The Palatka news and advertiser., 1915-07-30

One fine day in August, 1862, the
clipper ship, Sovereign of the Seas
sailed from New York, bound for San
Francisco. Just ninety-four days la
ter she entered the Golden Gate.
This rather bare statement takes on
more color and interest, when it is
considered that during the ninety -four
days of her passage she sailed dis
tance of something like fifteen thous-
and miles, under canvas alone, round
ing Cape Horn in the tenth of the
savage Antarctic weather for which
that region is famous-or infamous;
that she delivered to San Francisco
{. cargo for which her owners received
$84 4,O00-which sum practically paid
the entire cost of her construction;
that she carried, in addition to her
crew of seventy-five men and boys,
forty-six adventures who were seek
ing their fortune among the gold
fields of the wonder-west; and, final
ly that she was an American sailing
vessel, built at Boston by an Ameri-
can shipbuilder, Donald Mckay, and
manned and officered by American
81 amenl
This was a pretty good record for
even an American clipper, but the
story does not end yet. After dis
charging her cargo at Frisco, the
Sovereign of the Seas" turned her
bows toward Honolulu to pick up a
cargo of oil that was waiting there
for the New York market. Taking
on her cargo, she sailed for New
York, rounding the Horn again; but
on this trip the gods of the winds
were most propitious, and she dropped
her mud hook in New York harbor
just eighty-two days, almost to the
hour, from the start. Her sailing
record on this return voyage reads
like pure romance. For ten thous-
and miles on a stretch she sailed
without tacking or having to "wear
ship" and almost without the neces-
sity of touching rope; and during
one consecutive run of ten days she
reeled off three thousand three hun
dred miles-an average of three hun
dred and thirty miles day, or almost
fourteen miles an hour of steady sail
ing! There are some pretty big
steamers, nowadays, who would con-
slider that good work for themselves.
Those were golden days for the
American merchant marine-those
days of the early fifties and late for
ties. The lure of gold had suddenly
famed into the western sky, and all
the world went mad with lust for it's
possession. All the world sesemed
headed for the Ell Dorado, where for
tune lay hidden in the SOIL ready for
the first who might grasp it. There
were no railroads, no roads of any
sort, across the American continent;
and while poorer, or more adventur-
Gus spirits, and those who dwelt fur
ther inland, might elect to the OK
,cart-and-prarie-schooner mode of
travel, the ocean offered a logical
pathway for the coast dweller and the
man who could raise passage money.
Also, once the adventurer reached his
goal, he demanded to be fed; and as
he had no time to raise his own grub,
the East had to feed him. And it
fed hin-for a consideration In
1849 the rest of the world poured into
San Francisco 81 ,405 newcomers, not
cne of whom was prepared to pro-
duce even sandwich, or a new shirt
when his old one was worn out. But
the East gallantly rose to the occa-
sion; the canny traders of the At
lantic seaboard called upon ship
wrights in Boston, New York, Baltl-
more, for swift ships. and the ship
yards responded with the most magni-
fcent fleet of sailing vessels ever
known in the history of navigation.
The times were right for the AM
erican merchant marine, anyhow.
While the successful wars of 1776 and
1912 brought our navy into being.
writing for it new and splendid chap
ters of naval heroism, the work of