The Mysterious Mistress of John P. Davenport ,,, and another dubious woman

 

This definitely dubious-looking fellow was Captain Thomas McGrath, who started out whaling, and ended up as a blackbirder -- a nineteenth century slaver, who captured Pacific Islanders from their beaches and sold them as plantation laborers.

Capt. McGrath sailed from Hobart on the Grecian in December 1862, with a crew of 21. About a week out, he called into Botany Bay to pick up a lady friend, then set out on a whaling cruise that lasted 15 months and netted 6½ tons of oil. Tiring of this, he called into Wellington, New Zealand, paying off the crew, and signing on some Maori seamen plus a few beachcombers, and fitting the ship out as a slaver. His mistress was entered as ‘passenger, Mrs. Blank.’

Then he bought provisions, eight quarter casks of rum, two casks of ale, 10 cases of Geneva gin, one quarter cask of brandy, and two lady’s side saddles. He sold the rum to the crew. After picking up a ‘cargo’ of Tongan men he had duped at the small island of ‘Ata, he sailed for Peru, where he sold the poor fellows. Next, he was reported at Bluff, New Zealand, where McGrath had the remarkable arrogance to sue Mrs. Seal, the owner of the ship, for wages due. The court case was a fiasco, as he had not bothered to keep a log, and he was fined the huge sum of a thousand pounds. McGrath promptly disappeared (without paying the fine), and the ship was returned to Hobart, but never went whaling again. (Lawson, Blue Gum Clippers and Whale Ships of Tasmania (1949) p. 73-75.)

Another interesting character who carried a mistress was John Pope Davenport, who had quite a history.

John Pope Davenport was born on 13 February 1818, in Tiverton, Newport, Rhode Island. Though there is no record of a marriage he carried a ‘wife’ on the schooner Alfred in 1845, according to various entries in the log (NBWM, PMB 1001). She may have been an Australian girl, as in 1845 the little schooner was a long time in Sydney, from 21 October to Christmas Day, no reason given.

The identity of the keeper of the book is doubtful, too: it begins ‘Schooner Alfred outward bound’ on August 28, 1845, and then after September 3, there is a note ‘the remainder is in another book  —  Henry S. Potter’. The rest, beginning July 14, 1846, ‘Cruising at the Kingsmill Group’ and continuing intermittently, with many dates and pages missing, is in a different hand.

The Alfred was at Sydney October-December 1847, and in Mangonui, New Zealand, March 18, 1848, cruising as far as the Marquesas Islands in June. Back in Sydney, March 4, 1849, the first mate got into a scuffle with his boatsteerer and was badly knifed, losing some fingers. Quite an exciting voyage for Ms. Davenport, especially as on September 19, 1849, at sea, ‘3 AM the Capts Wife was delivered of a Daughter at 9 AM spoke the Pocklington [of Sydney]’. As was common in that whaling ground, the schooner called at Lord Howe Island for provisions, and on February 22, 1850 ‘the Capt & wife went on shore at 7.’ Next day the boats fetched a load of ‘potatoes & brought also the Capts wife & woman passenger named Hoscott bound to Sydney.’

In December 1851 Davenport was at Tahiti, with no mention of a wife, and with little oil to report, having sold most of it in Sydney. He filled the holds of the schooner with oranges for San Francisco, having heard in Papeete of the big prices paid there for fruit.  He did well out of that, but even more inspiring was that on the way to California he had spied large numbers of whales. So, after arriving back in New Bedford on April 28, 1852, he left the Alfred, selling whatever share he had in the schooner, and married a seventeen-year-old girl, Ellen Clark Smith, on 6 June 1852, in Fairhaven. On the certificate, he declared that this was his first marriage.

The couple took passage on a ship bound California via Cape Horn, but their transport sank off Nicaragua, meaning that they had to cross the Isthmus of Panama by boat, train, and mule. Then the ship that they boarded in Panama foundered off the coast of San Simeon, so they had to be rescued yet again. Davenport bought passage on the steamer Sea Bird, which ran so short of fuel that bulwarks, bunks and furnishings had to be burned.

After finally getting to San Francisco, on 24 August 1852, John bought an old whaleship that was mouldering in the mud, named Otranto, and fixed it up for whaling; on October 3, 1852, the Daily Alta California reported Davenport taking the old bark on a whaling voyage. He did not do well, so just two years later he sold the old ship to the notorious Captain William ‘Bully’ Hayes, and made a living by commanding various small vessels. In 1865 he gave up the sea, and moved to Santa Cruz to set up a real estate company.

There is no record of Ellen C. Davenport sailing with him on the Otranto, and the identity and fate of the woman who accompanied him on the schooner Alfred remain unknown.

As for the new owner of the Otranto, that is quite a story, and involves blackbirding, too.

The Pacific was wide and wild at the time, and more than a few wild women played their part.