Maritime History

Born today, April 3, 1693, John Harrison, the cantankerous Yorkshireman who would go on to invent the naval chronometer and solve the mystery of calculating longitude at sea. Read the complete story on Atlas Obscura.

In an incident that some regard as the first naval engagement of the American Revolution, colonists board the Gaspee, a British vessel that ran aground off the coast of Rhode Island, and set it aflame. The Gaspee was pursuing the Hanna, an American smuggling ship, when it ran aground off Namquit Point in Providence’s Narragansett Bay on June 9. That evening, John Brown, an American merchant angered by high British taxes on his goods, rowed out to the Gaspee with a number of other colonists and seized control of the ship. After leading away its crew, the Americans set the Gaspee afire. Read the complete article at History.com. Also, refer to this Wikipedia article.

The Mary Celeste, a ship whose crew mysteriously disappeared, is spotted at sea December 5, 1872. The Dei Gratia, a small British brig under Captain David Morehouse, spots the Mary Celeste, an American vessel, sailing erratically but at full sail near the Azores Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. The ship was seaworthy, its stores and supplies were untouched, but not a soul was onboard. Read the complete article on History.com.

On April 27, 1865 the steamship Sultana exploded on the water. This Civil War ship explosion killed more people than the Titanic sinking. The Sultana was only legally allowed to carry 376 people. When its boilers exploded, it was carrying 2,300. Read the complete article on Smithsonian Magazine.

Spanish explorer Vicente Yanez Pinzon, who had commanded the Nina during Christopher Columbus’ first expedition to the New World, reaches the northeastern coast of Brazil during a voyage under his command. Pinzon’s journey produced the first recorded account of a European explorer sighting the Brazilian coast; though whether or not Brazil was previously known to Portuguese navigators is still in dispute. Pinzon subsequently sailed down the Brazilian coast to the equator, where he briefly explored the mouth of the Amazon River. In the same year, Portuguese explorer Pedro Alvares Cabral claimed Brazil for Portugal, arguing that the territory fell into the Portuguese sphere of exploration as defined by the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas. However, little was done to support the claim until the 1530s, when the first permanent European settlements in Brazil were established at Sao Vicente in Sao Paulo by Portuguese colonists. Read the complete article on History.com.

On this date, December 24, 1814, the War of 1812 ends. The Treaty of Peace and Amity between His Britannic Majesty and the United States of America is signed by British and American representatives at Ghent, Belgium, ending the War of 1812. By terms of the treaty, all conquered territory was to be returned, and commissions were planned to settle the boundary of the United States and Canada. Read the complete article on History.com.

On February 24, 1841, former President John Quincy Adams begins to argue the Amistad case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. A practicing lawyer and member of the House of Representatives, John Quincy Adams was the son of America’s second president, founding father and avowed abolitionist John Adams. Although John Quincy Adams publicly downplayed his abolitionist stance, he too viewed the practice as contrary to the nation’s core principles of freedom and equality. After serving one term as president between 1825 and 1829, Adams was elected to the House of Representatives, in which he served until his death in 1848. During his tenure, he succeeded in repealing a rule that prevented any debate about slavery on the House floor. Read the complete article on History.com. For further reading, please see this article.

Spanish explorer Vicente Yanez Pinzon, who had commanded the Nina during Christopher Columbus’ first expedition to the New World, reaches the northeastern coast of Brazil during a voyage under his command. Pinzon’s journey produced the first recorded account of a European explorer sighting the Brazilian coast; though whether or not Brazil was previously known to Portuguese navigators is still in dispute. Pinzon subsequently sailed down the Brazilian coast to the equator, where he briefly explored the mouth of the Amazon River. In the same year, Portuguese explorer Pedro Alvares Cabral claimed Brazil for Portugal, arguing that the territory fell into the Portuguese sphere of exploration as defined by the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas. However, little was done to support the claim until the 1530s, when the first permanent European settlements in Brazil were established at Sao Vicente in Sao Paulo by Portuguese colonists. Read the full article on History.com.

After spending a winter trapped by ice in present-day Hudson Bay, the starving crew of the Discovery mutinies against its captain, English navigator Henry Hudson, and sets him, his teenage son, and seven supporters adrift in a small, open boat on 22 June, 1611. Hudson and the eight others were never seen again. Read the complete article on History.com.

On January 18, 1778, the English explorer Captain James Cook becomes the first European to travel to the Hawaiian Islands when he sails past the island of Oahu. Two days later, he landed at Waimea on the island of Kauai and named the island group the Sandwich Islands, in honor of John Montague, who was the earl of Sandwich and one his patrons. In 1768, Cook, a surveyor in the Royal Navy, was commissioned a lieutenant in command of the H.M.S. Endeavor and led an expedition that took scientists to Tahiti to chart the course of the planet Venus. In 1771, he returned to England, having explored the coast of New Zealand and Australia and circumnavigated the globe. Beginning in 1772, he commanded a major mission to the South Pacific and during the next three years explored the Antarctic region, charted the New Hebrides, and discovered New Caledonia. In 1776, he sailed from England again as commander of the H.M.S. Resolution and Discovery and in 1778 made his first visit to the Hawaiian Islands. Read the complete article on History.com.

Sir Robert Dudley (7 August 1574 – 6 September 1649) was an English explorer and cartographer. In 1594, he led an expedition to the West Indies, of which he wrote an account. The illegitimate son of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, he inherited the bulk of the Earl’s estate in accordance with his father’s will, including Kenilworth Castle. In 1603–1605, he tried unsuccessfully to establish his legitimacy in court. After that he left England forever, finding a new existence in the service of the grand dukes of Tuscany. There, he worked as an engineer and shipbuilder, and designed and published Dell’Arcano del Mare (1645–1646), the first maritime atlas to cover the whole world. He was also a skilled navigator and mathematician. In Italy, he styled himself “Earl of Warwick and Leicester”, as well as “Duke of Northumberland”, a title recognized by Emperor Ferdinand II. Read the complete article on Wikipedia.com. A tip of the hat to our European editor, Tony Goodenough, for identifying the subject of this article.

The Suez Canal, connecting the Mediterranean and the Red seas, is inaugurated in an elaborate ceremony attended by French Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III. Read the complete article on History.com.

Thomas Downing was a fine-dining pioneer with a secret.

Falls of Halladale was a four-masted iron-hulled barque, built at Greenock in Scotland in 1886 for the Falls Line of Glasgow. She was operated in the long-distance trading of bulk cargos. On 14 November 1908, she was wrecked on the Australian coast near Peterborough, Victoria, due to the negligence of the captain. Read the complete article on Wikipedia.com.

Three weeks into a journey from Tahiti to the West Indies, the HMS Bounty is seized in a mutiny led by Fletcher Christian, the master’s mate. Captain William Bligh and 18 of his loyal supporters were set adrift in a small, open boat, and the Bounty set course for Tubuai south of Tahiti. Read the complete article on History.com.

On May 19, 1588 a massive Spanish fleet, known as the “Invincible Armada,” sets sail from Lisbon on a mission to secure control of the English Channel and transport a Spanish invasion army to Britain from the Netherlands. [This historic engagement inspired many contemporary songs, as well as songs looking back on the action, including a 1982 rendition by Peter Bellamy of “The Spanish Armada” on his collection, The Maritime England Suite. This song was crafted from a poem written by John O’Keefe, published in 1902.] Read the complete article on History.com.

On December 30, 1862, the U.S.S. Monitor sinks in a storm off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. Just nine months earlier, the ship had been part of a revolution in naval warfare when the ironclad dueled to a standstill with the C.S.S. Virginia (Merrimack)off Hampton Roads, Virginia, in one of the most famous naval battles in American history–the first time two ironclads faced each other in a naval engagement.  (Note that while we try to limit these articles to feature tall ships from the Age of Sail, this development was signature to the end of the era.) Read the complete article on History.com.

The Erie Canal opens, connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean via the Hudson River. Governor DeWitt Clinton of New York, the driving force behind the project, led the opening ceremonies and rode the canal boat Seneca Chief from Buffalo to New York City. Work began on the waterway in August 1823. Teams of oxen plowed the ground, but for the most part the work was done by Irish diggers who had to rely on primitive tools. They were paid $10 a month, and barrels of whisky were placed along the canal route as encouragement. West of Troy, 83 canal locks were built to accommodate the 500-foot rise in elevation. After more than two years of digging, the 425-mile Erie Canal was opened on October 26, 1825, by Governor Clinton. The effect of the canal was immediate and dramatic. Settlers poured into western New York, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin. Goods were transported at one-tenth the previous fee in less than half the time. Barges of farm produce and raw materials traveled east, as manufactured goods and supplies flowed west. In nine years, tolls had paid back the cost of construction. Later enlarged and deepened, the canal survived competition from the railroads in the latter part of the 19th century. Today, the Erie Canal is used mostly by pleasure boaters, but it is still capable of accommodating heavy barges. Read the entire article on History.com.

Five Spanish ships were lost. The galleass San Lorenzo, flagship of Don Hugo de Moncada, ran aground at Calais and was taken by Howard after murderous fighting between the crew, the galley slaves, the English who eventually killed all Spanish and slaves, and the French, who ultimately took possession of the wreck. The galleons San Mateo and San Felipe drifted away in a sinking condition, ran aground on the island of Walcheren the next day, and were taken by the Dutch. One carrack ran aground near Blankenberge; another foundered. Many other Spanish ships were severely damaged, especially the Portuguese and some Spanish Atlantic-class galleons (including some Neapolitan galleys) which had to bear the brunt of the fighting during the early hours of the battle in desperate individual actions against groups of English ships. The Spanish plan to join with Parma’s army had been defeated and the English had gained some breathing space, but the Armada’s presence in northern waters still posed a great threat to England. Read the complete article on History.com.

June 8, 1708 the count of Casa Alegre knew a squadron of English warships was lurking in the area, but he thought he could avoid it. As captain of the Spanish galleon San José, he was charged with leading the Tierra Firma fleet from the Caribbean back to Spain, 17 ships in all, loaded with several years’ worth of treasure from the New World, enough perhaps to turn the tide of war in Europe. Casa Alegre had no doubt the English would be after the precious cargo. If he could reach the harbor of Cartagena de Indias, on the coast of what is now Colombia, the fleet would be safe. Then they appeared on the horizon to the north. Four English sails. To give the fleet’s merchant ships a chance to reach the harbor, Casa Alegre had no choice but to turn and fight. He hoisted the red battle flag up the mainmast and sailed toward the enemy, accompanied by two armed galleons. As in a bar brawl, the two most fearsome combatants sought each other out. At sunset, the 70-gun HMS Expedition, helmed by Commodore Charles Wager, took on the 62-gun San José. For more than an hour, they traded broadsides, sailing past each other while firing their cannons at close range, pulverizing wood and bone. Read the complete article in Vanity Fair. Also, refer to this article in Wikipedia.