Posted inDaily News Maritime & Naval History

The Whale’s Strength

A whale striking Essex on November 20, 1820, depicted in a sketch by Thomas Nickerson

The most dreadful display of the Whale’s strength and prowess yet authentically recorded, was that made on the American Whale ship Essex, Captain Pollard, which sailed from Nantucket for the Pacific Ocean, in August 1849 [sic – it was 1819]. Late in the fall of the same year, when in the latitude forty of the South Pacific, a school of sperm Whales were discovered, and three boats were manned and sent in pursuit. The mate’s boat was struck by one of them, and he was obliged to return to the ship in order to repair the damage.

While he was engaged in that work, a sperm Whale, judged to be eighty three feet long broke water twenty rods from the ship on her weather bow. He was going at the rate of about three knots an hour, and the ship at nearly the same rate, when he struck the bow of the vessel just forward of her chains.

Posted inMaritime & Naval History Ship Histories Shipwrecks & Nautical Disasters

Collision Between the Steamers Black Swan and Luna

Illustration of the collision between the Black Swan and the Luna, showing the two steamers collided with the vessel to the left, the Black Swan, going down by the bow. Rescuers row boats toward the disaster.

The steamer Black Swan, belonging to the Tasmanian Steam Navigation Company, left the Queen’s’ Wharf, Melbourne, at 10 o’clock on Tuesday, morning, 16th July, for Launceston, and had at 11 o’clock got nearly abreast of the breakwater running off from Williamstown, when the steamer Luna, coming from Geelong, reached the same spot. The two vessels then came into collision, the Luna striking the starboard bow of the Black Swan stem on, cutting into her to a considerable distance. So great was the force of the shock that it was with difficulty the Luna could, by backing astern, extricate herself, and the Black Swan‘s head was forced from the course she was going right round.

Posted inMaritime & Naval History US Civil War

September 14, 1861 – Latest News

The U. S. gunboats Conestoga and Lexington, on Tuesday, attacked a rebel battery of sixteen suns, on the Missouri side of h Mississippi river, near to Lucas bend, and, after an action silenced the battery, and disabled the rebel gunboat Yankee.

Charles H. Foster, a loyal member of Congress, from North Carolina, called on President Lincoln, and tendered to him a full brigade of loyalists from that State.

The lower house of the Kentucky Legislature yesterday adopted, by ayes 71, noes 26 resolutions directing the Governor to issue his proclamation ordering the rebel troops to evacuate Kentucky. The Legislature also refused to receive a resolution directing a proclamation to be issued for the departure of both the United States and rebel troops.

Posted inMaritime & Naval History US Civil War

September 2, 1861 – Important News from Coast of North Carolina

The Federal Fleet Attacking Two Sand Batteries—Their Capturing Six Hundred Prisoners, &c.

Capture of the Forts at Cape Hatteras inlet. Alfred Waud, artist, August 28, 1861

The steamer Louisiana, Capt. Cannon, from Old Point, arrived Sunday, A. M., and brings the following important advices from the Federal fleet, which sailed from Old Point on Monday last. The steamer Adelaide had returned from the fleet and proceeded to Annapolis on Saturday, having on board Major General Butler and fourteen wounded Confederate prisoners, bound to Washington. We understand that the entire fleet, consisting of five war vessels, surrounded and engaged two sand batteries on the beach, at the mouth of Hatteras Inlet, and after considerable firing on both sides, a shell from the frigate Minnesota, caused the explosion of the Confederates’ magazine, when the entire body, said to number six hundred, were forced to surrender, from loss of ammunition and no means of retreat. Included among those taken prisoners, was Com. Barron. They were all sent to New York.

Posted inDaily News Maritime & Naval History Shipwrecks & Nautical Disasters

Six Sailormen Rescued After Four Days Adrift

Survivors of Wrecked Schooner Lived Off Flying Fish—Three Others Lost.

By the Associated Press.

EAST HAMPTON, N. Y., September 1.—Six survivors of the four-masted auxiliary schooner Samuel W. Hathaway, wrecked at sea last Tuesday in a hurricane that swept the Atlantic seaboard, were picked up early today by the steamship Southern Cross, bound from Buenos Aires for New York.

The rescued sailormen were found floating atop of the schooner’s skylight, where they had existed for four days, eating such flying fish that they snared and drinking water that they caught in their hats.