| Golden Dragon (freighter) | William L. Worden. Cargoes, Matson First Century, p. 165. |
| Citation: Tacoma Public Library |
| Snapdragon | The SNAPDRAGON was a "medium clipper" bark, built in New York in 1853 by William H. Webb for Wakeman & Dimon, of New York. She was 619 tons, 140 feet long x 29 feet 4 inches in beam, with a hold depth of 18 feet. She appears to have been a transient trader: No record of any voyages in 1853, but on 16 April 1854, Sherwood, master, she arrived at New York, from Antwerp 12 March, with 212 steerage passengers [passenger list, dated 19 April 1854, published in Germans to America, vol. 6, pp. 395-396, where the vessel is incorrectly given as the DRAGON]. On 4 June 1855, she cleared Philadelphia for San Francisco, where she arrived on 8 October 1855, after a passage of 126 days. She sailed from the Gulf of California for Hamburg early in 1856, and was in the South Atlantic, at lat 31 40 S, lon 27 35 W, when on 21 February 1856, she spoke with the whaler SPLENDID. In 1858, she sailed from China to Britain in 104 days with a cargo of tea [William Armstrong Fairburn, Merchant Sail (Center Lovell, ME: Fairburn Marine Educational Foundation, [1945-55]), II.1517, 1536 III.1881; IV.2229, V.2803, 2808, 2815; VI.3891, 3933, 3938; New York Times, 5 April 1856, 8e]. I have no information on the later history of the SNAPDRAGON. However, you should be able to obtain some information on her ultimate fate from her registration certificates. (A registration certificate--which indicates the name of a vessel, her tonnage, when and where she was built, and her current owner and master--was issued when a vessel first registered at a port, and upon every change of ownership or repair extensive enough to be considered a rebuild. When a vessel was registered at another port, or was lost, wrecked, or broken up, the last registration certificate was returned to the port authorities, with a note indicating the reason why.) The SNAPDRAGON was registered at New York, and you can obtain abstracts or (preferably) photocopies of her registration certificates from the National Archives. (When writing to the National Archives, be certain to include the type and name of the vessel, her tonnage, and where, when, and by and for whom she was built: "bark SNAPDRAGON, 619 tons, built in New York in 1853 by William H. Webb for Wakeman & Dimon"). |
| Citation: [Posted to the Emigration-Ships Mailing List by Michael Palmer - 13 August 1997] |