Reviewed by Don Ross

At first glance of Clippers of the Port of Portsmouth and the Men who built Them, the wrap-around book cover painting of the Morning Light entering San Francisco Bay grabs the reader to want to open the book and turn it over and take a look at the entire John Stobart painting on the front and back covers. Then to turn the book around to the contents: the twenty-eight Piscataqua River clipper ships that were built in Portsmpouth, New Hampshire, each one a unique vessel, built by some of the finest master shipbuilders of the day that got caught up with the clipper ship frenzy of the 1850s.

Some of the more memorable clippers of the era slid down the ways of the shipyards of George Raynes, Samuel Badger, Tobey & Littlerfield, and Fernald & Petigrew at a cost of $62 per ton, comparable to the New York and Boston shipyards, and a lot more than clipper ships were selling for up in neighboring Maine.

According to author Ray Brighton, "Right in the thick of it with George Raynes were brilliant builders like Frederick W. Fernald and William Petigrew, Stephen Tobey and Daniel Littlefield, Samuel Badger, Samuel Hanscom, Daniel Moulton and Elbridge G. Pierce."

For Piscataqua shipbuilders and carpenters possessed a high order of workmanship, and according to Brighton, "No expense was spared in making these clippers the most ornate marine creations ever built for merchandising purposes."

The Piscataqua clippers all left Portsmoth and never returned, for there was little to export from an unproductive hinterland. Only two sailed from Portsmouth on commercial passages. Most of the rest of them were towed down the river by the steam tug R. B. Forbes to other busier ports - there to be rigged, and then, while still owned by Piscataqua investors, at least in part, were leased out to New York and Boston shipping concerns.

Piscataqua clippers have always been a great source of pride to the people of Portsmouth. The author certainly got caught up with it, as their unique exciting history became his passion, so this is Brighton's story to tell. He does so in an organized logical way starting off with chapter One: The Golden Days of the Clippers. Then divides the remaining seven chapters to the shipyards and builders along the Piscataqua River and the clippers that each produced, gleaning the essence of the history of Portsmouth as a shipbuilding community, intertwined with the highlightsd of each clipper's tale to tell, along the way.

Of all the Piscataqua shipbuillders, George Raynes built the first, the last, and some of the fastest clippers. The first was the William E. Roman, known mostly as the Roman, a small tea clipper.

But Raynes is better known for his next clipper, the Sea Serpent, that was launched on November 20, 1850. The Boston Atlas said of her:

The clipper ship Sea Serpent - This is the second clipper on a large scale which has been built in New England this season: the Surprise, built at East Boston, was the first. The Sea Serpent is about 1300 tons . . . . She is very sharp forward and beautifully proportioned aft, without being cut up like a centerboard, and broadside on she looks rakish and saucy. To use a nautical phrase, "Her model fills the eye like a full moon . . . ."

Other newspapers of the day had glowing accounts of the Sea Serpent,and she would live up to her praise by spending a remarkable long life at sea, the highlights presented here.

Wild Pigeon

Some of the gleaned highlights of the Wild Pigeon follow next in the author's words.

The Wild Pigeon may well have been the fastest vessel George Rayners sent down the busy ways. Five hundred tons smaller that the Sea Serpent, she was his third clipper. Launched on July 31, 1851, the Wild Pigeon left the Piscataqua under her own sail, headed for New York. She made the run in less than forty hours, with a Captain Buckingham in command. She must have been a proud sight while lying at her berth in New York. A beautifully carved pigeon, depicted in flight, was her figurehead, and two gilded pigeons graced her stern Everything about the Wild Pigeon testified to the skills of her builder.

. . . An omen of great significance had been seen by superstitious seamen in the fact that on her run from Portsmouth to New York, right after her launching, wild pigeons had alighted on the Wild Pigeon. The pigeons flew around the ship three times, and then one landed on the royal yard and another on the jib boom-indeed a portent to good fortune.

Businessmen also flocked to this clipper when she arrived at South Street and were quick to "seek her services." The Wild Pigeon made an excellent 107-day passage around Cape horn in light winds, with The Boston Atlas reporting that ". . . Wild Pigeon never had the wind enough during her passage to obtain the highest rate of speed . . . ."

The Wild Pigeon continued to show her tail feathers for many years and the highlights of her story are all here.

Captain Hanson

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The Witch of the Wave in mentioned next, presumably the fourth Raynes clipper, but if you look at the launch date, April 5, 1851, you take notice that this launching date is almost four months before the July 31, 1851 launching date of the Wild Pigeon, which in actuality must be the fourth Raynes clipper, and the Witch of the Wave the third Raynes clipper.

In the book: American Clipper Ships 1833-1858, Vol. II, Octavius & Howe / Dover Books - Wild Pigeon entry, on page 705, the first sentence confirms this.

Wild Pigeon

Extreme clipper ship, launched JULY 31, 1851, from the yard of George Raynes, Portsmouth, N. H., and in many respects resembled his prior productions, the Sea Serpent and Witch of the Wave.

Or perhaps Raynes began work on the Wild Pigeon first, and then pushed it aside for a time to build the Witch of the Wave.

George Raynes

Upon her April 5, 1851 launching, the Witch of the Wave was said to be the sharpest, most beautifully finished vessel ever launched on the Piscataqua, but was soon eclipsed several weeks later by the launching of the Hanscom family shipyard clipper Nightingale.

The launching of the Witch of the Wave was a memorable day, and the May 2nd departure under the tow of the steam tug R. B. Forbes, is most eloquently captured here from The Salem Register.

. . . The first morning train to Portsmouth was freighted with a large number of ladies and gentlemen from Boston, Salem and Newburyport, who, with the Portsmouth guests, made up a company of two or three hundred persons. At 10 1/2 o'clock A. M. the gallant ship, with all her bunting displaced, was cast loose from her fasts, and grappled by the steamer, proceeded down the river cheered to the echo by the multitudes who thronged the wharves, and by the sturdy ship-builders who gathered on the taff rail of another leviathan on the stocks in the adjacent shipyard. The compliment was returned, the band on board played "Hail Columbia" and the Witch of the Wave sped on her way.

Witch of the Wave

It was a proud moment for George Raynes with his craftsmen, invited guests, and band aboard, as he suggested that his captain set a little sail, "Just to assist the toww-boat a little." And this moment is captured here, one of New England's finest in the opinion of many, forever immortalized in the verse of "The Portsmouth Lament."

And the good ship flies, and the wind blows free

As she leaps to her lover's arms-the sea!

The Witch of the Wave made a profound impression wherever she sailed, particularly amongst the British, and The Illustrated London News:

She is the object of much interest as she lies at the dock. Her bows are similar to those of a large cutter yacht.

Witch of the Wave in Boston Harbor

The Tinqua, named after a leading merchant in Canton, was launched on October 2, 1852, the smallest of the
Raynes clippers, said to resemble the Wild Pigeon, and two-thirds her size.

The launching of the Wild Duck followed the next year, and the Wild Duck, too, resembled the Wild Pigeon and was bigger than the Tinqua by 200 tons.

Wild Duck

Directory

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The Coeur de Lion next slid down the ways of the Raynes shipyard on January 3, 1854. She would go on to last for sixty-one years at sea. Other ships followed.

Time to move on to other chapters and builders, first to the shipyard of Fernald & Petigrew, and Raynes' closest rivals, Frederick Fernald and William Petigrew - the builders of the Samuel Harte Pook-designed clipper Typhoon.

Soon after her February 18, 1851 launching, she departed Portsmouth under full sail in ballast on March 12, 1851, for a record Portsmouth run of 13 days, 22 hours - some say in a rush to get out to sea and shorthanded - the exact particulars of this voyage forever shrouded in mystery - rumors of transporting a strongbox of gold to the owners' correspondents in Liverpool.

Red Rover, Water Witch, Dashing Wave, Express. Midnight and Noonday followed from the Fernald & Petigrew shipyard, each with a tale to tell and vividly captured on the pages.

Dashing Wave

Stephen Tobey was apprenticed to George Raynes as a boy and would go on to launch a shipyard of his own with his partner, Daniel Littlefield. They would start out building the largest merchant vessel ever on the Piscataqua River, and launched the Morning Light on August 20, 1853. She only spent a week on the Piscataqua tidal flat for the R. B. Forbes soon took her in tow to Boston, where she attracted much attention from the Boston press.

The stories of the clippers Sierra Nevada and Ocean Rover follow.

The Hanscoms were welcomed into the Portsmouth shipbuilding community, and had been at shipbuilding since 1683, first up in Maine. William L. Hanscom went on to build ships of his own in Portsmouth in 1847. His third son, Isaiah, along with his uncle Samuel, William's brother, would go on to build the Nightingale. Frederick W. Fernald was said to have suggested her lines to Samuel Hanscomb. With perhaps some imput from Samuel Pook Sr., who lived in Portsmouth at that time. He and his son, Samuel Harte Pook, possibly made available plans for "a thousand-ton yacht-like clipper."

The Nightingale was in the news from the time her keel was laid in January 1851, and was the most expensive clipper to be built to date, and her history would forever be intertwined with the noted Swedish opera singer, Jenny Lind. But controversy would dog the Nightingale all of her days. Her particularly interesting tale is all here in great detail, and is most intriguing.

See also the review of: Jenny Lind and the Clipper Nightingale Figurehead, another Portsmouth Marine Society book by Swedish author Karl-Eric Svärdskog that is reviewed elsewhere on this Web site. Go to Clipper Ship Nightingale.

The Bargers were another Portsmouth family that contributed to the shipbuilding traditions, and Samuel Badger learned much from his uncle, William Badger. Samuel built the small clippers Fleetwood, Granite State, and Cathedral. The tales are here.

Daniel Moulton practiced his shipbuilding trade at various Piscataqua shipyards and went on to shipbuilding himself with the thirty-one craftsmen that chose to follow him into the trade.

They would go on to build the clippers Morning Glory, and Star of Hope.

Elbridge G. Pierce was a "down east" shipbuilder who came to Portsmouth in 1856 and wasted little time in building the extreme clipper Charger.

There are thirty-one pictures included, some of them presented here, many of them full-color reproductions of rare paintings.

This is just a fleeting "bare bones" nutshell glimpse of this book. The essential highlights of the Piscataqua clippers are all here and this diligently researched book intimately captures all the shipbuilders, and the craftsmen involved who moved freely about the different shipyards working wherever their services were required over the most exciting period of the golden age of sail. Portsmouth clippers were well built and served their owners with many years of faithful service, twenty years on the average.

Yet, the author and others from Portsmouth feel that the history of the Portsmouth shipbuilders, to their lament, has been often overshadowed in maritime circles by other shipbuilders of the clipper ship era, notably Donald McKay, who got such good press coverage in the great newspaper centers in New York and Boston. But the diligent historical researcher will discover that the Piscataqua clippers got some very good press, too, and the world took notice wherever they sailed.

The Piscataqua clippers have certainly not escaped the notice of this reviewer, a cousin to Donald McKay, who feels a great sense of awe upon reading this book with learning more about the clippers of the Port of Portsmouth and the men who built them.

The other lament among the good citizens of Portsmouth has been that none of the clippers upon departing the Piscsataqua River ever returned.

As a member of the McKay family, I would like to say to the good citizens of Portsmouth that now is your big chance to redeem your long-lost clipper ship heritage and bring Portsmouth to the forefront of the maritime world by building a clipper ship, launch her, sail her around the world, and then return to Portsmouth.

Dashing Wave

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For more information concerning the book:Clippers of the Port of Portsmouth and the Men who built Them.

www.perpublisher.com/pms5.html

Portsmouth Marine Society

Box 147

Portsmouth, NH 03802

Published in cooperation with

Port of Portsmouth Maritime Museum

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