DOLPHIN USS 1821

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aukepalmhof
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DOLPHIN USS 1821

Post by aukepalmhof » Sun Sep 06, 2009 8:11 pm

Built as a wooden topsail schooner by the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Philadelphia for the U.S.A. Navy.
23 June 1821launched under the name DOLPHIN, she was the second vessel in the U.S.A. Navy under that name.
Tonnage 198 ton. Dim. 86.0 (bpp) 24.9 x 10.3ft
Armament 12 – 6pdr.
Crew 40.
1821 Commissioned. She was the first of the five, which was laid down.

The decision of the U.S.A. Government to suppress piracy in the West Indies by sending an adequate squadron to this station led to the construction of five new schooners in 1820-21
Doughty designed the schooners after a Baltimore Clipper model.
She were fast sailers.
After she was commissioned she was send to New York to be readied for sea. The DOLPHIN spends much of her career in the Pacific rather than on the station she was built for.
She was one of two vessels making up the newly organized Pacific Squadron.
08 December 1821 she sailed out under command of Lieutenant D. Conner, in company with the ship-of-the-line USS FRANKLIN and via Cape Horn she arrived on 06 February 1822 at Valparaiso, Chile, thereafter she cruised on the coast of Ecuador, Peru and Chile to protect American commerce and the whaling industry.
After some crew returned after a mutiny on board the whaleship GLOBE in Valparaiso, Chile, and news reached the U.S.A. the U.S.A. Government after pressure of the owners dispatched the DOLPHIN in search for the remaining mutineers to the Mulgraves.
18 August 1825 the GLOBE sailed from Chorillos, Peru under command of Capt. John Percival, his nickname was Mad Jack.
She sailed via the Galápagos and the Marquesas Island, thence to the Caroline Islands, after looking for some other islands, which they not could find the DOLPHIN arrived at the Duke of Clarence Islands in the Kingsmills. At this place the natives tried to cut of some boatcrews when they returned to the ship, and the DOLPHIN just managed to get away.
19 November she arrived at Mulgraves, their Captain Percival found evidence of the GLOBE’s landings, and soon thereafter he began his search of the Mili (Milli) Group (one of Marshall Islands) for the mutineers.
The following comes from the log of the DOLPHIN.
At 3 Two men of Lt. Homer’s party returned to the vessel, bringing intelligence that a skeleton supposed to be the remains of Comstock the chief mutineer of the ship GLOBE had been dug out of the sand beach upon the most Western Peninsula of Mulgrave Island. Also that they had found spars, rigging, part of a sail makers palm, a thimble, staves and several other things having no doubt of this being the place where the mutineers first landed. Commenced fitting out the launch for a search party.
The launch under command of Lieutenant Hiram Paulding and eleven men set off to the passage through the reef and into the lagoon, when rowing or sailing along the islets, they came to one were a large body of natives were gathered, when Paulding would investigation the group a man dressed in native clothes, spoken to the men in the boat in there own language.
He told the men, do not come on shore unless you are prepared to fight, the natives will kill you.
Lieutenant Paulding gives the following:
…. although we were convinced that this was one of the men we were so anxiously looking for his sudden and unexpected appearance, his wild attire, and above all, his warning, seemed like an illusion of fancy. His hair was long, combed up and tied in a knot on the top of his head, round his loins, he wore a large mat, finely wrought, and the use of cocoanut oil, and the action of the tropical sun for nearly two years had made his skin almost as dark as that of the natives.

The man repeated the warning, and when Paulding asked his name, he replied I am William Lay of the GLOBE of Nantucket.
Paulding told the man to come on board but he was too afraid, while the islanders were thinking that he was trying to lure the men in the launch ashore, and then to kill.

After landing his men, Paulding in a daring attack rescued William Lay, then Lay told the men that there was an other survivor on an other island, Cyrus M.Hussey a young Nantucketer.
Paulding so soon as he heard the news headed for the island and before the news had reached the island that Lay was liberated. On arrival Lay pointed out the Chief, who held Hussey captive, the Chief was immediately seized and Paulding warned the natives that they had to deliver the hostage otherwise the Chief was killed.
Paulding did then give:
It was a few minutes before he (Hussey) appeared, walking towards us, with his fine yellow hair hanging in ringlets about his shoulders, and his person quit naked with the exception of a piece of blanket tied around his loins….. I said to hem, “Well young man, do you wish to return to your country?” His eyes filled with tears as he replied: “Yes sir, I know of noting that I have done for which I should be afraid to go home.”

Then the DOLPHIN sailed away, made a call at Maloelap on 10 December and some crew went ashore, then touched at Aur for a short time. Then she headed for the Sandwich Islands arriving at Honolulu on 16 January 1825, she was the first man-of-war of the U.S.A. that ever entered the harbor.
The first news of the schooner arrival in Honolulu arrived via Canton in Nantucket on 26 August 1826.

On 11 May 1826 the DOLPHIN sailed from Oahu and arrived at Raitera, in the Society Islands on 7 June, at least she reached Valparaiso on 23 July 1826, soon she sailed from this port to join the frigate UNITED STATES at Callao, Peru and on 01 September 1826 the two men were transferred to the frigate UNITED STATES.
The two men arrived on this vessel on 21 April 1827 at New York.

During this cruise the DOLPHIN assisted men of the American ship LONDON wrecked in Hawaii, and helped other American citizens in the island.
She served in the Pacific until 2 December 1835.
Condemned and sold on the Pacific coast. She was rotten and broken up.

Marshall Islands 1992 24c sg491, scott447. 32c sg670, scott605b.

Source: some copied from http://www.hazegray.org/danfs/sail/dolphin2.htm
The American Sailing Navy by Howard L Chappelle. The Sea-Hunters by Edouard A Stackpole.
Foreigh Ships in Micronesia by Fr. Francis X Hezel, SJ
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DOLPHIN%20USS%20%20(6)%20%20Marshall.jpg

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