Read Ebook: The Memoirs of Charles H. Cramp by Buell Augustus C

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The Cramp family are of the old German descent, and they were among the first settlers on the banks of the Delaware. The name was Krampf up to the Revolution, when, according to the fashion at that time, it was anglicized. They came from Baden.

The fact that the art of ship-building "ran in the blood" may be judged from the fact that in 1788 Paul Jones, commanding the Russian Black Sea fleet during the Turkish war of that period, under the reign of Catherine the Great, says in his journal that among the foreign employees of the Russian Ministry of Marine was a naval architect named John Cramp, who held the position of secretary to the Russian Black Sea administration and had charge of the dock-yard which had been established at Kherson.

The Millers and Byerlys of the mother's family were also ship-builders. Mr. Cramp's maternal grandfather, Henry Miller, who had become proficient as a shipwright, at twenty-one invested his small fortune in an interest in the cargo of a vessel in one of the earliest voyages after the Revolution from the port of Philadelphia to the East, taking in China, the Indies, and the Philippines. His departure was witnessed by his fianc?e, Elizabeth Byerly, who waited faithfully and patiently his return.

These vessels were fitted out "man-of-war fashion," with the captain and mates, carpenter and boatswain as officers, and the latter were the battery commanders.

They always carried a supercargo, and sold the cargoes at the various ports and invested the proceeds in China shawls, teas, spices, and other products of the East.

At that time the waters of the East Indies and China swarmed with adventurers, pirates, rovers, and privateers; and the armed merchantmen had frequent brushes with them. In fact, many merchantmen of that time became imbued with the restless, adventurous spirit of the age and, commanding vessels heavily armed, took possession of some of the weaker ships they encountered, becoming veritable pirates for a time, and then returning to their homes under peaceful guise when the profits of their voyage had reached a satisfactory figure. The foundations of many fortunes in our Atlantic cities were laid upon such practices.

Mr. Miller embarked again with his augmented capital, in fact, making four voyages, each time with the profits of previous voyages in the new one, encountering many adventures with the pirates that infested the waters of the East and with an occasional privateer.

It was on his return from the fourth voyage when he, with the accumulations of his original venture sufficient to secure a life of ease and comparative luxury, and eager to meet his fianc?e, who would be patiently awaiting his arrival, was in sight of Cape Henlopen, with the full assurance that his voyages were ended and with every anticipation of a happy consummation of his eager wishes, a large privateer carrying a French flag hove in sight in a position of advantage.

The privateer, carrying a heavier armament and larger crew, captured the vessel before she could get inside of the Capes, and took the whole party to Martinique, where the whole property was confiscated and all the crew and officers were put in jail.

Mr. Miller, who was a Mason, was astonished to find that the French jailer was also one, and, as a mark of kindness, took him out and made a body-servant of him. His ingenuity and adaptability to circumstances enabled him to escape, and he reached Philadelphia without a cent and but little raiment. When Elizabeth Byerly was seen next day on Point-no-Point Road in a buggy with him, she looked as happy as if fortune was already in her hands. When they were married the next day, a serviceable loan from a friend facilitated the marriage festivities.

His restless, adventurous spirit, augmented by his voyages at sea, now took a different turn, and his time was taken up by trips from Pittsburg to New Orleans in arks that he and his companions built in Pittsburg, and with cargoes of produce and other freight they floated down the Ohio and Mississippi, relieving each other at steering or playing the violin and taking an occasional shot at a deer that would be found swimming across the river. The rivers Ohio and Mississippi ran through a wilderness at that time, and its fascinations had a wonderful effect on him.

After the cargoes and the lumber of which the arks were built were sold and the proceeds lost in speculation, they would make their way up to Natchez or other river towns, where they would be sure to get a steamboat or a flat boat or two to build, and then return to Philadelphia for a while. Henry Miller became well known on the rivers, and could always secure a commission to build the various craft that were found in the waters of the West.

One of Henry Miller's sisters married John Bennett, a ship-builder of repute, who went to live in Bordentown while engaged with his sons at Hoboken as shipwright and ship-builder for the celebrated Stevens family. It was there that with other vessels they built the yacht "Maria," named after the wife of John Stevens. The building of the "Maria" was an event, and Maria Stevens spent most of her spare time at the yard in looking over her construction and finish. The Stevens battery was begun during the Bennett period.

Mrs. Miller's brother was John Byerly, and her sister married William Sutton, both noted ship-builders. So when William Cramp, who had learned his profession under Samuel Grice, married Sophia Miller, two families of ship-builders were united.

Charles H. Cramp was two years old when his father acquired frontage on the Delaware in Kensington and established a shipyard of his own.

This early enterprise of William Cramp, who was then twenty-three years old, has since grown to be the great establishment known as The William Cramp & Sons Ship and Engine Building Company.

It does not seem necessary here to recount the progress of that pioneer enterprise. Suffice it to say that at the time when William Cramp founded his shipyard it was one of fourteen on the Delaware at different points on the river front between Southwark and Kensington, and it is the only one of the fourteen that remains in existence.

Of Charles Henry Cramp's childhood and early youth, it is not necessary to speak here in detail. He was, it might be said, born into the atmosphere of naval architecture and the art of ship-building, and from his earliest activity he never practised or attempted to practise any other profession.

When about fourteen years of age he had exhausted the educational possibilities of the ordinary schools and entered the old Central High School, which was then presided over by Alexander Dallas Bache, the most consummate master of the science of applied mathematics and the physical sciences of his time in this country, if not in the world. While at the High School, Mr. Bache was appointed to take charge of the appropriation of a million dollars by Congress to defray the cost of a series of observations on terrestrial magnetism in co-operation with similar observations along the same lines in Europe, and also for the purpose of making certain observations in meteorology. The appropriations for the last-named observations were made on the recommendations of Professor Espy. This was about 1846.

While Washington was the central point of the observations, Philadelphia was practically the head-quarters, because Professor Bache and his associate. Major Bache, resided there.

Observations were established at Charleston, New Orleans, and Utica, and they communicated with Toronto, the Canadian station.

Professor Bache took his observers at Philadelphia from among the pupils of the High School for night work, and he had the day observers from the University.

George Davidson, Charles H. Cramp, and William H. Hunter were among the number, and the observations, after being collated at Washington, were ultimately deposited at the Smithsonian Institute, and later on formed the basis of the operations of the "Signal Service Bureau." At the time the observations were made, the magnetic telegraph had not as yet been utilized, and the course of storms was portrayed by mail after they had occurred.

Not long after this period, Professor Bache was appointed to succeed Mr. Hasler as head of the Coast Survey. He invited the young men who were in the group of the magnetic installation to accompany him in his new field of labor, and Mr. Cramp was invited with the rest, but desiring to engage in ship-building he pursued that art.

Mr. Davidson, who was in the magnetic observations with Mr. Cramp, and was a school-mate and life-long friend, remained on the Coast Survey under Mr. Bache, and spent the greater portion of his life on the Pacific in that capacity; and it was under his direction and control that the great Triangulation of our newly acquired possessions there from the Rocky Mountains to the coast was made by him, and said to be by scientists the greatest work in geodesy ever made by or under one man.

He is now Professor of Commercial Geography in the University of California. He has filled nearly every position there that required the highest attainments in the physical sciences. The Alaska Commission, inauguration of Lick Observatory, expeditions for the observation of eclipses of the sun, are a small portion of the important positions that he has filled. His contributions to science would fill volumes.

At the end of a term of three and one-half years under the tutorship of Professor Bache, Mr. Cramp entered the shipyard of his maternal uncle, John Byerly. This arrangement was made, notwithstanding the fact that his father, William Cramp, was then actively engaged in ship-building on his own account; the idea being that it would be better, all things considered, for him to begin his practical experience under other tutorage than that of his own father.

About 1846, or in his nineteenth year, Mr. Cramp, having attained to a certain point the qualifications of a practical ship-builder in his uncle's shipyard, went to that of his own father.

Among the first things undertaken when in his father's yard, Mr. Cramp designed the pioneer propeller tug-boat ever built in the United States, the "Sampson," and it fixed the type now so numerous in the waters of America. She was of a peculiar build. Her dimensions were eighty feet long and twenty feet beam. She had as much dead rise as a pilot-boat or "pungy," and had a keel three feet wide at the stern-post. In getting up the design, it was considered indispensable by the marine engineers at that time to have the screw entirely beneath the bottom of the vessel, and, as the screw was six feet in diameter, the engine-builders wanted the keel six feet wide. When shown the impracticability of this, they were content to have three feet of the screw beneath the bottom of the ship. The propeller shaft ran on top of the floors and the bearings were between the frames. The crank was between the frames and just cleared the outside planking in its sweep. She proved to be a profitable investment for the owners, Michael Molloy & Son, who ordered another one. This was the "Bird." She had a narrower keel, and the bearings of the propeller shaft were secured to the top of the floors. Another one was built a short time after, and, in view of the shallow water in which she had to run, the keel was only ten inches wide. This was considered a great detriment to the efficiency of the screw; but on the trial it was found that the importance of wide keels was overestimated, and the practice came to an end.

A considerable operation of unusual and interesting character was undertaken by his father about that time, and in which Mr. Cramp himself assisted. This was the design and construction of a fleet of surf-boats intended for the purpose of facilitating the landing of General Scott's army at Vera Cruz. The naval and military authorities of that time were doubtful of the capacity of the ordinary boats of the fleet itself to land a sufficient body of troops at one time to command the shore. The intention at first was to provide a sufficient number of boats to land the whole army at once, and three hundred boats were contracted for upon a design made by William Cramp.

Only a part of them was built by Mr. Cramp, but they were all built upon his plans. They were large surf-boats of three different sizes, and were carried to Vera Cruz on the decks of schooners chartered for the purpose. The thwarts were taken out of the larger boats and the smaller ones of different sizes were stowed in them.

The "Standard History of the Mexican War" shows that out of the total number designed by Cramp and contracted for with different boat-builders, only one hundred and eighty-six were actually delivered and used, and in the operations against Vera Cruz, General Scott's army was landed by divisions. The Regular Division commanded by General Worth was put on shore first, then the Volunteer Division of General Robert Patterson, and, finally, the mixed Regular and Volunteer Division of General Twiggs.

After these boats had been used for their original purpose they were cast adrift. Their sea-worthiness may be estimated from the fact that some of them were picked up in mid-Atlantic months afterward.

There are stories in history about invading armies burning their bridges behind them, but this is unquestionably the only instance where an army deliberately cast loose the boats in which it had landed upon the soil of an enemy. Burning bridges might mean, and doubtless would, the simple destruction of means of recrossing a river in the case of disaster, but the destruction or dispersion of the boats in which Scott's army landed at Vera Cruz meant the obliteration of any possible means they might have had of crossing a gulf and ocean had the fortune of war been adverse to them.

Starbuck, in his "History of the American Whale-fishery," refers to this incident, and says that some of these boats were picked up by whaling-ships, whose crews highly prized them, and that they were used for years afterward in the sperm and right-whale fisheries of the Pacific Ocean.

At the beginning of the career of Mr. Cramp in ship-building, the profession had arrived at its highest state of efficiency in everything that related to the design, finish, and outfit of ships. They were with but few exceptions all of wood, and it was in the wooden ship and during the period between 1840 and 1860 that the art and everything belonging to it attained its highest proficiency. Ship-building as an art, profession, and science culminated about this time,--the great transition from wood to iron.

From the earliest period up to that time the professional ship-builder or "master builder," as he has always been called, was a master in reality. He designed, modelled, and built his own ships, and his appreciation of the beautiful and his artistic taste were of the most refined and cultivated character, and were everything that the term sculptor, artist, and constructor meant. He was acutely sensitive; his contempt for the quack and commonplace in his profession was as great as that of the physician in regular practice for the medical quack.

The builder, the shipwright, the commander, and sailor of this period have never been equalled in any of their professions since, and with but few exceptions the modern steel ship is a retrograde in everything pertaining to the real art as compared to the ship of the period we refer to. The ships, of course, are larger now, and that is all. This period was not only noted on account of the high character of the art, but ship-building plants in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore turned out the finest specimens of construction in the world. All of the workmen--shipwrights, ship-joiners, ship-smiths, ship-painters, and caulkers--were without equals on the planet.

The Webbs, the Westervelts, the Steers family, Jere Simonson, Smith and Dimon and others of New York, and John Vaughan, John Byerly, the Van Duzen family, John K. Hammett and William Cramp, of Philadelphia, were the leaders of their profession the world over. In the navy were to be found the Grices, the Humphreys, the Hanscoms, Delano, and others.

The introduction of the iron ship was made under very unfavorable conditions. The first to take hold of the new material were people, mechanically speaking, of commonplace character both here and abroad, and the art or profession as a rule retains the original taint up to this time. There are some exceptions; some ship-builders in Great Britain carried their art into the Iron Age,--the Napiers, the Ingliss family, and others in Great Britain, and the Cramps in the United States.

Mr. Cramp's mould loft practice and methods as carried on from the wooden-ship period is the practice now in use in the construction of the navy.

The great advance in the steamship of the period thence up to this time has been in the machinery; and in marine engineering the English were our masters. There has been no advance here in the ship-building art in any respect.

The decade following the Mexican War and preceding that of the Rebellion was marked chiefly by the final or ultimate development of the clipper type of sailing-vessel, and also by the gradual surrender of sail to steam in propulsion and of wood to iron in construction. The clipper idea was undoubtedly of Baltimore origin, and, in fact, the name of that city was given to the type,--the "Baltimore Clipper." They were, of course, sailing-vessels. In all respects of model, of structure, size of spars and sails, dimensions of hull, etc., the type was distinctly American. It is known, however, that the earliest clippers built in Baltimore were intended for and used in the African slave-trade. In this nefarious traffic they were extremely successful, because in the day of their beginning there were no steam cruisers to enforce the laws making the slave-trade piracy, and there was no sailing cruiser afloat which could keep within sight of a Baltimore clipper in the slave-trading days.

The type, though originating in Baltimore, was not developed there to its ultimate capacity, but the idea was taken up by Philadelphia, New York, and New England ship-builders and embodied in the famous lines which plied between this country and the Pacific Ocean. The discovery of gold in California also gave a great impetus to commerce in sailing-vessels. Of course, steamships soon began to run from New York to the Atlantic side of the Isthmus and from the Pacific side to San Francisco, but there was no railway across the Isthmus at first, so that very little freight traffic could be handled by these steamers. The result was that all freights between the Atlantic coast and California had to go around Cape Horn, and in this traffic the clipper ship fully asserted its value.

The decade of the 50's was really the zenith of the American carrying trade on the ocean. Relatively to the total amount of ocean commerce, our ships carried a larger proportion of it than ever before in time of peace. Of course, during the Napoleonic wars, when our flag was neutral, we carried a larger proportion of our own products than in the 50's, but never before in a time of general peace.

The Crimean War, which happened during this period, also helped American commerce in the ocean carrying trade, because the French and English took up a great deal of their tonnage for transporting troops and military supplies during the years 1854, 1855, and 1856, and to a great extent the places of these ships were filled by vessels under the American flag.

All these causes combined to create marked activity in American ship-building.

To this might be added the effort to establish a trans-Atlantic steamship line under the American flag in opposition to the heavily subsidized Cunard Line. This was known as the Collins Line, and while the government aid lasted it held its own in competition with its British antagonists, but the subsidy was soon withdrawn, and with it the Collins Line collapsed.

On the whole, so far as American ocean commerce and ship-building are concerned, the decade of the 50's was one of the most interesting in our history. During that period the Cramp concern built from the designs and under the superintendence of Charles H. Cramp a considerable number of important sailing merchant vessels, together with several steamers, mostly constructed for the coasting trade between the ports on the Atlantic and on the Gulf. Cramp also built during that period seven steamers for Spanish or Cuban account to be used in the coasting trade of the Spanish West Indies. They were called "Carolina," "Cardenas," "Alphonso," "Union 'Maisi,'" "General Armero," and "Union No. 2." The last one was not finished until the outbreak of the Rebellion, when she was taken possession of temporarily by the government and converted into a gun-boat, now in the navy list as the "Union." An interesting incident in Mr. Cramp's career was his visit to Havana for the purpose of delivering these ships. In their delivery and in making settlement for their construction he spent several months at Havana, where his knowledge of the Spanish language, in which he always retained considerable proficiency, was of great service to him.

The first war vessel designed by Mr. Cramp was the "Libertador," built for Venezuela. She was fitted with a pair of trunk engines by Messrs. Sutton & Smith, who were noted for their skill in building trunk and oscillating and other marine engines. She mounted a large pivot-gun on her quarter-deck, and when fired off on her trial trip at Market Street, the windows there were broken and the gun nearly kicked herself overboard.

We now arrive at the period of the Civil War, in the operations connected with which Mr. Cramp's genius first became conspicuous in the broad or national sense.

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