STORM AND COMPANY
Jacob Storm's Memoirs.
Chapter 2. page 2.
My Harrison connections were close, the reason being, in part,
that my grandmother Harrison was born Mercy Storm.
She was sister of the venturesome contrabandist William. When I
was very young and my parents were away at sea, it was with my
Harrison grandparents that I stayed often. My indomitable
grandmother played an active part with her sailor sons in the
running of the Harrison vessels after my grandfather died in
1860, and she lived until 1880, when she was 93.
The 'Harrisons' was my
first ship when I went away to sea. She had six busy years before
I joined her. Thomas and Mercy put her in the
care of their son John in July, 1844, on his leaving the 'Rusco
Castle'. John was twenty-eight and stayed with her for nine
years. I can give a little more information about costs because
seventeen years before this, Mercy's brother James, former mate
of his father's vessel 'Juno', bought a new ship in partnership
with John Smith of Bay from Messrs. Spearman and
Rowntree of Ayres Quay, Sunderland. I have inherited rather more
details about this purchase.
The agreement was made 26th January, 1827 and it was for the
payment of £1,260 for the hull. This was later changed for the
addition of a break at a charge of £17.10.0 The money was to be
paid as follows:
£100 at the signing of the agreement
£100 when the bends are sound
£150 when the hull is all timbered
£150 when the decks are laid
£160 when the vessel is launched into the water
£600, the remainder, after the launching, in approved bills for
equal sums at three and four months intervals.
When the 'John and James' was fully rigged and fitted out, the
final cost was £1757 and she was about 170 tons. She cleared the
Sunderland customs house on her maiden voyage with twelve keels
of coal for London on 3rd May, 1827, fourteen weeks from the date
of agreement. On sailing, James, her master, paid £3.8s.2d.
harbour dues, two guineas to the trimmers and £1.5.0d. for
foying out (13). The master was entitled to
£9.10s. per voyage. Her carrying capacity was 1800 quarters for
oats, 1352 for barley and 1245 for wheat, which meant she was
getting on for half as big again as the 'Harrisons'. Some idea of
the cost of sails I give from details of replacements in the
'Harrisons'.
Mainsail....................made by Mr. Joss of West
Hartlepool...... 131 sq. yds.
Top sail....................made by Andrews of
Whitby.................. ..111 " "
T'gallent ..................made in
London.......................................... 50 " "
Main Royal .............made by E. Watson of Rochester of
................................no.7Coker canvas (at 1/6 per sq.
yard) .......22 " "
Top sail ...................made in London
..........................................90 " "
Fore Top ............... made in London
........................................111 " "
Fore T'gallant.......... made in London
...........................................50 " "
Top mast staysail .....made in London
..........................................40 " "
Jib........................... made by Andrews of
Whitby....................... 73 " "
Jib............................made by Day and Butterwick in
................................November, 1854 for £5.12.1 1d
..................75 " "
Canvas worked out at about 1/6 a yard and this vessel carried
over 750 square yards of sail, bringing the cost of a suit of
canvas to over £56. This is only a rough idea, however, because
the rig of the 'Harrisons', like that of many ships, was changed
from time to time to suit her owner's or her master's needs. The
sails were no small item if the lot were carried away in foul
weather, a not infrequent occurrence.
The 'Harrisons' sailed on her
maiden voyage in July 1844, for the Baltic and thence for London.
In Dantzic she loaded 951 quarters of barley at 3s 5d a quarter
and proceeded to the Thames, spending in all one month and
twenty-three days on the voyage. She sailed again in ballast, for
Dantzic], and took on 845 quarters of wheat at 4/- a quarter for
Jersey, a trip of two months and one day. There followed that
year two voyages between Middlesbrough and London. For the second
of these, crew and pay were: John Harrison, master, £8 a voyage;
Thomas Harrison, mate, £5. 10s; William Barnard and Geo.
Robinson, ABs £4.10s a month each; two apprentices, Edward
Harrison and George Shafe, received about 7s 6d a month each.
The next year's trading began in February with a trip in ballast
to Archangel and it hardly needs stating that she ran into bad
weather! Next she went to Elisinore and Landskrona with 1099
quarters of oats at 2s 3d a quarter. She took a month and eleven
days over this and ABs wages were down to £3.5s a month. In this
month, Thomas Harrison left to take over the brig 'Fortitude'. My
grandparents had given John Mennel of Robin Hood's Bay £600 for
her. Edward Storm now became mate of the 'Harrisons'. In 1846,
she made a voyage to Riga and the rest of that year was spent in
the coal trade and coasting. For that year, I have a record of a
mate's pay at £4 and an ABs at £3 a month.
My records for 1847 are fairly complete. There were ten voyages
and I list them because they give a fair idea of the work.
1. Middlesbrough - Rochester with 183 tons of coal at 9.0d a ton,
in February;
2. Whitby, Landskrona, Helsingborg and Leith with 1090 quarters
of oats at 3s.0; she took one month and eighteen days over this;
3. Pilau and London - no freight recorded;
4. Middlesbrough and Guernsey with eight keels and four waggons
of coal at two guineas a keel;
6. St. Peter Port, Guernsey, to London with 185 tons of stone at
6s. 3d;
7. Middlesbrough and London with coal;
8. Middlesbrough and Ipswich;
9. Middlesbrough and London;
10. Middlesbrough and Rochester, carrying 180 tons of coal at
8s.6d.
In 1848, the 'Harrisons' called at Middlesbrough, Plymouth,
Guernsey, London, Stockton, Rochester, Whitby, Hartlepool,
Whitstable, Traelleborg, Leith, Hartemunde, Riga, Aberdeen and
Hamburg. Her cargoes were mainly coal, wheat, barley and timber.
Her profits for the years of which I have given some details
were: 1844, £150; 1845, £150; 1846, £5.16s.4d; 1847,
£195.16s.4d; 1848, £46.16s.2d. In the last-mentioned year,
rerigging as a brig was an expense, undertaken in the hope of
increasing her profitability in the long run, but as can be seen
freights were variable.
It was much the same with 1849, in which year Edward Harrison,
now nineteen, was promoted mate. This brings me to the point
where I joined her. I was twelve years and four months old when I
was bound apprentice at the Whitby Custom House on the fourteenth
day of February, 1850. I was to serve Thomas Harrison, shipowner
and master mariner of Robin Hood's Bay for six years. My
remuneration over the whole period was to be £40 and washing was
provided. In lieu of board when the ship was laid up (which well
it might be in winter in the North Sea), I was entitled to four
shillings a week, and my first winter was spent at home whether
the ship was laid up or not.
We sailed from Whitby on or about the 20th February with a part
cargo of ironstone for Middlesbrough and a crew of six: John
Harrison, master, the mate, an AB and three apprentices. We
arrived all well, discharged our stone and loaded eight keels of
coal and coke for Hamburg. The crossing took us to about 1st
March and we discharged at Altona. After taking in ballast, we
sailed from the Elbe on 8th March for Randers in Jutland.
Ice and foul wind brought delay on this passage. I remember
particularly being at anchor at Hertshalls because we lost an
anchor and in the attempts to recover it I received my first pair
of Yarmouth mittens (14).
At last we made Randers' Fjord, moored in the stream at Hudbyhoy,
discharged our ballast, washed ship inboard and out, and made all
ready to take in grain cargo. The royal yard was rigged aloft,
jobs and staysails stowed in cloths, all yards squared by lifts
and braces, and everything made clean and smart for Sunday. It
comes back to me so very clearly because we tested the vessel for
stability that Sunday morning by rushing to and fro across the
foredeck till we got such a move on her that she rolled the fresh
water casks out of their beds and caused such a commotion that
the master ran on deck to see what had happened.
Our cargo of barley was loaded from lighters and we had to move
further out to finish, because of our draught. This meant the
master had a long pull back to the ship after a trip ashore to
encourage the lightermen to speed up with the loading. He rowed
back in a lighter's boat, called a 'laurky', a craft with broad
stern, round bottom and long snout and one very difficult to keep
on course at the best of times, and especially when being pulled
against wind and sea. John Harrison was a powerful man but was
much exhausted when he got aboard, and angry at having given a
demonstration of bad seamanship before his crew, whose eyes he
could read well. However, he managed to get the last of the
lighters to come alongside, and so we were complete, with 958
quarters of barley for Bristol.
Before sailing, we laid in a good stock of eggs, cheese and
butter. The cheese and butter surprised me, for they were white
like lard. All were cheap and the master allowed 3 eggs per man
per meal in lieu of beef.
We experienced fine weather on passage and were in Bristol by
mid-June. I remember vividly how the wire rope and basket which
crossed the gorge of Avon at Clifton two hundred and fifty feet
above us claimed our attention as we approached the city. Still a
child, I appreciated the scenery more than the hazards of the
crooked reaches of the river, about which I was to learn more in
later life.
After discharge, a tug towed us to Glamorgan canal, Cardiff,
where we loaded iron bars which had to be stowed diagonally or in
grating fashion to make the vessel sea-kindly.
My recollection of the Cardiff of 1850 was that the people were
foreigners living in a wilderness of mud.
Our destination was London and the weather was fine all the way
to our berth in Cherry Garden tier, where we got rid of the iron
and took in ballast from a Paddy's lighter to get us to West
Hartlepool. From there, we continued trading with various places
in the south until November, when I was transferred to the
brigantine 'Brothers' in Dartford Creek. This was to get me home
for the winter, according to agreement.
John Harrison was a good captain under whom to
start a life at sea. He was enormously strong, physically, and
indeed I saw him set his little crew a challenge by lifting all
the coal meter's weights of about a quarter of a ton from the
gunwhale to the deck and back again. I have also seen him knock
the heels of both masts aft a few inches to set them more
upright, but it also set him more cantankerous when they weren't
exactly right and so he kicked them back again.
I have even seen him repeatedly trim the ballast and drag cable
chains fore and aft to alter the trim of the brig while under
way. By energy and sheer pluck, he gave his little craft a name
for sailing among the coastal community that she would never
otherwise have deserved. He drove crew and ship almost
aggressively and never lingered in port. He never overslept a
tide, and his crew were given plenty of food and little time to
digest it. Of course, the laws regarding adulteration were not so
strict then and you couldn't be sure of the quality of a ship's
provisions. Once when we were discharging in the Regent Canal,
London, I was told by the captain's wife to set the evening milk
up to cream, but when she asked for it in the morning, the cream
was plainly to be seen lying at the bottom of the basin. John's
wife was Sarah, daughter of William Keld who
used to keep the 'Robin Hood', and her sister married Coultas
Storm, master of the brig 'Nymph' and part owner. John and Sarah
had a home in the Square.
Years after this time - in 1862 in fact - John was in command of
the Harrison's brig 'Daring', and his conduct in one of the
Autumn storms of that year was related to me by his leading hand.
He was on his way from Riga to London and when the sky and sea
began to look forbidding, he made for the quieter waters of the
Norfolk shore. Unfortunately, the storm broke violently from WSW.
Driven seaward again, he was east of Outer Dowsing Bank when a
heavy sea stove in the fresh water tank and carried away the deck
cargo of timber. His decision, when the wind reached hurricane
force, was to run for the shelter of the Elbe. Great waves roared
on the quarter, threatening all the time to break aboard. When
his dead reckoning told him he should be nearing safety there was
no sign of land or stars and so he hove to until he decided he
must feel his way to the north. Eventually he found seven fathoms
off Amrum Bank, off the North Frisian Islands, and then he wore
ship to avoid running aground, while the wind urged her eastward
to the shore all the time. The master led the fight to take in
sail, but to shorten the struggle he struck savagely at the
foremast, to bring down all the canvas. Then he cut away this
wreckage on the deck to clear the hawse, and let go both anchors.
So they rode out the rest of the night and in the morning, there
were signs of better weather.
The 'Daring' made Cuxhaven under jury rig after heaving up one
anchor and having to cut away the other. Captain Harrison battled
on thus almost to the end of his days in 1890 at the age of
seventy-four, one of the most persevering men of his time. His
one son died aboard the brig 'Daring' at Rye, aged fourteen.
Thomas, John's brother, former mate of the 'Harrisons', died at
Arendal, Norway in 1872, in harness, but I suspect heavy drinking
shortened his days. His son died at Yokohama and his grandson
died in an explosion aboard the steamship 'Abaris' at the age of
eighteen. My uncle, James, the third of the five
sons of Thomas and Mercy, had two sons who commanded ships:
Thomas Harrison and all his crew went down in the brig 'Naiad'
and Storm Harrison was lost in the 'Joseph'.
Footnotes: (13) Foxmen are the boatmen who seek work on the river, assisting ships into and out of the harbour.
(14) Yarmouth mittens are hands made raw by
rough work in cold water
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