Black Ball Line

The first impression one often had crossing Pearl Street in New York City into the now South Street Seaport Historic District was the strange little kiosk with a flagpole out of the middle of it and a large black ball that apparently could be raised and lowered. I've learned since of the "Black Ball Clippers" that started out making two week sails to Liverpool, England as "mail packets". The former "Seamen's Bank for Savings" on Wall Street, started by the industry, once handed out a print of a oil painting of a "Black Baller Passing the Battery" in reference to the what today is Battery Park, then where Castle Clinton and Castle Williams on Governors Island were armed with cannon to protect the harbor in cross-fire. The bank is part of J.P. Morgan Chase, its artifact collection donated to the South Street Seaport. Prominent in the painting is the large black ball on the mainsail to show which company the ship belonged to. A similar print of a painting of one is in the small cafeteria for the patrons of John T. Mather Hospital in Port Jefferson, NY, named after the endowment by the local shipbuilder there. It's recorded that the "Liverpool packets" stopped in the adjoining harbor, Setauket, NY. Both harbors once built ships, one to be the largest in the U.S. at the time, was never finished but became a coal barge as coal became ubiquitous even there in the 1840s. One of the first expeditions of settlers explorers in nearby Huntington, NY (Ashford under Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell) was to find "cannel-coal" to make bricks (also called "candle coal"; Wikipedia), recorded in the 17th century. I once assisted on a site, the "Old Stone Fort" which probably due to the lack of stone on Long Island, a glacial feature, has been incorporated into houses nearby, indeed many of the old cemetery stones on Long Island were imported (see Gaynell Stone's masters thesis, one well known artisan was known as "Spiderman" across the Long Island Sound in Connecticut.) The "fort" was in or next to Walt Whitman's grandfather's place, also an old cemetery, next to their then Town Historian's house, Rufus Langhans (one of the masters of ceremonies back during the last Op-Sail, the captain of the ill-fated Exxon Valdez also in attendance, a resident of Huntington. Other Huntington residents have been artists Harry Chapin and John Coltrane, U.S. statesman George B. Cortelyou, an American Presidential Cabinet secretary under McKinley and Roosevelt, and recently cited as the "First White House Press Secretary" in the National Archives. Patriot Nathan Hale, hung later in Manhattan, his remains still a mystery, was held for a time at "Fort Golgotha" in another Huntington cemetery, by British commander Benjamin Thompson in the American Revolution, young Thompson was later known as the important physicist Count Rumford). The Quakers ran the Black Ball line of ships out of the today's South Street Seaport Historic District, but two blocks in from South Street and the present shoreline. Pearl Street was the original shoreline, Water, Front and South Street have been added as land was made, mostly during economic recessions, ironically. They have been involved in the City of New York since 1657. One Walter Bowne in 1840 was a Quaker Mayor of New York City and lived on another site I've researched on Pearl Street. "The first regular line of packet ships between this port and Liverpool was the Black Ball Line, established in 1817 by Francis Thompson (1772-1832), Jeremiah Thompson (1784-1835) and Isaac Wright and son, all Quakers. They owned the four ships with which the line began - the Pacific, the Amity, the Courier and the James Monroe. The Amity was built in 1816 by Forman Cheeseman, a member of this meeting, and the Courier in 1817 by Sydney Wright, a nephew of Isaac Wright. These ships were about 400 tons burthen. Benjamin Marshall, not known to be a Quaker, but whose wife was buried in the Friends' cemetery, was also an owner. There had been independent packet ships making fairly regular sailings at long intervals, since 1780, but the line, later with eight ships, and with fine passenger accommodations made regular and semi-monthly sailings. Their distinguishing marks was a large black ball painted on the foretopsail. Jeremiah was considered to be the largest importer in America of British cloth and an exporter of cotton to Liverpool, but does not appear to have felt the need for advertising. Francis was more closely engaged in the shipping business. Old Merchants of N.Y. by Joseph A. Scoville, under the Pseudonym of "Walter Barrett," gives additional information on the Thompsons. The Line, still in great prestige, passed into ownership of Jonathan Goodhue & Co. in 1834. Jeremiah Thompson was Clerk of the Monthly Meeting for ten years, 1814-1824." (Quakerism in The City of New York 1657-1930, John Cox, Jr., New York. Privately Printed. A Facsimile Reprint 2000. Heritage Books, Inc., Bowie, Maryland. www.heritagebooks.com) The text goes on to describe the Red Star line, another line and the first Gas Company in the city, in 1825, and the first house to be lit that of Samuel F. Leggett, the company's president and a wealthy and prominent Quaker. Originally published in 1869, in Boston, MA on the press of Henry W. Dutton & Son, 90 & 92 Washington Street.