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Baltimore Clippers

The Baltimore Clipper appeared shortly after the Revolutionary War. The designers and architects of the Baltimore Clippers looked to countries whose maritime histories were full of conquest of speed, with and against the wind. They considered the Phoenician's broad-beamed hulls; the Viking hulls that navigated through Scandinavia's icy fjords; and Mediterranean war galleys which moved with low water resistance and speed under sails.

In the mid-17th century new designs came from Holland of the first "fore-and-afters" gaff-rigged sails which allowed for quick maneuvering, culminating in the type of vessel commonly called a schooner.

Also of European ancestry was the sloop which was most common in Sweden, France, and Spain. The sloop was a single masted craft with a gaff sail and a fixed bowsprit which allowed for several triangular headsails. Finally, from the turbulent waters of the English Channel, came tall-rigged fishing boats from France and Britain called luggers. These boats were able to combine the sturdiness they needed to survive in rough water with the speed they needed to be competitive.

These ships, and the design principles used to create them, were the backbone of the Maryland shipbuilding industry for many years. Because of the importance of watercraft on Maryland's economy in the eighteenth century, the Chesapeake Bay was an area of shipbuilding innovations. One such predecessor would be the Chesapeake schooners that were mainstays of the bay industries in the late 1700's. These boats were "sharp built", with a merchant type or fast sailing hull for use in letter of marque service (to engage enemy vessels and take prizes) or for privateering.

Clippers are said to have originated with the small, swift coastal packet known as the Baltimore clipper, the true clipper evolved first in the U.S. (c. 1833) and later in Britain. The basic concept of the Baltimore Clippers was first seen in the ship Ann McKim, one of the largest and fastest clippers ever to sail. Though no two Balitmore Clippers were ever built to the same dimensions or specifications, they share common bonds:

A long, slim, graceful vessel with a projecting bow, a streamlined hull, and an exceptionally large spread of sail on three tall masts. Clippers carried tea from China and goldminers to California. Famous clippers included the American Flying Cloud and the British Cutty Sark. Though much faster than the early steamships (already in use when the clipper appeared), they were eventually outrun by improved steamship models and largely disappeared from commercial use in the 1870s.

All Clippers were approximately 100 feet in length from stern to bow. Baltimore Clippers had heart shaped midsections with short keels and raking sterns. The undecorated hulls of these ships were black, low-sided, and sharped bowed, leaving the Clippers with minimum freeboard. Quite unlike other ships of the period, the clippers bore no figureheads, headboards or trailboards.

A Clipper's mast was further aft on the ship just as the foremast was proportionately taller, therefore allowing a more efficient use of sails.

Baltimore Clippers were often the ship of choice for slavers, smugglers, and West Indian pirate craft. They also carried light cargoes, but Baltimore Clippers received their true recognition for their role in the War of 1812 when Captain Thomas Boyle commanded the Chasseur which was able to capture 45 British merchant ships in a five month period. Because of its impressive performance, it returned home with its new nickname Pride of Baltimore. Chasseur's history is illustrative of the fate of Baltimore Clippers. Just three months after her triumphal return to Baltimore from her exploits against the British Isles, she set sail for Canton, China. According to the super cargo's log of the six month voyage around Africa, through the Indian Ocean, and up the coast of Southeast Asia, she encountered gale force winds, but sailed well. In Canton, she loaded on a cargo of tea, silk, satin, porcelain and other high demand items for the return voyage. Despite deteriorating conditions of the ship, she set a speed record from Canton to the Virginia Capes in 95 days. This Orient-to-America record held for 16 years until it was broken by the clipper Atlantic in 1832. Her cargo of exotic goods sold for a handsome profit for her owners.

The Baltimore Clippers faded away to be replaced by larger ships capable of carrying greater cargoes with the same speed as that of the Clippers. In the 1840s a new generation of fast large ships evolved that came to be known as Yankee Clippers or simply Clipper Ships. These were three masted, full-rigged ships, that is, they had square sails on all three masts.

Baltimore Clippers

From the Baltimore Sun, Baltimore, Maryland

During the 1800s, there were shipyards scattered from the foot of Federal Hill to Locust Point, from Fells Point to Canton. Thousands of workers earned their living by building and repairing the ships that plied the Patapsco River, Chesapeake Bay and the oceans of the world. Until steam power supplanted wind and sails, the most efficient way to move passengers and freight was by water and canvas. Baltimoreans routinely went to Philadelphia, Richmond and New York by ship until the mid-19th century.

Baltimore shipbuilders constructed a craft that sat low in the water and carried plenty of sail on steeply raked masts. The fast, agile Baltimore clippers of the 1790s and early 1800s helped inspire the larger, square-rigged clipper ships built mostly after 1840 that put America in the race for world trade.

Baltimore Clipper "Architect." James E. Buttersworth. Because Clippers could outsail their opponents, Baltimore Clippers were responsible for more than 500 sinkings or seizures of British ships. But after the treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812, the uses for the Baltimore Clippers declined in number. They were still known worldwide for their usefulness in trade, both legal and illegal, allowing merchants the speed they needed to be competitive. They went to the West Indies with cargoes of flour and cotton, returning with coffee and sugar.

Launched mainly in Baltimore, New York and Boston, these greyhounds of the sea generally were 140- to 250-feet long, had top speeds of 15 knots and made the trip to China in 15 weeks. The largest clippers measured more than 300 feet, displaced 2,000 tons and had as many as four masts.

Traders called on the busy port of Canton, China, during the 18th century. Baltimore merchant Capt. John O'Donnell's ship, the Pallas, returned with a rich cargo in August 1785; his exploits became so well known that he named what is today the city neighborhood of Canton after the city in China.

Historians believe his was the first ship from Baltimore to reach China. A newspaper notice recorded the goods O'Donnell brought back for sale: "hyfon teas of the first quality in quarter chests ... Nankin blue and white stone china . . . satins, the greatest part black . . . silk umbrellas of all sizes, elegant paper wallhangings . . . cinnamon and cinnamon flavors, rhubarb, opium."

George Washington ordered an agent to buy "if great bargains are to be had."

Baltimore clippers often carried more routine cargo -- barrels of flour from the farms of Central Maryland and Pennsylvania. They brought back sugar and rum from the Caribbean. The city established a sub-industry in cotton textiles. In what are today Hampden and Woodberry, millworkers made canvas sailcloth called cotton duck.

On June 25, 1851, a large Baltimore clipper, the Seaman's Bride, was launched with fanfare -- lemonade and ice cream -- at Locust Point in South Baltimore. The Sun reported, "Thus is added to our unsurpassed fleet of clipper vessels."

On her first major voyage, the Seaman's Bride left New York, sailed around Cape Horn, put in for repairs at Valparaiso, Chile, and arrived in San Francisco on May 20, 1852. It took another 57 days to make port in Shanghai.

Baltimore would build many of these sleek sailing ships until they were gradually displaced by steam. When the steam engine was perfected, tall masts and fields of canvas began to disappear from the harbor.

May 7, 1853, Los Angeles Star, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

Clipper Ships.

Some persons suppose that clippers are a very modern invention. This is true only so far as relates to clipper ships of colossal proportions. Clipper schooners, brigs, and ships of reasonable size, have been common during the whole of the present century, and some tolerably quick passages have been made long before gold was discovered in profusion in California or Australia.

Batavia, Indonesia. Perelaer, 1888.

One of the most remarkable instances of rapid sailing, several consecutive passages, which lives in our recollection is the case of the clipper brig John Gilpin, of Baltimore. This vessel, which seemed to have emulated the fleetness of its namesake, left Baltimore in 1832, and arrived at Batavia after a passage of eighty two days; proceeded thence to Canton in eleven days; from Canton to Manilla in 5 days; from Manilla through the straits of Sunda, round south of New Holland, to latitude 48 or 50 to Valparaiso in 85 days; and from Valparaiso to Lima, in 5 days 17 hours, making an aggregate of 34,920 miles in 139 days 17 hours, and averaging a fraction more than one hundred and eighty three miles per day. (Bos Jour.)

The Diverting History of John Gilpin J. H. Nicholson.

The Diverting History of John Gilpin

William Cowper (1731-1800)

JOHN GILPIN was a citizen
Of credit and renown,
A train-band captain eke was he
Of famous London town.

John Gilpin's spouse said to her dear,
Though wedded we have been
These twice ten tedious years,
yet we
No holiday have seen.

To-morrow is our wedding-day,
And we will then repair
Unto the Bell at Edmonton,
All in a chaise and pair.

My sister, and my sister's child,
Myself, and children three,
Will fill the chaise;
so you must ride
On horseback after we.

He soon replied, I do admire
Of womankind but one,
And you are she, my dearest dear,
Therefore it shall be done.

I am a linen-draper bold,
As all the world doth know,
And my good friend the calender
Will lend his horse to go.

Quoth Mrs. Gilpin, That's well said;
And for that wine is dear,
We will be furnished with our own,
Which is both bright and clear.

John Gilpin kissed his loving wife;
O'erjoyed was he to find,
That though on pleasure she was bent,
She had a frugal mind.

The morning came, the chaise was brought,
But yet was not allowed
To drive up to the door, lest all
Should say that she was proud.

So three doors off the chaise was stayed,
Where they did all get in;
Six precious souls, and all agog
To dash through thick and thin.

Smack went the whip, round went the wheels,
Were never folk so glad,
The stones did rattle underneath,
As if Cheapside were mad.

John Gilpin at his horse's side
Seized fast the flowing mane,
And up he got, in haste to ride,
But soon came down again;

For saddle-tree scarce reached had be,
His journey to begin,
When, turning round his head, he saw
Three customers come in.

So down he came; for loss of time,
Although it grieved him sore,
Yet loss of pence, full well he knew,
Would trouble him much more.

Twas long before the customers
Were suited to their mind,
When Betty screaming came down stairs,
The wine is left behind!

Good lack, quoth he yet bring it me,
My leathern belt likewise,
In which I bear my trusty sword,
When I do exercise.

Now Mistress Gilpin (careful soul!)
Had two stone bottles found,
To hold the liquor that she loved,
And keep it safe and sound.

Each bottle had a curling ear,
Through which the belt he drew,
And hung a bottle on each side,
To make his balance true.

Then over all, that he might be
Equipped from top to toe,
His long red cloak, well brushed and neat;
He manfully did throw.

Now see him mounted once again
Upon his nimble steed,
Full slowly pacing o er the stones,
With caution and good heed.

But finding soon a smoother road
Beneath his well-shod feet,
The snorting beast began to trot,
Which galled him in his seat.

So, Fair and softly, John he cried,
But John he called in vain;
That trot became a gallop soon,
In spite of curb and rein.

So stooping down as needs he must
Who cannot sit upright,
He grasped the mane with both his hands,
And eke with all his might.

His horse, who never in that sort
Had handled been before,
What thing upon his back had got
Did wonder more and more.

Away went Gilpin, neck or nought;
Away went hat and wig;
He little dreamt, when he set out,
Of running such a rig.

The wind did blow, the cloak did fly,
Like streamer long and gay,
Till, loop and button failing both,
At last it flew away.

Then might all people well discern
The bottles he had slung;
A bottle swinging at each side.
As hath been said or sung.

The dogs did bark, the children screamed,
Up flew the windows all;
And every soul cried out, Well done!
As loud as he could bawl.

Away went Gilpin who but he?
His fame soon spread around;
He carries weight! He rides a race!
Tis for a thousand pound!

And still, as fast as he drew near,
Twas wonderful to view,
How in a trice the turnpike-men
Their gates wide open threw.

And now, as he went bowing down
His reeking head full low,
The bottles twain behind his back
Were shattered at a blow.

Down ran the wine into the road,
Most piteous to be seen,
Which made his horse s flanks to smoke
As they had basted been.

But still he seemed to carry weight,
With leathern girdle braced;
For all might see the bottle-necks
Still dangling at his waist.

Thus all through merry Islington
These gambols he did play,
Until he came unto the Wash
Of Edmonton so gay;

And there he threw the Wash about
On both sides of the way,
Just like unto a trundling mop,
Or a wild goose at play.

At Edmonton his loving wife
From the balcony spied
Her tender husband, wondering much
To see how he did ride.

Stop, stop, John Gilpin! 'Here's the house!'
They all at once did cry;
The dinner waits, and we are tired;
Said Gilpin ' So am I! '

But yet his horse was not a whit
Inclined to tarry there!
For why? his owner had a house
Full ten miles off at Ware.

So like an arrow swift he flew,
Shot by an archer strong;
So did he fly which brings me to
The middle of my song.

Away went Gilpin, out of breath,
And sore against his will,
Till at his friend the calender's
His horse at last stood still.

The calender, amazed to see
His neighbour in such trim,
Laid down his pipe, flew to the gate,
And thus accosted him:

What news? what news? your tidings tell;
Tell me you must and shall
Say why bareheaded you are come,
Or why you come at all?

Now Gilpin had a pleasant wit,
And loved a timely joke;
And thus unto the calender
In merry guise he spoke:

I came because your horse would come,
And, if I well forebode,
My hat and wig will soon be here,
They are upon the road.

The calender, right glad to find
His friend in merry pin,
Returned him not a single word,
But to the house went in;

Whence straight he came with hat and wig;
A wig that flowed behind,
A hat not much the worse for wear,
Each comely in its kind.

He held them up, and in his turn
Thus showed his ready wit,
My head is twice as big as yours,
They therefore needs must fit.

But let me scrape the dirt away
That hangs upon your face;
And stop and eat, for well you may
Be in a hungry case.

Said John, It is my wedding day,
And all the world would stare,
If wife should dine at Edmonton,
And I should dine at Ware.

So turning to his horse, he said,
I am in haste to dine;
Twas for your pleasure you came here,
You shall go back for mine.

Ah, luckless speech, and bootless boast!
For which he paid full dear;
For, while he spake, a braying ass
Did sing most loud and clear;

Whereat his horse did snort,
as he Had heard a lion roar,
And galloped off with all his might,
As he had done before.

Away went Gilpin, and away
Went Gilpin's hat and wig;
He lost them sooner than at first;
For why? they were too big.

Now Mistress Gilpin, when she saw
Her husband posting down
Into the country far away,
She pulled out half a crown;

And thus unto the youth she said
That drove them to the Bell,
This shall be yours, when you bring back
My husband safe and well.

The youth did ride, and soon did meet
John coming back again:
Whom in a trice he tried to stop,
By catching at his rein;

But not performing what he meant,
And gladly would have done,
The frighted steed he frighted more,
And made him faster run.

Away went Gilpin, and away
Went postboy at his heels,
The postboy's horse right glad to miss
The lumbering of the wheels.

Six gentlemen upon the road,
Thus seeing Gilpin fly,
With postboy scampering in the rear,
They raised the hue and cry:

Stop thief! stop thief! a highwayman!
Not one of them was mute;
And all and each that passed that way
Did join in the pursuit.

And now the turnpike gates again
Flew open in short space;
The toll-men thinking, as before,
That Gilpin rode a race.

And so he did, and won it too,
For he got first to town;
Nor stopped till where he had got up
He did again get down.

Now let us sing, Long live the King!
And Gilpin, long live he!
And when he next doth ride abroad
May I be there to see!

---

Baltimore Harbor: A Pictorial History
Robert C. Keith

This newly revised and expanded edition of "Baltimore Harbor" provides a lively, heavily illustrated history of a vital American port that connects the Chesapeake Bay with the rest of the world. Using photographs, historic illustrations, and stories, Robert Keith traces the harbor's fascinating history. An ideal hub for the bay's network of paddlewheel steamers, the working port grew quickly alongside the shipbuilding industry at Fells Point and Federal Hill. This growth continued as the nation's first public carrier railroad, the Baltimore and Ohio, linked the wharves of the Patapsco River with the coal fields of Appalachia and the towns and farms of the Midwest.

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1899. World's Fleet. Boston Daily Globe

Lloyds Register of Shipping gives the entire fleet of the world as 28,180 steamers and sailing vessels, with a total tonnage of 27,673,628, of which 39 perent are British.

Great Britain	10,990 vessels, total tonnage of 10,792,714
United States	3,010 vessels, total tonnage of 2,405,887
Norway	2,528 vessels, tonnage of 1,604,230
Germany	1,676 vessels, with a tonnage of 2,453,334, in which are included her particularly large ships.
Sweden	1,408 vessels with a tonnage of 643, 527
Italy	1,150 vessels
France	1,182 vessels

For Historical Comparison
Top 10 Maritime Nations Ranked by Value (2017)

	Country	# of Vessels	Gross Tonnage (m)	Total Value (USDbn)
1	Greece	4,453	206.47	$88.0
2	Japan	4,317	150.26	$79.8
3	China	4,938	159.71	$71.7
4	USA	2,399	55.92	$46.5
5	Singapore	2,662	64.03	$41.7
6	Norway	1,668	39.68	$41.1
7	Germany	2,923	81.17	$30.3
8	UK	883	28.78	$24.3
9	Denmark	1,040	36.17	$23.4
10	South Korea	1,484	49.88	$20.1
Total		26,767	87.21	$466.9