History | |
---|---|
United States | |
Owner | Western Union Thompson Fish Company; leased by the Western Union Telegraph Company |
Builder | Herbert Elroy Arch, Thompson Enterprises, Key West, FL |
Launched | 1939 |
Owner | Vision Quest National, Ltd., Philadelphia |
Acquired | 1984 |
Renamed | New Way |
Owner | Schooner Western Union Preservation Society, Key West, FL |
Acquired | 1997 |
Renamed | Western Union |
General characteristics | |
Sail plan | Schooner |
Western Union (schooner) | |
Location | Key West, Florida, USA |
Coordinates | 24°33′30″N81°48′27″W / 24.55833°N 81.80750°W Coordinates: 24°33′30″N81°48′27″W / 24.55833°N 81.80750°W |
Built | 1938-39 |
NRHP reference No. | 84000930 [1] |
Added to NRHP | May 16, 1984 |
Western Union is a historic schooner located in Key West, Florida, United States. She is berthed at the Key West Bight at 202 William Street. Western Union is the last surviving authentic working tall ship built in Florida. On May 16, 1984, Western Union was added to the US National Register of Historic Places. She is also the official flagship of the State of Florida and the flagship of the city of Key West. [2]
Launched in 1939 by Herbert Elroy Arch, Thompson Enterprises, Western Union was built to function as a cable tender in order to maintain the communication link between Florida cities, Caribbean islands and South America. [3] The ship's frame was constructed of Cayman mahogany while all of her planking was Longleaf yellow pine from Florida. Two engines were also installed to maintain her steadiness at sea and to facilitate the cable laying process. Western Union was built to replace another schooner, John W. Atkins, in the servicing of undersea telegraph cables. While she was owned by the Western Union Thompson Fish Company, Western Union was almost immediately leased to the Western Union Telegraph Co. From 1939 to 1974, the schooner was used to check and repair the signal cable from Key West to Cuba, as well as to lay undersea telegraph cable throughout the Caribbean. [4] In all, Western Union laid more than 30,000 miles (48,000 km) of undersea telegraph cable. In 1974 she was converted into a passenger vessel. For the next decade, Western Union carried a large number of passengers, most notably musician Jimmy Buffett. [5]
Western Union was sent to New York City in 1976 to participate in Operation Sail as part of the United States Bicentennial. In honor of the event, Western Union was temporarily renamed La Amistad as a representation of the historical cargo ship La Amistad. [6]
In 1984 Western Union was sold to the Philadelphia-based non-profit, Vision Quest National, Ltd. and renamed New Way. [7] The vessel was utilized for a program to redirect troubled youth. [8] On May 16, 1984, the ship was added to the National Register of Historic Places. [9] In 1997, she played the role of La Amistad in the 1997 Steven Spielberg film Amistad. The opportunity for the ship to return to Key West came about in 1997 and she was subsequently purchased by Historic Tours of America, Key West. HTA restored her original name, Western Union and ran sunset and day sails as well as charter trips. But in early 2007, HTA announced it had been losing $100,000/year on the charters and put the boat up for sale for $600,000.
Theo Glorie, a local visionary and co-owner of The Coffee Plantation with his wife Diane, decided to try to try to save the ship and keep it in Key West. He founded the Schooner Western Union Preservation Society & Maritime Museum (SWUPS), a non-profit organization dedicated to restoring and preserving the historic schooner for the public as a sailing experience aboard a working, sailing museum to commemorate Florida's seafaring heritage. [10] A group of local community leaders, including Captain Frank Holden, attorney Michael Browning, HTA CEO Chris Belland, Monroe County Commissioner Heather Carruthers, realtor Guy DeBoer (currently editor of the weekly newspaper Konk Life), realtor Ed Anderson, developer Roger Bernstein, Schooner Wharf Bar co-owner Paul Whortington and Bill Semich, President and Editor of Key West Magazine, stepped up and agreed to join the Society's initial board of directors, along with Glorie. [11] Months later in October 2007, HTA donated the historic schooner to SWUPS. The first order of business was to restore the seventy-year-old schooner so she could continue to be certified by the United States Coast Guard to sail with passengers as a sailing, working museum.
In 2008 a marine surveyor and the United States Coast Guard found that Western Union required a massive restoration in order to continue to sail with passengers. The ship, for her 70 years of age, had never been fully restored. [12]
Because Western Union is on the National Register of Historic Places, the restoration work was accomplished in accordance with the Secretary of the Interior's Standard for Historic Vessel Preservation Projects. Restoration funds were raised by private citizen contributions, the Monroe County Tourist Development Council, and local Key West businesses. [12] The restoration project was overseen by Master Shipwright, Leon Poindexter, owner of Seaport Vessels, LLC. Poindexter and his crew had previous experience by the rebuilding of HMS Surprise used in the movie, Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World. [13]
Following an extensive restoration project, Western Union, the United States Coast Guard approved the final inspection of the ship in 2011, allowing her to resume passenger sailings.
After a failed Coast Guard inspection in 2014, repairs began again on the Western Union. [14]
The Western Union was for a time, undergoing repairs in Tarpon Springs, Florida at Marpro Marine Services, LLC. For many years, the ship was docked off of William Street in the Key West Bight (Historic Seaport). In 2019 after the death of chief restorers Bill Barry, Capt. Frank Holden and Richard Manley of Manley deBoer, the vessel was towed back to Key West without her masts, spars, and railings to be stored on the hard at Robbie’s Marina on Stock Island, where she still sits today. In addition, the captain who was hired to oversee the restoration in Tarpon Springs was entirely unfamiliar with wooden boats and was ill-equipped for the responsibility. [15] [16] [17]
Mystic Seaport Museum or Mystic Seaport: The Museum of America and the Sea in Mystic, Connecticut is the largest maritime museum in the United States. It is notable for its collection of sailing ships and boats and for the re-creation of the crafts and fabric of an entire 19th-century seafaring village. It consists of more than 60 historic buildings, most of them rare commercial structures moved to the 19-acre (0.077 km2) site and meticulously restored.
Northwest Seaport Maritime Heritage Center is a nonprofit organization in Seattle, Washington dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of Puget Sound and Northwest Coast maritime heritage, expressed through educational programs and experiences available to the public aboard its ships. The organization owns three large historic vessels docked at the Historic Ships' Wharf in Seattle's Lake Union Park; the tugboat Arthur Foss (1889), Lightship 83 Swiftsure (1904), and the halibut fishing schooner Tordenskjold (1911). These vessels are used as platforms for a variety of public programs, ranging from tours and festivals to restoration workshops and vocational training.
C.A. Thayer is a schooner built in 1895 near Eureka, California. The schooner is now preserved at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. She is one of the last survivors of the sailing schooners in the West coast lumber trade to San Francisco from Washington, Oregon, and Northern California. She was designated a National Historic Landmark on 13 November 1966.
The tall ship Elissa is a three-masted barque. She is based in Galveston, Texas, and is one of the oldest ships sailing today. Launched in 1877, she is now a museum ship at the Texas Seaport Museum. She was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990. The Texas Legislature designated Elissa the official tall ship of Texas in 2005.
The Pride of Baltimore was a reproduction of a typical early 19th-century "Baltimore clipper" topsail schooner, commissioned to represent Baltimore, Maryland. This was a style of vessel made famous by its success as a privateer commerce raider, a small warship in the War of 1812 (1812–1815) against British merchant shipping and the world-wide British Royal Navy. After the end of the war, Baltimore Clippers did not have sufficient cargo capacity for normal merchant trade, so some were used in the illegal opium trade into China and vessels of the same type were used in the transatlantic slave trade from Africa.
Effie M. Morrissey is a schooner skippered by Robert Bartlett that made many scientific expeditions to the Arctic, sponsored by American museums, the Explorers Club and the National Geographic Society. She also helped survey the Arctic for the United States Government during World War II. She is currently designated by the United States Department of the Interior as a National Historic Landmark as part of the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park. She is the State Ship of Massachusetts.
Wawona was an American three-masted, fore-and-aft schooner that sailed from 1897 to 1947 as a lumber carrier and fishing vessel based in Puget Sound. She was one of the last survivors of the sailing schooners in the West Coast lumber trade to San Francisco from Washington, Oregon, and Northern California.
La Amistad was a 19th-century two-masted schooner owned by a Spaniard colonizing Cuba. It became renowned in July 1839 for a slave revolt by Mende captives who had been captured and sold to European slave traders and illegally transported by a Portuguese ship from West Africa to Cuba, in violation of European treaties against the Atlantic slave trade. Spanish plantation owners Don José Ruiz and Don Pedro Montes bought 53 captives in Havana, Cuba, including four children, and were transporting them on the ship to their plantations near Puerto Príncipe. The revolt began after the schooner's cook jokingly told the slaves that they were to be "killed, salted, and cooked." Sengbe Pieh unshackled himself and the others on the third day and started the revolt. They took control of the ship, killing the captain and the cook. Three Africans were also killed in the melee.
Bowdoin is a historic schooner built in 1921 in East Boothbay, Maine, at the Hodgdon Brothers Shipyard. Designed by William H. Hand, Jr. under the direction of explorer Donald B. MacMillan, the gaff-rigged vessel is the only American schooner built specifically for Arctic exploration. She has made 29 trips above the Arctic Circle in her life, three since she was acquired by the Maine Maritime Academy as a sail training ship in 1988. She is currently owned by the Academy, located in Castine, Maine, and is named for Bowdoin College.
Adventure is a gaff rigged knockabout schooner. She was built in Essex, Massachusetts, USA, and launched in 1926 to work the Grand Banks fishing grounds out of Gloucester. She is one of only two surviving knockabout fishing schooners – ships designed without bowsprits for the safety of her crew.
Lettie G. Howard, formerly Mystic C and Caviare, is a wooden Fredonia schooner built in 1893 in Essex, Massachusetts, USA. This type of craft was commonly used by American offshore fishermen, and is believed to be the last surviving example of its type. She was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1989. She is now based at the South Street Seaport Museum in New York City.
L. A. Dunton is a National Historic Landmark fishing schooner and museum exhibit located at the Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut. Built in 1921, she is one of three remaining vessels afloat of this type, which was once the most common sail-powered fishing vessel sailing from New England ports. In service in New England waters until the 1930s and Newfoundland into the 1950s. After a brief period as a cargo ship, she was acquired by the museum and restored to her original condition.
Emma C. Berry is a fishing sloop located at the Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut, United States, and one of the oldest surviving commercial vessels in America. She is the last known surviving American well smack. This type of boat is also termed a sloop smack or Noank smack. The Noank design was imitated in other regions of the United States.
Wapama, also known as Tongass, was a vessel last located in Richmond, California. She was the last surviving example of some 225 wooden steam schooners that served the lumber trade and other coastal services along the Pacific Coast of the United States. She was managed by the National Park Service at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park until dismantled in August 2013.
Grace Bailey, also known for many years as Mattie, is a two-masted schooner whose home port is Camden Harbor, Camden, Maine. Built in 1882 in Patchogue, New York, she is one of four surviving two-masted wooden-hulled schooners, once the most common vessel in the American coasting trade. She was one of the first ships in the fleet of historic vessels known as "Maine windjammers", which offer cruises in Penobscot Bay and the Maine coast, entering that service in 1939. She last underwent major restoration in 1989-90. She was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1992.
Lewis R. French is a gaff-rigged topsail schooner sailing out of Camden, Maine as a "Maine windjammer" offering weeklong cruises to tourists. Built in 1871, she is the oldest known two-masted schooner in the United States, and one of a small number of this once-common form of vessel in active service. The ship was designated a US National Historic Landmark in 1992.
The sailing ship Regina Maris was originally built as the three-masted topsail schooner Regina in 1908. She was a 144-foot (44-meter), wooden, completely fore-and-aft–rigged sailing ship with three masts. She was re-rigged in 1963 as a 148-foot (45-meter) barquentine. Regina Maris could reach a speed of up to 12 knots, especially on a half-wind course or with a fresh back-stay breeze.
The Key West Bight, now known as the Key West Historic Seaport, is the site of a 200-year-old global maritime trade base in Key West, Florida, USA. A bend in the shoreline on the northwest side of the island created a bight, a wide bay and naturally protected harbor. Today, the Historic Seaport is the location of restaurants, bars, boutiques, art galleries, museums, hotels, boats, and watersports excursions.
The Thomas F. Bayard was a 19th-century Delaware River pilot schooner built by C. & R. Poillon shipyard in 1880. She spent sixteen years as a pilot boat before being sold during the Yukon Gold Rush in 1897. She was sold again in 1906 for Seal hunting, then purchased by the Department of Marine & Fisheries where she guided freighters into New Westminster, British Columbia for 43 years. She was then acquired by the Vancouver Maritime Museum in 1978. When she sank at her mooring in 2002, the International Yacht Restoration School, Mystic Seaport and the Vancouver Maritime Museum, removed the vessel in pieces for the archeological teams to study and document the remains of her hull. The Thomas F. Bayard Collection, at the Vancouver Maritime Museum, contains the documents, history and preservation efforts.