SUNDAY STANDARD-TIMES, NEW 
Famous Shipwrecks of New England 
Cape Verde Packets Have a Place 
In Annals of Area's Sea Disasters 
In the history of shipwrecks 
there must be included a chapter 
in which Cape Verde packets have 
contributed a considerable share. 
In the long history of the packet 
trade carried on between New 
Bedford, Providence and the Cape 
Verde Islands, there are numer¬ 
ous instances of vessels leaving 
port to be lost completely to sight. 
The packets, usually schooners re¬ 
fitted after they had been retired 
from whaling and the coasting 
trade, were manned bv men who 
knew the sea. They were expert 
navigators, but when the com¬ 
paratively small schooners ran 
into storms, it was by chance that 
some reached their destination, 
while others went down and 
were never heard of again. 
Two packets that went down at 
sea were the converted whaling 
schooner John R. Manta, which 
sailed from Providence Nov. 9, 
1934, carrying a crew of 19 and 13 
passengers, and the schooner 
Winnepesaukee, which cleared 
from New Bedford a fewk days 
later carrying a crew of 13, but 
no passengers. 
Both Skippers Experienced 
Captain Alberti no Senna, com¬ 
manding the Manta, and Captain 
Francisco Fernandez, master of 
the Winnepesaukee, were both 
experienced mariners and well 
known in New Bedford. As time 
went on and no word came from 
either vessel, hope was given up. 
Somewhere in a storm at sea the 
schooners went to the bottom, 
whether in the darkness of night 
or otherwise was never known. 
In the Spring of 1935 relatives 
of the 45 lost, on the two ships 
gathered in the Portuguese Chap¬ 
el of the Central Congregational 
Church B in Providence to hold a 
memorial service. 
A well-remembered packet was 
THE JOHN R. MANTER 
7 
the schooner Romance which 
once arrived in New Bedford with 
a broomstick at her masthead, dis¬ 
tinguishing her as the vessel that 
once made the fastest time be¬ 
tween the Cape Verde Islands 
and this port. Her last trip out of 
this port was Dec. 7, 1926. The 
Romance was lost off the island 
of Boavista of the Cape Verde 
group. 
There was the packet Matthew 
S. Greer, another converted whal¬ 
er, which went ,on the rocks off 
Kettle Cove, Naushon Island, Jan. 
7, 1929, and became a total loss. 
Eight men aboard were saved. 
Lost Off Africa 
There was the big barkentine 
Amos Pegs that was purchased 
for the Cape Verde trade. He~ 
last trip out of New Bedford was 
in November 1922. Like most of 
the packets sailing to the islands, 
she was used in freighting and 
trading with the African coast 
ports during off seasons. She was 
loading mahogany logs off the 
African Gold Coast when she was 
lost in 1923. 
The six passengers and 10 
members of the crew of the packet 
Frank Brainerd were more fortu¬ 
nate than some in being rescued 
when the packet foundered off 
Bermuda. The packet sailed from 
here for the islands Nov. 17, 1936. 
One of the largest of the vessels 
to engage in the carrying trade 
between New Bedford and the 
Cape Verde Islands was first 
known here under the name of 
Eugenia Emelia. That was just 
after Captain Luiz Oliveira had 
bought the vessel at U. S. mar¬ 
shal’s sale in Boston and re¬ 
named her for his wife. 
This was truly a beautiful ship 
that in her day bore many names. 
When she slid down the ways on 
the Clyde, in Scotland, in 1878, 
she bore the name Coriolanus. She 
was an iron bark and on her! 
maiden voyage she cleared for 
Calcutta. She must have been a 
good ship for she was awarded the 
Gold Medal of the Honorable 
Shipwrights Guild, a distinction 
reserved for the finest. 
Had Varied Career 
The Coriolanus had a varied 
career, in the course of which she 
transferred from British registry 
to carry the German flag, at an¬ 
other time the Norwegian flag, 
again the flag of Panama, then to 
the Portuguese flag, until the 
iron hark ended her days in a 
Fall River shipyard.to be broken 
up for junk. 
Under the name Tiburton, f^he 
was flying the Norwegian flag 
and carrying a contraband cargo 
of alcohol when she was seized 
off the American coast and taken 
into Boston, where her cargo was 
confiscated. It was there that Cap¬ 
tain Oliveira bought her in 1921, 
refitted her and gave her his 
wife’s name. 
Again the vessel ran afoul the 
law against bringing alcohol into 
the country on a return trip from 
the Cape Verde Islands, and she 
passed to a new owner and in time 
became the Lina. Under this name 
she lay at anchor and rusted in 
New Bedford Harbor all one Sum¬ 
mer. 
Under new auspices, the iron 
bark resumed her former name 
and it was under that name she 
went to the junkyard in 1936, 
when it reported her 400 tons of 
steel went to Japan. While the 
Coriolanus was never wrecked, 
she deserves a place in the rec¬ 
ords of Cape Verde packets. 
