capacity meant size and beamand a full bodied design—just the characteristics thatmilitated against speed. Between these two opposingnecessities there was the balance, the line of neutrality.We shall find that this line of neutrality always deter-mines the type of vessels that were produced. Theywere as sharp and swift as they dared to be withoutencroaching too far on carrying capacity, and they wereas full-bottomed as they had to be without sacrificingtoo much speed. We shall find that as economic con-ditions ñuctuated, as special occasions called forspecially designed vessels, our shipbuilders, owing totheir alertness and adaptibility, were ready with theiranswer. It was the operation of these forces thatproduced the majestic clipper ship of 1850, and itwas the operation of the same forces that drove theclipper off the seas after her brief term of glory.

The Revolutionary War sadly interrupted a veryflourishing young American trade, but it had onebeneficial result. With the great French fleet whichcame to our assistance there came also a number ofsmall French luggers—to be used possibly as despatchboats. These luggers had but one function, to go fast.


They were not only sharp and slender, they weresweetly modelled. They were an object of greatadmiration to our builders in New England and Balti-more. Their lines were copied for future reference.Their characteristics were remembered.

After the Revolution, trade sprang up again with allparts of the world—the West Indies, the Azores, theMediterranean Ports, China, India, the northwestfur trade. Scores of staunch little merchantmenwere built all up and down the Atlanti'c seaboardaround the turn of the century. A typical vessel ofthe times was the famous America. She was launchedin Salem in 1804. Her dimensions were, length 114',31' beam, 14' draft, tonnage 473, sqiuare-riggedthroughout, the largest, fastest, most fortunate vesselof her day. Her best speed was thirteen knots andher best day's run two hundred and twenty-five miles.Every ship had to be able to take care of herself andthe America, in addition to her sailing qu¡alities, hadthe protection of a heavy armament. IDuring theWar of 1812 the America was re-rigged as a privateer,with a ship's company of one hundred and sixty-eightsouls all told, and an enormous press of canvas. Inthis capacity she was never outsailed. She capturedover a million dollars worth of prizes. She was in nosense a clipper, but she was designed v\rith intelli-gence and propelled by an abundance of sail area andattended by good luck.

With the War of 1812 came the demandj for vesselsof special design to run the British blockade. Thefamous Baltimore Clippers at once appeared to meetthis demand. In their design we see the infiuence ofthe French Luggers of the Revolutionary War. Theysacrificed everything to sailing ability. Srnall in size,to be quick in stays, usually schooner rigged to workwell to windward, of low free board to reduce visi-bility, with tall raking masts and generous sail spread,sweetly modelled to reduce water. resistance, theseBaltimore Clippers won a lasting fame. They were so


successful that the blockade was little better than ajoke. They also left their influence and taught theirlesson in the practical possibilités of speed for mer-chant vessels.

This lesson was emphasized in a still more strikingway in the case of the ship George of Salem. Builtin 1814 for the special purpose of privateering, by acompany of ship carpenters whom the war hadthrown out of work, she was still unlaunched when theTreaty of Ghent was signed and the war came to anend. At once she was transformed into a merchant-man by the addition of another deck and sold toCaptain Joseph Peabody of Salem. It required somedaring to put this vessel into the merchant trade.She was designed as a privateer, being of about thesame length and draught as the America and fourfeet less beam. In other words, where the Americawas three and one-half times as long as she was wide,the George was a full four times as long a she was wide:a noticeably sharper vessel built for speed. ButCaptain Peabody knew what he was about and theGeorge became one of the most successful and trust-worthy of the fleet of Salem merchantmen. Sheranked first in the fleet for speed and reliability.For twenty-two years she plied between Salem andCalcutta with the regularity of a packet. In fact.Captain Arthur Clark tells us that she earned herselfthe nickname of the Salem Packet. Not only did theGeorge prove by her performance the possibilities forsuccess that lay in a swift vessel, she has an addedsignificance as revealing the kind of men who went tosea in those days. For the ambitious Yankee boywho did not see his opportunity on the farm but whowas bound to get ahead there were but scant openingsat that time. It might be said with safety that theministry and the sea were about all the outlets he hadfor his ambition. At all events, the same type ofyoung man who to-day goes into the law, or medicine,or engineering, or banking, or big business, in that

56 American Antiquarian Society

day went to sea. The ship George alwaysgenerous proportion of this kind of youthhumblest foremast hands. They were

[April,

counted aamong hergiven the

chance to study navigation. In the course of hertwenty-two years' service the George graduated forty-five foremast hands into the rank of captalin, twentyinto the rank of first mate, six into the ran¿ of secondmate. She was virtually a training ship for themerchant marine.

If a sharp vessel like the George could do so well inthe carrying trade, the fact must be taken into seriousconsideration. It was taken into consideration. Itwas still further emphasized by the next episode in ourniaritime history. Shortly after the War of 1812 thetransatlantic packet lines began to appear. I A packetline is simply a fieet of vessels who píy between statedports and sail at regular stated intervals. An ordinarymerchantman sails when her cargo is made up. Apacket sails when her day for sailing comes, whetherher hold is full or empty. The packet lines were theprecursors of our Cunard and White Star! lines. In1818 the Black Ball line of packets was organized torun between New York and Liverpool. In 1821 thePhiladelphia line and the Red Star line appeared. In1823 the Swallowtail line and in 1836 the Dramatic linewere added to the service. Each line boasted from fourto eight exceeding staunch, seaworthy littles vessels ofabout five hundred tons burthen. Their! eastwardpassage averaged twenty-three days, and the home-ward passage forty days. Of recent years our avia-tors have claimed to discover that the prevailing windcurrents across the Atlantic set from wes'̂ to east.Any packet ship captain could have told them thatone hundred years ago.

With these packet lines there appeared ¡the inevi-table competition and the inevitable sporting rivalry.It meant money in the pocket of the line which couldclaim the fastest ships. It meant more business andless commissariat expense. The rivalry occasionally


took the form of a wager. In 1837 the Columbus ofthe Black Ball line and the Sheridan of the Dramaticline raced each other from New York to Liverpool for apurse of $10,000. The Columbus won in sixteen days.Here was another practical object lesson in the valueof speed. The lesson seemed so obvious that in 1832a Baltimore merchant, Mr. Isaac McKim, actuallytook the plunge. He designed and launched a full-sized, full-rigged ship in the hull of which he had in-corporated all the characteristics of a BaltimoreClipper—sharpness, reduced carrying capacity, aV-shaped bottom, and sweetly modelled under-waterlines. He argued that such a vessel would retain allthe speed of the small blockade runner, and by theincreased frequency of her voyages would more thancompensate for her limited cargo space. The vesselwas named for his wife, Ann McKim. She was onehundred and forty-six feet long—among the largestvessels of her day. She justified her builders' hopesin one respect, but not in the other. She was the fastestvessel of the times, but she did not pay financiallybecause economic conditions did not yet warrant socomplete a sacrifice of carrying capacity. RichardH. Dana in "Two Years Before the Mast," severaltimes mentions the Ann McKim as one of the crackships of the 183O's, but her profits were not sufficientlyimpressive to bring her type into general favor. Shewas fully ten years before her time.

If the Ann McKim represented the false dawn of theClipper Ship decade, the true dawn was not longdelayed. In 1831 three or four swift little Englishschooners were making fabulous sums of moneytransporting opium from India to China. Thisbusiness soon attracted the attention of certainAmerican merchants in China, and as it was beyondthe restrictions of England's navigation laws, therewas no reason why American vessels should not enterthe rivalry. Six or eight exceedingly swift, yacht-likeclipper schooners were built especially for this opium

58 American Antiquarian Sodety [April,

trade and, in competition with the English vessels,had in every way the best of it and captured the bulkof the business, making large sums of money for theirowners. Of these opium clippers, as they were called,the largest and most famous was the little brigAntelope, three hundred and seventy tons, built bySamuel Hall of East Boston. This vessel, com-manded by Captain Philip Dumaresq, stilí has thereputation of being the only square-rigged vessel thatcould beat up the Formosa Channel against thenortheast monsoon. All these vessels had to be swiftsailers and heavily armed in order to contend with thetides and currents of those waters, and to protectthemselves from pirates. Yet the trade' was soprofitable that the idea occurred to one fertile brainthat a larger vessel built upon the lines of a clippercould make even greater profits. Moreover, theopium trade had provoked the so-called opium warbetween England and China in 1839, and this opiumwar had resulted in China's having to openports to foreign trade in addition to Canton.

four newA large

swift vessel, therefore, built for the opium trade couldfall back, if the opium trade proved a failurenew and enlarged trade between China and

upon theAmerica

which was to be confidently expected as a resultof opening these four new Chinese ports. It wasthe mind of Captain Nathaniel B. Palmer whichprognosticated these developments. Captain Palmerhailed from Stonington, Connecticut. He was a mostsuccessful packet ship designer, and captain. In1843 he was in command of the Paul Jones homewardbound from Canton. One of his passengersj was Mr.William H. Low, junior member of the firm' of A. A.Low & Brother. The two men, both profoundlyinterested in the subject, beguiled the tedium of thevoyage with long discussions. Captain Paliner evenwent so far as to whittle out a model of the; enlargedopium clipper he would like to have built. EeachingNew York, the senior partner of the firm was inter-


viewed and convinced. On November first the con-tract was signed, and in May 1844 the first of the realclipper ships was launched from the yards of Brown &Bell in New York. She was a sharp, easily modelledfull-rigged ship, of seven hundred and six tons, one ofthe largest of the day. She was named the Houqua,after a beloved Chinese merchant with whom ourAmerican merchants had many dealings. She forth-with proceeded to justify all expectations, both as asailer and a money maker. Her maiden voyage was asplendid run of eighty-four days to Hong Kong. Shenever entered the opium trade, but instead helped toinaugurate the even more profitable general tradebetween America and China which was made possibleby the opening of the four new Chinese ports. Herbest homeward passage was eighty-eight days fromShanghai to New York.

It so happened that while the Houqua lay on thestocks in the yard of Brown & Bell during the winterof 1843, another clipper ship, representing a whollyindependent line of experimentation was undergoingthe slow process of construction in the neighboringyard of Smith & Dimon. This was the famous Rain-how, built by Howland & Aspinwall, well-knownmerchants and engineers of New York. It seems thatin 1841 or 1842 a very famous Yankee skipper, RobertB. Waterman, returned from eastern waters bringingwith him the model of a so-called Singapore FastBoat, which he had picked up in the course of histravels. This model now hangs on the walls of thePratt School of Naval Architecture in Cambridge andis referred to as the parent model of the extremeclipper ship developed by John Willis Griffeths andDonald McKay. There are no' documentary evi-dences of the part this model played in developing theGriffeths-McKay clippers. The matter is largelyconjectural. All we know for certain is that the moststriking features of the Singapore Fast Boat—thehollow water lines at the bow, the pronounced dead


rise amidships, the greatest breadth of beam well aft ofthe midship point and the general sweetness andexquisite grace of the counter section are all to befound in the later Grifîeths & McKay clippers. Thetheory is therefore that Captain Waterman was soimpressed by the beauty of his Singapore model, andso convinced of the possibility of incorporating someof these features in a large vessel that he took Mr.Grifîeths into his confidence, Mr. Griffeths being theeditor of a nautical journal and a trained ship designer.Moreover, he was hand in glove with Smith & Dimonthe ship builders and enjoyed the respect cf Messrs.Howland & Aspinwall. At all events, theire is themodel of the Singapore Fast Boat: there is the factthat in 1843 Mr. GrifTeths induced Howland andAspinwall to build a clipper ship of his design: there isthe fact that in 1845 the Rainbow was launched,incorporating the features of the Fast Boat—^hollowwater line, dead rise, greatest beam abaft tlie center:and there is the still further fact that in 1846 anotherand a larger clipper ship built on exactly the samelines was launched and given over to the corimand ofCaptain R. B. Waterman. Putting all thejse thingstogether it seems a safe conjecture that the SingaporeFast Boat did serve as the parent model for thisparticular type of extreme clipper. The Rainbow wasanother remarkably handsome, fast, and successfulvessel. On her maiden voyage she reached Cantonin ninety-two days, and back in eighty-eight, bringinghome the first news of her own arrival in Canton.Her commander. Captain John Land, boasted that shewas not only the swiftest vessel afloat bu!t that aswifter vessel would never be built. So pleased wereher owners with her performance that the next yearthey la'unched another extreme clipper of the sametype—the Sea Witch. This is the one referred toabove as commanded by Captain Waterman. TheRainbow was 750 tons burthen, the Sea Witch 890,being 170' in length. The increase in size from now


on is very rapid. The Sea Witch had the reputationof being the handsomest vessel sailing out of New York.Low in the water, with raking masts' and a toweringpile of snow white canvas, manned by a crew of pickedmen, and commanded by one of the boldest and mostskillful sail carriers who ever trod the quarter deck, shecreated a sensation. Her performance was remark-able—seventy-seven days from Canton to New Yorkin 1848 being her best record. Her best single day'srun was three hundred and fifty-eight miles. Whenwe compare these figures with the one hundred andthirty-five days from Canton to New York by theEmpress of China in 1784, and with the two hundredand fifty-six miles which was the best day's run of theAmerica in 1814, we get a good idea of the improve-ment in sailing qualities of these clipper ships.

The Houqua and the Rainbow represent two inde-pendent lines of experimentation, both of whichproved their worth by actual performance, and both ofwhich were carried out in other vessels. The Houquawas followed by the Samuel Russell and the Oriental,and the Rainbow, as we have seen, by the Sea Witch.Meanwhile, still a third line of experimentation wasbeing followed out, howbeit in a quiet fashion, by ourown Boston designers. Interest in the new types ofvessel was universal. Shipping circles were aroused toa high pitch of excitement. Our own builders werealive to the trend of the times, but preferred to makehaste slowly and be sure of their ground before adopt-ing the innovation. The Akbar of 1839 by SamuelHall and the Paul Jones of 1842 by Waterman &Elwell were noble little vessels. They could hardlybe called clippers, but they did represent earnestefforts to improve sailing qualities without the sacri-fice of carrying capacity. Perhaps it is fair to say thatthe leading figure among our local designers was Mr.Donald McKay of East Boston. Born in NovaScotia in 1810, he came to New York at the age ofsixteen, worked in the Brown & Bell yard, removed


thence to Newburyport, became in time junior partnerin the firm of Currier & McKay. This firm built anumber of splendid packet ships for MÍr. EnochTrain's Liverpool Packet line. Mr. Traih was soimpressed by Donald McKay's thoroughness andmechanical ability that he induced him in! a happyday to set up his own yard in East Boston, promisingto be his financial backer. This was done, iand as anindependent builder Donald McKay was free toindulge his own remarkable native talent; for shipdesign. In him we find no external influence to serveas a stimulus, but just the quiet working out of anatural instinct for ships. He was an exceedinglyintelligent man with a strong artistic sense, and a giftfor handling workmen. He loved his sliips as amother loves her child, and gave his best to everythinghe touched.

The Courier, of 1842, a little vessel of three hundredand eighty tons, was the first ship Mr. McKay himselfdesigned. She was not a clipper but proved! a wonderfor speed, outsailing everything she met. She wasemployed in the coffee trade from Rio Janeiro, andwent far to establish Mr. McKay's reputation as adesigner. With a man like Donald McKay establishedin his own shipyard in East Boston, with a free hand,and a mind thoroughly awake to the present achieve-ments and future possibilities of his craft, and justwaiting for his chance, we have the stage all set forthe great day of the American clipper. That daycame with the year 1848. Two events of t¿e utmostsignificance occurred in that memorable year. Thefirst of these was the repeal of the English niavigationlaws. Up to that time no foreign ship might engagein a trade which involved an English port,port of clearance or as port of entry. The

either asrepeal of

this law meant that the lucrative tea trade betweenChina and England was thrown open to !Americanships. It meant furthermore that as the îjoung teawas a commodity that deteriorated at sea, the swiftest


vessels would be the ones first chosen to carry thesetea cargoes. And the swiftest vessels of the day werethe new American clippers. England, guarded fromcompetition by these navigation laws, had not feltthe pinch of necessity, and had made little if anyprogress in the art of ship design. The repeal of thenavigation laws left her in a position of great dis-advantage. She had no vessels with which to competewith the new American clippers. It was a sober dayfor England when the American clipper ship Oriental,having discharged her regular cargo in China and hav-ing picked up a cargo of tea, discharged that cargo inLondon, on her return trip, to its English owners.That happened in 1850. It was the first time inhistory that a foreign ship brought a cargo into anEnglish port, consigned to an English firm. TheOriental made a great excitement as she lay in theThames River. Never had those thousands of peoplewho went down to inspect her seen so large, so hand-some, so clean-cut a vessel. Her lines were taken offby the Admiralty, and her beauty and speed weredescribed in leading editorials. Her exploit alsocreated a stir in America, because she proved thepossibility of making the return voyage from China asprofitable as the outward bound voyage. She provedmoreover that a clipper could command £6 freightageper ton for a perishable commodity like tea, whereasthe old full-bottomed tea ships were glad enough toaccept £3, s.lO per ton. On that single return tripthe Oriental made $48,000.

In conjunction with the opening of this tea trade toAmerican ships, there came in that same momentousyear of 1848 the discovery of gold in California, andthe consequent rush to the gold fields. Whereas, in1848 only thirteen vessels entered San Francisco har-bor, in 1850 seven hundred and seventy-five vesselscleared from Atlantic ports for San Francisco. Sucha swarming of gold hunters in a hitherto placid and un-developed region created an ephemeral but ravenous


market for all the necessaries of life. No modern boot-legger would dare to hope for such prices as were freelyoffered in San Francisco in the early 5O's. With beef,pork and fiour at $40.00 to $60.00 a barrel, tea, coffeeand sugar at $12.00 a pound, and other commodities inproportion, it made little difference how limited incarrying capacity a vessel might be. If she could getthere quickly before the market broke she could makefabulous profits. Here then was just that abnormaland evanescent conjunction of economic opportunitieswhich rendered the swiftest of clipper ships not onlypermissible but imperative. Such a vessel couldclear from New York or Boston with a cargo of sup-plies for California. She could cross the Pacific inballast and load a cargo of China tea for England.She could cross the Atlantic in ballast; and do it rightover again. And each time she circled thej globe shecould reasonably expect to clear 150% upon heroriginal investment of building and loading. It doesnot surprise us to read that in the next four years aboutone hundred and sixty beautiful clipper ships werelaunched. To mention them all would be inanifestlyimpossible. It must suffice us for the purpcJses of thispaper to speak of a few of the more prominent onesand let them stand as representatives of the rest. Ofthe thirteen clippers launched in the year 1850, one ofthe first and most successful was the Surprise, builtby that master craftsman Mr. Samuel Hall of EastBoston. The Surprise was of 1362 tons burthen, 190'long, 39' beam. She was masted and rigged beforelaunching, and as she slid off the ways with her yardscrossed off and colors fiying she presented a beautifulsight. Speculation was rife as to her ability to supportall the weight of her top hamper without any ballastin her hold. But she took the water and rode to heranchor on a perfectly even keel, thereby giving elo-quent testimony to the care with which her weights,displacement and stability had been calculated. Shewas a most successful ship and proved a veritable mine


of wealth to her owners, A. A. Low and Company ofNew York. She served these owners for over twenty-five years, and finally met her end by striking a sunkenrock in Yokahama Bay, February 7,1876.

The Staghound has especial interest for us becauseshe was the first extreme clipper ship to be designedand built by Mr. Donald McKay. Her .owners wereSamson & Tappan of Boston. She was launched on abitter cold December day, in the presence of twelvethousand people to an accompaniment of church bellspealing their welcome to the largest vessel afloat onany waters. She was 215' in length, 40' beam, 1535tons burthen. She and the Surprise were both amongthe more enterprising ones, who, not content with theCalifornia trade, habitually crossed the Pacific inballast and doubled their profits for the voyage byfreighting tea from China to England. This racingacross the Pacific in ballast brought out some of thebest sailing of which the clippers were capable. TheStaghound covered the distance from San Francisco toHonolulu in nine days. The Game Cock made anunprecedented run of nineteen days from Honolulu toHong Kong. The Southern Cross made the completerun from San Francisco to Hong Kong in thirty-twodays. After twelve years of service in the Californiaand China trades the Staghound caught fire off thecoast of Bazil in 1863 and was a total loss, her UnitedStates ensign being the only relic. This flag hercaptain brought off and returned to her owners.

In 1851, thirty-one clipper ships were launched forthe California trade. With few exceptions they wereall ships of larger tonnage, ranging from 1500 to 2000*tons register. In those days of rapid development, areputation for being the largest, swiftest, most beauti-ful vessel afloat was of short duration. Hardly hadthe Staghound claimed this distinction than she lost itthrough the appearance of a still more majestic rival.Six of the 1851 ships made records for fast sailing thathave never been lowered, and probably never will be.

66 Am,erican Antiquarian Society [April,

Foremost among them we are fain to remember thefamous and beloved Flying Cloud. She was' a McKayclipper, originally intended for Mr. Enojch Train.But before she was launched Mr. Train was induced todo a thing which he regretted the rest of his life. Hesold her to Grinnell & Minturn of New York, underwhose house fiag she sailed for a number of years.The Flying Cloud was 225' length, 40' beam, andregistered 1783 tons. It was natural, indeed inevitable,that with all these crack sailers constantly makingthe same identical run, from New York or Boston toSan Francisco, an intensive rivalry should spring upbetween them for the record. To say that these threeor four years of active trafiic with California consti-tuted a single gorgeous regatta, over a course of 15,000miles, with a fieet of the finest ships ever built as thecontestants, would not be saying too much. Thecourse was divided up into sections—from SandyHook to the equator, from the equator to| LatitudeSouth 50 in the Atlantic, from Latitude South 50 in theAtlantic to Latitude South 50 in the Pacific, fromLatitude South 50 in the Pacific to the equator, fromthe equator to the Golden Gate. Different shipsestablished records for each portion of this run, and ifwe add up these best performances for different partsof the run we find the record time for the tdtal run tobe sixty-seven days, which compares favorably with thebest performance of the modern steam freighter. Itwould be too much to expect any single vessel tomake the entire run in that time. It would :-equire animpossible conjunction of the best conditions over thewhole course and within a single two months' period.As a matter of fact anything under one hundred dayswas considered a record run. One hundred and tendays was an exceptionally good normal run. Thebest single passage was made by the Andrew Jackson in1860, eighty-nine days, four hours. The best averagetime for four consecutive passages was macie by theFlying Cloud, which covered the course twice in less


than 90 days, once in 105, and once in 108 days—average 97|^ days. The Andrew Jackson was a closesecond, with four runs of 89, 100, 102, 103 days,average 9 8 ^ . Thus on the score of consistency ofperformance the record for the California passage isgenerally conceded to the Flying Cloud. In 1863 theFlying Cloud was sold to James Baines, the Liverpoolmerchant, and eleven years later, in 1874 she wasdestroyed by fire in St. John, New Brunswick, aftertwenty-three years of faithful service. Few shipshave been the objects of such universal pride and love.Her commander in her palmy days was Captain JosiahP. Creesy of Marblehead. Captain Creesy typifiesthe best traditions of his profession, and stands as anoble representative of his class. And these clippership captains were a noble class of men—combininggreat strength of nature with gentleness, great hardi-hood with genuine cujtuï-e and an instinctive refine-ment. Their world-wide travels rendered them mostinteresting companions, patient, broad-minded, lib-eral in judgment, while their constant dealing withunruly human nature and unruly elements gave thema quiet self-reliant dignity which is the mark of realpower. They were autocrats on their own vessels.The weather side of the quarter-deck was sacred tothem. They were not to be spoken to until theythemselves had first spoken. The honorarium for asingle California passage was $3000. If they made therun in less than one hundred days they received abonus of $2000. Many of them took their wives withthem on their voyages. Mrs. Creesy always accom-panied her husband, and was said to be as good anavigator as he. Some charming stories are toldconcerning these captain's wives. They were ahumanizing influence on board ship, a comfort andsolace to their husbands in the loneliness of thatexalted ofl&ce. In one case, at least, the presence ofthe captain's wife saved the situation in a verypractical way. The Neptune's Car, with Captain

68 American Antiquarian Sodety

Joshua Patten in command, sailed fromand plunged at once into a sequence of

[April,

New Yorkhard luck.

What with an insurgent first mate, an illiterate secondmate, a mutinous crew, a succession of liead winds,a shortage of provisions, and a bitterljj cold andstormy passage around Cape Horn, it is not strangethat Captain Patten should succumb to weeks ofdouble duty, exposure and anxiety, and suffer anattack of brain fever. In this dilemma the ship's onlysalvation lay with Mrs. Patten. She was a mere slipof a girl, barely out of her teens, and but three yearsmarried. But she had studied navigation with herhusband on previous voyages, and now toot commandof the ship. In the course of the next fifty-two daysshe brought the Neptune'sCar safely into San Franciscoharbor. • j

The largest clippers of 1851 were the New Yorkships Challenge and Comet. The Challenge was amagnificent vessel of 2006 tons register, J230' x 43'.Her commander was our old friend Captain R. H.Waterman. On the first voyage of the| Challenge,he had the misfortune to ship a large but very poorcrew, most of them ruffians of the lowest! type whopretended to be ordinary seamen so as to beat theirway to California. During the voyage five of themdied of a loathsome disease. Though they had beendisarmed. Captain Waterman one day found four ofthem attacking his first mate with knives. Two ofthese Captain Waterman killed outright with an ironbelaying pin. Off Cape Horn three miare of hisprecious crew were killed by faUing from aloft in asquall. As a result of these mishaps the Challengemade a fair run of one hundred and eight days to SanFrancisco. Captain Waterman was ' charged withundue brutality, but insisting upon an ivestigation hewas entirely cleared of the charge. It is al\\jays well toremember when we hear stories of the brutaUty of thesecaptains, that a certain amount of brutality was theonly language some of their crews could understand.


The Comet was of 1836 tons register, 229' x 42'. Onher maiden trip she was badly crippled off Bermudaby a terrific southeast hurricane. She was, however,entirely repaired at sea and reached San Francisco inone hundred and twelve days. Later she was sold toan English firm, and renamed the Fiery Star. In 1865she was burned at sea while on a voyage from Australiato London.

The Witch of the Wave, built in Portsmouth for aSalem firm was one of the outstanding ships of thisyear. She gave proof of her sailing qualities on thefirst day of her existence. As she was being toweddown to Salem with a large party of two hundredladies and gentlemen on board the three topsails, onejib, and a staysail were set. At once the Witch of theWave ranged up alongside her tug, which was doingnine knots. We do not wholly appreciate the speedof which these beautiful ships were capable. Underfavorable conditions, no steamers of that day, and fewof this could compete with them. In the files of the"Boston Daily Advertiser" for 1852 one may find aneloquent bit of evidence to the speed of the clippers.An old-fashioned, full-bottomed ship of burden leftBoston that year for San Francisco. Passing downthe harbor her captain noticed the Winged Arrow, anunfinished clipper still on the stocks in a South Bostonshipyard. Entering San Francisco harbor somemonths later he found the Winged Arrow riding to heranchor almost ready for her return voyage to Boston.

The Northern Light, an exceedingly sharp BriggsClipper, of only 1021 tons, built in 1851, holds therecord for the return passage, San Francisco to NewYork, in seventy-six days. This is only nine daysmore than the hypothetical best passage of sixty-seven days, made by adding the best sectional runs ofa number of ships. The Nightingale, named in honorof Jenny Lind, was a small vessel of 1066 tons, builtfor the World's Fair in London, and most luxuriouslyfitted. She never went to the World's Fair but after


an astonishing diversity of fortunes, first as à profitableCalifornia and China trader, then as a Brazilian Slaver,then as a respectable United States cruiser during theCivil War, then as a humble tramp freighter, she waslast seen limping about the high seas indisappeared from the shipping lists. She

1884, andbegan her

life as the prettiest flapper on the street.Of the thirty-three clippers launched in 1852 it must

suffice to mention but one, the largest, sharpest andswiftest of them all. This was the McKay master-piece. Sovereign of the Seas. Registering 2421 tons,258' X 44', she combined the grace and beauty of thesmaller vessels with immense strength and power tocarry sail. Her commander was Lachlan McKay,brother to Donald, and himself an expert builder andrigger. Under him was an enormous crew of onehundred and five men and boys—all needed to handlethe extra heavy spars and sails which the great size ofthe ship rendered necessary. She made but one tripto California, one hundred and three days] a passagewhich would doubtless have been shorter but for théserious accident which befell shortly after roundingCape Horn, when in a tornado she carried away bothfore and main topmasts and foreyard. Nothingdaunted by this calamity her captain putj her underjury rig and kept his crew on the jump for the next twoweeks rerigging the vessel. She entered San Franciscoharbor in spic and span condition, and costwriters not a cent. Proceeding thence to

the under-Honolulu,

she picked up a cargo of sperm oil and returned to NewYork. When she struck the westerly trades in theSouth Pacific, she showed what sustained speed she wascapable of. In eleven consecutive days she covered3562 miles, an average of 13% knots, or 330 miles aday. She next crossed the Atlantic, making the entirerun from dock in New York to anchorage in the MerseyRiver in just under fourteen days. Subsequently shewas sold to a Hamburg firm and wrecked oh PyramidShoals in the Straits of Malacca only seven years


after her launching. Under the American fiag she wasa household word, especially here in Boston. She ismentioned with obvious pride in Emerson's Journals.

The year 1853, with forty-eight launchings, with thewild excitement of building, owning and racing theseships must stand as the very pinnacle of the clippership decade. After that year we see a steady declinein number of clippers launched and in amount ofprofits made. Although twenty ships of the extremeclipper type were built in the following year of 1854, webegin to see as early as 1853 indications of the change intrade conditions which rendered the extreme clipper•an obsolete ship. It was in that year that DonaldMcKay produced his last extreme California clipper,the Romance of the Seas. In that year also theSweepstakes, the last extreme clipper from the Wester-velt yards made her appearance. And in that yearMr. William H. Webb, tiie famous New York builder,bade permanent farewell to the extreme clipper byproducing his masterpiece, the Young America. Thisvessel of 1962 tons almost rivals the Flying Cloud inthe amount of confidence, pride, and affection shereceived. She served her owners for thirty years inthe California trade, rounding Cape Horn fifty times.She holds the record of six days for that section of therun from Latitude South 50 in the Atlantic to thesame parallel in the Pacific which represents theactual passage of the Horn. In 1884 she was sold toan Austrian firm, her name changed, and four yearslater she foundered in mid-ocean with all hands, forall the world as though her heart was broken.

The year 1853 is, however, memorable for tworeasons. It was in that year that Donald McKaylaunched the largest, most daring, most majestic, andmost ill-fated of all clippers, the Great Republic.Perhaps the passion for building these vessels got thebetter of his judgment. Perhaps the prospect of alucrative trade with the newly opened Australian goldfields gave reasonable ground for the venture. At all

72 . American Antiquarian Society [April,

events, the Great Republic, which it was fondlyhoped would be the swiftest, finest, largest, mostsuccessful of all clippers, was laid out and built. OnOctober 4 of that year, with schools and banks closed,with a gallery of 30,000 spectators on hand, with bellspealing all over the city, at exactly twelve o'clock thelast block was knocked away and the great hull,swiftly gathering headway, took the wat'er with arush that left the ways scorched and smoking fromfriction, and required two anchors and a tug to snub.She was a notable vessel—335' long, 51' beam, 4555tons register. She had four decks and four masts:really a four masted barque. Her main mast was.44" diameter at the deck: her main boom 120' long,her sails would cover an acre and a half, her standingrigging 5 " through. She was towed to New York andloaded with wheat for Australia. Just before she wasto sail a fire broke out on shore dead to windward.

1 The sparks began to fall upon her deck, and despiteevery effort it was not long before her sails and riggingwere aflame. To save the hull, she was | then dis-masted, but the fore-topmast in falling broke in two,and one end of the great stick struck her deck end onand stabbed down through three of her decks. Twodays later it was discovered that this fallingcarried the fire down into the hold and that

mast hadher cargo

of wheat was burning. She was then scuttled, the firedrowned out, a coffer dam built, and her hull pumpedout. The wheat, swollen by salt water, had sd increasedin bulk that the knees and beams of the lower holdhad started and the hull was badly strained andbuckled. She was condemned and sold for a song toA. A. Low & Company. They spent a year and ahalf in rebuilding her, cutting her down to three decks,reducing her sail plain, dividing her topsails to theForbes rig and installing a donkey engine to help inmaking sail. Even so she retained much of heroriginal splendor. On her maiden trip she crossed theAtlantic in thirteen days, one hour. She seryed in the


Australian trade, also as a troop ship in the CrimeanWar, and a cruiser in the Civil War. In 1872 shefoundered in a hurricane off Bermuda. She wasreally too large for her times, and as a sailer she mustever remain a mystery, a promise unfulfilled, fornever once did she try herself out in the form and withthe sail plan which her builder had designed for her.

The other event which makes the year 1853 memor-able was the building by certain of our American ship-yards of six or eight famous extreme clippers forEnglish firms. The Red Jacket, 2006 tons, built atRockland, Maine, for Seacomb and Taylor of Boston,was one of three chartered by the White Star line fortheir Australian trade. She holds the record of onehundred and forty-two actual sailing days from Liver-pool to Melbourne and back, around the world.Orders were also placed by James Baines with DonaldMcKay for four extrenle clippers, of generous tonnage,the smallest of 2084 tons, the others 2450, 2500 and2600 tons. Three of these were delivered in 1853, oneof them, the James Baines, establishing a record runof twelve days, six hours, across the Atlantic whichhas never been lowered. She was known as the mostperfect ship that ever entered the Mersey. The lastand smallest of the four was the Lightning, whichsailed from Boston for Liverpool in February, 1854.On this maiden voyage she also set a record for a singleday's run. For on the first of March, as she reachedthat portion of the North Atlantic known as the Devil'sHole, just west of the Irish Coast, she ran into a strongsoutherly gale which put her on her best point ofsailing. All that day she tore along, the log showinga speed in excess of eighteen knots. She carried awayher fore-topsail and lost a jib, her lee rail was underwater and her lee rigging slack. But at the end ofthe twenty-four hours she had traveled four hundredand thirty-six miles, which still stands as the recordday's run for a sailing ship.

A study of the model of the Lightning gives one as


vivid an idea of the characteristics of the extremeclipper as can be had by those who cannot see thevessel herself. Mr. McKay had adopted and de-veloped the Waterman-Griffiths theory of concavewater lines, and many of his most famous clipperswere designed upon that theory. Although thetheory has been exploded by actual tests \A the greattank down in Washington, we cannot gainsay the un-rivalled performance of the record holders which in-corporated that theory. In the case of the Lightningthe concavity in the water lines was 16 ". There was a20" dead rise at half fioor, a graceful tumble home, anda long clean counter. As she slipped down BostonHarbor it was observed that there was not so much asa ripple under her cut-water, the water did not breakat a single place along her sides, and her wake wasstraight as an arrow. When we remember that shewas not a racing machine but a 2000 ton] freighter,244' long and 44' beam and drawing 22' of water, itseems incredible that the science of ship-jmodellingcould have reached such refinement. '

Many fantastic theories have been advanced toexplain the disappearance of the clipper ship. One ofthe favorite explanations is that they were jdriven offthe seas by the Alabama and other Confederatecruisers during the Civil War. It is true| that theHarvey Birch was destroyed by the Nashvill^ in 1861,the Jacob Bell by the Florida in 1863 and the Contestand the Winged Racer by the Alabama in the same year.It is also true that the Nightingale, in 1860 under theBrazilian fiag, was captured by a northern gunboatwith her hold full of slaves, and that the Su^rmy Southfiying the Chilean fiag was captured by the Britishman-of-war Brisk in the same embarrassing predica-ment. That happened in 1860, in the MdzambiqueChannel. Every one of these captures, however, wasdue to the failure of the wind. When we consider thatupwards of 150 of these clippers were plying theseven seas at that time, the percentage of captures by


steam cruisers appears negligible. With any sort ofwind stirring the clipper had nothing to fear from thesteamers of that day.

The causes that really banished the clipper werethe very causes that brought her into existence—tradeconditions. As we have seen, she was the answer to anexceptional and wholly abnormal conjunction oftrade opportunities which made her speed of infinitelygreater economic value than her carrying capacity.As soon as this exceptional opportunity expendeditself and normal trade conditions returned, theclipper had to give place to the medium clipper,and then to the still more economical and roomysteam freighter. She simply could not pay sufficientdividends on her cost to make herself a source ofprofit.

Nowadays one may search the seas in vain for aclipper ship. England, to be sure, found that in herChina tea trade and her Australian wool trade shecould make profitable use of clippers long after theyhad ceased to be built in America, and by adopting hercomposite construction, which calls for teak woodplanking over steel frames, England produced a fieetof beautiful clippers, swift and long-lived. Severalof these, the Cutty Sark, Thermopylae, Titania werestill in commission up to within a dozen years ago.But a glance at any ocean today will reveal the greatpreponderance of steam. Occasionally an old squarerigged hooker under Norwegian or Italian colors willbe seen creeping about the high seas. At one timethere was the prospect that the Standard Oil Companywould use the four or five masted barkentine in theirlong haul runs. These vessels, with their squarerigged foremasts, can present a great solid wall ofcanvas to a following wind, and with their schoonerrig on the remaining masts can lie much closer to thewind than the five and one-half or six points whichwas the best the clipper ship could do. But even thispossible development of the barkentine was nipped in


the bud by the perfection of the crude oil internalcombustion motor. So that we find th!e statelypacket whose name was on everybody's lips, and whoseexploits were the subject of song and story' replacedby the prosaic "ram-you, damn-you liner ¡with herbrace of bucking screws." We find the wild clipperwith her sharp cut-water and stabbing bowsprit,scending into a head sea and drenching herself withspray which the setting sun made into rainbows of mistover her weather bow, replaced by the lumbering,ungainly tramp steamer with an incongruous forestof cargo derricks disfiguring her decks and suggestingher need of a haircut. We find the humble coastingschooner, loaded to the scuppers with coal and bearingin her patched sails and mended booms a niute testi-mony to the battering of the sea, crowded to the wallby the business-like ocean-going tug with lier stringof coal barges. We find even the dainty littl¿ Glouces-ter fisherman fighting hard for life against the steamtrawler. All things point to the disappearance of sailsat sea, and with genuine regret, we say, "Alas, Ichabod,a glory hath departed from the face of the waters."Yet we may rest assured that romance is with us still.We shall still detect the Boy God's elusive countenancehowbeit disguised in wholly different forms.

the development of the clipper ship · 1929.] the development of the clipper ship 51 the blessing...

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