This vessel is designed to run as a regular packet between this port and Halifax, N.S., and has good accommodations for 200 passengers, and stowage capacity for 1700 barrels. She is very sharp, has long ends with concave lines, and has her extreme breadth of beam at the gunwales. her sheer is easy and graceful, and is carried forward with a bold and lively spring, which renders her both rakish and beautiful. A dragon on the wing, with open mouth and ravenous teeth, is her figure head. It is tastefully gilded, and the hull above the copper is painted black. Her stern is curvilinear in outline, and is formed from the strake below the line of the planksheer, upon which strake her name and port of hail are carved and painted white, and above is a large gilded eagle. She is planked flush, or smooth, to the planksheer, and is coppered to 15 and 16 feet. She is 175 feet long between perpendiculars, has 28 feet breadth of beam, 18½ feet depth, including 7 feet height of between decks, and measures about 750 tons. Her dead rise at half-floor is 16 inches, and sheer about the same. In outline she is a very beautiful vessel, and is remarkably well finished.
Her frame, all her planking and ceiling, except the clamps and waterways, are of the very best of white oak, and she is square fastened throughout. Before ceiling, her frame was diagonally cross-braced with iron, extending from the floor-heads to the gunwales, the braces 4 inches wide and ½ inch thick, bolted through every timber, and rivetted together at every intersection. Her keel is 14 inches square, the floor timbers 12 by 15, and the keelson the same size as the keel, all bolted with 1¼ copper, driven through and rivetted. She has sister keelsons 13 inches square, the whole length of the vessel, and in the wake of the engines she is filled in solid, and bolted in the strongest style. The bilge-keelsons are 13 inches square, and most of the ceiling above is of 7 inches thickness. The between decks waterways are 14 inches square, with 8 inch thick work inside and over them, and the ceiling above is 5 inches, the upper deck waterways 10 inches square, and the covering board and main rail, both of oak, are each 4 inches thick. Her deck frames are of hard pine, her deck 3 inches thick, but all her knees, stanchions, hooks, and pointers are of oak, and with these, she is well secured. She has 5 hooks forward, and aft is kneed and hooked in the strongest style. Like most propellers she has two uprights and a square section between them. The first upright is the sternpost, the second the rudderpost, and the latter is stepped into the keel, and every angle of the square is bound together with knees. Strength and neatness combined, here, as in every other part of her hull, are her leading characteristics.
Her garboards are of oak, 6 inches thick, the bottom plank 3½ inches, and her wales 5 inches, all of oak, extra butt and bilge bolted, and square fastened with treenails. These details show that she is well built, of the best materials.
Her bulwarks are 3½ feet high; and she has a promenade deck, over a spacious house, which extends from the forecastle aft, with gangways on each side. The after part contains a beautiful saloon, finely finished and tastefully furnished, and before it are state-rooms, store-rooms, an open space over the engines, and before it galleys, accommodations for the crew, and a wheel-house forward of all. She has a spare wheel aft, which in case of accident to the wheel-rope, or other derangement, can be brought into immediate use. The between decks fore-and-aft, except in the vicinity of the engines, are fitted for accommodation of passengers, and are well lighted and ventilated. Her hold, before and abaft the engine room, is for the stowage of cargo, &c., and in each side forward she has two large cargo ports. Every inch of space is laid out to the best advantage.
Her motive power consists of two engines, with inverted cylinders 44 inches in diameter, and 2 feet 10 inches stroke, with two air pumps and a bilge pump, and are of direct action, applied to a propeller, which has three blades, and is 11 feet 10 inches in diameter, upon a shaft of 11 inches in diameter. The whole space occupied by her engines, boilers, coal-bins, &c., is about 56 feet, leaving the space, before and abaft, as already stated, for the stowage of cargo. her engines are said to be very stout, of the highest order of workmanship, and are expected to produce a great rate of speed. So far as we are qualified to judge, we think them excellent in every detail. They were made by Mr. Otis Tufts, at East Boston.
Her hull was built by Mr. James O. Curtis, of Medford, and in beauty of model, strength of workmanship, and neatness of finish, is all that could be desired. If the engines perform as well as we have a right to expext, she must prove to be the swiftest propeller of her size afloat.
She has three masts, and is square rigged forward and fore-and-aft rigged on the other two masts, and is quite neat aloft. Her mast-heads are crowned with gilded balls, and the proportions of her spars set her hull off to great advantage.
As already stated, she is intended to run as a packet between this port and Halifax, and is owned by Messrs. Clark, Jones & Co., of this city, gentlemen who have been long engaged in the trade, and who have made this bold movement to meet its increase. We wish them and their beautiful packet all the success they wish themselves.
Transcribed by Lars Bruzelius.
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Copyright © 1997 Lars Bruzelius.