The ship Benjamin Sewall was built at the shipyard of Pennell Brothers near Brunswick, Maine, in 1874. The Pennell Shipyard had been building wooden vessels for nearly 100 years, and the Benjamin Sewall was the largest and last of these famous Pennell vessels.
The ship, with her fine sturdy lines, is shown in the photograph on the left on the 'ways' (slipways) at Pennell Shipyard. Her name, here given as B. Sewall - Boston, can just be seen on her stern.
The specifications of the 3-masted square rigger were registered as: length - 202 ft; breadth - 39 ft; depth - 24 ft; with a gross tonnage of 1433 tons. This was about the average size for the square riggers of her time.
The Benjamin Sewall was launched from the 'ways' on 27 October 1874, in the presence of the 80-year-old Benjamin Sewall, the prosperous Boston businessman after whom she was named, and whose bust can also be seen in the photograph adorning the scroll on her stern.
She could carry around 2,000 tons of cargo, and could stow just over a million board feet of sawn lumber and timbers. Though not a fast boat, the Benjamin Sewall had her moments, once making 336 miles in a day's sailing. Her masters regarded her as a stout ship who handled well.
Her first master was John Pennell under whom she five times rounded Cape Horn. On one voyage she sailed to the Chincha Islands off the coast of Peru to load guano.
The story of this vessel is long and interesting. It can be seen on the web site below.
http://takaoclub.com/sewall/BenjaminSewall.htm