The Ward Chipman on which my ancestor, Robert Dodd, arrived at Port Phillip on 29th December 1841 had a typical merchant ship history travelling to many ports in the world carrying emigrants and various cargoes during her life. She was a three-masted barque of 740 tons, length-130 feet & depth amidship-21 feet. She was built by Wm. & Jas. Lawton in Saint John, New Brunswick (NB) for Hugh MacKay, a local merchant, and had been launched on 4th March 1840.
A typical barque of the time. The Ward Chipman would have looked similar.
The ship was named after Ward Chipman a well-known New Brunswick lawyer, judge, political figure & Empire Loyalist who was born in Marblehead, Massachusetts in 1754 and died in Fredericton in 1824. He represented the British at the negotiations to establish the boundary with the state of Maine and was instrumental in advising that the proposed city at the mouth of the Saint John River should take that name.
The Ward Chipman (often mistakenly called Ward Chapman) was registered at Saint John, NB on 20th March 1840 and her Official Number was 23515. On her registration papers, she was recorded as having “one and a poop deck and a fore topgallant forecastle”. It was also noted that she was barque rig with a standing bowsprit, a square stern and carvel built. She had no galleries and a Man Bust Head. In 1841 her hull was sheathed with a layer of copper for protection in tropical waters. She was classified as A1.
After her launch, Ward Chipman was sailed to Hull, England where under her master Captain Albert Poole she left in November 1840 for Savannah arriving in March 1841 and then returning to Liverpool in April via Saint John, NB. She then proceeded to the port of Bristol prior to leaving for Port Phillip. Originally advertised to depart on 14 August 1841, her master Lewis Bilton, aged 30, did not sign on until 21st with the ship finally departing on 24th August. She carried 347 Government-Assisted Emigrants including 36 unmarried males & 17 unmarried females. Two adult males & 19 children died on the voyage while four males & three females were born. After the ship departed it was discovered there was an insufficient supply of teaspoons, knives, forks, pots, water pails, tubs and mess tins. There were no coffee mills, no pepper or other condiments, no hand brushes, no charcoal for stoves and no cook or medicines for the emigrants. Water for six months was supposed to have been loaded but after 14 weeks it exhausted as many of the casks were empty or almost empty. After the ship arrived in Port Phillip, of the 27 crew,19 members deserted and two were discharged including the First Mate. Nineteen new members joined the ship for the onward voyage to Bombay and of these four died of cholera there. The Ward Chipman then returned to Liverpool arriving in November 1842.
Source: Southern Reporter & Cork Commercial Courier, 31 July 1841, p.1.
Ward Chipman sailed extensively throughout the 1840’s, 50’s and 60’s to ports including Liverpool, Quebec, Cork, the Mediterranean, Lollond Island, Denmark, Mauritius, Bombay, and Port Natal Africa, just to name a few.
In 1846 Ward Chipman sailed to St Johns, NB again from Liverpool and made further voyages in 1846, 1848 & 1849 transporting Irish immigrants to New York, USA.
On 15th April 1850 the Ward Chipman departed Liverpool with a cargo of 900 tons of coal to be delivered to the United States Pacific Mail Steamship Company at Acapulco on the west coast of Mexico. The ship had attempted to round Cape Horn from the East but after failing many times against the prevailing westerly winds she wore around and the skipper decided to run to the east to Acapulco across the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Some of the crew became upset with the change of plan and the fact that the length of the voyage had increased dramatically. They had stopped work for some time and only recommenced after withdrawal of provisions. As the ship passed Port Phillip Heads on 20th August some of the crew forced her to call into port. They had refused to take orders again and the captain was obliged to agree to this demand. After the Port Phillip pilot boarded the ship the two ringleaders were seized and taken into custody. Captain Roberts refused to lay a charge of mutiny as he feared the court proceedings might delay the ship indefinitely and it would be extremely difficult to find a new crew with the Gold Rush just starting. The Geelong magistrate charged them with refusing to obey orders and sentenced the 2 men to one month’s imprisonment and a fine of 30 shillings. The ship continued her round the world trip to Acapulco in early September.
In 1864 she does not appear in Lloyds Register but was recorded in the 1868 American Lloyds Register of American & Foreign Shipping as a vessel “without class have not been examined by a surveyor of the association”. Her captain is also listed as Francis Harber and she was last surveyed in Quebec in 1859.
Her last voyage was in 1868 from Limerick to Quebec and nothing out of the ordinary is recorded in the Official Log. Her return voyage to Limerick also started uneventfully until 10am Thursday October 22nd when approximately 90 miles south of Cape Race, Newfoundland with the wind blowing strong from the N.N. East, “a heavy sea struck the ship on the port quarter filled the cabin with water and started the deck load……manned the pumps and found that the ship was making a deal more water than she usually did so much so that the crew was obliged to keep constantly the two pumps agoing to keep the ship free.”
Friday, October 23rd -Similar weather with a nasty cross sea running and the ship gaining on the 2 pumps with them operating constantly. At 6am the deck load was thrown overboard to lighten her. Later that day the weather moderated slightly but she continued to drift to the south with pumps gaining on the water but crew began to fatigue.
On Saturday October 24th her position in the morning was recorded in the log as “South West Edge of the Grand Banks” with a moderate breeze from the East moderating later in the day to light airs from North West. Water was now gaining on the pumps and it was impossible to give the ship any more canvas because the crew were exhausted having been pumping night and day. At noon the master thought it advisable to cut away the 3 top masts and all attached to them for the safety of the crew as the ship was becoming “heavy and lazy in the water”. Beef and pork were boiled and bread and water readied in case the crew would be compelled to “resort to the tops before morning”. At 6pm, water was 7 feet in the hold but the crew continued to pump incessantly hoping to be seen by a passing ship.
On Sunday October 25th the ship was subjected to light airs from the west with the crew still on the two pumps all night. At 10am a sail was observed to the southward of her and homeward bound. The Ward Chipman was hauled towards her with the crew hoping they would be seen in their disabled state which included the Union Ensign being flown upside down denoting distress. At 11am they were seen and the other barque bore down on them and came within hail at 3pm. She identified herself as the Wolfs Cave with captain William Anderson, bound for London from Miramichi, NB. Captain Harber recorded in the ship’s log “I asked the captain if he would be so good and kind to take all on board of his ship. As we were fast waterlogging and that all our crew was completely worn out from excessive pumping and of which he gladly consented to the then being at the time of leaving the Ward Chipman in Latitude 44°17’ North and Longitude 52°40’ West after receiving us on board with but part of our effects and a little lifegiving provisions …” At about 5:15pm with the breeze freshening from the south, Captain Anderson decided he “did not think it prudent to wait any longer” and proceeded to direct the Wolf Cave back on her original course to London with the shipwrecked crew.
After 28 years from her launch and then having sailed the oceans of the world the Ward Chipman was left abandoned to her fate approximately 700 miles from the forests of New Brunswick where she had been built 28 years ago.
Contributed by John Dodd, PPPG member No 1224