The Early Ships

Mast ships were tiny by our standards but large for their day. A standard length
for a mast for a seventy-four gun ship was 108 feet. A first growth pine could
stand 200 feet and measure 4 feet at the butt. The heaviest mast tree could
weigh 20 tons. Mast ships were super carriers of the day, 400 to 1000 tons
burthen, the size of a large warship. The ships had huge stern ports through
which the great sticks were hoisted and stored.

Pinus Strobus
The crown claimed all white pine measuring more than 24 inches at the butt, 74
inches circumference. The king’s deputy ranged the back country marking stands
with the broad arrow blaze, the ancient symbol of naval property. White Pine 36
inches in diameter (circumference 113 inches) sold for £135 in 1664 and £153 a
century later.
In the early years of the nation, as it struggled to build new sources of trade
after the revolution, American ships traveled the world. Chinese blue and white
porcelain and tea opened a whole new vision about the possibilities of trade in
the Far East.

Maine shipbuilders quickly picked up on the demand for fast ships to carry tea
to a nation where tea drinking had increased by 300% in the 1830s and 40s. The
Houqua, designed by Nathaniel Palmer of Connecticut in 1844, set the standard
for hull design as a new type of ship dominated the Far Eastern trade. The sharp
“hollow” bow of the long, narrow ship did not allow for much cargo but it made a
mighty fast ship. A small clipper might carry 4,066 chests of tea and 200 half
chests as well as bales of silk.

The peak years for building “clipper ships” were between 1844 and 1857. Perhaps
300 to 400 were built in that time. The California Gold Rush in 1849 also drove
the demand for fast passage. By 1855 the California demand for Eastern goods had
lessened and a depres­sion in 1857 brought the end of speculative ship building.
The next generation of ships would not be as fast or as beautiful as the clipper
ships but they carried more cargo. The great Downeasters built in the second
half of the 19th century were built along the same lines but they had much
larger holds. They continued to make the voyage around the Horn to bring
California grain home.

At the height of the clipper era Portland Harbor had four shipyards. The Dyer
yard which had been in Portland at Clay Cove at the Eastern end on Fore Street
was displaced when Portland built Commercial Street and brought in the Atlantic
& St. Lawrence Railroad. Dyer owned several acres in Ferry Village. The Knight
Yard was next to the bridge to Portland and also had a dry dock. For a short
while the Butler Yard built ships on Turner’s Island. They produced the Snow
Squall.

The largest and oldest of the yards was the Turner–Cahoon which began in 1845
with Benjamin W. Pickett as the master shipbuilder. They were also in Ferry
Village near Stanford’s Ledge.

What happened to the Clippers?
While beautiful, clipper ships did not carry much cargo and were not economical
to run. They were succeeded by “Down Easters” which had much the same lines asa
clipper but were adapted to smaller crews and capable of carrying large cargoes.
Down Easters were not beautiful but were much more practical.

The term Down East was developed to explain Maine’s geographic position in
relationship to Boston. Sailing from Boston Harbor to a Maine port a ship sailed
down wind and East . Most ships of this type were built in Maine yards.
The Civil War interrupted the westward migration. From 1870 on great streams of
pioneers headed west and a great railway system bridged the nation coast to
coast. Investors put their money into railways and cities rather than the
building of great ships. As the rest of the industrialized world built ship
yards to produce steam vessels with steel hulls, the American shipyards were
left without capital to follow their lead.

Maine shipyards found a niche for wooden ships. Schooners were far cheaper to
build than steel steamers and had a smaller crew. Between 1889 and 1891 Maine
yards built many ships. In a depression in the 90s many East Coast yards went
out of business and concentrated the industry in Maine where wooden ship
building flourished until 1905.

Percy & Small, founded in 1894 in Bath, Maine, built 42 ships by 1920 including
seven six-masters. The firm did business “on modern methods and old-fashioned
principals”. Their yards were equipped with the most advanced mechanical
equipment for sawing frames. However the chief asset to Maine ship builders was
the cheap, highly-skilled labor. The most expert shipyard worker received only
$3.00 a day.

The J. S. Winslow Co. dominated the coastal trade on the East Coast. The company
owned 25 ships, barks, barkentines, and brigs, and many smaller vessels in the
West Indies trade.
In 1889 the company bought its first four-master and then in 1898 bought out its
primary competitor the Palmer fleet. It added five six-masters around 1908 to
become the largest fleet of its kind under one flag. The company also owned a
ship chandlery company on Commercial St. in Portland. In 1904 Jacob Winslow died
but the company continued to grow, owning a number of ships by 1913. In 1917 the
fleet was sold off to France & Canada Steamship Co. who were in need of ships
for World War One.

Clipper Ships Constructed in Portland Harbor:
Knight Yard
The Phoenix Launched: 1854 Burned, Melbourne, Australia: 1860
1488 tons; 205 ft. overall; 41 foot beam; 24 foot depth

Dyer Yard
Corinthean Launched 1851; 1098 tons; 172 feet 9 inches; 37 feet 3 inches
beam; 19 ft. 7.5 inches depth
Portland Launched: 1853; 998 tons
White Seas Launched 1855; 577 tons
Kate Dyer Launched 1855 ; 1278 tons; Sank as result of collision off
Fire Island, New York
Turner–Cahoon Yard (later the Pickett Yard)
Grecian Launched 1851; 1150 tons; Sold to New York merchant for
$60,000

Clipper ships built in this harbor were usually sold to merchants in New York
who had the financial backing to outfit a ship for such a long and arduous
voyage. The usual route to China before the Gold Rush was around the Cape of
Good Hope to the Indian Ocean, then to Canton, China. The winds of the world
blow west to east so with good luck in picking up the Trade winds a ship could
make a fast pace to Canton in time to ride the Monsoon winds across the Pacific
to San Francisco. Then around Cape Horn and home to New York.

After the California Gold Rush in 1849 a substantial amount of money could be
made carrying miners to San Francisco. Clipper ships began taking the more
difficult route from New York, around Cape Horn, to San Francisco. The voyage
around Cape Horn might be slowed by bad weather and adverse winds and many
clippers were lost there. Riding the northeast monsoon which blows from October
to April the ship would set a course for the Sunda Strait in Java and then on to
the Cape of Good Hope and north to England.

The industrial expansion after the Civil War needed coal to make steam power.
Trains carrying goods across America, engines to run steamships, lights and heat
for cities all needed coal.
In 1849 Clapp Brothers of Portland built a coal gasification plant on the
waterfront near the bridge. Their first project was to pipe flammable vapors to
12 gas lamps in the yards of the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railway so that
workers could work around the clock. By the time Ruggles Morse built his grand
Victorian mansion on Danforth St. he could have central heating provided by the
coal gasification plant.

Cheap coal made Portland the manufacturing capital of Maine. The Portland
Stoneware Co. used 15,000 tons of coal to fire 50,000 tons of clay. A great deal
went to Maine Central and Grand Trunk Railroads. Maine Central bought 168,903
tons of coal in 1900. Coal pockets changed the skyline of Portland. Randall
McAllister and Maine Central Railroad at either end of Commercial Street and the
coal gasification plant near the bridge made a giant industrial statement.

Ferry Village Ship Workers 1850
Joiners: Charles Brown, Stephen Hubbard, Henry Turner, Eben Cleaves, Hezekiah
Pettie, Ephraim Cutter, Alfred Cleaves, David Sawyer
Cordwainer (Leather Bucket Maker): Ira Tibbets
Machinist: Thomas Talbot
Rigger: Nelson Niles
Sail Maker: Winthrop Merritt, Joseph Bradford

Page 2 The Coal Schooners