A Chinese painting of the ship S.F. Hersey, a 991 ton, 169 foot long ship- rigged vessel built in Searsport in 1865. Marlboro Packard was the master builder. She was Searsport owned until she went under Australian registery in 1888. This painting's donor, Mrs. Henrietta Carver, was born on the vessel in 1885 in the straits of Mindoro, taking her middle name from the straits; her father, Captain Franklin Garey died on board the vessel in that passage. The donor's mother, Henrietta Packard, was the daughter of the vessel's builder. The S.F.
This painting of the ship Elizabeth is attributed to Marie Edouard Adam, c.1883. It was mostly Searsport sea captain capital that financed Elizabeth, built in Newcastle, Maine, by Haggett & Co., and named for the wife of her first master, Phineas Pendleton III. Launched in October, 1882, she went ashore nine years later at Rocky Point, San Francisco. Elizabeth’s wreck is a story of loss for four Searsport families. Her master, Captain John Herbert Colcord, was travelling with his wife and two children, who were saved, although he died.
This model was built by Captain Henry A. Starrett of Belfast aboard ship. Construction took 7 years and was done at sea while serving as Master of the Thayer and the Levi G. Burgess. The model has carved ivory fittings and silk and wire rigging. Starrett was the master of the Frank N. Thayer from 1874-1878. The vessel was the first one of that name, built for Thayer & Lincoln, a Boston firm, in Kennebunkport in 1868. A 1160 ton vessel, she was succeeded by a larger 1648 ton vessel of the same name built in Newburyport in 1878.
The ship Henrietta was built at Bucksville, South Carolina, in 1875. There was also a bark Henrietta, built in 1847, which Captain William McGilvery used to carry food to Ireland during the potato famine.
The ship Forest Eagle, 1156 tons, was built in Rockland, Maine, in 1856 by Starrett & Kimball. In 1861, under the command of Capt. Thomas Pillsbury, she carried 500 Indentured Chinese laborers from Macao to Havana, Cuba, to work in the sugar fields there. Shortly after this voyage, President Lincoln forbade American ships from participating in the "coolie trade." The Forest Eagle was reported lost at sea in March of 1881. This image is from a painting owned by the Rockland Public Library.
Loading a mast through the stern port of a mast ship. A tackle from a yard on the ship takes the weight of the mast and the men control it. Loading takes time as the band attaching the mast to the tackle has to be shifted periodically and the rollers inside and outside the ship adjusted.
From the book, New England Masts and the King's Broad Arrow, by Samuel F. Manning, 1979. Illustrations courtesy of the author and illustrator.
Ships, Barks, and Barkentines had 3 or 4 masts. Brigs and Brigantines had two. Sometimes schooners might have square topsails set on the foremast. But unlike these vessels, such a schooner would have a gaff foresail.
The diagram is from the Nova Scotia Museum Info poster, Sailing Ship Rigs.
Looking forward from amidships, on the port side, aboard ship State of Maine, while raising anchor in the Java Sea. Note sails are partially set to begin sailing once the anchor is up. Though hard to see in this photograph, the seamen are working at the capstan on the forecastle.
