[Thomas Wasden, Mary Coucom Wasden and their children traveled on this ship from Liverpool to New York in 1855.]
On 26 April 1853 the ship William Stetson sailed from Liverpool with 293 Mormons among her 700 passengers. Elders Aaron Smethurst, Francis Sproul, and William Wright presided over the Saints. Ellen Wasden Christensen [Thomas & Mary's fourth child], an English convert from Rotherham, wrote in her journal: "We were on the water about a month. And the meals--for several days I did not care to eat and there was never a time when I felt very hungry, but hungry or not--there was but one cooked meal in three days and . . . was prepared while the vessel was rocking and the galley, . . . was in a state of shifting scenes and sometimes the sea was too rough for any culinary work at all." After a thirty-one-day passage the emigrants landed at New York on 27 May. During the crossing there were two births and four deaths. Master and part-owner of the vessel was Captain Joshua L. Jordan of Thomaston, Maine.
Named after one of her original owners, the square-rigged William Stetson hailing out of Thomaston was built with three decks, a square stem, and a billethead. This ship traded in the Atlantic until 1859 when she was lost at sea.
Last Updated 27 April 2011