West Point (ship)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
West Point p1
Ship data
flag United States 36United States United States
Ship type Full ship
home port New York City
Owner Red Star Line
Shipyard Westervelt & MacKay
Launch 1847
Whereabouts in use until 1863
Ship dimensions and crew
length
50.75 m ( Lüa )
width 11.3 m
Draft Max. 5.8 m
displacement 1,046 tons
Rigging and rigging
Rigging Full ship rig
Number of masts 3
Others
Classifications American Lloyd Class A, 1 1/2
Building material

Virginia oak wood (Quercus Virginiana)

later reinforcement

Iron / copper (November 1857)

Number of decks

3 (initially 2)

The full ship West Point (also Westpoint ) was built in 1847 on behalf of Robert Kermit by the New York shipbuilding company Westervelt & MacKay . Robert Kermit used the West Point as a parcel ship for the transport of cargo, passengers and mail in his Red Star Line fleet. This is not identical to the Belgian / US shipping company of the same name, Red Star Line, with headquarters in Antwerp .

Origin and history

Was designed to West Point in 1847 by Westervelt & MacKay , a company that also supplied ships to the US Navy - including the battleship Brooklyn - and that made a name for himself with the construction of sleek clippers and faster steamships . The co-owner Jacob Aaron Westervelt also gained notoriety as the Mayor of New York from 1853 to 1855.
At West Point , wood was still used as a building material, although due to industrialization , especially in Great Britain, iron began to gain acceptance in shipbuilding (in 1843, for example, Great Britain was the first ship built entirely from iron with a propeller drive). The hard and durable wood of the Virginia oak , which is also called living oak , was used. But since the advantages, such as the higher strength etc. of ships built from iron became more and more obvious in the following years, and the value of pure wooden ships fell rapidly, many owners began to reinforce their hulls with iron and the ship's substructure to protect against vegetation Steaming copper plates. In the case of West Point , this took place in November 1857. In addition, the ship was increased by building two to three decks.

The West Point , which sailed the New York- Liverpool route from 1847 to 1863 , is one of many ships of the same name and is particularly in the shadow of the steamship America , which was taken over by the United States Navy during the Second World War , converted for troop transport and in Westpoint was renamed. While many contemporaries the West Point is still a term that came the three-masted West Point , among others, tens of thousands of migrants to the New World transported, forgotten and even mentioned on relevant websites and in the relevant literature any more.

Ownership

Robert Kermit: The Early Years (1794–1834)

Robert Kermit placed the order for the construction of West Point. Robert, born in New York on September 4, 1794, was the son of the distinguished Captain Henry Kermit and Elizabeth Ferguson. For many years, his father Henry Kermit was in command of the brig Morning Star, a two-master, which, as a merchant ship, sailed the route to the West Indies. Henry Kermit's story about the mutiny on board his ship, which he was able to put down on March 27, 1790, will be remembered. He died at his home at 86 Greenwich Street in New York on August 6, 1812, at the age of 58, two years before his old ship Morning Star sank en route from Sydney to Batavia, Jakarta .

Robert Kermit completed a commercial apprenticeship with ship owner William Codman. Together with his brother Henry, a trained accountant, he opened his own shop next to their parents' house at 84 Greenwich Street in 1817. The first ship of their future fleet was the Aurora , which they placed under the command of Captin Taubman, and with which they entered the Liverpool trade, so called because trade between Liverpool and New York was one of the classic maritime trade routes. Henry junior died in 1827. and Robert continued to work alone as an agent for parcel ships to and from Liverpool. Within a few years he enlarged his fleet so extensively that he became one of the largest shipowners in the country for a while.

On December 4, 1832, Robert Kermit married Ann Eliza Carow, the eldest daughter of his business partner Isaac Quentin Carow and Eliza Mowatt. The ancestors of the Carow family came from France, were Huguenots and were actually called Quereau. The Quereau family fled to America after Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes issued by King Henry IV of France in 1598 with the Edict of Fontainebleau in 1685 , thereby depriving the French Protestants of all religious and civil rights. Isaac Quentin Quereau anglicized the family name in 1797 in Carow.

Kermit & Carow (1834–1855)

The Saint Line: Robert Kermit owned the St. George ship in 1834 and then convinced businessmen Stephen Whitney and Nathaniel Prime to work with him to buy a ship called St. Andrew . This was the basis for the establishment of the Saint Line. But although the St. Andrew got an enormously cheap load of cotton in 1834 through a clever move by the "old hands" Kermit, Prime and Whitney and was able to sell it on at a great profit, Robert Kermit, who was then the captain of the St. Andrew, profited. not really from this business and the Saint Line vanished from the scene. During this time, he moved his business to 74 South Street and lived at 24 Cortlandt Street.

Flag of Robert Kermits Red Star Line and Kermit & Carow

Red Star Line : On September 11, 1835, Robert Kermit bought the well-known and popular Red Star Line , which has nothing to do with the Red Star Line , which was launched in 1872, but which was founded in 1818 by Byrnes, Trimble, & Co. . In 1837 Robert Kermit was also appointed director of the Mutual Insurance Company and in 1847 director of the Knickerbocker Fire Insurance Company. During this time he commissioned the construction of several new ships, including the construction of the West Point , which eventually sailed under the flag of the Red Star Line - also the John R. Skeddy (1845), Constellation (1849), Underwriter ( 1850) and Waterloo . The following ships were also part of the Red Star Line fleet: John Jay , England , Virginian , Samuel Hicks , Stephen Whitney , United States and Sheffield .

Robert's father-in-law Isaac Carow died in 1850. Since Robert himself had no descendants (the only descendant of the Kermits was the daughter of Robert's brother Henry), he developed an almost paternal relationship with his brother-in-law Charles Carow (who was 21 younger than his sister Ann Eliza) and took him as a partner in 1851 company Kermit & Carow on to continue with this commercial trade, commission business and the overall business as shipowners. On March 13, 1855, Captain Kermit died in his home at the age of 61. According to the obituary in the New York Post , Robert Kermit was a man of incorruptible integrity and did not condone any assault on his honor. Otherwise he gave his affection unconditionally and overlooked other people's mistakes. He loved his ships and captains as if they were his children.

Charles Carow & Co. (1855–1867 / 68)

After the death of his uncle, the West Point passed into the possession of Charles Carow, who initially continued the business and sailed the ships under his name. Charles Carow married Gertrude Elizabeth Tyler in 1859 and had a son. He named the latter Robert Kermit Carow in memory of his brother-in-law. However, after the boy died a year before his first daughter was born, he named her Edith Kermit Carow.

Ships like West Point were mostly loaded with goods on the voyage from New York to Liverpool and with passengers on the return journey. In the 19th century, over 50 million people emigrated from Europe to America, many of them during the California gold rush in the mid-1840s to early 1850s. Charles Carow made his fortune during these years. But when the American Civil War broke out in 1861, the number of emigrants fell drastically, which also affected the line of Charles Carow. The American merchant fleet was generally badly affected by this conflict, which ended in 1865: in 1860 two thirds of all US export / import goods were transported on American ships, in 1866 it was just 30% and in the new years later 27%. A ruinous price hike also added to Charles Carow's business worries and drove him into alcoholism. This resulted in a devastating loss of income and massive losses. Little is known about the whereabouts of West Point and Charles Carow's other ships.

His daughter Edith later gained notoriety through her marriage to the widowed US President Theodore Roosevelt . Her son Kermit Roosevelt later co-founded the United States Lines .

West Point captains

Based on the surviving passenger lists, it can be determined that at least seven captains were in command of the West Point over the almost 16 years in which the West Point was in operation . Below is a list of all verifiable crossings with arrival dates in New York (assigned to the respective captain):

Name of the captains Crossings under the command of the respective captains (Liverpool-New York)
William H. Allen October 25, 1847; March 7, 1848; July 3, 1848; October 30, 1848; May 26, 1849; September 22, 1849; February 13, 1850; May 20, 1850; September 2, 1850; November 6, 1858; August 8, 1859
Francis P. Allen March 29, 1851; July 26, 1851; November 4, 1851; February 12, 1852; June 19, 1852; September 24, 1852
William R. Mullins March 6, 1849; February 15, 1853; August 15, 1853; December 19, 1853; May 19, 1854; April 17, 1855; August 11, 1855
William H. Harding June 7, 1856; October 30, 1856; May 6, 1857; December 7, 1857
JE Ryan July 12, 1858
LW Spencer September 17, 1860
JH Childs March 16, 1861; August 7, 1862; September 23, 1863

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g "American Lloyd's Register" of American and Foreign Shipping 1859. Accessed March 16, 2009.
  2. ^ A b Western Ocean Packets by Basil Lubbock, p. 26
  3. ^ A b Genealogy of the Westervelt family by Walter Tallman Westervelt, page 72/73
  4. ↑ Steamboat Days by Fred Erving Dayton, Chapter 19
  5. ↑ "Mayors of New York City" ( Memento of the original from June 15, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Official website of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services - The Green Book. Accessed March 14, 2009. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / home2.nyc.gov
  6. ^ Industrializing American Shipbuilding: The Transformation of Ship Design and Construction by William H. Thiesen, Chapter 5, ISBN 0-8130-2940-6
  7. ↑ Website dedicated to Westpoint : "USS Westpoint Reunion Association" ( Memento of the original from July 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Accessed March 16, 2009. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.usswestpoint.com
  8. ↑ a b c d e f g Biographical register of Saint Andrew's society of the state of New York (1922) by William M. MacBean, pp. 169/170
  9. ^ Australian Shipwrecks - vol 1 1622-1850 by Charles Bateson, AH & AW Reed, Sydney, 1972, p. 50, ISBN 0-589-07112-2
  10. ^ New York, Marriage Newspaper Extracts, 1801-1880 (Barber Collection): New York Evening Post, December 6, 1832
  11. ↑ a b c Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt: Portrait of a First Lady by Sylvia J. Morris, page 10
  12. ^ A b The old merchants of New York City (1863) by Joseph Alfred Scoville, pp. 26/27
  13. ^ Portrait gallery of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York: catalog and biographical sketches (1890) , by George Wilson, pp. 206-208.
  14. ↑ You can find a picture of this flag on the "Flags of the world" website. Accessed March 16, 2009. The original source is a graphic in Private Signals of the Merchants of New York . A reprint can be found in AB Whipple's book The Clipper Ships
  15. ↑ Days of the Old Packet article in the "New York Daily Times" of December 13, 1891. A transcribed version of this article can also be found at "theshipslist.com" . Both websites accessed on March 28, 2009.
  16. ↑ Across the Oceans by Seija-Riitta Laakso
  17. ^ The old merchants of New York City (1863) by Joseph Alfred Scoville, p. 358
  18. ^ New York, Death Newspaper Extracts, 1801-1890 (Barber Collection): New York Evening Post, September 1, 1850
  19. ↑ William M. MacBean cited parts of Robert Kermit's obituary published in the New York Post on page 170 of the Biographical register of Saint Andrew's society of the state of New York (1922)
  20. ^ Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt: Portrait of a First Lady by Sylvia J. Morris, page 12
  21. ^ Index to Marriages and Deaths in the New York Herald 1856–1863 Vol 2, p. 305
  22. ↑ Across the Oceans by Seija-Riitta Laakso, page 117
  23. ↑ Across the Oceans by Seija-Riitta Laakso, page 116
  24. ↑ Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt: Portrait of a First Lady by Sylvia J. Morris, page 20
  25. ↑ Biography of First Lady Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt on the archived website of the "White House"  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in Washington. Accessed March 16, 2009.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / obamawhitehouse.archives.gov  
  26. ↑ Article United States Line Name Selected by Shipping Board Agents in the New York Times, August 30, 1921. Accessed March 16, 2009.
  27. ↑ Lists of passengers who arrived in the port of New York in the years 1789–1957 are available on microfilm at the "National Archives" in New York. Accessed March 16, 2009.
Transcribed passenger lists on immigrantships.net
  1. ^ Passenger list from "October 25, 1847" . Accessed March 16, 2009
  2. ^ Passenger list from "November 6th, 1858" . Accessed March 16, 2009
  3. ↑ Passenger list from "August 8, 1859" . Accessed March 16, 2009
  4. ^ Passenger list from "March 29, 1851" . Accessed March 16, 2009
  5. ^ Passenger list from "November 4, 1851" . Accessed March 16, 2009
  6. ^ Passenger list from "July 12, 1858" . Accessed March 16, 2009
  7. ^ Passenger list from "March 16, 1861" . Accessed March 16, 2009

literature

Most of the originals of the ship's passenger lists are now in the National Archive (NARA) in New York.

  • MacBean, William M. (William Munro): Biographical register of Saint Andrew's society of the state of New York . New York 1922.
  • Scoville, Joseph Alfred (Barrett, Walter = pseud.): The old merchants of New York City (1863) . Elibron Classics, 2006, ISBN 0-543-79000-2 .
  • Lubbock, Basil: Western Ocean Packets . Dover Pub., New York 1988, ISBN 0-486-25684-7
  • Morris, Sylvia J .: Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt: Portrait of a First Lady . Modern Library, New York 2001, ISBN 0-375-75768-6 .
  • Whipple, ABC: The Clipper Ships . Time-Life Books, London 2006, ISBN 1-84447-115-2 .
  • Laakso, Seija-Riitta: Across the Oceans . Finnish Literature Society, Helsinki 2007, ISBN 978-951-746-904-3 .

Web links