The wooden HERO was built in 1800 by Eldredge Packer at Groton. Conn. USA for his own account on the Edwards Packer’s wharf.
Eldredge Packer was also HERO’s first master.
Tonnage 42 tons, dim. 47.3 x 16.1 x 6.4ft.
1802 Sold to Josephus Fitch of Mystic, used thereafter in the freight service between Mystic and Albany.
Later on she had an eventful career, during the war of 1812; the HERO was used as a privateer and blockade runner, commanded by Jeremiah Holmes in 1813.
Was used in the recapture of the sloop FOX.
1814 Commanded by Ambrose Burrows.
Later during the war she remained active as a coastal trader, making at least one trip to Georgia for cotton and rice, and another voyage to New York.
1814 Was she captured by HMS TENEDOS and taken into Barrington, Nova Scotia. After the war was she bought by Edmund Fanning of Stonington, Connecticut, who outfitted her as a sealer.
1816 Was she deepened by 5 inch and re-admeasured to 44 tons.
1819 The British sealer WILLIAM SMITH discovered the South Shetlands Islands and their abundant rookeries of seals, whose pelts fetched high prices in China. Reports spread quickly and in the same year the first US sealer sailed from Stonington, Conn.
1820 While under command of Nathaniel Brown Palmer of Stonington, the HERO together with 4 other ships from the US arrived in the Antarctic waters; the fleet was based at Deception Island. One of the crewmembers of the HERO was Edmund Fanning the owner (depict on a stamp of the Gilbert Islands of 1977 with the sealer BETTY).
The expedition of the fleet of five ships was under command of Captain Benjamin Pendleton. When he heard reports that mountains were seen in the south, he sends Palmer to investigate further. November 1820 the HERO sailed south and west until she approached what he took to be a contiguous, snow capped landmass. There were not seals on the nearby islands which made further investigation unprofitable, and Palmer set course for the South Shetland Islands.
After he arrived there he met the Russian navigator and discoverer Baron F.G.B. von Bellingshausen with his two ships the VOSTOK and MIRNY. Bellingshausen later reported Palmer’s discovery, and he did give the name Palmer to the land now known as the Antarctic Peninsula.
She returned in May 1821 with a consignment of fur seal skins and 150 barrels of elephant seal oil.
Later that year she sailed again on a sealing voyage under Captain Harris Pendleton.
October 1822 sold at Coquimbo, Chile, fate not known.
On USA 1988 25c sg 2370.
Sources: Mystic Built by William N. Peterson. Voyages around the World by E. Fanning. Voyage of the Huron and the Huntress by Stackpole.