Monthly Archives: March 2014

The Schooner Mammoth sets sail on a privateer cruise to Havana

On March 22, 1814, the Mammoth set sail for Havana on a maiden voyage with commander Samuel Franklin and a large crew of 100 seamen. Built by Thomas Kemp in 1813 for $40,000, the Mammoth was the largest privateer schooner built in Baltimore at the time, weighing 376 tons and measuring 112′ by 28’3″ by 13’4″. When ship was commissioned on March 7, the ship’s owners included John Gooding, Samuel Smith, James Williams, and James A. Buchanan.

With special thanks to volunteer Dennis Lilly and the Maryland Historical Society, we are excited to follow the first two voyages of the Mammoth from March through late October. The ship’s log acquired by the Maryland Historical Society in 2009 is likely a period copy of the original as the pages are clearly written and there are no water stains or other evidence of hard use from a long sea voyage.

Over the next few months, you can stay tuned for more daily updates on the lives of the Baltimore seamen on board the Mammoth but if you don’t mind the spoilers we have a quick preview of the events that lie ahead for this schooner.

Armed with 10 cannons, the Mammoth sailed to Havana where she unloaded her cargo then cruised the Caribbean, teaming up with two other privateers, to burn and harass the substantial English trade. In late spring, the Mammoth sailed north and put into Portsmouth on May 27 and stayed until June 23, 1814. The Mammoth’s second cruise began with a foray of burning English fishing vessels off the Grand Banks, where her attack on an armed English brig (probably the Sinclair) was repulsed. On October 10, 1814 she engaged in a long cannonade against an English transport, the Champion, which resulted in her capture. Mammoth transferred her cargo, and then returned the shot-up vessel to her commander. Franklin then sailed the Mammoth to Ireland, where she cruised, burning a number of captured vessels. She arrived back in Portland on November 15, 1814.

This post is adapted from the Maryland Historical Society Finding aid to The Schooner Mammoth Logs, 1814 and The Schooner Independencia del Sud, November, 1817 – January, 1822 MS 3082.

Havana Harbour and City From A Dictionary, Practical, Theoretical, and Historical of Commerce and Commercial Navigation, by J. R. (John Ramsay) McCulloch, 1882.
Havana Harbour and City, 1882. LEARN NC, 9277.

 

Dr. James Smyth and Dr. Colin Mackenzie receive an extension on their lease of the Maryland Hospital

Hospital
Hospital from J.H.B. Latrobe’s Picture of Baltimore (1832). Johns Hopkins University Sheridan Libraries, F 189.B1 P53 1842 QUARTO.

On March 21, 1814, Dr. James Smyth and Dr. Colin Mackenzie, managers of the Maryland Hospital, received an 25 year extension on their lease from the City of Baltimore. The extension included new conditions that required the  institution to construct a new four-story brick building with two three-story wings funded by loans from the state and a new lottery.

The history of public hospitals in Baltimore began in 1794 when local residents established a “temporary retreat for the Strangers and Sea-faring people.” The Baltimore Committee of Health acquired the property during the yellow fever epidemic of 1798 (an outbreak that killed over 5,000 people from Baltimore to Boston) and maintained the hospital with public funds until 1808 when the institution was first leased to Smythe and Mackenzie. Under its new private management, Baltimore covered the costs for public patients at a fixed rate and controlled the management of the hospital through an appointed board of five visitors.

Known variously as the Public Hospital, the City Hospital and the Maryland Hospital for the Insane, this institution moved in 1852 to Catonsville where it survives as the Spring Grove Hospital Center. Learn more about the history of Spring Grove in this detailed history of the institution.

20th March – Sunday Fine cool day Wind about 10 A.M. fresh at N.W. Mrs. T. and three children went to Town, to stay a few days at Mr. Wirgmans. Edw. & Jo. Patterson call’d in the forenoon after which I rode to the Meadows and Furley where I din’d, in the evg. John VanWyck, Wm. Sterett, & Alex Stewart rode out & sat half an Hour~ Great many Wild Pigeons flying ~

From the journal of Captain Henry Thompson, March 20, 1814. Courtesy the Friends of Clifton.

On March 19, 1814, Captain Thomas Boyle and the Comet arrived at Beaufort, North Carolina where he ended his third and final cruise as the ship’s commander.

Excerpts from Boyle’s log were published in the Baltimore Patriot where he gave an account detailing their voyage from their escape from the Chesapeake Bay in October to the ship’s battle with the Hibernia in January to the “large man of war brig” that gave chase on March 5 before his ship “out sailed her with ease.” Boyle concluded the with satisfaction, writing:

On the 19th, arrived at this place after a cruize of 5 months, and being chased during that time thirty four times, by frigates and men-of war brigs, but always out sailed them.

18th – Very fine day, and the first which has any appearance of Spring, being the most backward Season I recollect & nothing like vegetation as yet – Went to Town return’d to Dinner. Mrs. Peters, Beckey & Anne came in the evening and drank tea – Finish’d a trench for Planting Thorn Hedge in front of the House

From the journal of Captain Henry Thompson, March 18, 1814. Courtesy the Friends of Clifton.