Talk:Bald Eagle (clipper)

Disclosure

Albert Henry Caldwell was my great-great-grandfather. Craigthebirder (talk) 22:42, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

Her fate

I copy here an entry I made in Kolma8's talk page and his reply in mine to enable continuation here Craigthebirder (talk) 12:27, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

I was intrigued by your addition of the pirate attack to the article. The tale is much at odds with the information I gleaned to create it. I don't have the Lubbock book (and can't easily get it now, with libraries' being closed) - does it have the pirate story, or did that come solely from the web source you cited? The latter is so dramatic it reads like fiction. It gives no date, not even a year, for what happened. My original sources make no mention of Bald Eagle being in the coolie trade. They list her final voyage's destination as San Francisco, not Peru. And the ship's last captain (Morris) hardly sounds like a name for "an excitable Portuguese". Last, the Wikipedia article on Lubbock says "Lubbock is not regarded as a completely reliable source as a historian. He relied too much on correspondence and interviews with crews and captains, rather than documents and fact-checking. He sometimes confused the names of ships and captains, or gave incorrect dates." (Of course, this isn't backed up with any citations, but given he was born in 1876, it's unlikely he interviewed anyone with first-hand knowledge of Bald Eagle's fate.) Craigthebirder (talk) 22:57, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for bringing the topic of the last days of Bald Eagle. I was surprised to find a such as vivid description of the final days of the clipper myself. I have included a link to the book with Lubbock's account: https://archive.org/details/chinaclippersbyb0000lubb/page/44. Donald McKay and His Famous Sailing Ships by Richard C. McKay is echoing the same account. I don't have although an access to the latter one at the moment. As I have researched there were some firs-hand accounts of Bald Eagle's tragedy published in Europe in the years to follow, but some other were questioning the fact that there was any survivors from Bald Eagle. Maybe we can put this on subject's talk page and go from there? Let me know what you think. Kolma8 (talk) /k8 04:50, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

@Kolma8: Good suggestion to continue the discussion here. I do own a copy of Richard McKay's book. So, first, I was wrong about non-mention of the coolie trade - her third voyage was to Peru; McKay says she carried about 700 Chinese there and "Captain Treadwell duly delivered his cargo of human beings" (pg 220). His next paragraph begins "There is a fake yarn about the destruction of the Bald Eagle, given as authentic by a British writer with such luridness, that we publish it. Reciting the truth about a ship's history becomes prosaic at times." He then reprints the Lubbock piece. McKay, crediting an F.C. Matthews without a detailed citation, states that Bald Eagle's cargo on her final voyage included rice, sugar, and "treasure" (presumably gold or silver). Also from Matthews, McKay writes "She was...in good condition, being rated A 1½" and that insurers paid $300,000 to the owner. These items belie Lubbock's account. So I think Lubbock's account should not be taken as fact, and must be heavily qualified if included. (And since the Historical articles and illustrations website simply reprints Lubbock, it shouldn't be cited as if it were an independent source.) Craigthebirder (talk) 12:56, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

@Craigthebirder: I did some research and re-worded Final Fate chapter a bit. I would appreciate any feedback/corrections. Kolma8/k8 20:21, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

@Kolma8: Expanded and wordsmithed your re-work. Thank you - I think it now takes the right tone. Craigthebirder (talk) 21:45, 4 May 2020 (UTC)