Passages

1856

Seven months passed since last I had any certain account of the Pathfinder, and in that time she might have been anywhere beyond the Horn, or nowhere at all for want of news. It is the common way of it with vessels once they are well to the southward—out of sight, and near out of mind, save to those who have an interest aboard.

That she had made Callao, and stood in among the Chincha Islands off the coast of Peru, far down upon the western side of South America, told me plain enough the business she was upon. The guano trade has grown to be no small matter of late. The islands lay bare and wind-scoured off the Peruvian coast, but are heaped with the droppings of sea-fowl laid up over ages, which farmers on both sides of the Atlantic prized above most any dressing for their fields. Ships go out from Callao light and lie there in company with many others, taking guano mined by Chinese laborers by the ton until they are deep and foul with it, and glad enough to be gone.

It is not a trade a man would choose for comfort. The accounts speak of the stench lying thick over the anchorage, and the dust working into every seam of a vessel. Yet the returns are sure enough when the cargo reaches its destination, and for that reason the rainless islands are seldom without a forest of American ships standing off them.

Still, the notice gave no word of how she had come round the Horn, nor how she had borne herself in those seas, which is what a man would most wish to know. They tell a man only that his ship is still upon the water, and leave the rest untold until a letter from the Captain arrived.

So I took the report for what it was worth, and laid it by. She was ready for sea again, and where that course would next bring her name to print was more than I could say. I had fields to tend, livestock birthing and Mercy had a baby on the way.

And so, she was not coming homeward, as was first supposed, but had stood out across the Atlantic instead. A cargo is not bound to any one market. She would be sent where the price will answer best and a vessel deep-laden with guano was destined to make a profit wherever she might land.

Where next her name would appear—whether in England, or on some further passage beyond—I could not say. But I had learned by then not to look for her too soon, or expect that she would come back by the same direction she had gone out.

At home were living through extraordinary times. The country was tearing itself in two—the South’s wealth built on enslaved labor and the North’s on industry. New parties sprang up like weeds: Republicans, Anti-Nebraskans, Fusionists, Know-Nothings, Hard-Shell Democrats, Rum Democrats and Silver-Gray Whigs. Maine, the birthplace of the Temperance Movement, leaned Republican and dry.

In the middle of summer Mercy and I named our firstborn Rosanna Crie Graves. She was born on July 21, 1856—named for Mercy’s mother and from her very first day we called her Annie.^⁠[1]  Eventually, we moved to the old family homestead—if for now I couldn't raise more ships, I could raise livestock and crops for export while I carried on the business of trade.

So the ship had made her run across, and in fair time by the look of it. From the middle of March to July is no long passage for a vessel coming round the Horn. A ship may make better way on that course than in working out, the winds serving her more kindly when once she has gained the proper latitude.

I took some satisfaction in that. It told me she had come through well enough, and without such delay as would give a man concern.

Yet she did not lie at Queenstown in the Cork harbor of on the southern coast of Ireland nor make any stay to speak of, but was off again within the week. Queenstown is but a calling place, where vessels report, take on provisions, then go on.

It was plain enough to me then that she was not upon any fixed circuit, but moving as the freight directed her—first to the islands, then across to Europe, and now on again to toward the Baltic.

Still, I counted it all to her and Captain Robert Kelloch’s credit. She had rounded the Horn, taken on a heavy cargo, and made her landfall in good season. That is the work she was built for.

Portland Press Herald, August 13th: Arrived at Cuxhaven June 26th, Pathfinder, Kellock, Callao

Portland Press Herald, August 14th: Arrived at Hamburg, July 27th, Pathfinder, Kellock, Callao

Portland Press Herald, September 15th: Sailed from Hamburg, August 22nd, Pathfinder, Kellock, Grangemouth E.

These several reports, taken together, gave me more of her course. After leaving Queenstown she was next heard from at Cuxhaven at the mouth of the Elbe river, in the Hanover country, where vessels make their first report before standing up to Hamburg.

What she brought in with her from the islands would not have been quickly cleared. A cargo of guano, though profitable, leaves a vessel in poor condition for what would follow. The hold must be well emptied, scraped, washed more than once, then aired before any other freight may be taken in. I have heard it is rough work, but it is soon enough done where a ship is wanted onward, and no master will keep his vessel idle longer than he must.

She lay there near a month, as the dates show, before clearing again on the twenty-second of August, not for home, but for Grangemouth, on the Scottish coast.

What she took on at Hamburg I could not say with certainty, for no notice gave it, and such particulars are seldom printed and would await the Captain’s correspondence. Still, a man may judge something of it by the course she took after—freight for the Scottish ports was most likely grain, and timber.

At home we were in the midst of harvest and annual festivities after an unusually warm summer and autumn. We took it as it came, making the most of fair days growing shorter.

Mercy kept the baby close for there was no other way of it. At times she had her in her arms, or settled her within reach while she went about her work. When both hands were needed, she made shift with her apron steadying the little one against her so that the work might go on. Sometimes an aunt or cousin would appear to lend Mercy an extra set of hands to put up the garden’s bounty.

There was no keeping strict order to the day. The weather did not allow it—nor the child. One thing gave way to another, and we took each as it came, in our separate ways.

We kept Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November as was the custom in the state of Maine since 1850. The women made a proper meal of it. With the harvest in and our child thriving, there was enough to be thankful for. Still, I thought of the Pathfinder then, somewhere beyond my knowing, and reckoned that a man gives thanks not only for what he has, but for what has thus far been spared him.

Just after the middle of December a freeze took hold and didn’t loosen its grip. It had been snowing since November, but the wind that came with the cold began to make troublesome drifts.

And so, the Pathfinder had not long remained upon that coast of Scotland but taken her departure again and stood out across the Atlantic. That she should go from Grangemouth to Pernambuco put it beyond doubt that she had taken on coal, for there is a ready demand for it at Brazilian ports.

We kept Christmas in a plain way, as most do, with a better meal than common and the day taken more at ease, though the work did not wholly cease on a farm, nor did the cold and snow and by the feel of it—it had no intentions to stop.

It was always some satisfaction to have her so accounted for. The year drew toward its close. We marked the turning of it in a plain way, as is common, and I could not say what the new year might bring—whether she would stand north again, how long she would remain upon that coast, or take some other course altogether.

So it went with her, and with us as well, each in our own place, and neither with much knowledge of what lay ahead.

1857

It was easy enough to see the shape of her outward cargo. She had cleared Scotland with coal—there was no doubt of that—Pernambuco was a common place for it, the sugar ports always in want of fuel for their works and for the steamers that now came and went along that coast. What she did not dispose of there might be taken farther on, but the notice that she was discharging at Pernambuco told its own story—she had found her buyers for the coal and was now loading sugar.

From that point the voyage turned, as it so often must, from outward freight to return. The charter at forty-five shillings the ton was fair enough to satisfy any owner, and the Captain. Sugar was heavy, close stow and would bring her down to her marks properly for the Atlantic run.

As for us, the temperature fell as far below zero and our roads were covered in drifts so high that they were impassable—the unceasing storm had paralyzed the whole of New England. The wind toppled church steeples and homes and businesses burned. People froze to death and ships were lost to the sea.

I moved our bed into the kitchen we closed off to the cold and there we lived. I tried to keep the livestock huddled for warmth, but many froze to death where they stood, or suffocated under the snow.

The report placed her still at Pernambuco on the seventh of December,  not yet finished loading sugar but would take on what remained along the coast before turning in earnest for home—not Europe.

There was nothing further for it then but to wait upon the next word.

With her arrival noted and the cargo safely delivered, the question of profit arose, though not in any immediate or visible way. It was not as though the vessel came home bearing the fruits of the voyage in coin or goods to be divided upon the wharf. What she brought was accounted for elsewhere, and by means less direct.

The merchants receiving the cargo made payment through their agents, and the amount, less the charges of the voyage, was placed to our account.

When at last the accounts were rendered, the balance—whether large or small—was divided according to the shares each man held in the vessel. It was in this manner that the business was done. A ship might be reported in the papers in a line or two, her passage marked by dates and ports, yet the true measure of her success lay not in those notices, but in the figures that followed after, set down quietly in agents then banker’s books and settled in their own time.^⁠[2]

The report of her clearing from New York for Constantinople brought the matter forward again. From the day of her arrival in February, there would have been no idleness about her; sugar discharged, accounted for and securing general cargo in New York for the Levant—the eastern Mediterranean crossroads of trade, empire, and culture.

It was that year of ’57 that our country began to feel a tightening that reached even our quiet corner of the Maine coast. Throughout the states and frontier, banks were failing, railroad companies falling under the weight of their debts and merchants spoke uneasily of credit growing scarce. For those of us trading, the change showed itself in the simplest ways—neighbors buying less, accounts carried longer in the ledger, and fewer vessels in the harbor.

Adding to the gloom my brother George died on April 25, 1857, leaving his widow Lucy and seven fatherless children—some, thankfully, were near grown but others were still quite young.^⁠[3]

Of the six sons born to my parents,  I was the only one left standing. Winter’s snow was still melting and cold weather continued into July.

Portland Press Herald, August 11th:  At Constantinople July 8th, barque Pathfinder, Kelloch, for Boston 2 days.

Portland Press Herald, August 12th: Sailed from Constantinople, July 16th, barque Pathfinder, Kelloch, Boston.

Portland Press Herald, August 14th: At Constantinople July 17th, barque Pathfinder, Kelloch, for Boston on demurrage since 16th, not sailed as reported.

In September word came that the SS Central America had gone down off the coast of South Carolina. The steamer had once been known as the George Law, named for the New York magnate who helped finance the line. It was the same ship that had brought me from Panama to the New York Harbor in 1853. When Law withdrew from the company she was renamed the Central America for the route she sailed between Panama and New York.

A hurricane overtook her off the Southern Atlantic coast as she steamed north with about six hundred people and more than fifteen tons of California gold in her hold. A vessel nearby managed to rescue some of the passengers, but the rough sea allowed only a few to be taken off the ship at a time. Sadly, only one hundred and fifty-eight would survive, most of them women and children. The treasure went down with the rest into the deep off the Carolina coast.

Banks awaiting the gold failed, the stock market plunged and the entire country—quite uneasy at the start—faltered entire.^⁠[4]

Times were uncertain, but farming, and the trade my ships offered kept me on steadier ground than most. The fields proved fertile, Mercy K. kept a large garden that kept our cellar full and our table plentiful. Such was the demand, that our butter, cheese, potatoes and ice sawn from the rivers were shipped to California.^⁠[5]

The Pathfinder made the port of Boston in October and cleared for Constantinople by the 7th of November.^⁠[6] Another year closed—a difficult one of family loss, financial hardship for neighbors and the country entire.

Still, my ships sailed and our little Annie was on her feet, hurrying to her next destination wherever she went.

1858

The Pathfinder made her passage through the Strait of Gibraltar by the middle of December last, but after Malta there were more narrow channels where wind, depth and current all have to be considered at once.

A voyage such as this was not thought of as a single passage, but in parts, each with its own hazard and its own relief.

Hardly a week had passed before word came—the kind no owner wishes to read.

DISASTERS—barque Pathfinder (of Thomaston), Kelloch, from Boston via Malta for Constantinople, went ashore January 23rd on a sand bar at the Dardanelles and remained 26th. She would probably get off after discharging cargo.^⁠[7]

There was nothing in such a report to assure a man how the matter would end, only that she lay fast where no vessel wished to be, in a narrow and shifting channel.

Later we learned she was got off the sandbar after having to unload a large portion of her cargo, and with the assistance of a steamship was ready to proceed to Constantinople^⁠[8]—a costly delay of two weeks.

Was expected were not words that I read without trepidation. A vessel bound from Constantinople to Smyrna must first pass again through the Dardanelles and stand down the coast to the southward. There she was expected to take on rags for New York—a common article of trade, however humble the name, being in steady demand for making paper—but expected did not mean that she had arrived and it was almost two weeks before we heard of her again.

Portland Press Herald, May 6: Arrived Smyrna April 5, barque Pathfinder, Kelloch, Constantinople

Portland Press Herald, May 15: At Smyrna April 15,  Pathfinder, Kelloch for New York, loading

Portland Press Herald, May 28: Arrived Malta April 1st inst Pathfinder, Kelloch, Smyrna

Portland Press Herald, June 7: At Malta May 15 Vesta, late of Boston sold—Captain Percival had taken passage in the Pathfinder; Pathfinder sailed for New York May 1st.

Portland Press Herald, July 3: PORT OF NEW YORK—Arrived July 1, barque Pathfinder, Kelloch, Smyrna.

Portland Press Herald, July 5: PASSENGERS—In the Pathfinder, at Boston from Smyrna, Capt. Percival (late of barque Vesta, sold) wife and two children.

The Pathfinder lay in New York some weeks after her return, discharging cargo and making ready for the next venture. It was there the matter of her command was settled. Captain Kelloch had brought her home in good order and was done with her, and in his place Albert Sleeper of South Thomaston took command of Pathfinder.

Captain Sleeper was known among us, a steady man and accounted capable, and there was no objection to him.

So when she was last spoken of next, she had cleared from New York on the 25th of August, standing down the bay and away for Rosario, Argentina a major river port on the Paraná River.

We settled into the season of harvest and welcomed another daughter we named Millie Dean on September 8, 1858. Annie, who had learned how to hold her own in a conversation, claimed her as her very own baby and Mercy had her hands full as we fell into another new year.

Notes

¹ Annie’s birth year, according to census records was 1856, and the exact day of her birth was carried down by a sibling’s records, probably her sister Edna’s, but I have not found any exacting record of the month and day of her birth in Maine records.

² The profit of the first voyage of the Pathfinder such as this, did not depend upon a single cargo, but upon a succession of freights taken in different ports. The Pathfinder, for example, carried Thomaston lime to New Orleans, where she would have taken on cotton for European markets, likely including Baltic ports such as Königsberg or Gothenburg. From there she proceeded into the Brazilian trade, discharging outward cargo of coal and loading sugar for her return. Each leg generated its own freight, offset by the costs of that portion of the voyage. A single passage might therefore include several distinct earnings, none decisive on its own, but taken together determining the success of the venture.

³ Portland Press Herald, May 9, 1857

⁴ When the SS Central America sank in September 1857, she carried an estimated 30,000 pounds of California gold, valued at roughly $1.6 million at the time, much of it destined for eastern banks already strained by tightening credit. The loss of the shipment deepened the financial crisis that became known as the Panic of 1857. The wreck lay undiscovered for more than a century until it was located in 1988 by a deep-sea expedition led by engineer Tommy G. Thompson. Thousands of gold coins and ingots were recovered from the seabed nearly two miles beneath the Atlantic. Many of the coins were San Francisco–minted double eagles, struck from California gold during the height of the Gold Rush and preserved in remarkable condition after 131 years in the deep. Additional recovery expeditions in the 2010s, conducted by Odyssey Marine Exploration, brought up further coins and gold bars, turning the long-lost shipment into one of the most celebrated shipwreck discoveries in American maritime history. At modern gold prices (2026), the bullion alone would be worth more than $900 million. Some 1857-S $20 double eagles recovered from the wreck have sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars each, valued both as Gold Rush coinage and as artifacts of the famous shipwreck.

⁵ Clyde Graves, Edward’s son spoke of his father’s potatoes being shipped all the way to California.

⁶ Portland Press Herald,  November 9th, 1857

⁷ Portland Press Herald, February 26, 1858

⁸ Portland Press Herald, March 3— Barque Pathfinder, Kelloch, Boston for Constantinople which was taken ashore on a sand bank in the Dardanelles was got off Jan 28 after discharging a large portion of her cargo and on the 3rd of February had taken it on board again, and was ready to proceed to Constantinople; The London Times, “Ship News” March 25, 1858, col. C, p.12; Portland Press Herald, March 31: At Constantinople Feb 26, barque Pathfinder, Kelloch, finished discharging, unc.