Voyage of Mercy

in Charlestown

The USS Jamestown shown arriving in the harbor of Cork, Ireland.  Stripped of its cannon, it brought more than 800 tons of food. “This privately-financed effort was the first ever American foreign aid mission,” writes historian Stephen Puleo in Voyage of Mercy. This lithograph was presented to Forbes as a token of thanks by the people of Cork.

Lithograph by George W. Atkinson, courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society

On March 28, 1847, the USS Jamestown set sail to Ireland from Pier 1, just opposite. The ship was loaded with hundreds of barrels of corn, flour, beans, pork and rice, donated mainly by New Englanders, many of modest means.

The previous summer, an airborne organism had wiped out most of Ireland’s potato crop. Potatoes were the main food for Irish tenant farmers who labored for absentee British landlords. With only a token response from the British government, thousands of Irish were dying of starvation and disease.

When reports of the famine reached Boston, Robert Bennet Forbes, a wealthy ship owner and humanitarian, quickly organized a response.  Believing that only a warship had the capacity to carry the amount of food needed, he successfully lobbied Congress to use the USS Jamestown, then inactive and berthed here in Charlestown.

When the USS Jamestown dropped anchor in Cork harbor 21 days after leaving Boston, church bells rang in welcome. Its voyage inspired an unprecedented U.S. nationwide response. Over the next 16 months, another 149 ships from American ports delivered essential provisions to Ireland.

Robert Bennet Forbes (1804-1889).  In granting Forbes permission to use the USS Jamestown, Congress stipulated that the veteran sea captain take command of the ship himself.

Courtesy of the Forbes House Museum, Milton, MA

“The frigate [was] freighted with food for our people, and blessings be on the heads and hearts of those who sent and those who brought it. It is the noblest offering that nation ever made to nation…” From “Arrival of the Jamestown with Provisions,” The Cork Advertiser, April 15, 1847.

“Only a few steps out of one of the principal streets of Cork… I saw enough in five minutes, to horrify me—hovels crowded with the sick and dying…”  Robert Bennet Forbes in The Voyage of the Jamestown on her Errand of Mercy, 1847.

“Famine” by Rowan Gillespie, unveiled in Dublin May 1997. The Great Hunger is seared into the memories of Irish people around the world. Lasting from 1846 to 1851, it killed an estimated 1.3 million Irish from starvation and attendant diseases.  More than a million others had no option but to emigrate. In 1847 alone, 37,000 came to Boston, including 1,000 who arrived on a single day.

Image by AlBa344 via Wikimedia Commons

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Beginning early 1847, U.S. politicians and Catholic clergy began to speak up. Politicians called for committees to be established in several cities to accept donations from the public. Senator Daniel Webster told an audience of congressional leaders that the goal was “to do a deed of effectual charity, and to do it promptly.”

Cities large and small set up relief committees. Boston led the way as the regional center for relief efforts for Massachusetts and New England. Poet John Greenleaf Whittier called for a public meeting and one was quickly organized at Faneuil Hall, February 18, 1847. More than 4,000 people attended, including Robert Bennet Forbes and his younger brother John. The Forbes brothers left the meeting determined to take immediate action.

source: Puleo, Stephen. Voyage of Mercy: The Jamestown, the Irish Famine, and the Remarkable Story of America’s First Humanitarian Mission, St. Martin’s Press, 2020.

Merchant shipping in Boston in the 1840s was incredibly busy, with thousands of ships involved in both coastal and international trade. Finding a private ship on short notice would have been very difficult. Speed was of the essence and so Robert Forbes decided a warship, specifically one at the Charlestown Navy Yard awaiting upgrades, would be best. Forbes also recognized how much food a warship, stripped of armaments, could carry. Using a navy ship, however, would require government approval.

source: Puleo, Stephen. Voyage of Mercy: The Jamestown, the Irish Famine, and the Remarkable Story of America’s First Humanitarian Mission, St. Martin’s Press, 2020.

Four days after the Faneuil Hall meeting, a request for the loan of Jamestown was submitted to Congress. March 3 Congress approved it, followed by the administration on March 7. Instructions to the Navy Yard to prepare Jamestown for her humanitarian mission went out March 8. Jamestown, loaded with food, sailed out of Boston Harbor March 28. In short, 38 days after Robert Bennet Forbes and his brother responded to the call to action, RBF was on his way to Cork, Ireland. It helped that Forbes and his extended family were among Boston’s elite, able to swiftly get the attention of congressmen and other civic leaders. Forbes was also highly respected as an exceptionally experienced ship captain. Nevertheless, 38 days is extraordinary.

source: Puleo, Stephen. Voyage of Mercy: The Jamestown, the Irish Famine, and the Remarkable Story of America’s First Humanitarian Mission, St. Martin’s Press, 2020.

Members of the Boston Laborers’ Aid Society, almost all of Irish descent, loaded the ship without pay. They began on St. Patrick’s Day and finished on March 26.

source: Puleo, Stephen. Voyage of Mercy: The Jamestown, the Irish Famine, and the Remarkable Story of America’s First Humanitarian Mission, St. Martin’s Press, 2020.

The response was unprecedented. Wealthier individuals typically sent money (with which relief committees purchased food) but most Americans contributed food. Through July 1848, Americans donated more than 9,900 tons of food and 650 crates of clothing. In addition, with some advance notice, shipowners in various ports made their ships available mid 1847 at no charge. Some railroads also transported donated food at no cost.  

source: Puleo, Stephen. Voyage of Mercy: The Jamestown, the Irish Famine, and the Remarkable Story of America’s First Humanitarian Mission, St. Martin’s Press, 2020.

Steve Puleo explains in Voyage of Mercy “the [potato’s] yield per acre was unparalleled…potatoes planted on a piece of land would support three times the number of people as corn planted on the same parcel…. An acre and a half of healthy potato plants would provide a family of five or six with food for a year, whereas to grow equivalent grain required acreage four to six times as large, plus more advanced tilling knowledge…. The potato’s nutritional value also surpassed that of corn and grains. A potato was a potent source of calories, was rich in vitamins, especially vitamin C, and also contained healthy levels of protein, iron, calcium, potassium, and magnesium.

source: Stephen Puleo’s Voyage of Mercy: The Jamestown, the Irish Famine, and the Remarkable Story of America’s First Humanitarian Mission, St. Martin’s Press, 2020, p. 115.

Resources

  • Forbes, Robert Bennet. The Voyage of the Jamestown on her Errand of Mercy. 1847.
  • Laxton, Edward. The Famine Ships. Henry Holt, 1996.
  • Puleo, Stephen. Voyage of Mercy: The Jamestown, the Irish Famine, and the Remarkable Story of America’s First Humanitarian Mission, St. Martin’s Press, 2020.
  • Woodham-Smith, Cecil. The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845-1849. Harper and Row, 1962.

Acknowledgments

  • We are deeply grateful to Stephen Puleo for his expertise and support of our work.
  • Warm thanks to the Perkins School for the Blind and Thomasine Berg for creating the audio files.