Built in 1877 at the yard of Goss & Sawyer at Bath for William Lewis at New Bedford.
Launched under the name LUCRETIA., named after Lewis wife Lucretia Hancock Lewis.
Tonnage 313 gross, dim. 115.1 x 27.4 x 16ft.
Rigged as a barque.
At her maiden voyage under sail, which took four years, she had the best catch of sperm oil, made the last eight years by an American whaling vessel.
After her return she was converted by Lewis in a steam vessel.
She sailed 15 December 1881, from New Bedford under command of Capt.J.S.Carter for Cape Horn to be in time for the Western Arctic whaling season in 1882.
She ran in a hurricane off Bermuda and was badly damaged, and had to return to New Bedford for repair. She set sail the next year again, but her qualities as a sailer had been disturbed by her machinery.
When near Cape Horn the LUCRETIA was running in a storm, and the captain decided to turn around and sail via Cape of Good Hope, the India Ocean, South of Australia and Pacific to San Francisco.
It was know later by her crew as the steamer’s around-the-world-backwards cruise.
During this voyage she ran along the lee side of the Mile Island one of the Marshall Group, on 15 Jan. 1884, were they obtained 30 fowl from the natives who came on board the ship.
She arrived 24 November 1884 at San Francisco, with only 30 barrels of sperm oil on board. (I have conflicting sources, I got also that she arrived at San Francisco on 24 November 1882, American Ships, but the website http://www.micsem.org/pubs/articles/his ... shalls.htm gives that she on 15 Jan 1884 visited the islands. Somewhere a date and year is not correct)
At that time, the U.S. whaling industry was in decline. The discovery of petroleum and mineral oil had caused a significant drop in the price of whale oil, but the vagaries of fashion had increased the profitability of whalebone.
Pursuing the baleen whales in the northern waters that whalers preferred was a risky business for sailing ships.
Between 1871 and 1876, some forty-five vessels were lost to gales and the drifting pack ice. The increase maneuverability provided by steam power, it was hoped, would lessen these losses, and the LUCRETIA was one of the first of such design.
San Francisco was at that time the center of the American whaling industry.
The American whaling industry was in serious decline by the mid 1880’s with no new ships being built and the aging vessels still in service finding it increasingly difficult to remain profitable. One by one, they were destroyed or laid up and slowly rotting away. By the early’s 1920’s this part of the American merchant fleet had passed into history.
After arrival in San Francisco the LUCRETIA sailed from this port for her annual voyages to the waters of the Bering Strait, and her luck improved slowly, till she was lost on 05 September 1889 on a shoal off Herald Island, about 400 mile north and a bit west of the Bering Strait, and later crushed by the ice.
The stamp was designed by the American marine and wildlife artist Ian Maclaury.
Marshall Islands 1987 22c sg110, scott?
Sources: Some copied from The Log Book Vol.16 page 161. American Ships by Alexander Laing. Salted Tories by Lloyd C.M.Hare. http://www.mysticseaport.org/library/in ... ?ID=124657