Daily globe., 1880-06-06
FAMOUS OLD SHIPS.
4 Veter0n Sea CGptatn's Interesting |
"Reminiscences.
New York American Ship.

"Reminiscences
New York American Ship.
Capt. f. c.. Sandford retired ship-master,
of Nantucket, Massachusetts. answering the
inquiry, what becomes of old ships?" first
brings to mind the stampede from the Atlantic
States to California at the beginning of gold
discoveries-how thousands of vessels entered
the Golden Horn with emigran.s, never to re-
turn. He says: During the year 1850 more
than one thousand ships were observed in the
bay of San Francisco, a large portion of which
never passed without its gates.
Many of these had history worthy of
remembrance. There were some of
the London, Liverpool and French liners, COM
prisiur the famous New York and Havre pack
cts and renowned China ships, with hundreds
of other smaller, bat of equal interest, taken
from the whale fishery as well as many of less
note. There was the Cadmus, which brought
the patriot Lafayette to this country In 1925,
as also a host of others; the Gen. Jackson and
Balance, the two ships taken by James De-
VOLTS privi.teer, True BlOoded Yankee, in the
war of 1914. The Latter ship was nearly 100
wears old. Ikere were numbers of old whalers,
English and American; for example the
celebrated Lady Amherst, an English whaler
of repute belonging to Samuel Enderby q Sons,
with an average time of thirty months to
each, obtained sixteen hundred barrels of
sperm ola catch never equaled by any ship
from our own ports. In the "stone blockade
of Charleston, s. c., in 1862. there were sunk
q fleet of ships formerly engaged in the whaling
business, and before that, many of them In
the European trade for the various commercial
centers of our country, and not few in the
China trade. Among these were the Kensing-
ton, Leonidas, Amazon, Cossack, Courier, Fran
ces Henrietta, Rebecca Simms (once q China
ship belonging TO Woodruff Simms, of Phila-
delphia), and lastly the Herald, almost q CEN
tury old, and once the pride of Boston. Then
the Auglo-rebel privateers made fearful havoc.
Among the interesting old ships was the Bar
clay, built in 1886, for Roth & Sons, by George
Claghorn-the same who built the frigate
Constitution (Old Ironsides). The Barclay was
gallantly cut out of Callao, from under the
guns of the Spanish Notifications, in 1918. by
Commodore David Porter, then in the United
States frigate Essex; with our heroic Farragut,
at that time midshipmRn, under his command.
After an eventful career she was broken up at
New Bedford in 1868; also the ship Canada,
famous in her day, when in the Liverpool
trade making her passages from New York
in from thirteen to sixteen days, when
commanded by Captain Seth G.. Macy, of
Hudson, and delivering Gen. Jackson's mes
ssges in Liverpool as promptly as the steamers
0O OIueHs III tucsS AHO was SOA1ON
by the Brazilian government while ashore near
Pernambuco in 1856, and was since paid for
every dollar.
Large numbers of noted old ships, when the
requirements of commerce demanded those of
larger size for transportation of cotton. grain
and other merchandise, were transferred to the
whaling business, and have since laid their
keels in some of the numerous groups of the
Pacific seas, or been crushed IN the ice of
the Arctic foes. Among these we have in mind
the Boston China ship Houqua, long COM
manded by Josiah Sturgis. The ship was
driven ashore and wrecked in the Okotsk sea
in 1851. Then there was the Essex, of Nan
tucket, stove by u huge whale in the Pacific
ocean in November, 1920. similar adven-
ture befell the ship Harmony, (also of Nan
tucket), Capt. Abel Rawson, late in the last
century, which had whale breach out of the
sea in the night across the deck, sinking the
ship in few minutes. There is ship now
sailing from Holland, or was up to recent date,
built in 1868. She Is called the Cemmissaries
des KOning Won der Heine, and, if still in ex.
istence, must be upward Of 800 years old.