Notes on the voyage

The list of passengers arriving on board the "New York" on 18th November 1843 includes:

Mrs Cree, aged 40, Female
Eliza do., 12, Female
Heber Cree, 10, Female
Hannah do., 7, Female
Sarah Cree, 5, Female
Margaret Cree, 3, do.
Elizabeth Cree, Infant, do.
[do. is short for ditto, meaning "the same as above."]

Source: District of New York - Port of New York - List or Manifest of all the passengers taken on board the Ship New York, J B Cropper is Master, from Liverpool, burthen 862 70/100 tons.

The tonnage of 862 tons definitely identifies the ship as the one described on the right.

The record is quite neatly written but inaccurate in its content. The "native country" of Mrs Cree and Eliza are given as Ireland, obviously copied from the previous entries; Heber is wrongly described as female; Mary is named as Margaret. The ages are also inaccurate - Hannah and Sarah were twins aged 7 and Mary (alias Margaraet) was 5 - but at least the children were listed in order

Note that Haber Cree is recorded as Heber Cree, the spelling used on the baptism record of his father (Joseph Heber Cree). Haber is nevertheless the more usual spelling.

The most surprising fact that emerges from this record is that Joseph Cree was not listed. He must have travelled earlier to ensure that accomodation for his family was available when they arrived.

NEW YORK (1839)

The U.S. ship NEW YORK was designed and built at New York by William H. Webb, working as a sub-contractor for his father's shipbuilding firm of Webb & Allen, for C. H. Marshall's Black Ball Line of sailing packets between New York and Liverpool, and was launched on 24 October 1839. 862 tons; 152 ft 6 in x 35 ft 4 in x 22 ft (length x beam x depth of hold). She was considered an exceptionally handsome vessel. The NEW YORK served in the Black Ball Line from 1839 to 1854, during which time the average time of her westbound passage from England to New York was 37 days, her quickest passage being 22 days, her longest 73 days. By 1854, after 15 years of service, the NEW YORK was considered too small and outdated for the Black Ball Line, and she was sold as an immigrant ship, continuing to sail between England and New York. On 21 December 1856, approaching New York with 300 passengers, the NEW YORK was wrecked on Island Beach, New Jersey; the master, Alexander McKinnon, was nearly killed endeavoring to protect his passengers from the brutalities of his crew.

Sources: Robert Greenhalgh Albion, Square-riggers on Schedule; The New York Sailing Packets to England, France, and the Cotton Ports (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1938), pp. 276-277; Carl C. Cutler, Queens of the Western Ocean; The Story of America's Mail and Passenger Sailing Lines (Annapolis: United States Naval Institute, c1961), p. 330; Edwin L. Dunbaugh and William DuBarry Thomas, William H. Webb: Shipbuilder (Glen Cove, New York: Webb Institute of Naval Architecture, 1989), p. 27.

Quoted in the Palmer List of Merchant Vessels.

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