“Extraordinary Passage of the Flying Cloud“
in East Boston
Nathaniel Currier lithograph and watercolor, 1852
Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The 1851 New York Tribune headline trumpeted Flying Cloud’s record-breaking sail: 89 days 21 hours from New York around Cape Horn to San Francisco. There a newspaper described Donald McKay’s most famous clipper ship as “a monument of Yankee talent in ship building.” Flying Cloud, her captain Josiah Creesy and his wife, Eleanor, the ship’s navigator, would surpass their achievement 4 years later by 13 hours. No square-rigged ship has ever beat it; 135 years later a racing yacht did.
Eleanor Creesy’s expertise in navigation and her role in Flying Cloud’s success were exceptional for the times. Recognizing her intellect, Eleanor’s seafaring step-father had taught her navigation. She used her knowledge and the latest scientific data to chart Flying Cloud’s course into maritime history.
Between 1850 and 1858, Donald McKay built 31 clipper ships at his shipyard located along Border Street. Dozens more were built by other outstanding shipbuilders, earning East Boston the reputation as the birthplace of many of the fastest, most beautiful merchant sailing ships ever built.
A sextant, which measures the distance between the horizon and the sun, stars, or planets, was among the tools Eleanor Creesy used to establish the ship’s position.
Photo by David J. Weaver, courtesy of the Boston Marine Society
Eleanor Creesy charted Flying Cloud’s course informed by U. S. Navy Lt. Matthew Maury’s seminal work on worldwide wind patterns and ocean currents.
Illustration by Margaret Westergaard
In the late 1960s a three-quarter replica of Flying Cloud was tied up along this wharf next to the Boston ‘1800’ restaurant and used as a cocktail lounge; this sketch is from inside the menu. In 1971 the restaurant burned, but the vessel was towed to safety.
Sign Location
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Swift, with long sharp bows and names like Chariot of Fame, Empress of the Seas, Flying Fish, Coeur de Lion, Staghound, and Lightning, “in every way clipper ships ranked among the most handsome vessels ever put afloat.” [1] Three-masted and square-rigged, clipper ships were unusual merchant vessels because they were designed for great speed rather than capacity. They sailed across oceans on
trade routes where speed translated into significant profit. In the China trade, an exceptionally fast clipper ship could beat the competition, bringing back tea from Guangzhou (formerly Canton to westerners) and fetching the highest prices. The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) and the Australian gold rushes of the 1850s spurred additional clipper ship construction.
Clipper ships set records: Flying Cloud–New York to San Francisco in 89 days, 8 hours; Sovereign of
the Seas 22 knots; Champion of the Seas 465 nautical miles in one day. No steamship of their day could beat them. And no square-rigged ship has ever broken Flying Cloud’s record. Finally in the 1870s, with improved marine engines and boilers, steam-powered vessels broke clipper ship speed
records. [2] And so like the gold rushes themselves, the era of clipper ships was short-lived. Because the vessels carried such immense sail area, they required large crews, which added to operating costs. And the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 favored steamships. For many, clipper ships represent the
zenith of the age of sail. Their memory endures in books, paintings, and models.
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[1] Howe, Octavius T. & Matthews, Frederick C. Matthews. American Clipper Ships 1833-1858. Dover Publications, Inc. reprinted from Publication Number Thirteen of the Marine Research Society, 1926-27. [2] Clark, Arthur Hamilton. The Clipper Ship Era. G. P. Putmans’ Sons, 1911. link
For the first ten days of the voyage, Eleanor Creesy set Flying Cloud’s course quite far to the east. In the Pacific she set it far to the west. Why? By taking into account newly published information on currents and winds, she understood her route would actually be faster. And it was. In the Atlantic, she wanted to avoid the Gulf Stream and take advantage of the southerly flowing Brazil Current.
In the Pacific, she wanted to minimize the distance the vessel would travel in the Doldrums—a band of low velocity winds circling the equator that can becalm a ship for weeks. Once the Flying Cloud was in the northern Pacific Ocean, she could take advantage of the Westerlies to bring them east to San Francisco—in record time.
Robin Lepore, 2017
Illustrations courtesy of Margaret Westergaard
Internationally respected astronomer, oceanographer, and meteorologist Matthew Fontaine Maury made significant new contributions to seafaring. By meticulously charting winds and ocean currents, he made it possible for sailors and navigators—like Eleanor Creesy—to take advantage of natural phenomena to shorten the length of sea voyages.
U. S. Navy Commander Maury initially opposed secession, but when Virginia, his home state, seceded from the Union in April 1861, he resigned his commission and threw his full support behind the Confederacy. His pro-slavery stance together with his efforts as a Confederate naval officer led to his statue in Richmond, Virginia being removed in 2020.
We searched extensively for a photograph of Flying Cloud’s navigator Eleanor Creesy, but like other researchers came up empty-handed. A photograph of her husband, however, does exist.
East Boston had several extraordinary clipper ship builders, notably Samuel Hall, Robert Jackson, and Paul Curtis. But Donald McKay’s name is best known for good reason. McKay both designed and built his clipper ships. And his were the fastest of the fast “greyhounds of the sea.” Of the 13 clipper ships that ever sailed more than 400 miles in a single day, 12 were McKay’s.[1] East Boston shipyards were the most advanced in the country in the middle of the 19th century, and the spirit of innovation was a major reason behind their success. McKay’s shipyard, in particular, was renowned for its efficiency. [2]
[1] Whipple, Addison Beecher Colvin. The Clipper Ships. Time-Life Books, 1980. p.51-54
[2] O’Har, George Michael. “Shipbuilding, Markets and Technological Change in East Boston.” Doctoral Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, February 1995.
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The 19th century Boston directories, which list workers by occupation, provide a ready inventory of what skills were most utilized in East Boston shipyards. Work in the yard, generally, was divided into three main categories: shipwright/ship carpenter, caulker, or joiner.
Some workers identified themselves as ship carpenters, a skilled trade, but not as skilled as that of the shipwright, who would often work in the mould loft, converting drawings into frames, and making sure those frames were set properly. Caulkers used special mallets and chisels to force oakum into the seams of the hull and deck. When these seams were coated with tar, they became waterproof. Ship joiners built cabins, stairs, doors, and furniture.
Wooden vessels required thousands of holes to be bored, both for iron rods to hold the knees–crooked timbers acting as braces–to the frame, and for treenails (pronounced “trunnels”) to fasten planking to the exterior. Often, carpenters were called upon to do this. They might also be required to adze the exterior joints of the hull, or to act in the capacity of sawyers, hewing planks for logs. This was very heavy labor and the fact that the carpenter sometimes did work more often associated with workers of the lowest skill level in the yards, suggests, again, that the ship carpenter ranked below a shipwright in skill level. Nevertheless, the ship carpenter was a skilled craftsman who had learned his trade through a multi-year apprenticeship.
The caulker, a man of critical importance in the construction of a sailing vessel, often worked on his back under the belly of the vessel. Hammer noise was an occupational hazard in getting oakum into a seam, and men who did this work often became deaf. Their work was perhaps the most repetitive in the yard and required a good deal of physical strength. But for those who had the aptitude, it was one of the most prized and highly paid jobs in the yard, no matter how occupationally risky. In order for a ship to remain tight, caulkers had to do their jobs well. Lives depended upon them. But it was dreadful, tedious work.
Caulkers and joiners pursued specialized finishing trades, and were apt to move from one yard to another looking for ships near the finishing stage. A ship carpenter, or shipwright, tended to remain with a single yard while a ship was under construction. Once the work was done, however, he too would move along.
Excerpt from George O’Har. “Shipbuilding, Markets, and Technological Change in East Boston.” Doctoral Thesis, MIT, 1995.
The three-quarter size replica of the Flying Cloud was built in the village of Meteghan in Baie Sainte Marie, Nova Scotia, some 50 miles—as the crow flies—from where Donald McKay was born in Shelburne, Nova Scotia. Launched May 26, 1966, the 167′-long ship was the last large vessel built in a village that during its peak wooden shipbuilding years built 225 vessels of more than 100 tons.
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Photo by Joe Dennehy, December 12, 1967 Boston Globe, courtesy of the Boston Globe Archives
Flying Cloud was towed to Fall River and in 1975 found herself as part of an Atlantic City waterfront rejuvenation project. For more visit New York Times Archives, September 12, 1976, page 332.
Resources
- Clark, Arthur Hamilton. The Clipper Ship Era. G. P. Putmans’ Sons, 1911.
- The Daily Alta California San Francisco Sep 1, 1851.
- Howe, Octavius T. & Matthews, Frederick C. Matthews. American Clipper Ships 1833-1858. Dover Publications, Inc. reprinted from Publication Number Thirteen of the Marine Research Society, 1926-27.
- O’Har, George Michael. “Shipbuilding, Markets and Technological Change in East Boston.” Doctoral Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, February 1995.
- New York Tribune Oct 5, 1951.
- Sacramento Daily Union April 24, 1854.
- Shaw, David. Flying Cloud: The True Story of America’s Most Famous Clipper Ship and the Woman Who Guided Her. William Morrow imprint of HarperCollins, 2000.
- Whipple, Addison Beecher Colvin. The Clipper Ships. Time-Life Books, 1980. p.51-54.
Acknowledgments
- Our gratitude to the Perkins School for the Blind and David W. Cook for their partnership in creating the audio files.
- Warm thanks to the late Edith DeAngelis for sharing her knowledge of East Boston history and mentioning, in passing, that a three-quarter replica of Flying Cloud was once tied up at the end of Lewis Street.