Fullerton by Al Litchfield - RESTORATION - four-masted barkentine

[druxey]

Keith's cleaning advice is good, but a more hygienic method than using a brush is to moisten a Q-tip with your saliva, then dispose! Repeat....

 

Al: I believe that an e-book version of Rob's book is  or will shortly be available. No postage costs!

[Roger Pellett]

During my working career, I made several business trips to Great Britain.  Whenever I had some free time I tried to visit a bookstore.  Before Herrods decided to limit themselves to luxury goods, their book department carried a wonderful variety much of interest to us.  It was a great opportunity to “stock up,” not just for me but also for our two young children.

 

In those days, the duty free allowance entering the USA was rather low, but “printed matter” which included books was exempt.  More recently, used books bought from British booksellers and from one Canadian source also arrive without duty.  If our free trade negotiators have failed to exempt legitimate exchange of intellectual materials between out countries then that is a shame.  Hopefully duty will not somehow be charged on Seawatch’s E books.

 

Roger

[KeithAug]

20 hours ago, Roger Pellett said:

If our free trade negotiators have failed to exempt legitimate exchange of intellectual materials between out countries then that is a shame.

Roger - i wasn't aware of this and as you say it would seem to be easily circumvented by ebooks. Maybe the law makers have been reading too much Fahrenheit 451.

[Al Litchfield]

Checked Seawatch Books for Napier's book. They are charging the same $US 75.00 for ebook or printed version. Converted to Canadian the price is over $100. Thought ebooks should be somewhat less expensive but not in this case.

[Keith Black]

 

 

 

[Al Litchfield]

Did some more research yesterday. As I searched the Lloyd's Of London archives, I found the following:

1. Built by Hay & Wright ship builder of Alameda, California. Launched in 1902.

2. Owned by Mission Transport & Refining Co.

3. Registered with Lloyds from 1902-1926

4, Registered in Los Angelos (1902-1910) and San Francisco (1911-1926)

5. Captained over the years by 5 different masters: McDonald (2 yrs), McInnis (4 /5), Kitchin (5/6), Scheller (7/8), Walker (5/6)

 

I am not sure where to find archives from Hay & Wright. Any suggestions? Also, I can't find any info on Mission Transport & Refining Company. Any assistance would be most helpful. I have requested any info available from Hawaii Archives so will await their response.

 

Edited April 28, 2023 by Al Litchfield

[Al Litchfield]

On 4/28/2023 at 9:13 AM, Al Litchfield said:

Did some more research yesterday. As I searched the Lloyd's Of London archives, I found the following:

1. Built by Hay & Wright ship builder of Alameda, California. Launched in 1902.

2. Owned by Mission Transport & Refining Co.

3. Registered with Lloyds from 1902-1926

4, Registered in Los Angelos (1902-1910) and San Francisco (1911-1926)

5. Captained over the years by 5 different masters: McDonald (2 yrs), McInnis (4 /5), Kitchin (5/6), Scheller (7/8), Walker (5/6)

 

I am not sure where to find archives from Hay & Wright. Any suggestions? Also, I can't find any info on Mission Transport & Refining Company. Any assistance would be most helpful. I have requested any info available from Hawaii Archives so will await their response.

 

Hawaii archives are not digitized so only able to personally view them. Unfortunately, I am unable to travel to Hawaii as much as I would like to.

 

[Roger Pellett]

There is an active maritime museum associated with the historic ships along San Francisco’s waterfront.  I believe that they have now managed to get themselves designated as THE National Maritime Museum.  They might have records that you are looking for.

 

Ship ownership can be difficult to pin down.  It is not unusual for each vessel within a fleet to be its own separate company.  There were two reasons for this.  First, Each vessel might  be owned by a different group of people.  It was common for various tradesmen in the maritime community; shipbuilders, sail makers, ship chandlers, etc. to buy shares in the vessels that they were involved with.  Second was liability.  Ships get into trouble.  If each ship was its own company, financial damages resulting from liability due to an accident would be limited to the vessel involved, not the entire fleet.

 

Items 3 and 4 (registration) are two different subjects.  She was registered at the Port of Los Angelos and later San Francisco.  This means that these were legally her home ports.  She would therefore be subject to manning requirements, taxation, and other legal requirements in effect there.  Since these were both US ports, she would fly the American Flag.

 

During these same years her owners chose for her to be Classified by Lloyds.  Lloyds is a Classification Society.  These non-governmental organizations publish standards for ship construction and inspect vessels under construction and in service.  If the ship meets their standards it is given a rating.   These ratings are periodically published in Registers, eg; Lloyds Register of Shipping.  Insurance underwriters can then look the vessel up in the register, check the classification and assess insurance risk without actually having to see the vessel.

 

Roger

[Al Litchfield]

Thank you, Roger, for your insights. I had tried to contact "The National Maritime Museum" in San Francisco. However, the inquiries were related on to the National Park Service which I have come to the conclusion is not too interested in archives but in visitors and attractions for the masses.

As to the Mission Transport and Refining Company, I was able to discover some company records were available through the California State Archives. I have ordered copies and am awaiting their delivery from California to Canada. It will be interesting to see what they may contain.

I have continued to research Hay and Wright. Their company name shows up occassionally in lists of ship builders located in Alameda. Other than those, I am running into a "sea wall" with little more information. I thought there should be some archival information such as ship plans, pictures, etc. but so far I am coming up empty.

[Roger Pellett]

National Park Service-  That’s sad but that seems to be the way things are today.  Sort of like “Your call is very important to us” before they place you on indefinite hold.

Roger

[Al Litchfield]

Received documents about the Mission Transport and Refining Company. They were not overly helpful. An interesting fact was that they incorporated in 1901 and was disoluted  in 1908. Yet ownership of the Fullerton is listed as Mission Transport and Refining Company up to the time of its wreck in 1927 near Redondo Beach. Disolution document is one page with no mention of asset dispersal, etc.

 

I am slowly going through newpaper archives and shipping news clips trying to build what I can of a ship's log. One thing I did discover was there was a "mutiny" on board in 1909. The entire crew was replaced.