SHIPS OF THE U.S. MERCHANT MARINE 



THE oldest American shipping concern, the Cuba Mail Line, owes its 

 origin to a far-seeing Yankee shipowner, James Otis Ward, of Rox- 

 bury, Massachusetts. 



Ward began his maritime career in the middle of the past century, 

 when American ships sailed to far-off ports in the Orient or Africa, to 

 return with their holds fairly bursting with silk and tea from China; 

 pepper and spices from Sumatra ; cotton goods from Bombay ; ivory and 

 copra from Madagascar; gum-copal from Zanzibar; hemp from the 

 Philippines; rubber, hides and wool from South America; canvas and 

 iron from Scandinavia and Russia; figs, almonds and raisins from the 

 Mediterranean; coffee from Arabia; salt from Spain; wine from Portugal 

 and the Madeiras; and whale oil from the Arctic and Antarctic. 



American ships which brought these materials vied with one another 

 in reaching distant ports and in bringing back rare cargoes, which they 

 often sold at fabulous profits. Equipped only with a compass, a sextant, a 

 quadrant, a copy of Bowditch's Practical Navigator and, possibly, one of 

 the new chronometers, these brave little ships — square rigged schooners 

 and brigantines, some scarcely a hundred feet long — showed our flag in 

 every foreign port and opened up hundreds of new markets all over the 

 world. 



Watching this trend toward world-wide commerce, shrewd James Otis 

 Ward bought a small fleet of ships, and in 1840 engaged in near-by trade 

 with the West Indies. His staunch little sloops and schooners set out from 

 Massachusetts and Connecticut ports laden with grain, bricks, pine lum- 

 ber, ice, salt, dried codfish and hardware, and sometimes even horses, 

 pigs and cattle. 



Ward's alert Yankee mind soon realized that, of all the West Indian 

 islands, the greatest promise of lasting profit lay in Cuba. From that 

 island, then under the flag of Spain, Ward brought back sugar, rum, 

 molasses, coconuts and other non-perishable produce. 



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