Abstract
The short career of the Philadelphia-built coastal steamship Albatross (1850–1853) offers an instructive look at speculation, financing and operating a steamer in the mid-nineteenth-century United States. This was a period of rapid change, financial booms and busts, and business failures. Albatross was built for a short-lived route between Philadelphia and Charleston, South Carolina, which failed. With a change in ownership and a new home port of New York, it did not last long in its next venture, connecting New York with Halifax, Charlottetown and Quebec. Its final service in a speculative steamship line that proposed to open a competitive route across Mexico’s ‘Isthmus of Tehuantepec’ ended in disaster. That shipwreck may have been a deliberate accident to capitalize on insurance. Albatross’s career exemplifies not only the vagaries of speculative steamship ownership and operation, but also the often shady nature of mid-nineteenth-century speculation and business practices.
Keywords
Introduction
Birds, as inhabitants of the air, and long supposed to commune with angels, were naturally chosen as oracles, and … as augers of future events … The killing of a sea-bird, as an albatross … would naturally, as a consequence … be regarded as an ill omen, and a presage of coming disaster. 1
The April 1853 wreck of the steamship Albatross on a Mexican reef during the California Gold Rush was one of several losses of ocean steamers in that year as they carried passengers, freight, mail and gold via the Central American isthmus and Mexico. Some of the wrecks were major national headlines as a large number of persons were involved, and that year was in particular one of many losses: the steamships Independence, Tennessee, Samuel S. Lewis and Winfield Scott were wrecked on the Pacific Coast between February and December with a horrific loss of life on Independence when it struck rocks, caught fire and burned after running aground in heavy surf, killing at least 125 and as many as 175 passengers and crew on 16 February. 2
The total loss of Tennessee just north of the Golden Gate did not result in any deaths when it went ashore in heavy fog on 6 March, nor was anyone lost when Samuel S. Lewis also missed the entrance to San Francisco harbour and wrecked north of the Golden Gate on 9 April when it struck a reef. All of the passengers were safely landed. No one was killed when Winfield Scott struck Anacapa Island off the Southern California coast and sank in December. With only 14 passengers and an uneventful wreck on a calm night, Albatross slipped quietly into historical obscurity. Re-evaluating Albatross's career, the circumstances of its loss and the personalities involved, however, finds that Albatross was a most unfortunate vessel. It was never successful, shifted from owner to owner, and its loss was no accident but an act of barratry. SS Albatross’s career was marked by fraud, poor decisions and, ultimately, what appears to have been a deliberate act of wrecking to collect insurance. That effort was also a failure.
A steamer is born
Laid down and launched in 1850 by William Cramp in Philadelphia's Kensington District on the Delaware River, Albatross was one of many wooden sailing and steamships built by Cramp prior to his firm’s expansion and shift to iron and, later, steel shipbuilding.
3
It was built under contract for the Philadelphia and Atlantic Steam Navigation Company, which was headed by shipbuilder Ambrose W. Thompson of Philadelphia, a partner of Cramp. Albatross’s progress on the ways was reported in August 1850 as ready to launch in five or six weeks. The frame is all set up, and most of the deck work is done. The engines of this ship are to be on the oscillating principle. They are being constructed at Mr. Sutton's Peoples Works.
4
The Philadelphia and Atlantic Steam Navigation Company, chartered in 1848 and incorporated in April 1849, sought to expand maritime trade with southern ports as well as Great Britain. The law to incorporate the company noted that it was manifest that the commerce between the city of Philadelphia and foreign countries, as well as other parts of the United States, would be greatly increased by the establishment of regular lines of steam vessels navigating the ocean to and from that city.
5
A board of commissioners was authorized to sell stocks at $100 a share.
After securing a contract with the Post Office Department for the carriage of mail between Philadelphia and Charleston in early 1849, the company ‘commenced business with the new steamship “Osprey” starting with Osprey's first voyage from Philadelphia on May 31, 1849’. 6 An early advertisement for Osprey, noting it was a ‘United States Mail Steamship’ and a steam packet, stated that it would sail between Philadelphia and Charleston ‘on the alternate Thursday throughout the year’, and that ‘it is expected that the second Ship of the Company, now building, will take her place in the service, so as to connect the two cities by a weekly Line, in August next’. 7
The second steamship of the company, the wooden side-wheeler Philadelphia, was designed by Thompson and built by the Philadelphia shipyard of Vaughn & Lynn. With the California Gold Rush in full fervour, disrupting American (and in time global) shipping, the company did not place it in service to southern ports, but instead offered passage to Chagres, the small Atlantic port on the Isthmus of Panama then being swamped by gold-seekers eager to take canoes or mule trains, or hike across the 48-mile isthmus to reach Panama City and await passage to San Francisco. As Panama route transits expanded, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company of New York purchased Philadelphia in January 1850 following its late-1849 acquisition of two steamers, Cherokee and Tennessee, from the New York and Savannah Steam Navigation Company. 8 With Osprey again the only steamer and the company needing a second vessel to run the tandem operation of two steamers on the line, Thompson and the other stockholders of the Philadelphia and Atlantic Steam Navigation Company placed the order for Albatross.
The Charleston Daily Courier reported in November 1850 that ‘the new steam ship Albatross, building at the Ship Yard of Mr. William Cramp, of Kensington, and intended for the Charleston trade, will be launched next week’.
9
The imminent launch of the ‘new and superb Steam Ship’ was heralded, noting that for several days large numbers of our citizens have visited the ship yard, Palmer street wharf, Kensington, to examine the form and structure of this beautiful vessel. She is the largest screw steam ship that has yet been built in this country, and is considered by those conversant in such matters, to be a perfect specimen of naval architecture.
10
The steamer was launched on 28 November. The next several months were spent readying Albatross for sea trials: [the] new steamer Albatross … is being rapidly fitted out at Messrs. Sutton's machine shops, Kensington, and her engines will probably be ready for trial on the 25th inst[ant]. She will be on the line about 2[n]d Saturday in March.
11
However, the trial voyage on 17 March was not an auspicious start to its career, when within thirty miles of Sandy Hook, she encountered a heavy storm, and when off Barnegat one of the bolts of her tiller chain gave way; rendering her situation a rather precarious one, the storm having driven her within a few yards of the shore. Much consternation prevailed among those on board; finally all was got right, and she reached the breakwater at half-past eight on Sunday night.
12
Another account gave more details: the foretop-sail yard gave way – a spring-bolt connected to the tiller-chain snapped – the rudder became unmanageable, and the ship drove rapidly toward the breakers of Barneket [sic], and nothing but the prompt measures of the officers in command, saved the excursionists from experiencing all the horrors of shipwreck.
13
Albatross returned to Philadelphia for repairs.
The first voyage to Charleston was without incident until 28 March when Albatross ‘broke her propeller … and on the same night took fire in the waste-room, which was, however, soon put out, the damage being trifling. She is awaiting instructions from Philadelphia before leaving port’.
14
On 10 April, the Philadelphia Public Ledger noted: The steamship Albatross will go on the dock to-morrow morning about 9 o’clock, for the purpose of having the broken propeller taken off, and a new one attached, cast by J. T. Sutton & Co. But for this dock the Albatross would have been forced to go round to New York, in order to have her propeller replaced.
15
In what was likely an astute public relations ploy to bolster confidence in the ship and its machinery, especially the propeller, then a more novel mode of propulsion, proponents began to laud Albatross’s machinery, especially the propeller. The mid nineteenth century's fascination with steam, and the rapidly evolving technology of ocean steamers, coupled with Philadelphia's fascination with science and technology, as evidenced by the presence of the Franklin Institute ‘for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts’, founded in 1824 ‘to develop the resources of the union, increase the national independence, call forth the ingenuity and industry of the people, and thereby increase the comforts of the community at large’, 16 meant that lauding Albatross's machinery in the press was not difficult, especially as newspapers regularly copied, verbatim, from each other.
One topic was oscillating steam engines, a recent development in marine engineering and heralded as bringing ‘economy of space and weight … in the construction of marine steamers’, as noted in a discussion of new steamers with the engines in the June 1851 issue of the Journal of the Franklin Institute. The piece on oscillating engines noted that Albatross was propelled by twin cylinders that were 40 inches in diameter with a 40-inch stroke and geared to a 10-foot propeller, all manufactured by Messrs J. T. Sutton & Company of Philadelphia. 17 James Sutton's Franklin Iron Works were established along the riverfront at 100 Franklin Street in 1841. Among the ocean steamers that Sutton produced machinery for was the screw propeller Samuel S. Lewis, also built in 1851, and Star of the South, built in 1853. 18
Albatross and its propeller were also the subject of discussion at the monthly meeting of the Franklin Institute in May 1851: Mr. J. V. Merrick exhibited to the meeting the model of the propeller attached to the steamer Albatross, designed by Mr. Ambrose W. Thompson. That propeller is 10 feet in diameter, and 26½ foot pitch outside. He called the attention of the members to the peculiar form of the blades, which are developed in parabolic form, whether viewed in a direction parallel to that of the axis or radially. This particular conformation, it was claimed, caused every particle of water to be displaced in a line parallel to the axis. He gave the dimensions of the vessel as follows: Length on deck, 191 feet; extreme breadth, 27 feet; depth of hold 19 feet – the propelling power being given by two oscillating engines, with cylinders … attached to a shaft overhead, on which a spur wheel gearing into a pinion on the propeller shaft, so that the latter made 1¾ revolutions to 1 of the engines. The usual number of rotations attained was 32 per minute, giving, therefore 56 to the propeller. The model exhibited four blades, which formed the same angles at the hub and at the periphery.
19
Advertisements for the repaired Albatross began to appear in the autumn of 1851; a September advertisement noted the ‘Philadelphia and Atlantic Steam Navigation Company Line; Steamer Albatross, Captain James B. Peck, Steamer Osprey, Captain John Power, weekly departures’.
20
The two steamers were also advertised in John Disturnell’s national guide to railway and steamship travel.
21
The following month, an advertisement in the New-York Tribune heralded the start of Albatross’s career: Charleston Steamships – The Philadelphia and Atlantic Steam Navigation Company's Line between PHILADELPHIA and CHARLESTON, S.C. Steamer ALBATROSS, Capt. J. Peck Steamer OSPREY, Capt. E.O. Murdon These steamers are unexcelled for sea qualities, safety and speed, and no pains have been spared in securing comfort and convenience to passengers. The sailing days are WEDNESDAY or each week. The OSPREY will sail on WEDNESDAY, Oct. 15, at 10 O’ Clock, A.M. RATES OF FARE To Charleston – Ladies’ Saloon, state Room … $20 To Charleston – Gentlemen's … 20 To Charleston – Steerage – 10 To Savannah – Through Ticket For freight or passage, apply to E. LITTLEFIELD, No. 1 Wall St. Cor. Broadway or No. 97 So. Wharves, Philadelphia
22
Any delay or potential problem was met with a positive rejoinder. Albatross’s captain, returning from an October voyage in heavy seas, reported ‘the sea qualities of the Albatross as most extraordinary’. 23 But there were more problems brewing than storms at sea. The inauspicious beginning was further complicated by the costs of the repairs.
By year end, it was clear that the new line was a failure. The mail subsidy from the United States Government was not sufficient to balance the costs and revenues from the few passengers and freight shipped. A detailed missive from the board of directors of the Philadelphia and Atlantic Steam Navigation Company noted that at its 18 December 1851 meeting, a ‘resolution of the Stockholders’ had passed, forming a committee of 10 ‘to act with the Board in an effort to fill up the stock subscriptions, or to dispose of the ships’.
24
Clearly, new investors were not interested. The notice from the committee plainly stated that unnamed persons had formed ‘an organized opposition to the Company, to its ships and especially to the Board of Directors. In this latter, personal prejudices seemed to have been carried almost beyond the bounds of prudence’.
25
The board persevered ‘against the difficulties’ and ordered Philadelphia. Her construction was commenced under promises of further and liberal subscription, when but sixty thousand dollars were subscribed, but at the time of her completion about eighty thousand dollars were still wanting. The burden of this large amount laid principally upon one member of the Board, and the ship was finally sold because of that amount not being made up. Previous to her sale the steamer Osprey had been purchased by five individuals, and run under the Company's name.
26
‘The Osprey came into the possession of the Company with the understanding that she was to be materially altered, enlarged and improved, to adapt her specially to the Charleston trade’; with some of the proceeds of the sale of Philadelphia, the board funded the alterations, and ‘the remainder of these proceeds went to pay a portion of cost of the Steamer “Albatross” … the whole amount necessary to pay for the two Ships could not be obtained by subscription in Philadelphia’. 27 Needing an additional $40,000, the board accepted an offer from a Charleston subscriber to provide the funds if he was named the company’s agent in Charleston. This resulted in a storm of opposition from Philadelphia shareholders.
The Charleston ‘New Agent’ subsequently backed out of the deal ‘and the Directors were again left without the means to pay for the Ships’. 28 The disgruntled shareholders, not satisfied, ‘manifested … a constant opposition … and a constant misrepresentation … to the detriment of the Company’; the directors ‘sustained the running of the ships, by the aid of their personal credit and means, and in doing so carried a debt sufficiently burdensome’. 29 The board, comprising Ambrose W. Thompson, William M. Godwin, James Deveraux, William McKee and George McHenry, resigned, noting that they still believed that the line could be successful if recapitalized. 30
That appeal was acted on. In January 1852, an article in the national news noted from Philadelphia ‘correspondence’ that [t]he mismanagement of our Charleston line of steamships has so involved the company in debt that the steamers Osprey and Albatross are to be sold at public sale, if not disposed of privately. This line was established at a time when the steamer Columbus and Carolina were engaged in the trade, which not being sufficient to support two rival lines, the latter boats were hauled off and sold to go to California. The Albatross and Osprey will probably be sold at sacrifice, and unless bought by some of our Philadelphia merchants and put in the same trade, our port will again be without a steam communication to Charleston.
31
An auction held in Philadelphia on 3 March 1852 sold Albatross for $42,000 and Osprey for $29,000: ‘They are bought by J. P. Delacroix, of New York’. 33 The New York Times reported that Delacroix purchased them ‘for the California trade’. 34 The New-York Tribune reported that ‘among the bidders’ was Joseph J. Keefe, Esq., ‘the Venezuelan Consul at this port’. 35 Albatross, now under new owners, steamed from Philadelphia on 29 May 1852 for New York ‘to be placed on the California route’. 36 Thus ended the first act in the short life of SS Albatross.
The failure of dreams, and possible misrepresentation, an inability to pay the bills when a speculative venture failed, and lawsuits would follow Albatross in the next phase of the steamship's career. Its primary backer, Ambrose W. Thompson, was eulogized after his February 1882 death. That eulogy noted that ‘he was prominent a third of a century ago in every movement to advance Philadelphia’; he was a ‘generous man, of vast foresight and ingenuity, and labored to carry out his thousand inventions and plans with superhuman ability … His career was a marvelous one to contemplate, of great enterprises, which failed to remunerate their originator’. 37 Apparently, Thompson was also a self-dealer and less than honest; during the Civil War, he was quietly pocketing federal funds for a government project to establish a free Black colony on the Central American isthmus at Chiriqui (now in Panama). It was all tied to Thompson's larger ambitions for ocean transportation; Chiriqui's coal mines, an essential element in supporting isthmian steamship and rail lines; and Thompson’s continued quest for congressional funding for his schemes. 38
A ‘Sleigh’t of hand
Ambrose W. Thompson remained involved with Albatross, likely as a part owner, having not seen the steamer seized and sold to satisfy the debt to Sutton & Company. With new partners in New York – notably, New York politician, speculator and businessman Simeon Draper (1806–1866) – Thompson showed off Albatross on 2 June 1852, seeking favourable news coverage. The New York Times obliged with an account of the ‘Trial-Trip’ of the ‘new steamship Albatross’. Departing from Pier 2 on the North River that afternoon, Albatross made an excellent run to a considerable distance off Sandy Hook … The steady motion of the vessel and the easy play of her machinery, with the fitness and finish of her build, invoked the warmest commendations of the company.
39
Noting that Albatross had been built in Philadelphia in 1851, the account described the machinery: The ship is furnished with two of PIRSSON's Condensers, for manufacturing fresh water from salt, in quantities sufficient to supply the engines and the wants of crew and passengers. There are bunkers for 125 tons of coal, and space is afforded for 445 tons of storage. State-rooms are provided for 120 passengers.
40
An account in the New York Daily Herald also provided an admiring review, noting that the ‘very strong’ vessel had steamed with no ‘quiver felt as she passed through the water, and scarcely a ripple was caused by the action of the screw. Her passage was perfectly noiseless and smooth. She has fine roomy berths, several of them being double’. It was further noted that ‘She is to be sold’. 41 An ‘honorable addition to the steam navy of the country’, Albatross exemplified the ‘care and efficiency of her owners and builders’ – something reflected in the remarks made during the ‘sumptuous repast’ in the main saloon on the return trip to Manhattan, with Draper presiding and speeches by Draper, the shipping magnate Edward K. Collins, the chief engineer of Collins’ steamer Arctic, and ‘Mr. Thompson, the builder of the vessel’. 42
Draper, who would remain the majority owner of Albatross, was a Massachusetts-born merchant who had relocated to New York and garnered wealth from real estate, investments and auctions, as well as insurance and banking. A prominent Whig, he was a friend of Daniel Webster, Thurlow Weed and William H. Seward. Well connected did not mean well funded, or willing to shoulder the full cost of a steamer that had already been part of a bankrupt shipping line – hence the ‘She is to be sold’ comment.
Rather than join the regular – and already crowded – fleet of various steamers carrying gold-seekers to California via the Panama or Nicaragua routes, Albatross became the ‘pioneer’ steamer of what proved to be a short-lived mail, freight and passenger line between New York, Halifax, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island and Quebec.
43
In late June, the New York Commercial Advertiser, as quoted in the Boston Evening Transcript, reported that Draper has entered into negotiation with the British government to convey the mail on the intercolonial part of a given route between this city and Quebec … They have purchased the fine steamer Albatross of 1100 tons burden and 250 horsepower, and she is to run twice a month from this port to Halifax, Pictou, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward's Island and Lower Canada.
44
A week later, the Charlottetown paper The Islander reported on the new line and Draper's latest investor, Arthur Sleigh (1821–1869): THE ST. LAWRENCE STEAMER NEW ARRANGEMENT The noble project of placing a steamer on the St Lawrence originated with Major Norton, the efficient United States Consul at Pictou, Nova Scotia, and through his efforts Provincial Grants, towards this object, were obtained from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island Legislatures. While the projector of this movement has been in New York, completing his arrangements, Captain Arthur Sleigh, late of the British Army, a gentleman of great wealth, and extensive Land owner in Prince Edward Island made overtures to the Major, which have been accepted, the proprietorship has changed hands, and the line will go into operation on a more extended plan than was at first contemplated. Captain Sleigh has purchased the beautiful steamer Albatross, now in New York, and she will leave immediately for Quebec, touching at Halifax, Pictou, Charlottetown, Shediac, Miramichi, and Gaspe. It is said to be the intention of the proprietor to put another boat on the route as soon as she can be obtained. Thus, through the efforts of Major Norton alone, this spirited enterprise, so important to the Colonies, has been projected; and under the new arrangement, it will be placed on a footing of permanent success. No man in the Colonies has a deeper interest at stake than Captain Sleigh. His Estate on Prince Edward Island – his future place of residence – embraces 100,000 acres of land, equal for agricultural purposes to any part of British North America, and is intersected with bays and rivers, embracing ‘mill privileges’ and shipping facilities of great importance in the prosperous commercial progress of that colony. And more than all, we know the proprietor to be imbued with unconquerable enterprise, and that heartfelt spirit of ambition for the prosperity of his adopted country, which has long been wanted to stimulate trade and commerce throughout the British Colonial possessions, and secure to that people a permanent prosperity, derived from their own abundant resources.
45
Quebec-born entrepreneur Burrows Wilcocks Arthur Sleigh, described at the time as ‘the extensive landed proprietor of Prince Edward's Island’, joined Draper in forming the New York, Halifax and Quebec Line of Steamships. Albatross was the sole asset, advertised as having been built at a cost of $120,000, and … not a year old … The Albatross carries a crew of 36 men, carries two brass six-pounders on the forward forecastle, has splendid cabin accommodations for 120 passengers including six family cabins and state bed rooms. She is most luxuriously fitted up, and water laid into marble basins in each cabin … The build of this steamer, while it ensures great speed, from her clipper form, carries a large cargo. She can easily stow away 450 tons of freightage, or 3,500 barrels, and, we are informed, her owner proposes to freight her for the New York market, with the products of the Maritime Provinces … A new source of revenue is thus at once afforded to our people, and our country will be visited by men of enterprise and keen perception.
47
The New Orleans Times-Picayune of 18 August 1852 noted that Albatross had steamed from Boston on 16 August for Halifax. Its return from Quebec was advertised for 19 August but it left on 21 August. 49 An account in the New York Daily Herald in late August reported that Albatross had gone aground while entering Charlottetown on the previous voyage ‘by mistaking a light in the harbor’, but was ‘got off without damage by discharging a portion of the cargo’. 50 However, financial losses compounded as, passenger counts remained small; in a steamer that advertised 120 cabins, the voyages through September 1852 listed at various times 8 and 14 cabin passengers, and between 5 and 15 passengers in steerage. 51 The government mail contract and subsidy never happened, even as the company advertised itself as a line of ‘Royal Mail Steamships’. 52 The New York Times reported on 10 September 1852 that ‘the steamer Albatross is to be withdrawn from the Halifax route and sent on a voyage from Quebec to Australia’. 53 That did not happen. Instead, creditors seized Albatross for unpaid debts.
There was also the question as to whether Draper’s partner was who or what he claimed to be. The London Guardian published a letter from ‘A Private Correspondent’ in 1856 stating that Sleigh had ‘first made his appearance a few years ago, in our North American colonies, as an officer of the 77th Regiment’. Sleigh left the regiment and ‘engaged in a variety of speculations’, in which he was accused of misrepresentations, and his purchase of ‘a magnificent estate in Prince Edward's Island, called the Worrell Estate … without having the wherewithal to pay for it, was an exploit which excited no little astonishment in that quiet colony’. Upon the faith … of this quasi-purchase, Captain Sleigh managed to get possession of a steamer called the Albatross, and commenced running her between Quebec and New York, touching at Prince Edward's Island. Simeon Draper, the owner of this steamboat, naturally objected to see his vessel in the possession of a man who did not seem likely to pay for it. Before long the bubble burst. Captain Sleigh found himself in a Halifax gaol, where he was lodged for some time, and the Albatross was given to its rightful owner in New York.
54
The correspondent cited an article in the Prince Edward Island’s Examiner noting that a brief – and cancelled – appointment to a lieutenant colonelcy in the 2nd Kings’ County Regiment of Militia after three months’ service had not dissuaded Sleigh to continue to call himself lieutenant colonel and was one of the most harmless of his peccadilloes. A great deal worse than that was to be expected from a man who drove poor Simeon Draper from affluence to bankruptcy – who sought to strip him of his steamboat as well as of his money – and who attempted through a regular system of chicanery, lying and the falsest pretence, to assume the airs of a feudal lord, when he did not possess a foot of ground in our whole territory.
55
A 2011 dissertation on Sleigh's later endeavours, and the British Daily Telegraph provide a more complete and critical biography of Sleigh. It notes that he was ‘prone to exaggeration … Debt was a way of life for him and no doubt his self aggrandisement and his bogus military rank helped him get credit far beyond his worth’. 56 As for the contract for the Royal Mail, this ‘was clearly one of Sleigh's pre-sale exaggerations and there is every possibility that his co-purchasers had proceeded with the deal believing this contract was in place’. 57 It also notes that ‘Sleigh always maintained that he was the sole proprietor’. 58 The venture was doomed to failure, as its short run proved. ‘Sleigh … was impetuous, impulsive, persuasive and reckless. Despite his ideas being worthy and often ahead of their time, he appeared to always set himself on a collision course with reality. This was no exception’. 59 The Canadians, who followed Sleigh's ignominious fall and his jailing for debt in Halifax, remembered the ‘Colonel’ as a humbug for years.
As a part owner, with Sleigh's default, Draper appears to have stepped into the breach and regained Albatross. However, the vessel had left American registry and was now British-flagged. Working his political connections, Draper was able to have Congress pass an act authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to issue the registration on 14 February 1853. 60 Draper's Whig connections had come through for him. Thus ended the unfortunate second act of Albatross's career. The third and final act would take place in the Gulf of Mexico.
A new opportunity: The Mexican route
The land mass of Mexico was only 124 miles wide; the ‘Isthmus of Tehuantepec’, as it came to be known, was an early focus for establishing a fast interoceanic route to the Pacific, as this was the narrowest spot in the Americas that separated the Gulf of Mexico from the Pacific. Panama is narrower, at 48 miles, but was farther away from major shipping lines and the great port of New Orleans. The Gold Rush, and the increased focus of eager gold-seekers to find isthmian shortcuts to get to California more quickly, inspired American entrepreneurs to work to ‘open’ the Tehuantepec route. The narrowest part of the isthmus was well south of Vera Cruz at the mouth of the Coatzacoalcos River.
The port town of Coatzacoalcos was a logical place for steamers to call at, but so too was the river town of Minatitlán, 20 miles up the river, which was relatively deep and wide enough for large steamers to cross the bar and proceed upriver that far; after that, the river ‘is shallow, with a shifting bottom’ and full of snags. 61 There was, however, no major Mexican port on the Pacific side, only the small coastal towns of La Ventosa and Salina Cruz in the Bahía de Ventosa. This was, however, sufficient for the enterprising spirit of American investors and, in time, a United States Government survey for a railroad proposed by New Orleans investors – a document which claimed that the exposed port of Ventosa was ‘much safer than the harbor of Vera Cruz’. 62 Later, franker assessments found this to be inaccurate, noting storms ‘during which no ship can be safe at anchor’ and, with heavy seas, ‘frequently it is impossible to land with the best surfboats’. 63
The Tehuantepec route was first serviced by steamers when SS Alabama commenced runs from New Orleans in December 1850; running up to Minatitlán, Alabama's captain took his steamer 90 miles upriver to the town of Suchil and discharged his passengers and their baggage for the 117-mile overland trek to La Ventosa. 64 Among those passengers was the Railroad Company-sponsored party that would assess the route, mapping and conducting scientific surveys. 65 This was the first of at least three voyages chartered by the Railroad Company for $8,000. 66
Alabama, previously running from New Orleans to Chagres, was at that time engaged in the ‘Mexican Mail Line of Steamships’ that had been organized to exploit the advantages of a mail contract from the Mexican government between Vera Cruz and Acapulco held by Albert Clarke Ramsey (1813–1869). 67 Ramsay was the son of a prominent Jacksonian Democrat from Pennsylvania, an attorney and a Mexican War veteran with strong connections in Mexico; he was fluent in Spanish. The Gold Rush gave him an opportunity to exploit his knowledge and connections in both governments to make Mexico an alternate and profitable route for mail and passengers in addition to Panama and Nicaragua. With advertised round-trip voyages between New Orleans and Vera Cruz through early February 1851, Alabama's owners were able to subsidize their operation with the railroad contract. 68 Alabama and its sister steamer, SS Florida, had been built by William H. Webb in New York for Samuel L. Mitchell's New York and Savannah Steam Navigation Company, but like their immediate predecessors, Cherokee and Tennessee, they had been diverted to Gold Rush service.
Meanwhile, Ramsey was eager to promote his contract to link Vera Cruz with Acapulco, a regular stop for the Pacific isthmian steamers, and sought new investors, promising that Tehuantepec notwithstanding, Mexican authorities would come with a three-year extension to his contract. To make the deal work, Ramsey also sought a contract with the United States Postmaster General for a mail subsidy that would begin in 1853. Ramsey hoped to link to ocean service on both sides of the country via stagecoaches. Ramsay's backers were New Orleans and New York investors, including Charles Morgan's son-in-law Israel Harris, Robert G. Rankin, William Henry Aspinwall (president of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company) and Edwin Bartlett (Aspinwall's partner in founding the Pacific Mail and a co-founder of the Panama Railroad), and the New York businessmen Edward H. Mc Carmick, Silas C. Herring, Elihu Townsend, R. B. Coleman and Simeon Draper.
Ramsey incorporated the Mexican Ocean Mail and Inland Company in early 1853 and entered into a contract with the United States Postmaster General in March of that year to carry mail on its steamers and via rail, which would link Vera Cruz with Acapulco. The potential for the new line – ‘the Ramsey route … the first line for a chain of mail contracts for the whole distance, which the Postmaster has now under advisement’ – would commence when ‘the steamer Albatross leaves today for Vera Cruz, her first trip, to organize this line and route’. 69
Ramsay and his partners had come to an agreement with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company for its steamers to carry mail for them, with their steamers running to and from Panama when they made their scheduled coastal stops in Acapulco. Departing from New York on 8 January 1853 and heading first to Havana and then to Vera Cruz, Albatross was to ‘take passengers for the Pacific side, who will cross Mexico by the new land transit to Acapulco, at which both the Panama and Nicaragua steamers call’. Newspaper accounts noted that the ‘transit is by a line of stages under American auspices – the line being a special grant from the Mexican Government to Mr. Ramsey and others’. 70
The New Orleans Times-Picayune reported, via a special correspondent from New York, that Albatross was departing from New York for Vera Cruz on 15 January: She will carry letters and passengers for San Francisco, which will reach that port, via Acapulco, in about twenty days; at least such is the presumption. The A. already has a considerable number of passengers engaged, and on the day of her departure will doubtless have a full list. This, certainly, to all appearances, is the most pleasant, as it is the most speedy, of any of the routes now established.
71
The steamer is said to be the first of those composing a tri-monthly line to be put on between our port and Vera Cruz. She is advertised in the Vera Cruz papers to leave that port for New York so soon as the mail agent shall return from Acapulco, which would be about the 10th or 12th instant, and it is stated that she will touch at New Orleans and Havana.
72
The investors in the company hoped to cut the transit time down from ‘this trial trip’ and make the transit of people, baggage, freight and mail – and news – in 12 days. The New York Daily Herald, in reporting the news, noted that there was a 12-hour delay in transmitting the news from New Orleans because the telegraph line from the Balize to the city was down, and this would have materially changed the style of the letters sent by the steamer bound from this port [New York] to the isthmus. The sudden change in the California markets would have produced a material change in the orders sent forward to San Francisco. We only advert to these facts to show the vast importance of early intelligence from the metropolis of the Pacific.
74
This was an exciting prospect for New Orleans investors, as well as those in New York, who noted that the experimental trip of the steamship Albatross, terminating the route on this side of Mexico, proved beyond a doubt the great availability of this route in establishing the feasibility of very rapid connection between this city and the chief port of California.
In addition, New Orleans was placed ‘in speedier communication with California than any other Atlantic city, and you give her another layer of great power over commercial and moneyed resources that none of her rivals can command or compete with’. The Daily Evening Picayune noted that ‘the Mexican trade is a capricious one’ and, while that aspect might falter, ‘it is the trade with California, or at least the increase of the interest of this city with that trade, that we want. This new route will give it to us’. 75
Albatross steamed back to New York, stopping at Havana to coal, and arrived on 4 March.
76
As it readied to return to the Gulf, the company – now with a charter of Morgan's SS Texas in hand, with Texas beginning on the route as of 14 April 1853, when it would depart from New Orleans for Vera Cruz – announced: THE NEW ROUTE TO CALIFORNIA. – The new mail line to California, by the Ramsey route through Mexico, is commencing. The steamer Albatross leaves this city on the 31st, Vera Cruz, and the steamer Texas starts from New Orleans on the 14th of next month for the same port. The service in future is to be regular. The road in Mexico in a short time will be furnished with wagons and animals, so as to make the whole line complete. It is in contemplation to supply New Orleans with a weekly mail from California, as steamers now leave San Francisco for Acapulco every week … and on the Gulf of Mexico the service is to be four times each month … as soon as required.
77
The wreck
Albatross wrecked just hours away from the completion of that voyage. While a number of news stories stated the wreck took place on 10 April, the steamer was lost on the evening of 17 April. Captain A. H. Greene's account stated: She had on board fourteen passengers and a small cargo. Nothing of particular importance occurred on the voyage until the night of the 17th. Inst[and], when she unfortunately struck on the Cabezos reef, a few miles south of Vera Cruz, which accident was caused by a very strong southerly current. The ship filling very fast, we were obliged to leave her in the ship's boats, in order to save the lives of the passengers and crew. A heavy seas was running at the time, but fortunately all were landed in safety on the coast.
79
A translation of an account of the wreck in the Vera Cruz Eco del Comercio noted: ‘The crew and passengers took to the boats at day break … and landed at Anton Lizardo. Shortly after the ship was abandoned, the hull disappeared under water’.
81
Anton Lizardo is a small fishing town south of Vera Cruz. Its lights would have been visible to the boats. A 19 May article in the Franklin, Louisiana newspaper the Planter's Banner noted that Albatross recently became the property of Simeon Draper, of New York, in payment of advances amounting to $60,000, and at the time of her wreck was on the second trip to Vera Cruz, the passengers bound to California by the Acapulco route. She was insured principally in New York.
82
Draper, who had insured Albatross with five separate New York insurance companies for $60,000, was unable to collect and ultimately lost his lawsuits against the insurance companies in 1855; two years later, Draper was bankrupt due to bad business deals. His woes were shared by the Mexican Ocean Mail and Inland Company. A newly appointed Postmaster General lobbied Congress to reject the contract, arguing that the subsidies were too high for too little return, the schedules of the Pacific steamers did not synchronize with the stages or with the schedule of SS Texas, and the receipts for freight and passage were insignificant, and by mid 1853 the line was faltering. 83 The Mexican Ocean Mail and Inland Company faded away, another mid-nineteenth-century business failure in an age of unbridled capitalistic enthusiasm. None of this changed Charles Morgan's enthusiasm; he had ordered another steamer for the Vera Cruz line, SS Orizaba, in 1853. 84 But Draper was out of the steamship business.
There were two brief eulogies for Albatross published in the news. The New York Daily Herald on 27 April noted that Albatross had left New York on 31 March for Vera Cruz ‘and was lost on her outbound passage’, and summarized the steamer's career as built in Philadelphia, by Captain Loper … was first employed, we believe, in the Southern trade from Philadelphia. She afterwards was placed in a new line between New York, Halifax, Quebec and other cities in the British provinces, in which she made two trips, last summer. It was contemplated at the time to keep up a bi monthly communication between New York and those cities by means of the Albatross and another steamer to be built for the purpose, but the idea was abandoned, and the Albatross withdrawn. Her next voyage was from this city to Vera Cruz and back … The Albatross was valued at about $60,000 or $70,000, and is stated to be fully covered by insurance.
85
An account of the loss made clear the outrage of the passengers: The steamship Albatross went ashore on Cabezas reef on the 18th April, ten miles from the shore, and twenty-six from Vera Cruz. The steamship Texas immediately went to her relief, but found the passengers had all landed and gone to Vera Cruz, and the steamer slipped off the reef, and nearly out of sight. The passengers lost all their luggage, and entered a protest against Captain Greene, to whom they attribute the disaster.
86
Fraud and consequences
The loss of Albatross ultimately brought Draper and the other investors no relief. While the contemporary accounts are silent, the circumstances of the loss seem clear. There was no excuse for running the steamer onto the reef. The wreck was the result of barratry, or gross misconduct by a master and crew. A dramatic example of barratry was (and remains) the deliberate scuttling or wrecking of a vessel to defraud insurers. Barratry was more common in earlier eras without modern tracking and recording systems to bear witness. A 1902 treatise on insurance and crime plainly stated that ‘another thing that has made marine insurance a particularly good breeding ground for fraud and other crimes is the difficulty of proving any alleged wrong’. 87
While ‘fully covered by insurance’, what emerged, as previously noted, was that Draper had insured the steamer with five different insurance companies, one of them being the Commercial Insurance Company. In its March 1855 term, the New York Superior Court ruled against Draper, as he had placed former Captain McNeill on board Albatross as his representative ‘to navigate the ship’ but McNeill was not the master of the steamer – Captain Greene was. Even though the court ruled that Greene and the crew were culpable of negligence and carelessness, Draper was not entitled to payment because his captain, McNeill, while given the responsibility to navigate, did not possess the legal authority of command – ‘his whole power was derived from the commission which he held from Draper, the owner of the vessel’. 88
The loss was essentially Draper and McNeill's fault. ‘An incompetent master, with a powerless assistant, [were] not enough to satisfy the requirements’ of the law in regard to the responsibilities of a master such as Captain Greene, who, with Captain McNeill on board solely as Draper's agent, occupied ‘a post of duty unknown to commercial usage and law, and wholly without authority over the crew’, and to pay Draper would be introducing a dangerous principle into the law of insurance to hold the insurer under such circumstances liable. There [was] not a particle of evidence to show that the defendants in these cases had the slightest intimation of the arrangement in respect to the employment of Greene and McNeill, when the vessel left the port of New York. They had no reason to expect such an arrangement, and in all probability would have refused to insure had they known it.
89
Thus, no insurance settlement was made for the loss of Albatross. The ruling may have been a blessing for Draper, as it sidestepped the question of whether Albatross had been deliberately driven onto the reef. The other question – of five different insurance policies for one steamer, which had then wrecked – is one on which the historical record is silent. Thus ends the third and final act in the unfortunate life of the steamer Albatross. Throughout its life, the steamer had been caught up in a web of bad business decisions, misrepresentation and outright fraud, particularly in the ill-fated short-term Canadian venture. While Sleigh was clearly a fraud in that endeavour, the question of Draper's culpability is worthy of inquiry. Draper, and other speculators of his time, lived in an unregulated age of opportunity as America and the world evolved into a global market, linked by rail and steamships. Fortunes were made and fortunes were lost. And yet, this era saw the rise of ‘robber barons’ – notably, the nineteenth century's best-known example, Draper's contemporary, but not equal, Cornelius Vanderbilt.
Chicanery and outright fraud, as well as bribes, were common in nineteenth-century mail contracts, railroads, steamship subsidies, and especially the establishment of transatlantic and isthmian steamship lines. Congress was besieged by and greedily responded to the requests and bequests of the ‘steam beggars’ of the era. ‘In 1853 a Washington correspondent could pick out the borers in abundance: mail contractors, Texas land speculators, claims agents, steamship subsidy men, New-York dry dock promoters, and the lobbies purchased reporters – an all too imposing crew’. 90 Vanderbilt was perhaps the best known of these unscrupulous and hard-hearted speculators and steamboat men, but he was not alone: ‘on every hand, and in every line, were men as fully as active and unprincipled’. 91
Draper was one of those men. The career of Albatross underscores that fact, as does his subsequent career. The pursuit of the mail subsidies for Albatross throughout its brief career reflects the economic reality of ocean postage being incredibly lucrative; in 1851, ‘the amount received for Trans-Atlantic postages was not less than a million dollars’, or some $40.5 million in United States dollars in 2025. 92 The failure to keep a subsidy doomed Albatross, as subsidies were used as ‘private capital to build more and newer ships constantly’, paying for the costs of construction and outfitting, and ‘a careful tracing of the history of all of the subsidized steamship companies proves that this plunder from the Government was very considerably more than enough to build up and equip their lines’. 93
Draper and his partners’ barratry and overinsurance of Albatross was neither unusual or unexpected. As many of his class and occupation were prone to do, he carried a heavy debt load. This was viewed then, in nineteenth-century society, as a personal moral failure, made common by the immorality of the credit system, as was bankruptcy. 94 Draper's fortunes ebbed mid-century, and the Panic of 1857 bankrupted him. However, Draper, who had migrated with other Whigs to the new Republican Party in 1856, was active in local and state party politics and had grifting experience as a ‘steam beggar’. This helped sustain him, and likely helped fight off some legal challenges, although he was no stranger to the courtroom. Draper ultimately died rich, however, thanks to those connections, especially Thurlow Weed as the New York ‘boss’ of Whig politics, who agreed to back Lincoln's second run for office in the 1864 election in exchange, among other considerations, for naming Draper as Collector of the Port for New York. 95 It was also suggested, and remains an open possibility, that Draper bribed Mary Todd Lincoln with $20,000 to get her to lobby for the post. 96
This patronage appointment led to Draper serving as Collector of the Port of New York from September 1864 to August 1865. It was apparently all he needed to recoup his fortune after his earlier losses and the Panic of 1857. Within a few years of his death, a congressional investigation found that Draper ‘was known to be a bankrupt. It is a well-known fact that he settled his debts and died leaving property estimated at millions’. 97 As the Collector and also serving as the United States Cotton Agent in New York, Draper was the last in a line of agents who processed and sold captured bales of cotton seized by Union forces for the ‘benefit’ of the United States Treasury. That process started after seizure, as the bales were shipped to New York; at each step, they were assessed and ‘taxed’ while en route to their final destination, although instead of ‘tax’ the term of the time used for the process was ‘tolls’.
The agent who made the seizure would collect a ‘toll’ of a quarter or half of the bales; ‘the supervising agent would levy his contribution, when the remnant would shipped … to Draper in New York’. 98 There it was again ‘tolled’ and manipulated by Draper, so that the government and the owners received a small amount. A post-war investigation suggested that what Draper received and sold, which netted $15 million, should have made $50 million: ‘Thus was cotton manipulated by Simeon Draper, United States cotton agent at New York … Draper only did on a large scale what was universally the practice of Treasury agents on a lesser scale’. 99
The portrait of Draper that emerges, according to a late-nineteenth-century family historian, is that he was less than scrupulous, fond of ‘blustery great oaths’ and corrupt. 100 He was neither unique nor the worst example of his class of that era, a time that has been summarized as one of ‘[a] huge disparity in wealth between rich and poor; the concentration of great power in private hands; the fraud and deception that thrives in an unregulated environment’. 101 There is also the argument, made in 1844, that ‘in most cases insolvency is caused by mistakes that originate in personal character’, exacerbated by ‘inexperience, greed, and an initial shortage of capital’. 102
Discovering the wreck
Unfortunate up to its end, Albatross quickly faded into obscurity. The wreck, forgotten, slowly disintegrated, leaving only traces – primarily, its iron machinery wedged into and corroded onto the rocks of Arrecife Cabezas (Cabezas Reef). The reef is now part of the Parque Nacional Sistema Arrecifal Veracruzano, established in 1992. It incorporates islands and 23 reefs, including Cabezas. In 1986, working under a permit from Veracruz State Governor Agustín Acosta Lagunes, the explorer and avocational archaeologist George Belcher of San Francisco discovered the wreck in 80 feet of water while using a towed magnetometer to survey the waters around Vera Cruz.
That project, to locate the 1846 wreck of the United States naval brig Somers, covered a large area of ocean to find the wreck. He notified the governor and Pilar Luna Erreguerena, Mexico's pioneer maritime archaeologist and head of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología y Historia's underwater archaeology unit, of the discovery and that he had seen evidence of other dives on it; for that reason, an intact bottle of Medoc wine, likely from Albatross's stores, which he found lying loose, had been recovered. He deposited the bottle with the governor's office. After finding and diving on Albatross, which Belcher was able to identify because of its oscillating engines and propeller, and the type and age of the wine bottle, Belcher proceeded to find Somers closer to the city of Vera Cruz. 103 Work on Somers consumed Belcher's time, as well as that of a multinational team of archaeologists from Mexico and the United States. No opportunity to assess Albatross arose. One hundred and seventy-two years after its loss, the wreck rests on the reef, probably dived by locals and visiting marine-life enthusiasts who are unaware of its short and unfortunate history.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the late George Belcher for introducing me to the wreck of the Albatross and beginning what has been a four-decade quest to learn more about a seemingly inconsequential steamship, whose story reveals much more than the nuances of its construction, voyages and shipwreck. I thank the late John Haskell Kemble and Cedric Ridgely-Nevitt for their encouragement and guidance on matters of mid-nineteenth-century steamships; my Canadian colleagues and hosts on my visits to Albatross’s ports of call in Halifax, Charlottetown and Quebec; and my Mexican colleagues in Vera Cruz. I also acknowledge and appreciate the anonymous peer review of this article, which materially assisted with the final product.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author declares no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
