The Culpeper Ships
17th Century ships believed to have been owned
or used by Culpeper family members and which
sailed between England and the
Colonies
Source of much of this material and
commentary: William A. 'Bill' Russell
Table of Contents
The Short Life of Ships in this Era
To best evaluate the records below, it is
important to keep in mind the short life of ships in this era. A Portuguese
historian, Rui Duque, states on his
Causa Merita
website that "the average life time of ships of the seventeenth century
ranged from three to four years."
Reuse of Names? It would also be useful to know more about naming
practices for ships during the seventeenth century. Specifically, if one was
destroyed, was it likely that the owners would build a replacement ship with
the same name? Certainly, reusing of names was a common practice where a
child was lost at an early age.
Thomas and John
There were at least three and possibly as
many as six different ships named Thomas and John sailing the
Atlantic in the seventeenth century. At least one of these was owned by
Thomas and John Culpeper. We have included here all of the references we can
find to these ships with the hope of eventually sorting out which were
connected with Culpepers.
1627-1628
"Of London". No Culpepers mentioned:
-
1627 – Ship
Thomas and John of
London, John Hurlston, master, bound for Virginia
-
1627 – email from Josh Graml reference
librarian at the Mariners Museum, Newport News, to Roy Huddleston – colonial
records indicate that the Thomas and John was in Virginia waters and the
Richard Cocke, a prominent Virginian may have been the purser of the Thomas
and John.
-
13 May 1628 – Virginia Colonial Records
Project – records of the Thomas and John of London, John Huddleston
master, from Virginia loads 2,400 lbs of tobacco for Edward Morgan & Co.
-
15 May 1628 – VCRP – mentions a variety
of importers (actually exporters of tobacco) using the Thomas and John
-
9 July 1628 – John Hanger & Co cleared
customs with 3,314 lbs of tobacco in the Thomas and John
1633
Owned by brothers
Thomas Culpeper of the Middle Temple (#8470)
and John Culpeper the Merchant (#8384). This
is the only record that ties the Culpepers to a Thomas and John.
-
28 September 1633 – John and Thomas
Culpepper are mentioned as the owners of the ship Thomas and John of
London which was furnished with 18 pieces oif cast-iron ordinance (cannon) at
the shipyards at Shoreham-By-Sea. Bill Russell believes this is the above ship that was
fitted out with cannon, not a new ship.
1635-1640
"Of Colchester" in one record. No Culpepers mentioned:
-
1635-1637 – The Thomas and John
mentioned as “of Colchester,” which may be a good suggestion of where to look
for further Culpeper/Culpepper records, particularly given Thomas’ connection
with the siege of Colchester.
-
6 June 1635 – Thomas and John of
Colchester, Richard Lambert master, 105 passengers clears for Virginia (my note
– this would seem to indicate a 200 to 300 ton vessel based on similar records
for other vessels)
-
20 May 1636 – John Goodwyn testifies in
admiralty court to the sickness and death of Richard Lambert, master of the Thomas and John “within sight of the Bermudas.”
-
6 April 1637 – Port Book City of London
Thomas and John from Virginia Michael Andreanson & company imported 2,909
lbs of tobacco worth L484 16s 1d, duty was L6 1s 2 1/2d
-
1640 – mention of J Bradley shipping in
the Thomas and John
1650
Probably "Of London". No Culpepers mentioned:
-
2 March 1649/50 – Committee of the
Council of State on the Affairs of the Admiralty to permit the Thomas and
John to go to Virginia giving security not to carry arms and ammunition
-
25 March 1650 – above Admiralty
Committee permits the Thomas and John and the Flower de Luce to go
to Virginia giving security to the Mayor and Justices of Gravesend (my note –
the Flower de Luce had been going to Virginia since at least the 1630s)
1650-1670
No records found, but it appears this was a period of major disruption of
shipping records for the colonies.
1671-1674
"Of Lynn (MA)". No Culpepers mentioned. Given the 21 year span of
time (1650-1670) in which there are no records of the Thomas and John,
given the fact that the original ship would have been nearly 50 years
old in 1671, and given its new location (Lynn), this is clearly a
different ship than that of any of the preceding records.
-
30 July 1671
– Thomas and John
of Lynn, Michael Scott, master, Edm. Lloyd & Co, 7 hogs heads, 2,025 lbs of
tobacco (it would be interesting whether this was from Lynn, Massachusetts or
Kings Lynn, County Norfolk – if MA, it might tie in with my belief the John the
Merchant was operating out of MA)
-
9 January 1673/4 –
Thomas and John of
Lynn, John Salmon, master, John Nicholls shipping.
-
1674 – I believe there may have been a
couple of additional references but they did not seem important at the time.
1688
"Of Barbados". Owned by Thomas Watson and John Stewart.
Most likely this is yet another ship.
-
July 1688
- "To Mr Thomas Mackoly, mate of the ship
Thomas and John,
We wish you safe to the South Carolina in said ship, Mr John fforrest,
Commander. We desire the kindnesse of you that if it should so happen that
Mr fforest now our master should die and in case of his mortality that you
will please take into your custody and possession our aforesaid ship with
the cargo now belonging to us and return with our vessel to the Island of
Barbados as you see convenient. If it should so happen Mr fforrest
departing this life and you will much oblidge. Your loving friends,
Thomas Watson and John Stuart, Wit: Jonathan Amory,
Proved 27 Sept 1688 before Will: Dunlop and Will: Salmon (This would be
considered a Power of Attorney giving Mackoly authority to replace and
control their ship on the death of Commander fforrest.
Source:
Susan Baldwin Bates
and Harriott Cheves Leland, Abstractors and Editors, Proprietary Records
of South Carolina Volume One, "Abstracts of the records of the Secretary
of the Province 1675-1695," July 1688, page 317 (provided to Culpepper
Connections by Dee Green)
Recovery (1658-1678)
Source:
Diane Rapaport, Historical/Genealogical Consultant,
Quill Pen Historical
Consulting,
Lexington, MA
I found records showing a connection between the Culpepers and
a ship named the Recovery,
in a variety of New England records. (Note:
There may have been more than one vessel named
Recovery, as
records use the terms "ship," "barque," "ketch," "brigantine,"
etc.) (Following this section are Wikipedia's
descriptions of these ship types.)
-
Possibly the
Recovery
was the same as the ship originally named
Lord’s Increase,
which had been renamed
Recovery and was owned by Jonathan Ruck in 1658.
Ruck sued Agustine Lyndon in Essex County, Massachusetts, "for taking
possession of, detaining or selling and disposing of a quarter part of the
ship."
George Francis Dow, ed., Records and
Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County, Massachusetts, 9
vols. (Salem, Mass.: Essex Institute, 1911-75), 2: 126.
-
In 1666,
another Essex County lawsuit mentioned the ship in a lawsuit against
Ruck by a Captain Thomas Clark, and documents in that case dated 1658 to
1666 referred to shipping between New England and Barbados.
Dow, Records and Files of the
Quarterly Courts of Essex County, Massachusetts, 3: 369-70.
(see "Court Records" section of
"Research Notes" in complete report)
Note:
References to Thomas Culpeper and "Mr." Culpeper also appeared in
another case involving Captain Thomas Clark. See comments re: Thomas
Culpepper, below.
Note:
In our Colonial Massachusetts Archives, see text about the ketch
Recovery,
whose master was John Bonner, which included the name Mr. Culpeper
in a list of goods (probably tobacco) bound for Liverpool, England.
-
I also found records in
Suffolk Deeds
(see "Deed Records" section of "Research Notes" in complete
report), mentioning vessels named
Recovery,
including the ketch owned by Bonner, and a brigantine of that
name owned by an Albemarle County man who had dealings with Joshua Lamb of
Roxbury:
-
On 31 Aug 1667,
the ketch Recovery
was sold by Edward Goodwin, shipwright, and
William Hackett, mariner, both of Salisbury (Essex County, Massachusetts),
to John Dixon and John Shephard of New England.
Suffolk Deeds, Vol. 5
(Boston: Rockwell & Churchill, 1890), Folios 339-340.
-
On 24 Aug 1670,
Thomas Peck, shipwright, of Boston, sold the ketch
Recovery
to John Bonner, mariner, of Boston.
Suffolk Deeds, Vol. 7 (Boston:
Rockwell & Churchill, 1894), Folio 34.
Note: Bonner was mentioned with a Mr. Culpeper (see above) an
undated account record from the Suffolk Files Collection, Vol 13, #1221,
p42 about the ketch Recovery.
-
On 12 Oct 1672,
George Durant of Albemarle County, "CoraLina," mariner, acknowledged debt of
56 pounds 14 shillings owed to merchants Nicholas Paige of Boston and Joshua
Lamb of Roxbury. Durant pledged his brigantine
Recovery
to Paige and Lamb. If Durant paid them 6,870 pounds of pork, by the end of
December, in Albemarle County, this obligation would be void.
Suffolk Deeds, Vol. 7 (Boston:
Rockwell & Churchill, 1894),
title,
folio 340,
folio 340a
Note:
Nicholas Paige was mentioned in 1680 records as a New York merchant with a
ship, Edward and Ann,
which accompanied Lord Thomas Culpeper’s ship back to England.
-
In 1678, a John Culpepper
was identified as the "master" of the barque
Recovery,
in a case before the Massachusetts Court of Assistants (acting as a Court of
Admiralty). Culpepper sued John Woodmansey for seizing the ship and cargo
"on pretence of a debt due to him from Zechariah Gillam." Culpepper claimed
that Woodmansey’s action prejudiced Culpepper "and his owners," and sought
100 pounds in damages. The court ruled in favor of Culpepper, ordering
delivery to him of the ship and goods "in such condition as it was seized,"
plus 5 pounds damages, and costs of court.
John F. Cronin and John Noble, eds.,
Records of the Court of Assistants of the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay,
1630-1692, 3 vols. (Boston: County of Suffolk, 1901-28),
cover,
p118 and
p119
Ship Types:
Brigatines, Ketches and Barques
From Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved November 4, 2011
Brigantine
Originally the brigantine
was a small ship carrying both oars and sails. It was a favorite of
Mediterranean pirates and its name comes from the Italian word brigantino,
meaning brigand, and applied by extension to his ship. By the 17th century
the term meant a two-masted ship. In the late 17th century, the Royal Navy
used the term brigantine to refer to small two-masted vessels designed to be
rowed as well as sailed, rigged with square rigs on the front mast and
fore-and-aft rigging on the main mast.
By the first half of the
18th century the word had evolved to refer not to a ship type name, but
rather to a particular type of rigging: square rigged on the foremast and
fore-and-aft rigged on the mainmast. The word "brig" is an 18th century
shortening of the word brigantine, which came to mean a vessel square-rigged
on both masts. The early Oxford English Dictionary (with citations from 1720
to 1854) still defined brig as being either identical to a brigantine, or
alternatively, a vessel of similar sail plan to a modern brig. By the middle
of the 19th century modern meanings had more or less stabilised, although
purists continue to debate the exact differences, or lack of them, between
brig, brigantine and hermaphrodite brig in both English and American usage.
Wikipedia
Source:
Brigantine (Sep 14, 2011)
Ketch
A ketch is a sailing craft
with two masts: a main mast, and a shorter mizzen mast abaft (rearward) of
the main mast, but forward of the rudder post. (When the mizzen mast is
located aft of the rudder post, the vessel is called a yawl.) Both masts are
rigged mainly fore-and-aft. From one to three jibs may be carried forward of
the main mast when going to windward. If a ketch is not rigged for jibs it
is called a cat ketch, sometimes called a periauger. On older, larger
ketches the main mast may in addition carry one or more square rigged
topsails. A ketch may also carry extra sails, see below.
The lowest fore-and-aft
sail on the main mast is called the mainsail, while that on the mizzen is
called the mizzen sail. These may be any type of fore-and-aft sail, in any
combination. The Scots Zulu, for example, had a dipping lug main with a
standing lug mizzen.
The ketch is popular among
long distance cruisers as the additional sail allows for a better balance,
and a smaller more easily handled mainsail for the same overall sail area.
It also allows sailing on mizzen and jib only without introducing excessive
lee helm, and in an emergency can be quite well steered without use of the
rudder. The ketch is a popular rig in northern European waters where sudden
increases in wind strength sometimes require a rapid reefing: the mainsail
can be dropped, reducing sail and leaving a balanced sail-plan with jib and
mizzen set.
Running before the wind or
reaching across the wind, a ketch may carry extra sails such as a spinnaker
on the main mast, and a spinnaker or (mizzen staysail) on the mizzen mast.
Wikipedia Source:
Ketch (Feb 26, 2011).
Barque
In both Latin and Italian
the term barca refers to a small boat, not a full-size ship. In Britain, by
the mid-nineteenth century, the spelling had taken on the French form of
barque. Francis Bacon used this form of the word as early as 1605...
In the eighteenth century,
the British Royal Navy used the term bark for a nondescript vessel that did
not fit any of its usual categories. Thus, when the British Admiralty
purchased a collier for use by James Cook in his journey of exploration, she
was registered as HM Bark Endeavour to distinguish her from another
Endeavour, a sloop already in service at the time. She happened to be a
ship-rigged sailing vessel with a plain bluff bow and a full stern with
windows.
William Falconer's
Dictionary of the Marine defined "bark", as "a general name given to small
ships: it is however peculiarly appropriated by seamen to those which carry
three masts without a mizen top-sail. Our northern mariners, who are trained
in the coal-trade, apply this distinction to a broad-sterned ship, which
carries no ornamental figure on the stem or prow."
Wikipedia Source:
Barque (Oct 19, 2011)
The Culpeper (1653) and The Culpepper
(1681-1689)
There were at least two different ships in
the 17th century carrying the name Culpeper or Culpepper. While it
is reasonable to assume that someone named Culpeper or Culpepper owned these
ships, no specific connection has been found between anyone with these surnames and the ships
with these names.
Culpeper (1653)
William A. 'Bill' Russell says, "The ship
Culpeper
was an armed merchantman, subject to call into the navy as a condition of
carrying cannon. 1653 would have been during the Commonwealth. All hostilities
with the royalists had ceased by then and all shipping was controlled by the
Commonwealth."
"The Thomas and John was in service
in 1650 and was also an armed merchantman.
Culpepper (1681-1689)
The typical 17th century ship had a lifetime of only
3-4 years, but there was a 30 year period between this
ship and the one above. Also, the two ships had a different spelling of their
names. Thus we assume that these were different ships.
William A. 'Bill' Russell says, "There are about a dozen references to
the ship Culpeper in the letters of William Byrd the elder published in
volumes 24 and 25 of Virginia Historical Magazine. They cover the period
from 25 Feb 1683 through 1686, mentioning the various captains and the letters
that Byrd was sending to England on the Culpeper. Byrd was transporting both
tobacco and animal furs during this period (a very bad time for prices for
both). Perry and Lane, Micajah Perry's firm, was Byrd London representative.
Christopher Morgan is mentioned frequently as Captain coming from London. Bradly
and Hall are mentioned in the Byrd letters as Captains during the same period,
always in context of voyages from Virginia to London. This would indicate to me
that the owners had more than one ship and changed captains to meet their needs."
-
25 Aug 1681 to 5 Sep 1681.
Shippers by the Culpepper, Mr. John Conset, bound from London for
Virginia: Thomas Parker, Elizabeth Dunch, Edward Carter, Arthur North,
Joseph Pile. (PRO: E190/99/1).
-
22 Sep 1682 to 22 Oct 1682.
Shippers by the Culpepper, Mr. Christopher Morgan, bound from London for
Virginia: Micajah Perry, Mary Lucas. (PRO: E190/106/1, 132/1).
-
17 March 1682/3. Thomas Arnold, belonging to the
ship Culpepper, carpenter, appoints his friend B.? Perry, merchant, his
attorney to sue for recovery from James Parrott and Mr. John Nichols, Exors. of
the will of Ann Arnold and that the plantation was formerly my brother’s Edward
Arnold, of Chickahominy in James City County, Virginia, and in his will of 14
August 1679, he left said plantation to her for life and at her death to me and
my heirs. My attorney to see after this. July 3, 1683. Wm. Chischester, Robert
Ruffin, Will Evans, Thomas Arnold (Source: Elizabeth T. Davis, compiler,
Surry County Records, Book II, March 1671 – Jul 5, 1684, Page 168. Page
329 of original record book)
-
28 Aug 1683 to 7 Sep 1683.
Shippers by the Culpepper, Mr. Christopher Morgan, bound from London for
Virginia: John Plover, James Harris, Micajah Perry. (PRO: E190/115/1).
-
4 Aug1685 to 3 Oct 1685.
Shippers by the Culpepper, Mr. Christopher Morgan, bound from London for
Virginia: Francis Wheeler, Micajah Perry. (PRO: E190/126/5).
-
October 1685. Probate of will of
George Read of Whitechapel, Middlesex [England], who died on the ship Culpepper in
Virginia. (AW).
-
25 Aug 1686. Shippers by the
Culpepper, Mr. Christopher Morgan, bound from London for Virginia:
Francis Wheeler, John Constantine. (PRO: E190/139/1).
Source of all above: The Complete Book of
Emigrants, 1607-1776, Section III, Chapters 22-27
-
17 Dec 1689. Ship: Culpepper ...of London, Commander: John Wynn,
Burden: 460 tons, Crew: 40, Chief mate: Robert Ransome, Gunner: Edward Cole,
Boatswain: John Burton, Carpenter: Henry Laurence, Cook: Ezekiel Ellis,
Armament: 20 guns. (Source: The National Archives, Kew, Public Record(s),
Folio 68, Covering 17 Dec 1689; provided by Bill Russell)
Last revised:
02 Jan 2015
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