Note 1 — Chapter I · A PORT OF VANISHED FLEETS

In 1810 Newburyport merchants owned forty-one ships, forty-nine brigs and fifty schooners, and was the seat of extensive commerce with the East Indies and other ports of the Orient. Twenty-one deep-water sailing ships for foreign trade were built on the Merrimac River in that one year. The fame of Newburyport as a shipbuilding and shipowning port was carried far into the last century and culminated in the building of the Atlantic packet Dreadnought, the fastest and most celebrated sailing ship that ever flew the American flag. She made a passage from New York to Queenstown in nine days and thirteen hours in 1860. Her famous commander, the late Captain Samuel Samuels, wrote of the Dreadnought:

“She was never passed in anything over a four-knot breeze. She was what might be termed a semi-clipper and possessed the merit of being able to bear driving as long as her sails and spars would stand. By the sailors she was called the ‘Wild Boat of the Atlantic,’ while others called her ‘The Flying Dutchman.’”