The Patrick Henry (packet) was a three-masted, square-rigged, merchant-class, sailing packet ship that transported mail, newspapers, merchandise and thousands of people from 1839 to 1864, during the Golden Age of Sail, primarily between Liverpool and New York City, as well as produce, grains and clothing to aid in humanitarian efforts during an Gorta Mór.Tepper, Michael, and Glazier, Ira A.. The Famine Immigrants: Lists of Irish Immigrants Arriving at the Port of New York, 1846–1851. United States, Genealogical Publishing Company, 1983. Seven Volumes.Aid to Ireland: Report of the General Relief Committee of the City of New York; with Schedules of Their Receipts in Money, Provisions and Clothing; the Particulars of Their Shipments and Extracts from the Correspondence and Publications. United States, the Committee, 1848.
History The Patrick Henry was designed and constructed between 1838 and 1839 by the shipbuilding firm Brown & Bell, at the foot of Stanton Street and Houston Street on the East River in New York City.Formed in 1820, by David Brown and Jacob Bell, in the shipyard previously occupied by Adam and Noah Brown, the firm would build the first true American clipper, the Houqua, in 1844. Brown & Bell, New York NY. The ship was named for American Founding Father Patrick Henry.
Company principal and shipbuilder Jacob Bell hired a young shipwright named Donald McKay, who helped design and build her. McKay became a world-famous naval architect, and was known for the designs of his record-setting extreme clippers.
The Patrick Henry was launched from her construction docks into the East River on Thursday, October 10, 1839.The New York Daily Herald, Saturday, October 12, 1839, page 2.
She was registered on November 6, 1839, at 880/905 tons (old/new measurement) and was 159 feet in length, 34 feet 10 inches in beam, and 21 feet 10 inches in depth of hold, with two decks and a draft of eighteen feet.Albion, Robert Greenhalgh. Square-riggers on Schedule: The New York Sailing Packets to England, France, and the Cotton Ports (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1938), pp. 278–279
The ship was named in honor of American attorney, planter, politician, orator and Founding Father best known for his declaration to the Second Virginia Convention: "Give me liberty or give me death!" A new edition of the classic biography Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry, by William Wirt, was released the following month (December 1839), by Adlard & Saunders, New York, publishers at 46 Broadway. A revised edition was published by Thomas, Cowperthwait & Co., Philadelphia, the same year.
The vessel was built to handle forty first-class passengers, "one thousand tons of merchandise" and featured "the full-length figure of the Virginian for her figurehead." She was said to cost $90,000, more than $2.5 million today, though no contract could be located."American Ship Building-Three New Packet Ships," New York Morning Herald, September 19, 1839, p.2. Valued at $2,518,345.16 at Inflation Calculator.
She sailed in the Blue Swallowtail Line (Fourth Line) of Packets, of Grinnell, Minturn & Co., between New York and Liverpool from 1839 until 1852 when she transferred to the Red Swallowtail Line of Packets between New York and London.
Packet ships were named for the "packets" of mail they originally were designed to transport after which they began carrying freight and passengers and engaged in the packet trade. They are the predecessors of the 20th-century ocean liner and were the first to sail between American and European ports on regular schedules. Used extensively in European coastal mail services since the 17th century, they gradually added cramped passenger accommodation. The first scheduled transatlantic packet company, the Black Ball Line "Old Line," began operating January 1, 1818, offering a monthly service between New York and Liverpool with four ships. In 1821, Byrnes, Grimble & Co. inaugurated the Red Star Line of Liverpool Packets, with the four ships Panther, Hercules, Manhattan and Meteor. In 1822, Messrs Fish, Grinnell & Co. began the Swallowtail Line, known as the "Fourth Line of Packets for New York," their first ships being the Silas Richards, Napoleon, George and York, which soon moved to bi-weekly service. By 1825, vessels were advertised as leaving New York on the 8th and leaving Liverpool on the 24th of every month.Liverpool Mercury, December 23, 1825. Their actual schedules eventually varied, sometimes wildly, due to weather and other conditions.Hollett, David. Passage to the New World: packet ships and Irish famine emigrants, 1845–1851. United Kingdom, P.M. Heaton, 1995, p. 78.
A Yankee captain of an American packet never takes "off his clothes to go to bed, during the whole voyage," according to an early Emigrants' Guide. "The consequence of this great watchfulness is, that, advantage is taken of every puff of wind, while the risk from the squalls and sudden gusts is, in a great measure, obviated." For a "quick and safe passage," American packets were the best. "The Americans sail faster than others, owing to the greater skill and greater vigilance of the captains, and to their great sobriety..."Corbett, William. The emigrant's guide in ten letters, addressed to the tax-payers of England : containing information of every kind, necessary to persons who are about to emigrate : including several authentic and most interesting letters from English emigrants, now in America, to their relations in England. London: The author, 1830.
The Patrick Henry was developed as a "make-weight," or competitive response, to the Rosicus, a 1,030-ton packet ship built the previous year (1838) by the same shipyard that built the PH, Brown & Bell, for the new competitor, the Dramatic Line of Atlantic packets (Collins Line).Sheldon, G. W. The old packet and clipper service. Harper's New Monthly Magazine. United States, Harper & Brothers, 1884. Twelve years later (1851), Moses H. Grinnell, investor in the Patrick Henry and partner in Grinnell, Minturn & Co. purchased, for $90,000, the Flying Cloud, arguably the greatest clipper ship ever built. It sailed from New York to San Francisco (rounding Cape Horn) in 89 days and eight hours (1854), a record that held for 130 years.Ujifusa, Steven. Barons of the Sea: And Their Race to Build the World's Fastest Clipper Ship. United States, Simon & Schuster, 2018, p. 255.
Performance The Patrick Henry's westward passages averaged 34 days, her shortest passage being 22 days, her longest 46 days. Beginning in 1852 her westbound passages averaged 32 days, her shortest passage being 26 days, her longest 41 days. The vessel's best homeward crossing of 22 days was better than the crossings of either of the grander packets: the Swallowtail's Cornelius Grinnell (built in 1850, 1,100 tons) and the Black Ball Line's Great Western (built in 1851, 1,443 tons). Her longest run in the London-Portsmouth run at 41 days was even better than the Grinnell (48 days) or the New World (built in 1846, 1,400 tons) (42 days), one of the largest Swallowtails.An Irish Passenger, An American Family, And Their Time. Text only. Retrieved January 1, 2020Fairburn, William Armstrong. Merchant Sail. Volume 2. United States, Fairburn Marine Educational Foundation, 1945, p. 1164. The Patrick Henry was among only four packets of the day—Montezuma, Southampton, St. Andrew, and the prestigious clipper Dreadnought—to make the eastbound passage from New York to Liverpool in fourteen days or less. Only two transatlantic sailing packets showed a better average speed record on the westbound crossing for a period of twenty-five years or more (thirty-three days) and only one equaled her average performance.
By 1843 four lines of packets were advertising sailings on eighteen different ships between Liverpool and New York, every month, on the 1st, 7th, 13th, 19th and 25th. The Patrick Henry, Capt. Delano, was the first advertised.Disturnell, John. The New York State Register, for 1843: Containing an Almanac, Civil Divisions, and Census of the State; with Political, Statistical and Other Information...also, a Full List of County Officers, Attorneys, &c. United States, J. Disturnell, 1843, p. 215
Construction The Patrick Henry mirrored her namesake in her radical nature, according to the Mayor of New York Philip Hone, who kept a diary said to be the most extensive and detailed on the first half of the US in the 19th century. "She is the ne plus ultra, or will be, until another ship of her class shall be built," he wrote in October 1839 after touring the "splendid new ship" with Henry Grinnell, one of her owners. For five years, the Patrick Henry was the largest packet ship among New York's eight packet lines.The Diary of Philip Hone. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. 1889, p. 386.
"This fine new ship, which arrived on Monday last, after a smart passage, is now lying at the east side of the Prince's Dock," according to a lengthy review of her construction published in the Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser after her maiden voyage. "She is of about a thousand tons burden, new measurement; was built for Messrs. Grinnell and Minturn's line of packets, (consigned to Messrs. Wildes, Pickersgill and Co., of this town), by Messrs. Brown and Bell, of New York, and is in every point a first-rate ship. A New York contemporary says, in noticing this vessel—"To speak of new packets is so common an occurrence, that it attracts but little attention. Nautical men, however, are never tired of seeing a new ship. A large number of gentlemen, familiar with the science of ship-building, have visited this extraordinary vessel, and have pronounced her to be, in every respect, one of the finest ships now belonging to this or any other port." Our contemporary will be gratified to learn that many gentlemen, equally versed in naval architecture, on this side the Atlantic, have visited the "Patrick Henry," and express a high opinion, corroborative of that of their Transatlantic brethren. As we feel assured—such is the interest taken in whatever belongs to navigation in this maritime country—that not only nautical, but mercantile men, and Englishmen generally, are never weary of hearing of improvement in naval architecture, we shall notice this new packet-ship more particularly.
"The "Patrick Henry" is built of the very best materials, including live oak, African oak, elm, &c. She is of a fine model for a merchant vessel, has a handsome figure-head and decorated stern, and looks fine and warlike in the water.
"She bears a strong resemblance to the "Roscius," one of the very finest packet-ships on the station; and, like her, has a poop deck (under which is the range of cabins), and a topgallant forecastle, but without a spar deck, the main deck being open, and running (including the cabin sole) fore-and-aft. She is fastened in a superior manner, and is neatly rigged in the usual square style of the large fast vessels, amongst which she takes a conspicuous place. The entrance or smoking cabin, forming a vestibule to the main saloon, is at the extreme stern, lighted by the stern windows; and the floor is a few steps below the quarter-deck, the upper part or roof rising three or four feet above it. In the fore part of this is the wheel, with a window in front; so that the helmsman is completely sheltered from the weather, and has, at the same time, a sufficient view of the sails and the effect of the rudder on the movements of the ship. Two neat staircases, one on each side, lead to the grand cabin or saloon.
Saloon and staterooms