Tag: Seafaring

Around the World on the Columbia (episode 233)

Come with me on a voyage around the world with the officers and crew of the ship Columbia.  Formally named the Columbia Rediviva and accompanied by the sloop Lady Washington, the ship was owned by a group of prominent Bostonians and charged with opening up trade between Boston and China.  Almost by accident, the Columbia became the first American ship to visit the west coast of North America, the first American ship to land in the Hawaiian islands, and the first American ship to circumnavigate the globe.  Over the course of five years and two expeditions, the crew completed two circumnavigations, brought the first native Hawaiian to visit Boston, and “discovered” the Columbia river (which would have been news to the dozens of villages and thousands of inhabitants on the river).  The mighty river of the west had previously been thought to be a myth, and navigating up this river established US land claims in what would eventually become seven states.  The Oregon Country was contested between Russia, Spain, and Britain, but the Columbia’s expedition opened it to Boston merchants, and pretty soon all American traders on the west coast were known as the Boston men.


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Puritans in Paradise (episode 220)

In the 1820s, waves of Christian missionaries were dispatched from Boston, believing they might never return.  They didn’t know much about the land they were going to settle in or the people they were trying to convert, but what little they had heard was frightening.  The missionaries came from a church that was directly descended from the harsh Christianity of the Puritans, and they were on their way to a land where the people worshipped a pantheon of many gods.  From a society where both men and women were basically always covered from neck to ankles, they were going to a land where the people wore tattoos and very little else.  They had heard rumors of graven idols and human sacrifice, and believed they were on their way to do battle with the devil himself.  Many of them believed that they were being sent into the gates of hell, but they were on their way to heaven on earth itself… the Kingdom of Hawaii.


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The Ice King of Boston (episode 211)

Ice seems like such a simple thing today, when I can just go to my freezer and grab a few cubes to cool down my drink.  But before artificial refrigeration, New Englanders would cut and store ice during the long winter to keep their food fresh and their drinks cold during the summer.  That was all well and good for people who lived near an ice pond anyway, but what about people in the faraway tropics who might want to get their hands on some ice?  Until the early 1800s, the idea of shipping ice to the tropics was seen as a crazy pipe dream, but then along came Frederic Tudor, the Boston entrepreneur who built a fortune and a global reputation as the Ice King!


Continue reading The Ice King of Boston (episode 211)

Launching the USS Constitution (episode 207)

The USS Constitution is the most famous ship in Boston history, and perhaps in the history of the US Navy.  When the Navy was reborn in 1794, the Constitution was among the first fleet of frigates that made up its backbone.  A decade later, the USS Constitution would earn a brilliant, nearly flawless record of naval combat against the British in the war of 1812, and today it stands as the oldest commissioned warship afloat in the world and the last American ship to sink an enemy in a ship-to-ship duel.  However, the Constitution’s origins were far from flawless.  It was part of a procurement program that was nearly cancelled, and the famous frigate was almost scrapped before it was even completed.  After it was rescued and completed, the USS Constitution took not one, not two, but three attempts to successfully launch.


Continue reading Launching the USS Constitution (episode 207)

Joseph Chapman, from Boston to L.A. (episode 206)

Your humble host really misses travel, so this week’s episode is inspired by travel, both historic travel and my own. In the early 19th century,  a Boston shipwright’s apprentice went to sea with a whaling voyage, and ended up being recruited into a crew that was assembled in the Hawaiian Islands, then captured by Spanish authorities on the California coast and accused of piracy.  Escaping the gallows through hard work and Yankee ingenuity, Joseph Chapman would build a New England style mill for the San Gabriel mission, the first of its kind in Alta California.  He would live through tumultuous times, witnessing the independence of Mexico, the downfall of the mission system he had become part of, and eventually the American annexation of California.

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Boston’s Railroad Jubilee (episode 203)

In September 1851, Boston threw an enormous party, a party big enough to span three days.  After 15 years of development, the railroad network centered on Boston stretched out in every direction, linking the port of Boston to the American Midwest and the interior of Canada, with the Cunard line’s steamers giving access to markets in England.  To celebrate the new era of railroading, the city threw a grand Railroad Jubilee and invited President Millard Fillmore, the Governor General of Canada, and dignitaries from all over the country.  Besides commerce and steam locomotives, this episode will highlight a growing split within the Whigs old political party; Boston’s ever-present competition with New York City; and the seemingly unavoidable rush toward a civil war over the question of slavery.

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The Clipper Ships of East Boston (episode 199)

Kick back and enjoy our interview with Stephen Ujifusa, author of Barons of the Sea, and Their Race to Build the World’s Fastest Clipper Ship, which originally aired in July 2018.  Stephen takes us back to an era when the fastest, most elegant ships in the world were built in the East Boston shipyard of Donald McKay.  He also describes how they were used to trade for tea in China or gold in California, and how they helped America’s most prominent families amass fortunes through opium smuggling.  


Continue reading The Clipper Ships of East Boston (episode 199)

Whale Watching on Washington Street (episode 185)

In the 1860s, Bostonians could pay 20 cents and watch a captive whale swim in a custom built aquarium on Washington Street in Boston’s Downtown Crossing.  Today, there’s no sea world near Boston, and our New England Aquarium doesn’t hold any whales or dolphins.  Perhaps that’s for the best, as we now realize how intelligent these giants of the sea are.  However, things were different 160 years ago, when an entrepreneurial inventor did the impossible, bringing a beluga whale alive from the arctic ocean to Boston and keeping it alive here for at least 18 months, before being betrayed by the greatest showman, PT Barnum himself.


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Harvard Harnesses the Heavens (episode 158)

Since we “fell back” to Standard Time this past weekend, Boston has been forced to adjust to 4:30 sunsets.  To help us understand why the sun sets so early in Boston in the winter and what we could do about it, we’re going to replay a classic episode about how the idea of time zones and standard time was born in Boston, with the help of the Harvard Observatory.  And because we’re talking about the observatory, we have to share the story of the women who worked as human computers at the Harvard Observatory.


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The Dread Pirate Rachel (episode 147)

History records that Rachel Wall was the last woman to be hanged in Massachusetts, and legend remembers her as the only woman pirate from Boston.  Her highly publicized trial took place as America implemented its new constitutional government. The state attorney general who prosecuted her had been a signer of the Declaration of Independence.  A few weeks after the trial, the presiding judge became one of the first US Supreme Court justices, and her defense attorney, who had helped ratify the constitution, soon became the first US Attorney for Massachusetts under the constitution.  Not only that, but her death warrant carried perhaps the most famous signature in US history, that of governor John Hancock. On this week’s episode, we uncover the fascinating true story of Rachel Wall’s life, trial, and death that’s hiding within the legend.  


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