page_title: William D. Gregory
section_title: Tejuca (1854–1856)
hierarchical_section_title: William D. Gregory / Life and career / Tejuca (1854–1856)
caption_attribution_description: English: The rescue of the clipper ship Tejuca's crew by the ship Excelsior (right) during a hurricane on the Atlantic in January 1856. Excelsior's captain was later given an award for gallantry for the rescue. Tejuca was a small 470-ton clipper ship built in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1854. From a painting by Thomas Pitman.
context_page_description: William Doliber Gregory was an American sea captain born in Marblehead, Massachusetts. Gregory was captain of the clipper ship Tejuca from her 1854 completion to her foundering and sinking in an 1856 hurricane; Gregory and most of his crew were rescued only at the last moment by the courageous intervention of a passing ship. Gregory was later commander of the bark Albers, and in 1857 is said to have put down a riot on his ship virtually singlehanded.
  With the outbreak of the American Civil War in April 1861, Gregory took a temporary commission in the United States Navy and was given command of the brig USS Bohio. Bohio under Gregory's command took a number of prizes, the most remarkable example of which involved a ruse to disguise his vessel as a steamship in order to deceive the enemy into surrendering.
  After resigning from the Navy, Gregory struggled to find a new command due to the exigencies of war. His last voyage as a mariner was reportedly made in 1866.
context_section_description: In 1854, Gregory supervised construction of the 470-ton clipper ship Tejuca, which was built in Hoboken, New Jersey, by Isaac C. Smith & Son. Gregory took command after the ship's completion, and would remain her master throughout her brief career. 
  Tejuca was built for the coffee trade, and between June 1854 and July 1855 she made three round trips between New York City and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, returning via Bahia, Brazil, on each occasion with about 5,000 bags of coffee.  On the second such trip, she reportedly made "one of the quickest passages on record" between Rio and New Orleans, Louisiana. Her last voyage to Rio returned with a cargo of sugar, arriving New York on December 7.
  On December 27, 1855, Tejuca set out from New York on her first attempted transatlantic crossing, with a cargo of sugar bound for Queenstown, Ireland. A few days out, on January 5, the ship ran into what Gregory later described as a "terrible hurricane". At midnight, Tejuca shipped a sea which rolled the vessel almost on her beam ends, broke most of the yards, and destroyed or swept away everything on deck including the lifeboats; the seawater also contaminated the crew's food stores and drinking water. 
  By the 7th, with no provisions and the ship settling fast, Gregory and his crew had abandoned hope of survival when a sail appeared on the horizon, belonging to the ship Excelsior. Excelsior's captain, Eben Mitchell, attempted to come to Tejuca's aid, but was unable to launch lifeboats in the raging storm. He finally decided on the hazardous tactic of bringing his ship alongside the stricken vessel, an act which would risk the safety of his own vessel. The maneuver proved successful; most of Tejuca's crew were able to leap to safety, except for one man who lost his footing and was crushed between the two vessels. Gregory himself almost fell, but was pulled aboard Excelsior by a member of his crew.  
  In addition to the loss of the ship, Gregory also lost "a very valuable collection of interesting and valuable articles, the accumulations of many years" in the disaster. He later wrote a testimonial praising the courage of Mitchell and his crew, and Mitchell was subsequently awarded for gallantry for the rescue by an association of shipmasters.
caption: Rescue of Gregory and the crew of Tejuca in 1856
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