Intro

Music

Jake – Intro And Outro:
[0:05] Welcome To Hub history, where we go far beyond the Freedom Trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston. The Hub of the Universe.
This is Episode 1 99 The Clipper Ships of East Boston Revisited.
Hi, I’m Jake. This week I’m going to share my interview with Steven Ujifusa, the author of Barons of the Sea, in their race to build the world’s fastest Clipper ship, which originally aired in July 2018.
And the interview Steven will take us back to an era when the fastest, most elegant ships in the world were built in the East Boston shipyard of Donald Mackay.
He’ll describe how they’re used to trade for tea in China and gold in California, and how they helped America’s most prominent families amass fortunes through opium smuggling.
But before we talk about Boston’s Barons of the Sea, it’s time for this week’s Boston Book Club selection and our upcoming historical event.

Boston Book Club

[1:02] My pick for the Boston Book Club this week is a title that somehow hadn’t crossed my radar despite having been published four years ago.
In the time since then, we’ve done not one but two episodes about the 17 21 smallpox inoculation controversy in Boston.
Without reading, Stephen cost his book The Fever of 17 21 The Epidemic that Revolutionized Medicine and American Politics.
I just stumbled across it, so I haven’t actually read the book yet, but it promises to weave together three threads in Boston history.
In 17 21 Boston was wracked by a smallpox epidemic.
It prompted Cotton Mather and Zabdiel Boylston to begin inoculating residents against the disease, using a method they learned from own is Mus who was enslaved by Mother.
It was also the year when James Franklin launched the new newspaper called The New England Courant, the first independent paper in the colonies where his famous brother been would first learn The publishing trade,
cost also argues that 17 21 was the year when Boston sentiments began turning against Crown government.

[2:07] A review, an American scientist says. Although the books eponymous fever, smallpox and smallpox does frame the events described in the book,
writer and independent scholar, Cost maintains that another kind of fever mark 17 21 as pivotal in American history.
Just a smallpox was beginning to take hold in Boston. James Franklin, elder brother of a more famous Franklin launched the first independent newspaper in the colonies, the New England Courant.
Its emergence marked the beginning of a nascent nations obsession with partisan broadsheets.
And thanks to the coincidence of timing, the newspaper’s editorial focus at its launch reflected deep concern with the disease taking hold of the city.
Moreover, it provides perhaps the earliest example of an independent press covering a colonial epidemic in ways not officially sanctioned by the government.
The tensions between an honest reporting of a diseases spread and the government’s desire to downplay both the risk and its own culpability in the outbreak are in full view. And cost is history.

[3:14] Although Boston’s relationship with the crown had long been tumultuous, most circumstance evidence as early as 16 89 when Bostonians deposed the royal governor,
cost makes a convincing argument that the introduction of a partisan independent press in the first half of the 18th century was either a cause or a consequence of an underlying dissatisfaction that led directly to the events of the second half.

[3:38] Despite being written four years ago, the shades of 2020 run very strong here, so you can see why this book so high on my to read list.
If I could never find half a minute to catch my breath and actually read something for pleasure.

Upcoming Event(S)

[3:52] After the upcoming event this week, I’m featuring a virtual author talk hosted by history camp.
On Thursday, August 27th, author Dan Gifford will speak about his book, The Last Voyage of the Whaling. Bark Progress, New Bedford, Chicago and The Twilight of an Industry.
I read some of this book a few months back to see if it would make a good podcast episode, and I, unfortunately had to pass because Boston didn’t really feature heavily enough.
However, if you can stretch your definition of Greater Boston to include Salem in New Bedford, this should be an interesting talk.
Here’s how it and describe the book to me in an email at the time.
My new book recreates the strange story of the whaling bark Progress.
A New Bedford Whaler transformed into a whaling museum for Chicago’s 18 93 World’s Fair.
Traversing waterways across North America, the whale ship enthralled crowds from Montreal to Racine.
Her ultimate fate, however, was to be a failed sideshow of marine curiosities and a metaphor for a dying industry out of step with Gilded Age America.

[4:58] After the fares over the whaling artifacts from the progress end up with the field museum and the curator is Rebel against a whaling exhibit in their brand new museum.
Within a few years, everything’s packed onto an express train and shipped off to Salem.
So what’s now the Peabody Essex Museum? As a gift, this book uses the story of the progress to detail, the rise, fall and, eventually, demise of the whaling industry in America.
The legacy of this wailing bar can be found throughout New England in Chicago and invites questions about what it means to transform a dying industry into a museum piece.

[5:36] History camp. Virtual events are conducted on Facebook live, so we’ll have a link to their profile in the show. Notes just head over there at 8 p.m. On Thursday to see the conversation live.

[5:49] We also have a bonus event. This week, three area National Park Service sites are getting together to host a symposium exploring the rapid economic, social and political change brought on by the end of World War.
Two speakers from the Boston National Historic Park, Blackstone River Valley National Historic Park and Lowell National Historic Park will give a series of brief talks titled Patriotism or Prejudice.
Discrimination at the Charlestown Navy Yard.
Stems and Homes, French Canadian women in Rhode Island and post World War Two housing women that were at home, Lowell during the Second World War.
And Boston female shipbuilders Postwar.
When the speakers conclude, there’ll be a panel discussion and time for audience questions, the event begins at 1 p.m. On Saturday, August 29.
For the links to join either of our free virtual events this week or to purchase the fever of 17 21 head over to the show notes at hub history dot com slash 199.

[6:52] Before I move on with the show, I want to pause and say thank you to all our patri on sponsors.
I’ve had a couple of excuses to go into the back catalogue this week, which made me grateful for all the progress we’ve made in the past few years.
First of all, preparing this episode made me reflect on how far are sound quality has come. Since this week’s interview was originally recorded, this may have been recorded when Nikki and I still used our original podcast. Mike’s, which are patri on supporters, helped us upgrade from.
It was certainly recorded before we truly understood sound treatment for our home studio,
and it was recorded before we started using fancy post processing tools to clean up our sounds, which are patri on sponsors Also help us with.

[7:34] Then last weekend was the anniversary of the first arrests for kissing and canoes on the Charles River, which was made illegal in 1903,
When I took up Episode 41 to tweet about it on the anniversary, I realized that we quote a bunch of AP stories and out of town papers because we didn’t yet have access to the Boston Globe archives.
Since our sponsors now help us with better access to sources, I was able to quickly find a bunch of globe stories that I wish we courted in the episode.
You can help me keep improving the show as well as covering the basics like Web hosting and security by supporting the show with $2.5 dollars or even $10 a month.
Just go to patri on dot com slash hub history or visit hub history dot com and click on the support Link.
Our sincere thanks to our new and returning sponsors.

Main Topic: The Clipper Ships Of East Boston

[8:28] And now it’s time for this week’s main topic.

[8:32] Stephen Ujifusa is a Philadelphia based historian, and the book has a historical sweep much broader than just Boston.
However, you know how we love Boston and Stephen knows our Fair City well from his time at Harvard.
So this conversation will focus on the segments of his book that take place here at home.
We recorded this conversation in July 2018 just a few days before the book hit store shelves.

Jake – Interview:
[9:00] All right, We’re here today with Stephen You Ujifusa, the author of the new book Coming Out this Tuesday. Barons of the Sea and Their Race to Build the World’s Fastest Clipper ship. Stephen, Welcome to the show.

Steven Ujifusa:
[9:11] Thank you so much for having me.

Jake – Interview:
[9:13] Now, just to kick us off. Can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to this topic? Why you decided to write a book about this race to build fast, graceful clipper ships in the mid 19th century.

Steven Ujifusa:
[9:27] Well, I’ve always been issued and ships in the season, so I could remember ever since my grandmother told me the story of the Titanic was around five or six years old,
and I was always a kid that built models of ships, of ocean liners of sailing ships, their complexity and beauty.
These wonderful creations that were had to balance speed comfort.
Uh, these were the both ocean liners, and Clipper ships were the technological marvels of the time. They press the limits of what ah, man could build.
Uh, and I started history in College of Harvard.
So I have a connection with the Boston area, and I’ve got my masters in a store preservation from the University of Pennsylvania.
After that, I was always drawn to these ships. I still remain drawn to these ships even after graduate school.

[10:17] And my first book, which was about the ocean liner the SS United States, was about a transatlantic luxury liner built in 1952 and she was the fastest ocean liner ever built.
She was large in the Titanic, much safer, and she was designed by a truly visionary driven uh, self taught naval architect, also Harvard Dropout and William Francis Gibbs.
And I sort of wrote about this era in world history in America, she when the transatlantic liner was the symbol of technology, luxury and speed.
So the most complex object that man conch in fashion, the time sadly made obsolete very soon after her construction by the trans Atlantic jetliner in 1958.
So when, uh, finishing a man and his ship into which came out in 2012 I was wondering about what topic would be a natural follow up for a story about the SS, not states.

[11:18] And I went back 100 years to the 18 forties and 18 fifties when the American Clipper ship came on the scene and truly revolutionized world trade.
These wooden vessels were built for speed rather than capacity, and Donald Mackay, who figures prominently in Barons of the sea, was arguably the greatest builder of these Clipper ships.
His ship, the Flying Cloud built in East Boston, still holds the sailing record for a commercial vessel sailing routes from.

[11:50] New York to San Francisco via Cape Horn with a sailing time of 89 days, eight hours.
And initially, when I first started writing this book, I wanted to focus solely on Donald Mackay in his quest to build the finest, fastest Clipper ship.
Then I decided also to look at the several families who are very closely involved in the financing of these ships.
And the key was when I was watching the Ken Burns documentary on the Result Family and Franklin Roosevelt’s grandfather, Warren Del No.
The second came up a native of the New Bedford area of Massachusetts, and he owned several great Clipper ships. There was part owner of them. That’s how the Della knows made their money.
They’re also very involved in the opium trade, along with several other Boston families.
Like the Forbes is in, the Perkins is They’re all interrelated so that it became a story barons of see not just beautiful ships but also of the founding of family dynasties, which,
are still with us to this day and have influenced American history, especially in the Boston and the New York area.

Jake – Interview:
[12:51] So you follow a handful of families throughout the book you have The Della knows the lows, the Forbes and a few others from New York and Boston.
But when the book opens your very far away from both New York and Boston, can you talk a little bit about where the early chapters of the book take place and what the science of these families were doing there at the time?

Steven Ujifusa:
[13:12] Well, I opened the book First of All out War on Della knows Hudson River State Almanac, which is about ah, 100 miles north of New York City in the town of Newburgh.
And it is a retreat that he had built for himself on Hudson, where he could raise his family free from the cares of commerce and stress.
And unfortunately, the crash of 18 57.
The panic of 18 57 and the resulting financial fallout summons Warren Delano, who is in danger of losing everything, including his, including his mansion, back to China, where he initially made his fortune.
So then I flash back to the 18 thirties, where there’s a young Warren Delano growing in a rowing competition on the Pru River in Canton, modern day Guangzhou.
This was the only city in China where Westerners knows the funk way.
The foreign devils were allowed to do business with China, and a number of these young men, such as Warren Delano, used family connections,
used whatever they could to get a connection to go to Canton to make money in the tea and opium business.
This was arguably the fastest way for a young man to make ah fortune quickly, uh, at the time for a young American male.

Nikki – Interview:
[14:28] So, Stephen. The era that this book takes place in which is post revolution and pre civil war is an area that I think really gets glossed over in the standard American history curriculum.
And I think it’s an area that a lot of us don’t know as much about.
So can you set the stage a little bit, Um, as to why there’s just this one city in China that’s open to Westerners and kind of what their relationship was like between the East and the West at that time.

Steven Ujifusa:
[15:00] Sure. Well, after the American Revolution ends, America still has its craving for tea. It’s many ways it’s t that helped touch off the revolution with the Boston Tea Party.
Britain, at the time during the time of the revolution, had, as all of us know, a monopoly on the tea trade Onley.
British ships could deliver Chinese tea to the colonies.
So when the revolution ended, Britain, of course, was not going to do business with us with its former colonies.
So America still had this craving for tea. So in 17 83 1 of a group of American investors do.
One of the first things they do after the Treaty of Paris has formally done is they get together a consortium of investors to finance the construction and building of a ship known as the Empress of China to sail from New York to Canton.
I’ll refer toa Guangzhou what we know today as Canton, uh, to sail there to trade for tea.
And this voyage of the Empress of China brings back a 25% profit as well as a nice fresh cargo of tea that columnist have been craving for a long time during the Revolution columnist may do with tea brewed from clover or other substitutes.
A seen as a patriotic thing. But, ah, this was colonised. The newly minted American nations still wanted its fix.

[16:21] So starting in the 17 eighties and continued all the way up to the 18 forties, several American firms take root in the city of Canton in this district of the city known as the factory district.
This area, which is a very small product a few city blocks, was a walled off compound where the Americans, the British and other foreign nations were allowed to trade and do business.
But they were forbidden from leaving that area, except for one island noticed Macau, the Portuguese colony of Macao.

[16:53] So this was a very small, very confined area, and there are very many very popular paintings of the factory district.
It was a beautiful white neoclassical set of structures along the Canton Pro River waterfront, and this is where firms such as Russell and Company, which is where Warren Delano and the Forbes is eventually worked.
This is where they did their business trading and t.
Now there was a problem with the tea trade, and that Americans, and also the British did not have the sort of goes that the Chinese wanted.
So the British have been at this since the mid 18th century, since they controlled India was they smuggled opium into China, using basically fast schooners known as opium clippers.
They were basically drug running boats, and by the early 18 hundreds, the Americans got in on the act smuggling in Turkish Opium.
And one of the first Americans to do this was a Bostonian named Thomas Perkins, and he got in on the business, and he began bringing a lot of his family,
into this business into the tea and opium trade, including his nephews, the Forbes brothers Robert and John Murray.

Jake – Interview:
[18:00] At that point, If they’re bringing in Turkish opium, what’s the route that trade is following? Is it coming from Turkey and heading Easter’s coming from Turkey and heading back west to New York and then around the horn?

Steven Ujifusa:
[18:13] It was actually carried by ships from Mediterranean to India and then sent to ports in China. It was small, it was brought in by ship.
And also the Americans began.
Serving is, uh, carriers for the British opium dealers.
You putting opium on their ships on consignment to China, and then these opium smuggling boats would anchor off of Chinese ports that were forbidden.
And there was a whole ritual where the customs official would come on board and say, What are you doing here?
You know, you’re only supposed to trade in Canton, and the captain aboard would say, Oh, sorry, we’re short of water. We’re having some problems, and the customs official or Mandarin would say, OK, that’s great.
So how many opium chest you have on board? They pocket the bribe, and then the Chinese smugglers would row to the Opium Clipper and bring the opium ashore.
This is catalogued by William Hunter, who was a partner at Russell and company in his memoirs.
And this is something that was kind of glossed over or explained away by a lot of these merchants.
Warren Delano and Robert Forbes described the opium trade is a perfectly reasonable and honorable trade, and four was kind of added that all the best people in Boston did it. Anyway. This is a way to pay for the tea.

Nikki – Interview:
[19:30] Stephen. Early in the book, you mentioned that both the shipping and the shipbuilding are really dominated by New York City in the early 19th century,
but that a lot of the shipping concerns are actually owned by the New England Yankee families.
So can you tell us how that happened? And, you know, really, why did this take off in New York and not Boston?

Steven Ujifusa:
[19:53] There’s actually a mass migration of Yankee families to New York after the construction of the Erie Canal in the 18 twenties.
It was a case of follow the money. You had people from Boston you had People from New Bedford who might have been involved in whaling are also involved in the China trade.

[20:10] They also they saw which way the wind was blowing when it came to New York growing support.
So you have families like the Della knows coming in from New Bedford.
Warren Delano, after spent his nine years in China, settled in New York.
You had the Grenelle family from New Bedford settling in New York.
The Forbes has remained in Boston, but by the 18 forties, New York shipbuilding was preeminent.
When it came to building these new Clipper types, it wasn’t told.
The late 18 forties 18 fifties that thes ship owning families in,
New York, but also in Boston, began commissioning the Clipper type vessel from Boston yards, the first really prominent Yankee Clipper was launched in 18 50 she was known as the Surprise.
And she was owned by a New York house, a low on brother. And the lows were involved in Russell and Company that the Opium Trading and T firm and she was launched from the Are of Samuel Hall in East Boston.
And I think the reason why the Bostonians began building these sorts of ship is there was a glut of orders in New York by the 18 forties in 18 fifties, especially after the,
discovery of gold in San Francisco in 18 70 score in 18 in 18 48 18 49.
So because of the over building in New York, a lot of these New York.

[21:33] Shipbuilding concerns began turned to Boston shipbuilders such a Donald Mackay on Samuel Hall, and they proved to be absolutely fantastic when it came to building these ships.

Jake – Interview:
[21:43] Now sticking with this surprise for a minute. You describe that as the perfect California Clipper. What made the surprise so dominant for that early period?

Steven Ujifusa:
[21:53] Well. What made the surprise a fascinating and wonderful ship is that she was a combination of the best types of two sorts of vessels.
The first was the Extreme Tea Clipper, which is a form pioneered by the naval architect from New York. Jobless Grip. It’s in the 18 forties.

[22:10] The Extreme Tea Clipper was a vessel that was sharp ended balance turn.
It also had a V shaped hall. She was actually kind of bay. This model of Clipper was actually based on the Opium Clipper thievery, fast type of opium.
Schooner and John Will scripts theorize. If you have a sharp about sharp stern and a V shaped hull, you will gain maximum speed.
Well, the problem with that type of vessel is that they do not have a whole lot of cargo carrying capacity. So you sacrifice cargo carrying capacity for speed.
So a number of these great T Clippers extreme tea clippers such as the Rainbow, which is John will scrip its first clipper.
The legendary Sea Wish would sail from Can Tom, New York and the record breaking time of 74 days. That’s a record still stands for sailing vessel.
They were absolutely fantastic vessels.
But when the California gold rush occurred in the late 18 forties, you had a problem because a vessel loaded with tea sales extremely well, it’s a very lightweight cargo.
But for the California trade, when you’re sailing a vast vessel around Cape Horn and was arguably the most punishing.

[23:24] Passage on the commercial passage on the high seas, a 10,000 mile journey around the infamous Cape Horn you need a vessel that can carry a lot of cargo but could also be fascinating.
Withstand some really tough storms.
So what the Samuel Hall of East Boston did, and also a Donald Mackay really perfected was building a vessel very sharp ends but also a flat bottom, which granted much greater stability and also granted mastery of greater carpet capacity.
So the surprise, which was built in 18 50 she was owned by a loan company.

[24:00] Abdul Abbott Low, the owner of the surprise, was so happy with Samuel halls Ah, result that it gave him a very handsome bonus.
And Samuel Hall, I think, was kind of a tow launch of the surprise on East Boss was kind of showboating a bit that he took up a dare that he could launch the surprise fully rigged.
That was something that wasn’t done. Usually you did not raise the mass until the very end. He didn’t break the vessel to the very end.
He launched the surprise fully rigged and ready to go and ready to be towed to New York.
And there was a great big party in East Boston to celebrate this launch. And in she went into Boston Harbor with her masterfully raise, and she did not capsize.

Jake – Interview:
[24:42] The the only ship launch we’ve described on the podcast in the past is the 17 97 launch of the U. S s constitution, which was very dramatic, but not for good reasons. It took three attempts to get it to successfully launch.
Kept getting stuck in the ways and the first president of United States and the governor of Massachusetts air there and all the dignitaries for the first attempt that it slides 15 ft down, the down the ways and sticks,
in A couple weeks later, they come back with a much smaller crowd of dignitaries and,
get it to slide another 20 or 30 ft and it sticks again.
And then finally, almost a month after the first attempt tow launch it, it gets into the water. I don’t think anybody attended the third attempt, so I was really interested to read a different type of ship launching drama in your book.
So what? What would a fully rigged launch look like?

Steven Ujifusa:
[25:33] Well, you would have a a clipper ship that would have mass up to 15 stories tall, perched on an angle on the on the launching ways in East Boston, you would have her draped in bunting.
You would have tens of 1000 people coming to watch it, have boats in the water.
She would be flying the American flag.
This was these were these launches first pioneered by Samuel Hall and later really brought to perfection by Donald Mackay, who was a master publicity.
Uh, these were days that the City of Boston would be. It would be a national would be a city holiday work would stop so people could watch it.

[26:12] And, yeah, there was always that risk factor of one of the ship capsized.
A remarkable thing about these Clipper ships is that they were launched Richt and loaded up with cargo without any trial voyages.
This is not like they say, an ocean liner or a steamship, uh, many years later, where you would have a trial voyage and you’d see how fast you can go, what her performance would be.
No. They would load them up and send them off to San Francisco.
A lot of Boston ships like the Surprise were completed, rigged and then towed down to New York, usually by a very colorful, very famous steamed tongue called the R B four was named after Robert Bennet Forbes of the Forbes family.
Then she would be loaded up in New York and set off to China or set off to San Francisco.
But these were dramatic events. You would have poetry readings. You’d have operations.
In one case, there was a funny story when the Clipper ship Stag Hound, which was Donald Mackay’s for his true clip, Extreme Clipper, built for the California trade.
She was being launched, and she was pushed a little too early, and she began sliding down the ways and the person response for a scream Stag hound your name stag hunting through the bottle, the bottle of the bow before it went out of reaching his pat tumbled into the mud flats.
So this was not a precise science.

Jake – Interview:
[27:33] That’s terrific. Now you mentioned the steam tug and that that raises an interesting point.
I’m always fascinated by this long period of overlap between sail and steam and as we found out in last week’s podcast, that extended well into even the 19 forties.
But this a century before, that is, is much earlier in that overlapping period.
So since steam vessels existed at this point, why is it that the sailing ships that’s the Clippers were dominating the trade with California still at that point?

Steven Ujifusa:
[28:04] There’s a very simple reason for why Clipper ships dominated the China trade and the California trade is fuel.
Back then, steamships had very limited fuel capacity.
The more coal your pile into us into a steamship, the less room you have for cargo.
So steamships actually carried the bulk of passengers and mail during the California Gold Rush mating for his 18 fifties.
They carried on, so they dominate that trade.
Pretty early on a steamship, a paddlewheel steamship would sail from New York, stop in Panama, Nicaragua and then the passengers would have to disembark.

[28:41] Go overland by mule and then wait for another steamship to come and get them and carry them in San Francisco,
by the mid 18 fifties, a 40 mile long railroad constructed by William Henry Aspinwall, who also is owner of the Clipper Ship Sea, which made that trip a lot easier.
But it came to carrying cargo, the Panama or Nick. A robbery did not make any sense at all, because a ship would have to stop at the estamos unload.
The people would have that people would have to unload all that cargo carried across the estimates by pack, mule or even in the 18 fifties was you’d have to unload it onto a train and then you have to wait.
It just didn’t make sense. So a Clipper ship, if it sailed from New York and just go straight around Cape Horn and carry it that cargo nonstop without having a break bulk is the maritime saying goes so it just made sense.
And Clipper ships did not require fuel so a steam ship could sail from New York toe.

[29:42] One side of the Panama dismissed, but then another steamship would have to pick up the passengers and mail and sail from the Pacific side of the estimates to San Francisco.
And steamships had been around applying America’s River way since the early 18 hundreds with Robert Fulton’s North Over Steamboat.
In the 18 forties, transatlantic steamships were making regular scheduled crossings from Liverpool to Boston.
That’s a 3000 mile journey, so ah, Cunard line paddle wheel steamer steam ships such as the Britannia could easily make that trip in about two weeks. But that was the outer limits of how far ship a steam ship could sail.
A Clipper ship could sail 10,000 miles that having to refuel. So wind and nature still provided the propulsion, and it still made it the most cost effective way to carry cargo.
Very few passengers actually traveled on Clipper ships. They were passenger cabins on the California Clippers, but it was not a the common way to go.

Nikki – Interview:
[30:40] So bringing it back to Boston. Can you describe what Donald Mackay shipyard would have been like? And, you know, how long would it take to construct a Clipper ship?

Steven Ujifusa:
[30:51] A Clipper ship and Donna’s. McKay’s yard could probably be finished at around six months, and his yard stood the foot of Border Street.
There’s not a whole lot of it. They’re left today. There’s very few physical reminders of it.
But it was a very busy place that employed a huge percentage of the residents of East Boston.
East Boston in the 18 forties, in 18 fifties was very much a working man’s town.
You had carpenters, your Cooper’s. Yet all these people who are built who are there to support the yard and the many yards that were there.
And Donald Mackay was known as a very kind, very generous employer, and he actually had a number of his family live in the area. He was not an American. He was from Nova Scotia.
He had immigrated from Nova Scotia to New York and then to the Boston area when he was a young man.

[31:40] For economic reasons, and he lived in a in a big house, uh, known as Eagle Hill, and he would walk to work every morning.
He would show up very early, and it was said that he would actually at night when the yard was closed, would come up and caressed the holes of his ships.
He was that devoted to them, and he had a large family from his first wife and died soon after he came to the Boston area, and his second wife, Mary McKay, was his business manager.
She also came up with many of the poetic names for these ships, such as Flying Cloud and Romance with C so both his wives.
It was a true partnership. His first wife, Albania Bull, who had met in New York.
She had received a much better education that Mackay had. She came from a family of some means, and she taught him, allowed the mathematics and physics and other basic principles that he never learned in school because he came from very, very poor family.

[32:39] And, uh so, yes, this is a place that was humming with activity, and you would have several ships at a time in the 18 forties or 18 fifties.
Sitting on the way is under construction, and Donald Mackay was not the sort of man who felt he was too good.
Teoh pick up his hammer or hammer trundles into the ship’s hall to show his men how it should be done.

Jake – Interview:
[33:07] Well, he didn’t start out as a genius shipbuilder. He must have worked his way up from somewhere. Can you describe how he learned the trade and how he came up into as later prominence?

Steven Ujifusa:
[33:19] Well. He arrived in New York at the as a teenager, Uh, and his father had moved, had moved the whole family to New York from Nova Scotia in search of opportunities.
And four Donald Mackay, who was clearly very talented, a building boats. He built small boats on his own in Nova Scotia, and he went there to apprentice at the yard of Isaac Web in New York.
And the Apprentice system was a brutal system where you worked, you know, long hours of 18 20 hours a day. As a teenager, you made basically no money.
You were made a vow not to marry. You basically had to work your way up was almost medieval.
And Donald Mackay described the system as slave a. Craddick.
He was kind of a rebel, even this young man. But he did master the art of shipbuilding at the yard of Isaac Web in New York, and he actually was able to terminate his apprenticeship early so he could.

[34:16] Work in another yard because he was so talented.
And then he ended up moving up to Newburyport, where started his own yard, where he felt he had a lot more freedom because in New York was cooked.
The shipyard business was pretty much taken up by several families, including the Web family.
And it was a new report that he met age shipowner, Boston ship owner by the name of En och Train, who ran a company, Nolan known as the White Diamond Line.
These were transatlantic packets and in doctrine was very impressed with the quality of construction and speed, First of foremost of some McKay’s smaller vessels.
So you knock Train helped finance Donald Mackay to come down and build his own yard.
East Boston And for a long time, from the 18 forties to the early 18 fifties, Donald Mackay was the almost exclusive shipbuilder of transatlantic packet vessels for E not trained.
And a packet vessel was basically a very heavily built vessel sailing vessel that was meant for the transatlantic trade and during the 18 forties 18 fifties.

[35:26] Meet a number of companies very, very wealthy because they carry the bulk of the famine. Irish to Boston.
In fact, one of John F. Kennedy’s ancestors came over to America on McKay. Bill Packet knows the Washington Irving and the Kennedys actually settled in East Boston during the 18 forties, within sight of the McKay yard.

Nikki – Interview:
[35:51] So it’s interesting to hear about McKay’s, um, apprenticeship and background and how that may be translates to him being a more generous and dare I say progressive employer.
Because I remember reading in the book that Warren Delano, um, really was not.
It seems like he was actually very challenging person to work for, and that life on a ship was not as good as life working in the shipyard.

Steven Ujifusa:
[36:19] That’s a very good point. Working on a Clipper ship during the Kuniko Golden here of the 18 forties, 18 fifties during the China trade years and the,
California Gold Rush years was a very brutish and very tough.
We don’t live. The food was terrible. You would be eating hard tack.
Ah, lob Scouse. Very, very basic fare.
If you’re a passenger on a clipper ship, you’re lucky you had can food. And some of the meals described by the passengers on the Clipper ship was very, very was actually quite lavish.
But if you’re a crew member, you would beyond watch many, many hours of the day you would be sleeping in the folks soul or ah, deck house in very cramped conditions.
And, uh, during the early 18 fifties became harder and harder to get skilled seamen.
Two crew, these ships so often what you’d have is the capture would have say he need to get 50 to 60 men to croup, a Clipper ship, and he could only sign on 30.
So what? What he would do to fill up the ship is that he would hire.

[37:29] A so called crimp, would basically go out to the board, ellos and the dive bars of the Boston New York Water Fund and the madam of the saloon Keeper would drop opium or some sort of drug in their patrons drinks.
And then he would deliver to the crims these past out men.
And next thing they know, they wake up in there on a Clipper ship bound for Sam to score a Clipper ship bound for China.

Jake – Interview:
[37:53] At least they didn’t get knocked out on drug through a tunnel like in Portland or Seattle.

Nikki – Interview:
[37:59] But it is interesting to note, like this practice is happening on Warren Delanoe’s Clipper Ships, and yet he is anti slavery, unlike a lot of his upper class peers.

Steven Ujifusa:
[38:11] Yeah. This is a very strange contradiction in that Clipper ship owners. And a lot of these Yankee merchants were actually pretty progressive when it came to slavery.
And, uh, yeah, Warren Dell? No. Did write that Hey, felt that the black man was is equal to was an equal to the white man. And he was very pro union, very anti slavery.
But yeah, these Clipper ship owners, such as Born Della, knows such as Abbott Low.
A lot of these very generous philanthropic men made their fortunes not just a clipper ships, but also the opium trade which re tactic in Chinese society.
Tens and thousands of Chinese would become addicted to the drug, and it was something that these men were shielded from. And it was also a time when opium use in patent medicines was very, very common in America as well.
So opium was not seen as a necessarily a bad thing, but to the Chinese, especially the Chinese government. They saw the havoc it was wreaking in their population. People were literally wasting away with this drug.

Jake – Interview:
[39:17] It’s interesting to talk about the 19th century opium trade. I know. I’ve read some articles recently about how much of bus and philanthropy in the early days was underwritten by the proceeds of the opium trade locally.

Steven Ujifusa:
[39:32] Yeah, it’s a very interesting conundrum in away thes Boston merchants such as John Murray Forbes, Robert Bennet, Forbes and also in New York. People like Warren Delano, Abdul Abbott Low.
They were very philanthropic and very generous to causes. Back at home, the Forbes is gave my m i t. They gave money to a bunch of other, uh, wonderful Boston cultural institutions.
Colonel Thomas Perkins, who is their uncle, who was one of the founders of these fortunes of one of the original partners of the firm that became Russell and Company.
He donated, ah, huge amount of money to what entered became the Perkins School for the Blind eso.
Back at home, these merchants were pillars of society, pillars of philanthropy.
And also in many cases, in the case of Warren Delano and John Murray Forbes,
they became very pro union and quite anti slavery, something that was not shared by other people in their circle, especially those such as the mole family or those that have their money in textiles.
Because the textile Boston fortunes were so intimately tied to the slaveholding south.

Nikki – Interview:
[40:47] So related to the pro union leanings of Warren Delano You mentioned in the book that he wants hosted John Brown for tea.
And I have, ah, riel obsession with John Brown as a historical figure.
Do you have any details on what that was? Laker?

Steven Ujifusa:
[41:08] Yes. Sorry. That that was That was John Murray Forbes. Yeah, I was like, I don’t think it was.

Nikki – Interview:
[41:12] Okay.

Steven Ujifusa:
[41:15] Yeah, it was not Warren Delano Was John Murray Forbes who was really became or the active sort of ah later convert abolitionism in the 18 fifties. But yeah, he could.

Nikki – Interview:
[41:25] Well, that makes sense. He was in Boston at that time.

Steven Ujifusa:
[41:28] Yeah. Yeah. So So, yeah. John Murray Forbes was, in many ways, a progressive, even though he was a very, very sharp businessman. He did host the controversial John Brown, who later went down and fame.
Aziz, the leader of the 18 59 insurrection Heart Harpers Ferry.
That must have shocked ah, lot of his peers, such as the locals, the Appleton’s with Lawrence’s who were very economically dependent on, uh, the textile trade in cotton.
They were afraid these families were afraid that slavery would disrupt the cotton supply chain.
But Warren Delano was actually a good quote from him.
He said that we should have just laws for the colored man as well as the white man, which is a pretty amazing thing to say in the 18 fifties from a merchant of his class.

Jake – Interview:
[42:19] Yeah, it’s something that, ah, radical abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison would’ve said around the same times. That’s a bold statement for another class merchant, for sure.

Steven Ujifusa:
[42:27] Yeah, and John Murray Forbes also was ah, very big patron of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
In fact, his son married Ruffle or Emerson’s daughter. So a lot of that forms money ended up in the Emerson family. So Ralph Waldo Emerson always saw John Murray Forbes. Is it very benevolent, kind and intellectually curious man?
Even though John Murray Forbes had no formal college education, he was.
He went off to come. Immersion is a very young man. My guess is that John Murray Forbes, when he came back to Boston, became one of the richest men,
I think tried to cultivate people like Ralph Waldo Emerson as a kind of compensation for his lack of a formal college education.
So I think a lot of these men Warren delegate and go to college either.
Neither did Abdul Abbott Low and allow the low Money ended up a Columbia University.
My suspicion is a lot of the impetus to give was not just out of social aggrandizement, but also is a way of sort of showing the showing societies work, that they were cultivated men and maybe as a way of compensating for,
their lack of college education, even though they were very successful as Yankee merchants,
Emerson said of John Murray Forbes.
How little this man suspects with his sympathy for men and his respect for letter and scientific people is not likely in any company to meet a man superior to himself.
And this is describing someone who had made his initial fortune in the opium trade and was invested in the Clipper ship business.

Jake – Interview:
[43:55] Now, Emerson is not the only leading light toe. Have something to say about one of the characters in your book. There’s also a section where you describe a poem written by H. W. Longfellow about Donald Mackay himself.
How did Donald Mackay go from building Atlantic packets to rubbing elbows with people like Edward Everett, Daniel Webster, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow?

Steven Ujifusa:
[44:18] Ah, from being a public relations genius. He was unique among,
the ship builders of his era and the Clipper ship builders to be a real master of publicity, of using the newspapers to advertise the constructions of the ship.
He actually got a very well known journalist on his side to basically describe the construction of these ships and the launches of these ships to get public interest.
So McCain became very good friends of the journalists at the Boston Daily Atlas, and you can read some really fantastical and wonderful accounts off the construction and launching of these ships in the archives that are on line of the Boston Daily Atlas.
So the Boston daily Atlas actually became kind of McKay’s publicity mouthpiece.
And through these descriptions, these just these newspaper descriptions you can find them online, really wonder extensive detail of the construction specifications of these ships.
And, uh, these newspapers attracted notice, and I think he was also McKay was just a very handsome, charismatic man.
He kind of was the this era in American history of the mid 19th century. This was sort of the Jacksonian era of the celebration of the common man. The working man, Donald Mackay fit the part.

[45:39] He, as I said earlier, had no shame and working with his hands, he didn’t try to be some horti Torti aristocrat.
He was very proud of his humble origins. He had these rough, callused hands. He still worked in the shipyard.
He was a very handsome man. He had this sort of poetic look about him. He had kind of, ah, Byronic look about him.
And so I think that was very attractive to people like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Even though McKay was in need of a Nova Scotia, he was an immigrant success story.
He built a house in East Boston which he rather grandiosely named Equal Hill, which still stands today.
And he added, Ah, was he built that house with his own hands, the beautiful house.
And it had 13 columns on the portico to signify the original 13 colonies.
And he built it for entertaining. He built it for parties.
He built it for his family. And it was here. The entertained Daniel Webster is here.
He entertained Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in the 18 forties, wrote the poem The Building of a Ship, which is still known today. It was basically a celebration and owed to Donald Mackay.

Jake – Interview:
[46:53] It sounds like when McKay switched from building packets Atlantic packets to building clippers, his level of success really took off.
You describe what I think you said was his first true clipper, the Flying Cloud, as having a bidding war for who was gonna owner before she was even completed.
Was that his PR mastery, or was there more behind that?

Steven Ujifusa:
[47:17] I think there’s more behind that is actually the second Clipper to Extreme Clipper he built. The first one was a stag How much I mentioned earlier.
But the Flying Club was his second, and there were two clippers that he was building at the same time.
The first was a staff. Unsure of the second was the Flying Cloud.
They’re both being built side by side, the flying cloud slightly ahead of the staff future, both for being built for the Knock Train, who I mentioned earlier, The Staffordshire was meant for the transatlantic trade.
The flying Club was being built for the California trade and then incomes.
Moses Grenell, a partner in the firm of Brunel and Minn. Turn in New York, who’s looking for a Clipper ship. He had previously been involved in the transatlantic packet business but was looking to get in the California business, and I think he was looking for a good deal.
He didn’t want to build one from the ground up. He wanted Clipper very quickly, so I’m not sure it’s unclear in my own research, whether it was an agent or whether was Moses Grenell himself, who came up from New York.

[48:14] But he offered the firm offered, uh, not trained $90,000 for the whole The Flying Club, which is unfinished and he not trained, said, Well, I already have another Clipper Underway already have a good relationship with Donald Mackay. He could build me another one.
The Flying Cloud was purchased by Most Is Grenell for $90,000,
and in doctrine would later say that that was the worst business decision he ever made because the Flying Club was a truly special ship, she said. The record from New York to California, 89 days.
She actually broke that record twice once in 18 51. And I believe once in 18 53 on her Captain Days I a Purpose Creasy of Marblehead, Massachusetts.
So that was his most famous clipper. He went on to build several more, but the Flying Cloud is the one that’s arguably the most famous in name.
Ah, and in verse and song and in legend.

Nikki – Interview:
[49:08] So, speaking of Captain Creasy, um, I noticed in the book with much interest that his wife, Eleanor, served as his navigator.
I imagine that that must have been incredibly unusual.

Steven Ujifusa:
[49:24] It was not all too unusual for a captain toe have his life come along on the voice, but it was unusual for Eleanor Creasy Ah, woman like Eleanor Creasy to actually be.

[49:36] Captain’s navigato have that mastery of navigation, which is very complicated art.
She, like her husband, was from Marblehead, Massachusetts.
Our father wasn’t naval officer, and he actually allowed his daughter to have a very strong education in mathematics and a navigation. And the creases were an incredible team.
They really, really were. And in addition to being a navigator,
Eleanor Creasy also did the more traditional roles of a captain’s wife, which was helping entertain the passengers and also in times of emergency, serving as Nurse,
Teoh injured sailors and injured passengers.
So but she was a truly remarkable woman. Sadly, no portrait of pictures of her survive. There is Anita likeness of Captain Creasy. Survive that survives.
But it was truly remarkable partnership, and they stayed on that ship for several years together.
And in fact, as soon as they retired from the Flying Cloud in the mid 18 fifties, she never was able again to retain that same speech he did in the past.
It didn’t help that her owners open element er didn’t exactly maintain her role that well, but it was a combination off fantastic ship design on the part of Donald Mackay and,
navigation and seamanship on the part of the creases that truly set the flying cloud apart.

Jake – Interview:
[51:03] Well, speaking of navigation and seamanship. So one thing that was completely new to me when I read the book, you describe,
how a skipper at that time sailing from the east coast of the US to California, would actually start out navigating toward Africa before then turning back toward Brazil that actually sail east to go west. Why was that?

Steven Ujifusa:
[51:24] That was the way to follow the prevailing trade winds.
If you stuck along the coast of Brazil, you’d had right into the doldrums, and that just made the most sense.
It sounds counterintuitive, but by the early 18 fifties ah volume published by Lieutenant Matthew Fontaine Maori.
The Winds and currents of the oceans, it appeared, and this was the first time that really a complete set of a newly complete set of data of the prevailing winds and currents off the oceans had appeared.
Matthew Fontaine, Maori, was a retired naval officer who had been disabled in an accident.
Has Syria his see career was over, So starting the 18 forties, he had a desk job but the U.
S Naval Observatory in Washington. So he being collecting and compiling all of these logs that have been written by captains, US naval captains on their voyages on.
And he would note when the captain would hit the doldrums when they would hit Goodwin’s.
It began to piece together this truly incredible Siris of.

[52:27] Charts that indicated which way to go to stay with the prevailing winds and,
these volumes by Matthew Fontaine MARU Released beginning the 18 fifties early 18 fifties, and navigators like Eleanor Creasy and other captains of clippers began using these,
to really maximize their time in prevailing winds versus in the spending time in the doldrums.
So it was not just ship design that improved in the 18 forties 18 fifties, where you have sharp halls and ah, higher and higher rigs.
It was also the work of Lieutenant Matthew Fontaine Maori that allowed these captains to skirt the doldrums where there was no wind or a little wind it all and stay for as long as possible in favorable winds to maximize,
speed and decrease sailing time.

Jake – Interview:
[53:15] Nikki and I. A couple of weeks ago were out in San Francisco, were at the San Francisco Marine National Historical Park and in the visitor center.
My eyes were immediately drawn to ship models of the sovereign of the Seas and the champion of the she sees, which are both Donald Mackay Clippers So clearly.
Century and a half later, the McKay Clippers air still making an impression on the West Coast.
But can you describe what the scene would have been like the the initial impression that the flying cloud would have made on its first arrival through the Golden Gate?

Steven Ujifusa:
[53:48] Well, imagine San Francisco in the 18 51. This is not the sleek, metropolitan, sophisticated city that we know today.
One of the tech headquarters of the world. This was a rough and ready gold miners town.
You. The structures there were built on San Francisco shores were ramshackle, hastily thrown up, that actually in several fires during this during the gold rush.
So when when the city would burn down, they had to quickly build it up again.
So a lot is buildings were pretty? Uh, not exactly much to look at and you’d have a Sam Cisco Harbor was filled with ships, tall ships of all varieties, some of which had actually been abandoned by their crews.
Marauding, close to shore. The captain suddenly find that he’d have no crew members have to leave the ship behind eso you’d have not just ships were getting ready for the next leg of the voyage.
But you also have hulks of abandoned, rotting sailing vessels just sitting there, anchored in the harbor.
Ah, you had you had saloons, you had gambling halls.
And then through the Golden Gate in would come this beautiful white wing clipper ship looking like a swan.

[55:01] Ah, and it had just been painted up in the days before she would arrive in San Francisco. The flying cloud would have been repainted repaired after 89 days of being battered at sea.
And, uh, the wooden signal the wooden tower atop of today’s telegraph Hill would there are two arms would signify what sort of ship was coming in.
And if it would signify a full rigged ship that mentor, a clipper ship or a large cargo vessels coming. And then the merchants would run down to the the shores to see what was going to be unloaded from the flying cloud.
And, uh, of course, the flying cloud would anchor offshore to take on her pilot, although in one case, another Clipper ship, the which was piloted by one of the low family, the NB Palmer.

[55:52] She was brought in without the pilot because the captain was impatient to get to shore.
And, of course, he ticked off the pilot. He almost everyone thought he couldn’t do it. You can’t not like a power vessel. You could just like, you know, Doc with ah Doc unassisted.
So and there were steam talks. It was a truly remarkable sight.
And the journalist of the time when they saw a ship like the flying cloud come in, uh, they commented God.
Only a few years ago, a ship that would sis a sailing ship would be this ungainly, ugly tub that could sail us fast, sideways as fast it could forward and in you have come because of the,
demands of commerce and the great advances of ship design.
This magnificent ah, vessel that looked like an apparition on the seas.
It was so perfectly formed, so graceful, so tall and beautiful on.
And it was truly remarkable thing. And of course, people were taking bets on which Clipper would come in first. In fact, large sums of money were wagered in Boston, New York, and Sanchez Com which Clipper would come in first?

Jake – Interview:
[57:02] Seems like within just a few years of this very triumphant first arrival of the Flying cloud in San Francisco Harbor, the business of shipping was beginning to change.
And in the book, you describe the sovereign of the Seas as, Ah Clipper that Donald Mackay’s shipyard was working on in 18 52 and you say that it was making people question McKay’s sanity. Why was that?

Steven Ujifusa:
[57:26] McKay was very much a believer, and the bigger is better school.
And, uh, there’s a very simple rule of marine design that have been known for a century before McKay was active that the longer the ship is, the faster is natural speed is.
So he was thinking, well, in order to bake them faster, I need to build the bigger.
And he was building ships to the California trade.
He was thinking, OK, prices in California will remain high for a while, and I could make a lot of money or my clients could make a lot of money, uh, shipping warm or goods to California at faster and faster speeds. There are two things going on.
By the mid 18 fifties, California had built enough of its own manufacturing and farming infrastructure,
that you didn’t need to ship in chairs, tables, eggs, cheese, a lot of booze from the East Coast to San Francisco and sell it at very inflated prices.
So shipping rates peaked around 18 50 to 18 53 and then began to go down.
Now that what made a California Clipper ship very successful was that you had a ship that required a lot of truth, so that were they were very expensive to operate, and they still sacrificed, even though they were had flat bottoms.
They still sacrifice cargo for, ah, cargo space for speed.
So the economics of having these very fast, very expensive vessels gradually didn’t make sense for the California trade.

[58:53] Meanwhile, in the China trade, uh, designer by the name of Captain Nathaniel Brown Palmer, who figures probably meant But he had sort of come up with the ideal form for a ship that could serve both in the California trade in the China trade.
His Clipper ships, such as the N B. Palmer, were smaller than McKay’s ships, like the Sovereign Caesar, maybe around 2200 tons.
But they could, um, one hand carry enough goods to San Francisco, where they could still be profitable.
They were big, but not too big where they would be too expensive to operate, and then they could sail across the Pacific to China, pick up a load of tea, then sail around the Cape of good Hope and come back home.

[59:38] Mackay’s Clippers by the mid 18 fifties or really even the early 18 fifties,
grew too big So when Donald Mackay built the sovereign of the Seas, which was the biggest merchant vessel of its time, you knock train apparently originally was going to be the buyer.
And then he balked and decided to pull out. And the Clipper might have originally been named the You Knock train.
So here was Donald Mackay, left with this gigantic Clipper ship left on the ways. And he’s like, Well, I’ve made some money building these ships. Let me finish it myself and I will sail her to San Francisco.
And he had his own brother, Lachlan Mackay, service captain, and she made a very successful journey to San Francisco.
Eventually she was sold to a, um, another merchant, and he said, okay and made some money off of the soffit of the seas. Let me build something even bigger and better.
And that was the star crossed Great Republic of 18 53.

Nikki – Interview:
[1:00:34] Now, the Great Republic, I think, had two lives in a way, um, kind of a literal Phoenix rising from the ashes.
Um, can you talk a little bit about the fire that destroyed the Great Republic and then how she was revitalized after that?

Steven Ujifusa:
[1:00:55] The Great Republic is one of the great one ifs of maritime history.
She was completed in 18 53.
She was she, uh, measured 4500 tons, which made her a true behemoth.
Well, over 300 ft long, all entirely built of wood.
She was a mechanical marvel. She had a steam engine that would help raise and lower the yards.

[1:01:22] She could carry a good complement of passengers, and Donald Mackay gambled everything on the ship.
He basically bankrolled the ship himself.
She cost approximately $300,000 which is a good size fortune back then And, uh, the people of Boston just We’re so proud of this ship.
When she was launched, Longfellow did read the famous building of a ship at her launch. And I like to read it in part, thou to sail on a ship of state sale on O Union.
Strong and great humanity, with all its fears, were all the hopes of future years is hanging breathless upon my fate.
We know what master laid the keel. What workmen wrought by ribs of steel who made each mast and sail and rope What anvils rang.
What hammers beat in what afford and what a heat where shapes the anchors of thigh hope in this poem, Longfellow’s comparing ships like The Great Republic to the union, the United States.
So this was a big event for Boston, unfortunately on, and this is sort of sailors, bad luck here or a sailor superstition.

[1:02:34] Donald Mackay’s a son and some of his buddies broke into the storehouse and drank the champagne destined for the christening of the ship so they had to use water.
In fact, Teoh christened the ship, which was seen in retrospect, might be seen as a bad omen.
But a bottle of water was broken over the ship’s bow. She was completed.
She was towed to New York, where she was to be loaded with grain, and she was destined, actually to sail for Liverpool on, then sail on to Australia because McKay was now starting to build ships on commission for the Australian Gold Rush.

[1:03:11] Just before the day before Christmas, December 24th, 18 53.
Ah, fire breaks out at a bakery near the South Street neighborhood in New York City, and the fire spreads to the wars, destroy several other ships and then spreads to the Great Republic.
She is burned and sunken or birth. Nothing could be done to save the ship.
Apparently, money is offered for people to climb up into the rigs and help extinguish the fire, But it does not.
No one wants to climb up to us, climb up that high and the ship is sunk out of birth and what is left of her is left smoldering.
And Donald Mackay had not fully insured the ship. That’s what he could afford.
And he was absolutely broken by this. This was his dream Magnum opus destroyed.
So he actually sells the wreck to, uh.

[1:04:07] The firm of a A Loan Brothers, which operates a number off Clipper ships and a low was actually a business partner of Warren Del No and warned Ellen, it was also invested in the Low Brothers concern,
The ship is raised and, ah,
cut down into a smaller vessel still very, very large.
And she has operated as a pretty successful Clipper ship for a number of years.
But the tragedy is that no one ever knew would ever know.
Half asked. The Great Republic would have sailed as a 45 100 ton, four masted, truly glorious Clipper ship is Donald Mackay had intended her to be.

Nikki – Interview:
[1:04:50] So, speaking of the other Great Republic, America, um, as we get into the late 18 fifties here, I wanted to ask how the Civil War,
would impact Donald Mackay’s business and then just that these shipping trade routes in general.

Steven Ujifusa:
[1:05:09] Well. The Civil War sadly made Donald Mackay one of the great losers of shipbuilding, to survive.
After the Clipper ship business faded in the 18 50 late 18 fifties, Hey began building ships on commission for the Union Navy and one of his monitors, the USS Knauss.
It ends up nearly bankrupting him after the U.
S. Navy demands some design changes. There’s actually a flawed design that he followed, and then he had to fix the ship at his own expense and that, actually, really, ah, Dill deals his yard a tremendous hit.
So he is actually in very deep financial trouble by the end of the Civil War.

[1:05:50] And in 18 60 80 to 69 it makes one last ditch effort to build a Clipper ship known as the Glory of the Seas, which was a medium clipper. She was not as sharp as his earlier clippers.

[1:06:04] Sadly, he had done the same thing he done before.
He built a ship on his own account, and when she arrives in San Francisco in 18 70 I believe she is seized by Donald Mackay’s creditors, and he never gets the chance to sell her.
He ends up having to sell his yard, sell all of the equipment, and he ends up moving to a farm in Hamilton, Massachusetts, and dies.
A rather sad man, Hey had proved himself to be, uh, failure as a businessman.
Although arguably the greatest ship designer of his time, the Civil War is also disastrous for the northern shipowners, such as the lows the Della knows who owned these Clippers and also New Bedford whalers as well.
The Commerce Raiders built by the Confederacy, usually in British yards, were built to chase down and destroy and capture the cargo off their vessels and insurance rates go up.
Several Clipper ships were actually destroyed by these comments Raiders, the most famous of which was the Jacob L. Which was chased by the Commerce Raider CSS Florida Una voyage from China.
And the Clipper ship is actually able to out sale the steam power commerce raider until the winds die.
The CSS Florida captures a crew, her passengers takes all the tea and all the valuable cargo on board.

[1:07:31] Of course, Confederates want there. Tia’s Muchas the northerners do, and then they set the Jacob L. A fire.
So the Yankee Clipper ship fleet but also especially the Yankee whaling fleet, is devastated by,
these Confederate commerce aerators such as, most famously, the CSS Alabama and by the Civil War, A lot of these Clipper ship barons.

[1:07:57] Began investing money in railroads in coal, copper mines, real estate. So they being diversifying their fortunes anyway.
So by the end of the Civil War, a lot of these men end up richer than before.
And, ah, la, these fortunes newly expanded, uh, went on to become the founding fortunes of the Northeastern Boston New York.

[1:08:22] Elite and just to just to close out the,
ah Warren Delano, who’s the main character in my book, he loses a lot of his fortune in the panic of 18 58 and he sailed to China two years later to,
remake his fortune in the way he’ll the quickest way he knew how was getting back into the tea and opium trade.
And then, in 18 62 he sends for his family, including,
the young child Sara Delano, the future of Sara Delano Roosevelt, FDR’s mother and the whole family sales to China on the Clipper ship Surprise, which is owned by the de Lows and the Lows.
And Sara Delano remembered vividly the sea shanties, some by the sailors, the journey that our family made to China to rejoin her family, and she would sing this song she heard to her,
one son, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and to her grandchildren,
and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, when he was president of the United States, love to repeat,
the business maxim that his Delino grandfather loved her.
Say you must never let your right hand know what your left hand is doing.
And he kept a model of a Clipper ship, uh, close to him in the White House. He loved building ship models, and one of the ship models he built was the surprise.

Jake – Interview:
[1:09:44] So it sounds like even though the Civil War is really the end of an era for the Clipper ships, it’s setting the stage for very important figures yet to come.

Steven Ujifusa:
[1:09:54] It does, if not for the Clipper ships and not for Warren Delano, if not for the opium trade.
If not for the China trade in the San Francisco trade, there would be no Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Jake – Interview:
[1:10:06] Stephen, before we let you go, tell our listeners how they confined your books, where they should follow you online and anything else that they should know about you.

Steven Ujifusa:
[1:10:15] Well, Barons of the Sea will be available on July 17th from all retailers.
It’s available on amazon dot com.
It’s available on Indy Bound or your local bookstore, My Facebook pages, Stephen Ujifusa and My Twitter handles at Stephen Ujifusa.
One word Stephen with a V. U J i F U S A.
And you can follow me on Twitter. You can follow me on Facebook and my first Boston engagement.
My first Boston speaking engagement will be at the East Boston social centres on July 26th and ah is being honored, is speaking there and said Seven o’clock and in the evening.
And there’ll be a book signing in a talk and will be an honor to be speaking on Lee A Stone’s throw away from Donald Mackay’s yard, and the talk will focus on Donald Mackay and East Boston and the Great Clipper ships off that era.

Jake – Interview:
[1:11:09] How old listeners can look for links to their social profiles and that upcoming talk in this week’s show notes Stephen, we just want to say thanks a lot for joining us today. This has been a lot of fun.

Steven Ujifusa:
[1:11:18] Thank you so much. It’s been an absolute pleasure.

Wrap-Up

Jake – Intro And Outro:
[1:11:21] Well, that about wraps it up for this week to learn more about Stephen Ujifusa in his book Barons of the Sea, check out this week’s show notes at home history dot com slash 199,
We’ll have a link to buy the book as well as links to Stevens website and social profiles.
We’ll also include photographs of Donald Mackay, his shipyard in home in East Boston and some of the most famous ships he designed and built.
That’s what was a vintage map showing where the shipyard Waas.
And, of course, I’ll have links to information about our two upcoming virtual events and the Fever of 17 21 this week’s Bustin Book Club pick.

[1:12:00] If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can email us at podcast of hub history dot com.
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Music

Jake – Intro And Outro:
[1:12:31] That’s all for now. Stay safe out there, listeners.