EUROPA 1837 150th Anniversary of the Missionaries on Wallis

[aukepalmhof]

For the 150th Anniversary arrival of the Missionaries in Wallis & Futuna the island issued on 8 November1987 a stamp of 250 Fr. To commemorate the arrival at Wallis in November 1837 on board of the American vessel EUROPA.

When the new appointed Vicar Apostolic of Western Oceania, Monsignor Jean Baptiste Pompallier sailed from Le Havra, he was accompanied by the Marist Fathers Pierre Chanel and Pierre Bataillon and Brothers Marie-Nizier Delorme and Joseph Xavier Lugy.
They boarded in Le Havre on 24 December 1836 aboard the DELPHINE bound to the South Sea.

(Watercraft Philately gives that she arrived at Wallis on the RAIATEA misspelled RAITEA a small schooner of 60 tons), in But this vessel was chartered by Pompallier after arrival at Wallis, the vessel on the stamp is not rigged as a schooner, that I believe the EUROPA under command of Captain Shaw is depict on the stamp, a ship they sailed on from Valparaiso to Wallis.)
I can not find much on the EUROPA she was ship rigged American registered. She arrived in Valparaiso on 02 November 1837, and sailed from there on 25 November 1837. She was bound for Hawaii, and one source give her as a whaler.

After the EUROPA anchors off Uvea (Wallis). where Father Pierre Bataillon and Brother Joseph Lugy are left to establish a mission. Monsignor Pompallier after he chartered the RAIATEA sails on to New Zealand. Father Bataillon makes quick and numerous conversions and writes the first Franco-Wallisian dictionary.

https://mariststudies.org/docs/APAC59
https://www.enzb.auckland.ac.nz/documen ... ction=null
Wallis et Futuna 1987 260Fr sg526, ScottC155