During the War of 1812, fast little Baltimore clippers engaged in the smuggling trade and outran the slower British frigates that blockaded many American harbors. They were also successful privateers that wreaked havoc on British shipping. Said to be modeled after French luggers of the Revolutionary War period, they rarely exceeding 200 tons register, and were rigged as topsail or fore-and-aft schooners, brigs, or brigantines.
They were the pride of the shipyards of Baltimore, but other American cities built their versions of the fast sailing vessels as well, primarily in New England.
Sleek and fast, intended for speed, they were not "ships of burden," and were not suitable for great carrying capacity. The Baltimore clippers were quite narrow in proportion to their length and were more suitable for highly specialized cargoes.
After the War of 1812, Baltimore Clippers served in the coasting trade. Some entered into the slave trade sailing to the slave coast of Africa and then on to the East Indies or the southern coast of the United States with their human cargoes. They were also highly suitable as opium smugglers running the gauntlet of monsoons, pirates, and enraged Mandarins off the coast of China. With their vast profits, smugglers invested handsome sums in building their exquisitely beautiful "opium clippers," which were armed to the teeth and manned by large crews, ready and able to fight off all adversaries.
The Spanish and Portuguese successfully used Baltimore clippers in the Mediterranean, primarily hauling fruits and vegetables from port to port.
Up until 1832, it had never occurred to ship designers to build a large sleek craft based upon the Baltimore clipper. That was about to change with the Ann McKim.
Isaac McKim was a wealthy Baltimore merchant who knew a great deal about the Baltimore clippers and thought that the larger vessels being built around that time to primarily to haul heavy cargoes were too slow. Why wouldn't a 500-ton ship benefit from the same design as a Baltimore clipper that had proven to be so successful? In 1832 he decided to try a very radical experiment. He contracted the prestigious Baltimore shipbuilding firm of Kennard & Williamson to build the ship of his dreams.
Naturally, this created quite a stir in shipping circles and many scoffed at McKim's "fool" ideas, but McKim held fast to his beliefs. He was paying for it all with his own money and went on to build his ship regardless of what anybody thought. This was to be his pride and joy and he named her the Ann McKim after his beloved wife.
Her keel was laid and she grew rapidly on the stocks. She was 143 feet long and 31 feet wide, with a depth of 14 feet. Her hull was designed like the other schooner-rigged vessels of the Chesapeake Bay, only larger. Like the smaller vessels, she drew much more water aft than forward. She had great deadrise in at her mid-section, and long easy convex water-lines. She was square-rigged with three raking masts as a full rigged ship and besides carrying the standard topsails, topgallants and royals on her masts, she carried skysails, rare in those days before the 1840s. She was one of the first "three-skysail-yarders."
[ Some maritime historians have stated that the Ann McKim was sparred to the royals only, no skysails. ]
No expense was spared in the building of this ship. The finest live oak was used to build her frames. On her flush deck, mahogany was used for her hatch coamings, companionway, rails, and skylights. She was copper-fastened throughout and imported red copper was used to sheath her bottom. On her deck, she mounted twelve brass cannon and had brass bells and capstan heads along with other brass adornments. Rosewood and other exotic hardwoods were used in her interior. Ornate carvings of gingerbread ran throughout.
The Ann McKim was a strikingly beautiful ship and lived up to her proud owner's expectations. She proved to be the finest ship of her day and the fastest, yet all this lush attention to detail was regarded unfavorably by some of the more conservative older merchants who found it hard to justify such excessive expenses. The Ann McKim could not carry the large cargoes of other vessels the same length. She required a larger crew than her full-bodied rivals because of her three skysail yards. Rival ship owners failed to take into account the fact that the Ann McKim could make three voyages in the same amount of time that her sea-going delivery wagon competitors would make two voyages; thus justifying her existence.
The June 3, 1833 edition of the Baltimore Republican and Commercial Advertiser had this to say of the Ann McKim:
The Splendid ship Ann McKim will be launched from the ship yard of Messrs. Kennard & Williamson tomorrow afternoon at half past four o'clock. She is a hundred and forty-three feet in length, being the longest merchant ship in the United States, built by Messrs. Kennard & Williamson, who are among the most skilled mechanics in our country, and of the very best materials which have been selected with the greatest care, and at great expense, under the immediate supervision of Captain James Curtis, for the Hon. Isaac McKim.
Her fastenings are altogether copper, no iron having been used in her construction. The bills for copper alone amount to upwards of nine thousand dollars. The carving of the figure head and upon the stern, which is designed by Messrs. Kennard & Williamson, displays great taste, and is admirably executed. The lower masts are fitted in their places, the standing rigging is attached, and the top gallant masts are raised at the top to serve as flag staffs, and being painted with much taste and beauty, she presents a grand and imposing figure.
The Ann McKim entered into the China tea trade and easily out sailed all other ships on the high seas. Yet, conservative shipowners, resisting radical change and set in their ways, seemed unimpressed. Despite making quite a stir in shipping circles, not a single ship owner attempted to follow the Ann McKim's example. But men interested in nautical matters went aboard this unique vessel to study her lines. Some admired her, some scoffed, yet some designers saw things here that they liked and would take some of her new ideas with them.
In 1837 Isaac McKim died and the Ann McKim was put up for sale. At the time, Messrs. William E. Howland and William H. Aspinwall were most anxious to acquire a fast secondhand ship that had proven itself to meet the growing American demand for the first pick of the season tea. So, the firm purchased the Ann McKim. They promptly brought her up to an East River shipyard for repairs. John W. Griffiths and Donald McKay both looked her over and were impressed.
The now refurbished Ann McKim would go on to serve her new masters in the China tea trade. After a first disappointing voyage of 150 days from China to New York, the Ann McKim would astound the maritime world in 1843 with a record-breaking passage of 96 days from Canton to New York. From then on, she was the ship that the coming generation of China clippers would try to beat.
Robert Waterman was born in Hudson, New York and from the Hudson riverbank he must have felt, as a young boy, the pull of the river currents to the sea. His father was Thaddeus Waterman, a Nantucket whaling captain who had come to a place called Claverack Landing with a large group of Nantucket whalemen and their families to escape the turmoil of the Revolutionary War. A whaling port was established and Claverack Landing was renamed Hudson.
Thaddeus and Eliza Coffin Waterman began raising a family. Robert Waterman was their third child after sister Ema, five years old, and brother Edward, a lad of two. Elizabeth would follow three years later.
When Robert was eight years old, his father was lost at sea. Left destitute, Eliza Waterman took her four children to Fairfield, Connecticut to live with family.
Young Robert Waterman was soon hanging around the wharves of Fairfield and Bridgeport. Eventually, he caught the eye of Captain John Sterling of neighboring Stratford. He would be sailing soon for India and invited young Robert to sign on as a cabin boy.
Waterman adapted readily to life aboard ship and learned the lessons of a sailor's life on this voyage. Waterman found his true calling and upon his return home signed up for the next voyage, under Sterlings' command, aboard the Splendid, about to enter into the South American trade.
One day while aloft repairing running rigging, Waterman decided to try an old sailor's trick. He attempted to slide down the edge of a sail for the first time and soon found himself desperately grasping at the edge of the sail, "tearing out my fingernails and skinning my shins," as he would tell the tale many years later. Only a bolt of rope that he was somehow able to grasp at the last second kept him from falling over the side.
Waterman recovered from his ordeal and followed Captain Sterling to serve him aboard the Nimrod, which would go on to sail to China.
After his China run experience, Waterman entered the transatlantic packet trade and rose rapidly in the ranks of ship officers, making first mate by the young age of twenty-one. He served under Captain Charles Marshall of the Black Ball Liner Britannia.
He drove his men hard, expecting no man to do anything he wouldn't do himself. As long as men did what he asked of them, there was nothing that he wouldn't do for them in return; including one time diving from the deck after a sailor who had fallen into the sea from the yard. He would berate the same sailor the next day. The one thing that Robert Waterman could not stand was a malingerer. Out there on the wild North Atlantic it was a test of wills between himself and the landlubbers he was trying to turn into seamen. Right from the start, Waterman let all hands know what they could expect from him, and what he expected of them: absolute obedience to his commands. He claimed to be fair and just in all his dealings, but on the high seas, his word was the final one.
His orders would be obeyed and he did not hesitate to use brute force when necessary. To those seamen who did not live up to his standards, he could be ruthless. More than one seaman had felt his lash or been beaten into submission by a belaying pin. So much so that along the waterfronts on both sides of the Atlantic the nickname of "Bully Waterman" began to spread.
Regardless of the tales, Waterman ran a tight ship manned by an efficient crew who feared him more than the storms at sea. Captain Marshall approved of his young protégé. For upon retiring from the quarterdeck he bought shares of the Black Ball Line, and using his new bought influence persuaded the firm to make Waterman a captain of their new Liner South America. At twenty-eight years of age Robert Waterman was now a packet captain on the Liverpool run.
For the next four years, Robert Waterman sailed the South America relentlessly through the North Atlantic to Liverpool and back. Despite his reputation as a driver, he still attracted a number of veteran seamen who followed him from ship to ship. Being a shrewd businessman, Robert Waterman was able to utilize his allotted cargo space to personal advantage and profited greatly from these endeavors. Robert Waterman was becoming a wealthy man.
After four long years on the North Atlantic packet run, Waterman was offered command, in 1836, of the old cotton packet Natchez, recently purchased by Howland & Aspinwall. The Natchez was an early cotton packet built by Isaac Webb in 1831. The North Atlantic run had become a grind for Waterman. Sea lawyers were beginning to hound him. He was looking for a change and a new challenge by that time. New records on the Pacific and South American runs were being made again and this intrigued him.
In command of the Natchez, he sailed by Cape Horn to Valparaiso for a cargo of copper and hides. It was a fast voyage. The South American trade agreed with him for he stayed at it, making many fast voyages, for six years till 1842 when Howland & Aspinwall transferred the Natchez to the China trade.
That same year, Waterman took the Natchez on her first China voyage by way of Cape Horn to Valparaiso and Mazatlan, then across the Pacific to Canton. Out there in the Pacific, Waterman had an uncanny way of finding the winds to glide them through the doldrums as she raced across the Pacific to Canton in 41 days.
After loading tea at Canton, the Natchez set sail down the South China Sea, bound for New York. The old cotton packet had undergone an amazing transformation as she sailed up the Atlantic arriving at New York in good time, exactly one year after she had departed.
Over the years, Waterman made six round voyages in command of the Natchez. The longest China to New York in-season run was 98 days. Her best China to New York run was the record time when she came romping back from Macao in only 78 days. Her best around the world time was her second voyage of 9 months, 26 days that included stops at three ports.
Waterman was soon the talk of the town as word of his maritime feats spread among the shipping community. Between voyages, he played his part as "a strutting dude of sail," and was seen about town with his many admiring friends, wearing his beaver top hat and Canton silk frock coat. He was of slim build, yet strong and muscular; a self-contained bantam rooster of a man who seemed larger than he actually was, with a robust chest and slim waist. Waterman was a dandy with the women. He had dark hair and eyes, and an aquiline nose. He was handsome and dashing in a way that women found hard to resist. He had his pick of the fairest belles to escort out to the dance floor to waltz the night away at the Metropolitan Hotel ballroom. He favored the company of Manhattan debutante Cynthia Jones on many of those grand occasions.
When not pursuing his romantic dalliances ashore, Waterman could often be found in the company of his fellow captains along with merchant shippers in the Astor Bar on Broadway. Waterman relished these opportunities to "talk ship" with his peers who were by now most interested to hear about his methods of laying on sail.
The Astor Bar between Vesey and Barkley streets, over expensive marble-topped tables, was where all the real shipping business was done amidst an atmosphere of camaraderie, rum punches, and cigar smoke. The Astor Bar was the true birthplace of many fast sailing ships.
Lower Manhattan was the place of ostentatious wealth and decadence. Wealthy ship owner's wives rode around in carriages down Broadway to shop in department stores such as A. T. Stewart's "marble palace," for a wide assortment of European and Oriental luxuries, where an army of clerks catered to their every whim. It was the land of "hundred dollar handkerchiefs," according to the observing eyes of novelist James Fenimore Cooper, where wealthy women would show off their "fine feathers."
The traffic on Broadway was dense as well as dangerous and pedestrians took their chances when crossing the street from the west side "dollar side" to the more modest "shilling side."
In the evenings, after a lengthy dinner at Delmonico's, it was off to the grand hotels where wealthy merchants and their wives would waltz away the evenings.
The owners of the Natchez, were highly impressed with Waterman's abilities and basked in the glory of his record run. That Waterman was a superb seaman and navigator, there was no doubt. But equally important was his loyalty to the interests of Howland & Aspinwall. Such loyalty deserved a fine reward. Perhaps a new China tea packet for Waterman to command some day would be in the offing. For William Aspinwall was already talking with John Willis Griffiths about building a ship for them in 1843.
With all their profits, William Aspinwall was becoming anxious to add to their fleet and had been talking to John Willis Griffiths about designing a new ship for the China trade in 1843.
Waterman was also the darling of the insurance underwriters. In eighteen years in command of various ships, he had hardly lost a spar.
One day while visiting his family in Connecticut, Waterman met a childhood friend, Cordelia Sterling, the daughter of Captain John Sterling, who had grown up to become a beautiful young woman. She was a belle of Bridgeport and soon replaced all the other women in Waterman's heart. The fast life of the society ballrooms was about to give way to a lasting relationship for Robert Waterman and the love of his life, Cordelia .
But first the relationship would have to endure Waterman's long voyages to China with the Natchez. In 1844, Waterman brought the ship back from Macao in 78 days and a new record-breaking passage for which he was given a grand ovation. He was thirty-five years old and in his prime. It was said that Waterman had drawn a charmed lot of winds from Aeolus' lucky bag on that run.
The following October, after Waterman had returned to sea for another China run on the Natchez, Captain Nathaniel Brown Palmer arrived back at New York with William Low and his wife aboard the Paul Jones after a long voyage from Canton. Palmer carried with him the model of a ship that he had carved on the voyage as he and the Lows excitedly made their way to the Low's counting houses at 167-171 John Street.
Next: Nathaniel Brown Palmer
The Era of the Clipper Ships
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