Hello Ferris Fans: I have a little something for you. It's the story of Captain Watson Ferris of New York, a clipper ship captain who died of malaria in Panama while transiting the Isthmus back in the 1850s. He had just taken a clipper on a 139-day voyage from New York around Cape Horn to San Francisco, a 139-day trip. If anyone can add anything, I'd love to hear about it. Dennis Bell on the B.C. coast ---------- Watson Ferris (born July 28, 1804 Westchester, New York died July 18, 1853) of malaria on the Isthmus of Panama. LDS Film #1760837, LDS Batch #8680905. He married Sarah Ward. Ships under the command of Captain Watson Ferris brought literally thousands of Irish emigrants across the Atlantic to the United States in the middle of the 19th century at the height of the Irish Potato Famine. Ferris was master of the Westchester from at least March, 1837 until April, 1842. On his last voyage aboard the Westchester, the 38-year-old skipper affirmed the following cargo manifest on his arrival from Liverpool in New York on April 4: “I, Watson Ferris, master of Ship Westchester do solemnly, sincerely, and truly affirm that the following List or Manifest, subscribed by me, and now delivered by me to the Collector of the Customs of the Collections District of New York, is a full and perfect list of all the passengers taken on board of said Westchester at Liverpool, England. from which Port said Ship has now arrived; and that on the said list is truly designated the age, the sex, and the occupation of each during the passage, the country to which each belongs, and also the country to which it is intended by each to become an inhabitant. So help me God. (signed) Watson Ferris. Sworn before me this April 4, 1842 (signed) M.L. Davis.” Ferris was master of the 845-ton St. George from at least February, 1844 until August, 1848 -- passenger manifests also survive for 13 voyages of that vessel from Liverpool to New York under his command. Talented mariners often received their first command in their late 20's, so it is possible that the Westchester was not Ferris's earliest ship. The captain may also have made a couple of voyages from England to Tasmania early in his career in 1838 as master of the Neptune III, transporting prisoners from England to exile in Tasmania. The skipper of that vessel is listed as W.J. Ferris, but no further details are provided. His last command was a medium clipper ship named the John Stuart built by Perrine, Patterson & Stack of Williamsburg, New York, for Benjamin A. Mumford, James Smith, et al., and launched in 1851. Her first certificate of registry was issued in New York on Oct. 27, 1851. According to Octavius T. Howe and Frederick G. Matthews writing in their book American Clipper Ships, the John Stuart carried above the skysail a main moonsail, a cloud-cleaner, a stargazer, a sky-scraper, and an angel's footstool, "the latter, however, being set only in dead calms, when the watch on deck were not allowed to cough or sneeze for fear of carrying it away." Ferris was her original captain, and he sailed her on the New York-Liverpool route for her maiden voyage, clearing New York on Oct. 31, 1851. He was then commissioned to sail her her to San Francisco via Cape Horn on the tip of South America at the end of 1852, probably as a result of the huge increase in traffic to the West Coast generated by the California gold rush of 1849. The John Stuart cleared New York Dec. 17, 1852, and arrived at San Francisco on May 4, 1853, after a comparatively fast voyage of 136 days. The clipper ship then cleared San Francisco bound for Callao, Peru on May 31, 1853, under the command of A. V. A. Townsend. Ferris took a month off in San Francisco then booked passage south to Panama as a passenger aboard the Pacific Mail Steamship Company’s Golden Gate, which cleared San Francisco on June 15, 1853. The Golden Gate was a 2,076-ton wooden side-wheel steamship, 262 feet in length, with two funnels, three masts and three decks, built in New York by William H. Webb (hull #56), for the Pacific Mail Steamship Co., and launched Jan. 21, 1851. Her maiden voyage, on Aug. 2, 1851, took her from New York around the cape to Panama, where she began regular service between Panama and San Francisco, arriving there for the first time on Nov. 19, 1851. That voyage of 11 days and four hours stood as a record until 1855. She was a very fast, but very unlucky vessel. In 1852 an outbreak of cholera claimed 84 lives among her passengers and crew. She had several close calls with other ships. And finally, on July 27, 1862, her engine room caught fire about 15 miles off Manzanillo, Mexico and she sank just off a beach now known as Playa de Oro and broke up in the surf as her skipper tried to run her aground. Between 175 and 223 people were killed, and about $1.4 million in cargo was lost, including $300,000 in gold from the California goldfields. The gold was recovered a few months later by a salvage crew from another Pacific Mail steamship, but the rest of the cargo was lost. Watson Ferris was also a victim of the Golden Gate’s run of bad luck. He boarded her planning to return to New York via the Isthmian route, across Panama by riverboat and railroad to Aspinwall, then north to New York aboard the U.S. Mail Steamship Company’s Illinois, which sailed July 3 and arrived in New York on July 11, 1853. Captain Ferris apparently became sick aboard the Golden Gate and made it as far as Aspinwall, where he was hospitalized, by then critically ill with what was officially listed as Chagres Fever, the local name for malaria, spread by mosquitos breeding in Panama’s legendary Chagres River. Work began on the Panama Railroad along the swampy Chagres banks in 1847. William Henry Aspinwall, a New York merchant, raised eyebrows by setting out to build a railroad across the Isthmus and combine sea and land routes into one great system that would open up the whole Pacific. The railroaders chose Manzanillo Island, a square mile of virgin mangrove swamp, as the Atlantic terminus, and transformed it into what eventually became the city of Colon.The project killed thousands of men. The construction workforce was drawn from the four corners of the earth -- England, France, Ireland, Germany, Austria, China, India, Jamaica, Colombia.Approximately 12,000 rail workers died of malaria, yellow fever, or the other hardships ofjungle life and work. The new line played its part in the California Gold Rush, though in 1851 after 20 months of labor the rails reached only eight miles into the jungle at Gatun. The mighty Chagres River or Rio Chagres is 300 feet wide in places and sometimes rose 40 feet overnight in storm season. Now, thanks to the Panama Canal, it is the only river in the world that drains into the Atlantic and the Pacific both. By late 1853 it had been spanned by a 625-foot, six-span bridge of boiler iron. And on went the railroad, until in 1855 it went from coast to coast, 47.51 miles over bottomless swamps and through near impenetrable jungle, until finally it neared the sparkling cathedral towers of Panama City on the Pacific side of the isthmus. Ferris succumbed to Chagres Fever in Aspinwall on July 18, ten days after the Illinois sailed without him. It is not known when or where he contracted the disease. He was in southern climes periodically for years before his final trip across the Isthmus, and the malaria may have recurred intermittently. But then, the cure was undiscovered. His body is believed to have been brought home by another U.S. Mail steamship, the Georgia, which arrived in New York Friday, July 29, 1853 after a nine-day voyage from Aspinwall. He was survived in New York by his wife Sarah Ward and five children -- a son and four daughters. The New York Tribune published the following obituary notice in its Monday, Aug. 1, 1853 editions: “Ferris - At Aspinwall, on the 18th, of fever, Captain Watson Ferris, late of the ship JOHN STUART. His remains will be interred this day, (Monday) at 2 1/2 o’clock PM, from the residence of his brother James, on Throg’s Neck, Westchester. Friends wishing to attend will take their cars from the City Hall at 11 1/2 o’clock for Williams Bridge, where they will find a conveyance to take them to the house.” At long last, Watson Ferris was home forever. The U.S. Maritime Commission must have considered Watson Ferris a sailor of considerable repute. During the Second World War, the commission had an auxiliary ship built for the merchant marine that was christened the Watson Ferris in his honor. The Watson Ferris survived the war, but what became of the vessel is unknown. And what became of the clipper ship John Stuart is also unknown. It has been determined that she was still sailing at the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War. Under Captain Bernsee, the vessel left New York on Dec. 21, 1859 and arrived in San Francisco April 23, 1860, a very respectable 123-day voyage around the horn, but a long way from the record, set five years earlier by the Flying Cloud. In early 1854, she covered the route anchor to anchor in 89 days and eight hours, the fastest time ever recorded for a sailing ship. ----------