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| The second Shark may have been an 87-ton schooner built in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Copper-clad over oak in Mystic, Connecticut, in November 1860. Page 509, entry 4397 (9th from the top). |
| She sailed to
Galveston, Texas, by her captain and owner G. Patterson. After the War between the States
broke out she was captured by the US Gunboat South Carolina, Commander Alden, while
running supplies and ammunition for the Confederacy. Once captured she was dispatched to
New York or Boston for service in the Union, Rodney Baxter letter of July 31, 1861. There are some vague references as a Shark participating in the blockade of New Orleans during the War Between the States; but this may be confused by the USS Carolina's taking a Shark of British registry during the War of 1812 (1813, and may have been pressed into U.S. service); and there is a reference to a Shark being sunk in 1865 with 17 souls lost (which is compatible with a schooner size of 87 tons). |
 A Mr. Burr Osborn, having sailed on the
preceding Shark of 1821 (and shipwrecked on her in 1846), may have sailed on a
subsequent Shark as he described it as "... a 300-ton schooner with three
masts ..." in 1913; but at this time he was 87 years old and his memory may have been
flawed. If his recollection is correct then the schooner would have appeared as the
picture on the right, and could have been the British pressed Shark of 1813.Admittedly this "2nd" Shark still evades my research. (Research on-going, and wanting for The Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships Volume 6.) |
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