Gondar

The square-rigged ship GONDAR, 645 tons, was built in 1847 in Wiscasset, Maine, by John Johnston & Son, and named after the capital of Abyssinia. Registered in Wiscasset. 1848, Georg Barstow, master, ran in the Nesmith & Walsh Line of New York-Liverpool Packets (passenger manifest, dated 12 June 1848, in National Archives Microfilm Publication M237, roll 73, list #544 for 1848); 1850, J. G. Barstow, master, in the Philadelphia-Liverpool line of packets. 13 May 1852, Barstow, master, arrived at New York from Liverpool, 12 April 1852 (passenger manifest, dated 14 May 1852, in National Archives, Microfilm Publication M237, roll 113, #531 for 1852); 21 May 1853, Barstow, master, arrived at New York, 38 days from Havre (passenger manifest in National Archives Microfilm Publication M237). The GONDAR was destroyed by fire at Charleston, South Carolina, in mid-June 1853, when loaded with cotton and naval stores and about to sail for Liverpool. The figurehead, an image of the Queen of Sheba, famed for its beauty, was saved, and stood in Alexander Johnston's garden at Wiscasset for 30 years, following which it was owned by Dr. A. J. Stedman, of Georgetown, Maine, for some 20 years. It was then sold and sent around Cape Horn in a Bath Ship to Honolulu [William Armstrong Fairburn, Merchant Sail (Center Lovell, ME: Fairburn Marine Educational Foundation, [1945]55], vol. 5, pp. 3344-3346; Carl C. Cutler, Queens of the Western Ocean; The Story of America's Mail and Passenger Sailing Lines (Annapolis: United States Naval Institute, c1961), pp. 386 and 405]. This vessel is to be distinguished from the vessel of the same name, 710 tons, that in 1860, Gooding, master, sailed in the Southern Line of Charleston-Liverpool packets [Cutler, op. cit, p. 410.

Citation: [Posted to the Emigration-Ships Mailing List by Michael Palmer - 2 August 1997]