Wetherill
A History of Discovery
Palmer
Nathaniel Brown Palmer
1799-1877, American sea captain and Antarctic
explorer, b. Stonington, Conn. While on a whaling voyage (1820-21)
in the South Shetlands, he commanded the Hero on an exploring trip
to the south and came back with a report that he had sighted land.
Hence the name Palmer Land for the peninsula later named Graham Land
by the British and known as Palmer Peninsula, Graham Land, or Graham
Coast. On this expedition Palmer also discovered the South Orkney
Islands. He was well known as a commander and designer of clipper
ships.
Nathaniel Brown Palmer, born in 1799 in Stonington, Connecticut, had
the good fortune to grow up in his father's shipyard where he
learned at a very early age all about ships and the sea. His lessons
learned would soon be put to good use. He was barely into his teens
as the War of 1812 began, when he joined the crew of a schooner
blockade-runner engaged in the smuggling coastal trade from Maine to
New York, while trying to evade vengeful British frigates and their
cannon balls.
To young Nat and other boys it was all a highly exciting adventurous
game, navigating the coast at night to avoid the British, or waiting
for the fog to clear and race right under the British guns to safe
harbors or the open seas. Young Nat and the others boasted that they
"could smell their way through the fog by night from Hell's 'gate to
Providence." For the duration of the war, Nat sailed before the mast
and remained at sea when the war ended. He rose steadily from seaman
to mate and on to command the small schooner Galena by the time he
was eighteen.
Nathaniel Brown Palmer
At nineteen, Nat joined the crew of the Hersilia as second mate and
soon they were on a sealing voyage bound for the southern ocean near
Cape Horn. For the crew of the Hersilia, it was a voyage of
discovery. They were bound for the mythical island of "Auroras,"
which, according to the whalers of Nantucket, was somewhere to the
eastward of Cape Horn. In New England whaling towns the tale was
told of a huge Spanish galleon centuries ago, breaking up and
scattering a treasure of gold, silver, and precious gems along the
island beach in glittering profusion; just there for the taking. The
myth surrounding the island of Auroras grew with each telling of the
tale and whaling captains spent weeks on end searching for it in
vain.
Under the command of J. P. Sheffield, the Hersilia reached one of
the Falkland Islands, where Nat and a sailor were put ashore to kill
bullocks for provisions while the Hersilia sailed away in search of
Auroras.
For the next few days, Palmer and his companion slaughtered
bullocks, when suddenly an Argentine ship appeared. Palmer hailed
her from the shore and piloted her to a place of safe anchorage. She
was the Espirito Santo out of Buenos Aires and her crew was grateful
for the supply of fresh meat that Palmer provided.
While exchanging pleasantries with the Argentines, the captain of
the Espirito Santo, an Englishman, told the young American that
their ship was bound for an island where there were thousands of
seals, there for the taking, and that with a little effort, a full
cargo could be secured. Of course, the English captain was reluctant
to tell where the island was.
The Argentines had ashore filled their water casks and stocked up on
provisions; with young Nat only to eager to help them out in any way
he could. Finally, the Espirito Santo bid farewell, hauled anchor,
hoisted sail and departed. Palmer attentively watched as the
Argentine ship sailed away on a deceptive course before taking her
true tack for the island of seals. Having the eyes of a sea hawk,
young Nat watched as the Espirito Santo disappeared on the horizon
and made her course out to be about due south.
Three days later, the Hersilia returned to pick up Palmer and his
companion. Like the whalers before them, the Hersilia's search of
the heaving southern seas for Auroras had been in vain. All they had
seen were a few hungry, screeching albatross and a whale or two for
their troubles. Palmer, burning with enthusiasm, told the captain
what had happened, and urged that they sail after the Espirito Santo
to find the island of seals for themselves.
After a few days sail to the south, they came upon a group of
unknown islands that were not on any chart. They would become known
as the South Shetland Islands. They came upon the Espirito Santo
anchored in a bay of one of the southern most islands, and her crew
greeted them with surprise. There were more than enough seals for
everyone and the crews soon set about their grisly business. Amiable
relations between the crews lasted the whole time and the Argentines
helped the Hersilia crew load 10,000 prime sealskins into her cargo
hold. The Hersilia sailed back to Stonington with a considerable
fortune in sealskins that brought them $20,000
Word of their good fortune spread like wildfire through the New
England maritime community. Palmer was hailed as a hero and in
recognition of hip efforts, he was given command of the Stonington
sloop Hero that would serve as tender to the Hersilia when she
sailed again for South Shetland. Palmer was just twenty years old.
Again, they called upon the Falklands for water and provisions, and
again they sailed south to the South Shetlands. They returned to
Stonington with full cargoes of sealskins.
But word of their early success had spread far and wide. Other ships
and crews visited the South Shetland Islands
In 1821, Palmer sailed south again in command of the Hero; this time
in a six-vessel expedition commanded by Captain William Fenning of
the brig Alabama Packet.
Upon arrival, they discovered, to their dismay that the seal
populations had greatly diminished. Undaunted, they set sail to the
south in search of new sealing-grounds. Eventually they reached
Antarctica, which at the time was not on any chart.
After sailing along the coast for several days, Palmer decided that
this new rocky landmass was too large to be an island. They searched
many of the bays without finding any seals; instead finding penguins
numbering in the thousands. Eventually, the little flotilla headed
north again catching the light winds through the fog.
Days later, the Hero found herself in a becalmed sea. A cold dense
fog had set in with the evening darkness. Captain Palmer took his
middle watch at midnight. At 12:30 one bell was struck. Suddenly,
from somewhere out in the cold dark night, a bell was heard to
strike; soon after, a second bell. Palmer and his superstitious crew
were alarmed.
They were many leagues away from civilization, near the bottom of
the world, in uncharted oceans with whales, penguins, and albatross
for company. After one o'clock, two bells were struck and through
the fog two bells were heard, followed by two more bells. Palmer
concluded that they were not alone. At the end of his watch, Palmer
retired and told his crew to call him when the fog lifted.
At seven A.M., a light breeze blew off the morning fog and less than
a mile away a frigate and a sloop of war were sighted; both flying
Russian colors in the service of Tsar Alexander. Palmer ran the
United States ensign up the mast of the Hero and waited as a
twelve-oared launch from the frigate Vostak approached his little
sloop. The Russian officer, who spoke English fluently, was welcomed
aboard. He presented the compliments of Commander Bellingshausen and
invited Palmer to come on board his ship.
Palmer cordially accepted the invitation and after giving orders to
his mate, left with the Russians dressed just as he was, in his
sealskin coat, sou'wester, and sea boots. He was a man of the sea,
not of ceremony.
Soon aboard the frigate, he was shown the way to Commander
Bellingshausen's presence. There was the white-haired Russian
commander in his spacious luxurious cabin surrounded by his officers
in their splendid uniforms.
"You are most welcome young man," said the commander in a kindly way
as he shook his hand. "Please be seated."
The commander wanted to know all about Palmer, his sloop, where they
had been, and what they had discovered. Also, he mentioned that he
had been on a voyage of discovery himself for the past two years. He
asked to see Palmer's logbook and charts.
These were sent for. After an elaborate luncheon was served, the
charts and logbook were carefully examined. In a formal ceremonious
fatherly way, the commander then stood and placed his hand on
Palmer's head and declared the following words.
I name the land you have discovered 'Palmer Land' in your honor; but
what will my august master say, and what will he think of my
cruising for two years in search of land that has been dpscovered by
a boy, in a sloop but little larger that the launch of my frigate?
Captain Nat was at a loss for words. But he thanked the commander
for the honor bestowed upon himself, thanked him for his kindness
and hospitality, and out of courtesy decided not to question the old
commander's credentials as an explorer too closely.
That part of Antarctica from that point on would forever be known as
'Palmer Land.' Twenty years later, Palmer Land would be
re-discovered by famed British explorer Sir James Ross of the Erebus
and Terror Expedition.
In the following years, Captain Palmer made numerous voyages to the
Spanish Main of South America; first in command of the schooner
Cadet; then of the brig Tampico. He ran guns, ammunition, and troops
to Simon Bolivar, helping the struggle for South American
independence from Spain.
He took a break from the sea long enough to marry the daughter of
Major Paul Babcock. He then took command of the brig Francis and
sailed back and forth to Europe for the next few years.
In 1829, he sailed for Cape Horn and explored among the many islands
for new sealing grounds.
After deciding that sealing was rapidly becoming an unprofitable
venture, Palmer, in the early 1830's, took command of the cotton
packet Huntsville that was owned by E. K. Collins & Co.
Edward Knight Collins was a Yankee like Palmer who had taken a
liking to Captain Nat and likewise had spent an adventurous youth at
sea.
Edward Knight Collins
Collins was a Cape Cod Yankee from a seafaring family born in Truro
in 1802. At the age of fifteen, he joined a New York shipping firm
in 1817 as a junior clerk and five years later sailed aboard a ship
as supercargo. By that time, Collins had proved his abilities as a
businessman whose bold success as a trader endeared him to his firm.
After eight years as a junior clerk, Collins had become a partner.
In 1825, word arrived in New York that the price of cotton had risen
in Liverpool. Collins soon raced off to Charleston aboard a swift
pilot-boat schooner and quickly bought up the entire cotton crop
before rival merchants arrived at Charleston by packet from New York
with the same purpose in mind. The money earned from this bold
venture would go a long way in establishing Collins in the
prosperous coastal cotton packet trade.
Yankee merchants had come to dominate the cotton trade. In the early
days after the invention of the cotton gin, the American South had
dominated the cotton industry and southern cotton was shipped
directly from southern ports to the textile mills of England. Shrewd
New York Yankee traders soon saw their opportunity and began sending
agents south to purchase all the cotton they could and ship it by
packet ships to England and Europe. The plantation owners found
themselves in a bind. If they wanted to ship their own cotton to
market, the packet ship owner would charge them very high rates.
Sandbars at the mouth of the Mississippi had presented merchants
with a problem that their shipbuilders solved with a unique vessel
of shallow draft that had an almost perfectly flat bottom, which
made it possible to clear the sandbars without getting stuck. An
added benefit was that now bales of cotton could fit more easily in
the flat-floored hold and carrying capacity was greatly increased.
At first, the sailing qualities of such a vessel was doubted, but
soon, to the relief of their owners, these flat-bottomed ships
proved to have fine sailing qualities. They were in sharp contrast
to the V-bottomed hulls of the day.
With the cotton market now firmly in their control, some of the more
savvy New Yorkers by the 1830s began to alter the triangular cotton
trade by shipping the cottonpfirst to New York by fast coastal
vessels. The cotton cargoes were transferred at New York to the
Atlantic packets for the final leg of the journey to Liverpool. All
along the way, the middlemen took their cut and New York Yankee
merchants prospered. Coastal packet shipping became a very lucrative
trade. Stevedores now had lots of work. Wharf owners stayed busy and
Atlantic packets now sailed eastward on the "Downhill Passage" with
full cargoes and stayed very busy for years.
Eventually, southern planters began to complain that New York
merchants were making 40 cents on every dollar, but being constantly
in debt to the New Yorkers, they were hardly in a position to change
this state of affairs. The Yankees were in full control of the
market. This would eventually turn out to be one of the causes that
led to the Civil War.
Under Palmer's command, the Huntsville was able to sail faster than
she had with other captains and Palmer soon began to make
record-breaking passages from New Orleans to New York in his
flat-bottomed packet. The usual average 18-day passage was cut to
two weeks. He set a record-breaking passage of ten days. Historians
have credited the Huntsville, while under Palmer's command, as the
second fastest New Orleans cotton packet of the era.
Impressed with the sailing abilities of these flat-bottomed cotton
packets, Palmer talked to Collins and suggested the idea of starting
up a line of flat-bottomed packets for the Liverpool trade. Collins
was the adventurous bold trader with "salt water in his blood" and
found the idea of the challenge intriguing.
He sent Palmer to Liverpool to see if there was need of such a line
and to have a close look at all of his potential competitor's ships.
Palmer returned with encouraging news and soon the "Dramatic Line"
was started up with the building of the Garrick and the Sheridan in
1836, and the Siddons in 1837; all similar ships, of 927 tons
register. In 1839, a larger and improved model, the 1009-ton
Roscius, was added to the line. She was the largest merchant packet
ship of her day. These four new ships joined the Shakespeare, a
flat-bottomed packet ship of 827 tons already owned by Collins that
gave the inspiration for the name of his new line.
The building of these new Dramatic Liners in the Brown & Bell
shipyards had a most unsettling effect upon the builders, who shook
their heads and declared that "they'd never make a passage to the
West'ard." All fast sailing vessels up to that time except for the
cotton packets had been built with the V-bottom of a frigate to a
greater or lesser degree. These new Dramatic Liners did not have
substantial deadrise.
Palmer and Collins were unperturbed by these wagging tongues of the
New York yards and remained confident in their convictions. It would
not be long before these new flat-bottomed packets shook up the New
York Maritime community with record-breaking "uphill" runs.
The average run of a Black Ball Liner on the Liverpool-New York
round passage was 40 days. In 1839, all four Dramatic Liners
averaged passages of 28 days, shaving 12 days off the run. Their
flat floors increased their cargo capacity considerably. Now again,
the South Street tongues were wagging, but singing a different tune.
The first thing that Palmer liked to do with a new ship was to take
her out and put her through her paces. The Garrick, under Captain
Nat, sailed from the East River docks on November 1, 1837, along
with the V-hulled packet England, under the command of Captain B. L.
White. Each was looking for a race. Captain Nat tore across the
north Atlantic to Cape Fear, off the Irish coast, in less than 12
days. But there, her luck ran out along with tpe wind and she made
it in to the Liverpool docks on the seventeenth of November after a
passage of 16 days, oddly on the same day as the England's arrival.
Loaded up for the "uphill" passage, the two ships sailed again on
the same day with the tide. They both clawed their way back across
the North Atlantic and arrived a few hours apart off Sandy Hook
having almost identical times over the voyage. Although the race
between the two ships had come out a tie, Captain White knew that he
had really lost. All that Captain Nat knew was that he was having
fun.
One fine day in 1839, while putting the Siddons through her paces,
she fell in with the frigate United States, said to be the fastest
ship in the navy, and sailed away from her over a distance of 10
miles in 10 hours. What was amazing was the fact that the United
States, a man-of-war, was the larger ship with a much larger crew
and could carry much more sail. It was obvious by now that there was
something about the design of these new Dramatic Liners that was
superior in every way to ships of the past.
The most remarkable specimen of the Dramatic Line was the Roscius.
She was larger than her sister ships and also the most expensive;
costing her owners $100,000. Rosewood and other expensive woods ran
throughout her cabins. Aloft, her spread of canvas was impressive,
her main mast shot up from the deck 160 feet from which she swung a
main yard 75 feet long. Her lofty spread of canvas was even compared
to the later clipper ship Flying Cloud, although the Cloud was more
than 700 tons heavier with slightly longer spars and a 82-foot main
yard.
The Roscius
It was said that the Roscius was built "to go" and "go"
she
did. She beat her sister ships with her first three western passages
where each time she clipped two days off the average time of her
siblings with an average 26-day, 3-hour time. Roscius now led the
race and would point the way for others to follow.
With the coming of the new Dramatic Liners came the acknowledgment
from the shipyards along the East River that the old way of building
packets was over. A new excitement stirred the imaginations of
shipbuilders everywhere and spurred them on to new efforts. Sailing
records on the western ocean and China run that had been at a
standstill for years were now being broken. Older ships of the China
packet trade were rapidly becoming obsolete. Merchants would no
longer tolerate the long, slow round trip voyages that often lasted
up to a year and a half.
Having learned their new lessons well, other shipbuilders
contributed their versions of Canton Packets to capture their share
of the expanding Oriental trade; ships with sharper lines and less
dead rise.
The Akbar, of 650-ton register, slid down the skids, built by Samuel
Hall at his East Boston, Massachusetts shipyard in 1839. On her
maiden voyage, she sailed to Canton against the monsoon in 109 days.
Jotham Stetson of Medford built the Probus of 656 tons, and she
became the pride of New England as the first "Eastern-built" packet
to take the record away from the New York packets on the China run.
The Probus made a round trip to Canton and back, including a side
trip to Macao, in the incredible time of 18 months, 5 days.
The Helena slid down the skids of William Webb's East River shipyard
in 1841. She was 598 tons, and was built for N. L. & G. Griswold fpr
the China trade. She resembled the Liverpool packet Yorkshire, only
sharper and more heavily-rigged, almost like a clipper in the days
to come.
By the late 1830s, all the year in year out racing across the North
Atlantic was taking its toll on the early packet captains who, one
by one, began to look at the rapidly expanding China trade as the
welcome alternative to early retirement. Their youthful enthusiasm
for the Liverpool trade was long gone. They had grown weary of the
freezing winter gales and unruly crews of ruffians that had gotten
worse over the years. It was becoming a grind.
On April 23, 1838, two British steamers arrived at the South Street
piers and their arrival signaled that America's monopoly of the
Atlantic packet trade was about to end. British steamship companies
were by that time grabbing for a lion's share of the Atlantic trade
and E. K. Collins decided to make the transition over to steam
himself with the organization of the New York-Liverpool steam packet
line, which went on to compete successfully against the British
lines. Captain Palmer was a sailor and had little desire to make the
transition over to steam that was by then monopolizing the lucrative
North Atlantic mail, express freight, and passenger service across
the North Atlantic.
With the new faster sailing ships, the China and India trade was
becoming hard to resist. Their services were in growing demand and
their skills put to good use. Few could resist the challenge of
out-sailing their old friends and shipmate rivals and setting a new
record on the China and India runs.
The lure proved to be irresistible for Captain Nat, for in 1843 he
took command of the new 620-on Paul Jones, built in 1842 by Waterman
& Elwell of Medford, Massachusetts, and owned by Robert B. Forbes.
The Paul Jones was a "bluff-bowed" well-sparred ship that was hardly
a clipper and was said by some to resemble an "early Down Easter"
and destined to make some good passages in the China trade even
though some considered her to be plodding and slow.
The Paul Jones cleared Boston Harbor on January 4th bound for
Canton, right around the same time that Robert Waterman was arriving
there in the Natchez. Waterman had gotten into the China trade just
a few months ahead of Palmer. Instead of taking the easier route
around the Cape of Good Hope, Waterman had placed additional sails
high up in the Natchez's lofty rigging where they had never been
before. Then he had taken the Natchez around Cape Horn to Valparaiso
and Mazatlan, before sending the old cotton packet flying across the
Pacific to Canton in only 41 days.
The Paul Jones crossed the equator in 26 days and was 54 days to the
Cape of Good Hope, 88 days to Java Head, and arrived at Hong Kong
111 days from Boston.
WELCOME TO THE CAPTAIN PALMER HOUSE
This 16-room Victorian mansion was built in 1852 by two brothers,
Captains Nathaniel Brown Palmer and Alexander Smith Palmer.
Majestically sited on a high rise of ground overlooking the upper
end of Stonington harbor, "Pine Point" offered sweeping water views
in all directions. From its octagonal cupola, the family could
identify ships arriving from distant ports. Meticulous craftsmanship
of the ornate woodwork testifies to the work of shipwrights
Nathaniel Brown Palmer
1799-1877
Walter Palmer sailed from England to Salem Mass. in 1629, and in 1652 settled in Stonington, CT. This society, headquartered in Stonington represents the focal point of facts concerning his descendants.
