All Standing Page 9

  He began to consider the logistics of such a venture. First and foremost, he would need a vessel large enough to hold over a hundred immigrants and to give them enough space to move. Such a ship—the first he would ever own outright—could also bring back grain or timber, the only commodities assured a profit in famine Ireland. Owning a ship would mean he would need to employ a full-time captain, and for that position, he had in mind his cousin and a Cork native, Captain James Attridge.

  12

  Signing On

  ABOVE ALL ELSE, James Attridge was a man of the sea. Born into a seafaring family, the captain had seen more than his fair share of peril aboard wooden vessels. He first signed on as a ship’s apprentice at the age of fifteen. At twenty-three, he had become one of Ireland’s youngest masters. Together with his two brothers, he purchased the Abeona, making him the first owner-captain in all of Ireland. This was no amateur venture. Their vessel was a two-masted brig that required an experienced captain and a nimble crew to keep her close to the wind. This was particularly true in the tumultuous Irish Sea, a place still known by today’s sailors as Ireland’s nautical graveyard. Even with this reputation, the Sea was also where Attridge and his complicated little ship regularly ran packet trips between Ireland and England, often under the employ of Donovan & Sons.

  That he managed to do so time and time again without incident had already earned Attridge the reputation of being one of Ireland’s best sea captains. Now forty-four, he embodied the image of a master and commander: staid, confident, and authoritative. Seamen often sought out his ships, hoping to work under the man who was known for his strict adherence to naval law and the discipline to see any ship to safety. What they found was a captain with a thick Cork brogue and the formal costume—heavy wool trousers and an embellished, double-breasted coat—of a British merchant officer, a man who expected militaristic precision from his crew, who carried himself with the calm bearing of one who had bested storm and sail. When Nicholas Donovan decided to purchase his first transatlantic vessel, he naturally contacted his cousin. Donovan trusted in Attridge’s seamanship, along with his reputation for discipline among his sailors. No matter the crisis at hand, this captain always insisted on the kind of calm order needed to dilute any tension or dissension among crew or passengers.

  Agreeing to accept the post of commander of an immigrant ship was not a decision Attridge made lightly. Although ten years Donovan’s senior, Attridge nevertheless deferred to the classic nautical hierarchy: a captain was master and commander, unless he was dealing with a ship’s owner, at which time he was just a hired hand. Surrendering his own claim to ownership would mean that Attridge no longer had the final say on how his ship was run. Still, Donovan assured him that management of the vessel would be left to him alone. That appealed to Attridge. The growing economic depression plaguing Ireland was making the once lucrative Abeona an increasingly risky investment; taking command of an Atlantic cargo ship would mean steady income—£10 per voyage—and the opportunity to focus on what Attridge loved most: a life at sea. Then again, that life would be dramatically altered by the addition of two hundred famine-stricken passengers. This was not an area in which Attridge had any experience, and he worried about the added responsibility of all those people. Could a crew really tend to them and a square-rigged vessel at the same time?

  From his house on the quay of the River Lee, Attridge had unfettered access to Cork Harbor, the third largest natural harbor in the world and long since a major seat for shipping in Ireland. The neighboring town of Cobh, which shared the harbor, could easily host three hundred vessels at a time. Cobh and Cork had other, less savory distinctions too, including the highest rates of sickness and mortality aboard immigrant vessels.1 James Attridge had seen the state of dozens, if not hundreds, of coffin ships as they departed and arrived at the port. Like the countryside around Tralee, it was not a scene to be taken lightly. Still, and after no small amount of deliberation, Attridge finally agreed to Donovan’s proposition.

  • • •

  As 1847 came to an end, Captain Attridge found himself dispatched to the bustling hive of the Liverpool docks. There he visited dozens of vessels for sale, ranging in size and condition. Immigrants were being shipped out on every type of vessel conceivable, but Donovan wasn’t just in the immigrant business; to get grain to the starving people and to continue importing timber and lead, he would need a proper cargo ship, one fat enough to hold his orders and stable enough to stay afloat, even while storms threatened to overturn it. In the mid-nineteenth century, there was only one type of vessel that would do: the barque, that three-masted workhorse to which John Munn had dedicated his career.

  It was most certainly a buyer’s market that season, and Donovan could have his choice. Perhaps showing his own preferences, Attridge directed him to what he had found on the Brunswick wharf. The noted shipwright John Munn now had two vessels for sale: the England, whose original financing had gone awry, and the Jeanie Johnston. Would John Donovan & Sons be interested in either?

  Donovan was delighted. His own dealings in trade had taken him to Quebec on at least one occasion, so he knew well Munn’s reputation for quality construction. He considered the vessels. The England was far too big—and expensive—for his needs. The Jeanie Johnston, on the other hand, seemed ideal for carrying both immigrants and cargo. Her lack of a buyer these six-odd months had made the price a good one. Yes, Donovan responded, this was the ship he wanted.

  By the start of 1848, the Jeanie Johnston was the official property of Donovan & Sons. It would be several months, however, before she would arrive in Tralee. First, Attridge needed to finish outfitting her with the long boats, chains, and other accessories she would need in regular service. Donovan had insisted on a full survey of the vessel as well, which necessitated relocating her in dry dock while Lloyd’s officials catalogued every inch of the barque. Completing such a study would take weeks, if not months. (So thorough was this survey, in fact, that 150 years later it would be used to re-create the ship in painstaking detail.2)

  Attridge was frankly glad for the delay. The month of January saw an unprecedented number of wrecks along the western coast of Ireland. Early February looked no better after another heavy storm struck the brig Phoenix off the coast of Tralee, dashing it to pieces and killing all on board. This was clearly no time to be taking an unfamiliar vessel near that dangerous coast. As he waited for calmer seas, Attridge resumed his packet trips, ferrying Indian meal from Liverpool to the waiting famine sufferers in Cork, who were now dealing with bitter cold and snow in addition to the crises of starvation and disease.

  But as the brutal weather continued back in Tralee, Donovan began feeling the urgency of completing work on the Jeanie. He had just received the official survey report, and the news was good. The Lloyd’s surveyor had reaffirmed the rating given to the Jeanie in Quebec: a five-year designation of A1, the highest class a ship built in North America could hope to achieve. It was time to move forward. He again dispatched Attridge to Liverpool, this time to fetch his new ship and bring it to Ireland. Donovan had arranged to fill his new barque with goods before departure from Liverpool, and it was an impressive list of cargo, ranging from rock salt, oil, and soap to turpentine, plaster, and nails. And, of course, ton upon ton of planks, staves, and square-deal timber, all soon to be available for purchase at John Donovan & Sons.

  Before the Jeanie could make her first voyage to her home port, however, she would need a crew. Choosing the men who sailed was the purview of any ship’s captain, and Attridge took the selection seriously. The most important hiring decision he would make was for the position of first mate. A good mate became almost a partner to a captain and shared in many of the managerial duties on board; a bad mate could turn an entire crew against a master and subvert his authority in the process. Attridge demanded a man of the former type, and with the approval of Donovan, he chose Thomas Campion, a thirty-one-year-old from northeastern England. Like Attridge, Campion came from a seafa
ring family; his father was a registered master, his brother a sailor as well. For the past several years, Campion had sailed as a mate out of Liverpool on vessels similar to the Jeanie, and Attridge had enough confidence in his new employee to leave the governance of the ship to him as long as they were anchored. Attridge also brought with him one ordinary seaman, a twenty-four-year-old fellow Cork resident by the name of Cornelius Crowley, who had sailed with Attridge aboard the Abeona. Two additional ordinaries hailed from Tralee and were well known to the captain. The rest he would have to get to know as time progressed.

  In total, eighteen men would sail aboard the Jeanie with Attridge. The majority came from towns throughout England and Ireland. A few did not: Carls Brown, a twenty-six-year-old from Stockholm; Alexander Matthews from New York; and Gabriel Seldon, described as a “mulatto with a distinctive scar on his face,” from Halifax, Nova Scotia. At forty-one, Seldon was the oldest member of the crew and just a year younger than the captain. Two teenage boys, Hugh Murphy and Arthur McBretney, signed on as apprentices, completing the roster and creating a span of age over a generation in size. They were a gritty group. Nearly half had been brought to court at one time or another for desertion, a serious offense punishable by thirty days in jail. At least four had been arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct, along with a series of assault charges. One year prior, Gabriel Seldon, who was serving as ship’s cook, had been accused of breaking and entering homes in Quebec.3 Although the accusations had never been substantiated and Seldon testified under oath that he had not even been in Quebec at the time of the incident, they were nevertheless indicative of the checkered reputation accompanying many nineteenth-century sailors. Yet in an industry where crime and violence was so commonplace—even aboard the vessels themselves—the Jeanie’s crew was as upstanding an assemblage as Attridge could hope for. That was important to a captain who prided himself on never having been cited for an infraction in his already long career.

  For all that differentiated them, these eighteen were clearly identifiable as the Jeanie’s crew. Though not required to maintain the exactitude of dress required by the British Navy, merchant sailors nevertheless cut a distinctive figure: pants hung low around the hips and billowing around the calf, checked shirts, black hats, and soft-soled shoes made their uniform as identifiable as any military man; their nimbleness bespoke their years balancing aloft; their rough hands and faces were testament to their working conditions.4 A nineteenth-century sailor had to know who he was and what he needed to survive, particularly given the uncertainty that marked so much of his existence. Nowhere was that more true than on a new, untested vessel.

  It was with no small amount of wariness, then, that the new crew of the Jeanie Johnston assembled on the deck of the barque in March 1848. There they met Campion sitting behind a table and holding the ship’s articles, contracts stipulating their rights and responsibilities on board. Of particular interest to many of the men was the explanation of provisions. Famine ships were notorious for providing crew members subpar food during the journey. One of the new crewmen, Archibald Campbell, had recently abandoned the Calcutta after its captain, Thomas Fraser, refused to hand out limes to the crew. Campbell’s decision might have seemed rash to some, but he knew as well as anyone that something as simple as the omission of lime juice could cause debilitating scurvy and even death. That wouldn’t happen aboard the Jeanie Johnston. Although Campion had yet to meet her owner, he knew Attridge’s reputation well enough to know that every nautical law—and then some—would be followed to the letter. To demonstrate as much, he paid each man, save the apprentices, half his salary upon signing; the balance would be received from Donovan back in Tralee. Then they set to work, for Attridge had entrusted his men with the task of preparing the Jeanie for her first trip to Ireland.

  As they set off for the short voyage from Liverpool to Tralee, Attridge made certain the men understood his commitment to regulation and order. Without adherence to the strictest protocols, these men and their little barque wouldn’t stand a chance.

  13

  The People’s Physician

  THE GLOBAL MILIEU in which the Jeanie Johnston sailed that spring was increasingly tumultuous. As she departed the Liverpool docks, reports of rioting throughout England began to spread. In London, an open-air meeting on the abolition of the income tax became fierce. When police attempted to intercede, the mob responded by lobbing stones and rioting. Police subdued the crowd with truncheons and eventually took more than eighty men into custody.1Similar direct action was taken by residents of southern England, where it was a shortage of bread rather than commitment to Libertarian ideals that sent individuals into the streets. Meanwhile, in Attridge’s hometown of Cork, rumors of a collapse of public securities forced a run on the Cork Savings Bank and prompted similar scares in Limerick and other cities.2Reports of a growing insurrection sent an entire fleet of the British Navy into Cork Harbor, ready to be dispatched anywhere in the west of Ireland.

  That, despite all this tremendous distress, news of the Jeanie’s first voyage to Tralee filled the local papers was a testament to just how significant the vessel was for the area and its inhabitants. Even the Protestant-leaning Kerry Evening Post called her “a fine new barque” and her owner “an enterprising townsman.” The paper made repeated mention of the Jeanie in the March 25 issue, noting in detail her cargo, her progress, and the fact that, upon arrival, she would “immediately set sail for Quebec with passengers, for which purpose she is peculiarly suited, from the great height between decks and her general capabilities as a seagoing craft.”3Donovan was delighted with the coverage.

  The harbor outside Tralee was unusually crowded when the Jeanie arrived, with no fewer than twenty-five vessels vying for space in a deep-water bay that had never before seen so many ships at one time.4 Once the Jeanie was divested of her cargo, Donovan instructed Attridge to begin the necessary retrofitting that would convert the vessel into a passenger ship.

  This was no easy task. Even with the unusual spaciousness he had created, Munn had built the Jeanie primarily as a cargo ship, which meant she contained a single interior broad deck intended to shelter stacks of timber and sawn boards, not hundreds of humans. To accommodate passengers, the crew would have to construct temporary bunks that would serve as accommodations for the two hundred emigrants Donovan hoped to pack onto the vessel later that spring. Each of these platforms measured six feet square and, at full capacity, would hold four grown adults. It would be the only space allotted the passengers, who would use the area for everything from sleeping to eating to worship. Stacked three high, the bunks would not allow enough clearance for a full-grown man to sit up. They would be, Donovan hoped, sufficient.

  As the crew finished clearing out the ship’s hold, Campion and John Baylis, the ship’s carpenter, oversaw construction of the bunks. Attridge meanwhile set about provisioning the vessel for its voyage across the Atlantic. A trip across those waters would require at least one full set of extra sails, reserved for any canvas so damaged by the ocean’s ravages that they could not be patched. They would also need hundreds of feet of line, dozens of planks, and other material needed to make emergency repairs. But the bulk of Attridge’s attention was dedicated to the Jeanie’s sundries list, which was impressive by any standard: over 2,500 pounds of food was allotted to the crew alone, including 630 pounds of dried beef, 110 pounds of butter, and four gallons of the all-important lime juice. An additional 12,000 pounds of grain would keep the passengers alive.

  Once the task of securing provisions was completed, Attridge and Donovan turned their attention to the selection of the ship’s doctor. The need for a physician was something on which both men had agreed from the start. Early that year, the Kerry Evening Post had reprinted an editorial from the Liverpool Mercury insisting on the inclusion of physicians on all immigrant ships. The paper reported that passengers were making the addition of a doctor “a sine qua non in choosing vessels in which to emigrate.” This, said the Mercury,
“is how it should be, and many valuable lives will be saved by these means.”5 The editor of the Evening Post clearly agreed. Although Parliament still had not passed a law mandating as much, it was clear that the owner and captain of the Jeanie Johnston sided with the growing press and public sentiment on the subject.

  As an oceangoing captain, Attridge had learned through trial and error the basics of medicine; weeks on end at sea doing dangerous work meant that injuries and illness were common. With land often hundreds or even thousands of miles away, it was up to the captain to stitch lacerations, see to the prevention of scurvy, and in some cases even perform surgery. That might be enough to ensure that most crew members lived to see their home port, but it was utterly insufficient for the daunting task the Jeanie now faced.

  In truth, the training most physicians received was also woefully insufficient when it came to keeping coffin ship passengers alive—assuming they received any legitimate training at all. Part of the problem was that the medical field still remained in sharp disagreement about what was causing the deaths aboard these ships. In addition to theories such as those propagated by Earl Grey, many circled back to the ancient Roman belief that miasma, or poisonous particulates in the air, spread disease. Thought to be identified by its noxious smell, miasma was most commonly countered by curtailing the flow of air in rooms and hospitals or by requiring doctors and patients to wear garlands of flowers around their mouth and nose. On ships at sea, where flowers were unavailable and noxious air was already in great abundance, captains and undertrained doctors insisted on strict protocols that included restricting emigrants to areas below deck with the hatches closed so that no air could circulate and promote miasmic outbreaks. That these actions did little to prevent the spread of disease left mariners and ship’s doctors at a loss.