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Treasure of Snug Harbor
Jack's Last Port by Mel Hardin Historic Site Director Snug Harbor Cultural Center "After serving on American vessels for a period of time extending over forty years leading the life of an ocean slave on many ships which were veritable floating Hells, robbed beaten and starved by tyrant Captains and "Bucko" mates, abused, plundered, shanghaied by shipping crimps on land, until a sailor's life on most American ships was naught but Hell on earth, without one ray of hope to gladden him on his way through life's journey but the beacon that shoneforthfrom Randall's noble legacy, Sailors' Snug Harbor." -Frank Waters, February 28, 1918
One could sit in a corner, like this rather splendid old gentleman , dreaming of flying fish , perhaps, and sounding whales. The elegant urn in this picture survives, incidentally, and sits today in the busy main hall entryway, touched by young people in passing where once it had served as a kind of repository of old men's memories and musings. It was a rare sailorman who could not spin you a decent yarn, and that with considerable style and flair to it. Battered, worn out, misused by any modern standard, these old seafarers showed the grit and good cheer needed to survive in a hard calling.
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The paragraph above, awkward in a literary sense but real as it conveys a feeling of the way people talk, was discovered in the archives of Snug Harbor Cultural Center this year. It demands attention and one can almost imagine hearing the litany of the words slicing through the smoke of a waterfront bar on South Street in New York, or in Callao, Yokahama, Casablanca, Buenos Aires, Marseille or Frisco. This statement of a man's life, carrying all of the psychological maritime baggage of the 19th century, is that of a real man , made of blood and muscle. Sailors' Snug Harbor really meant something to such a man . As it was told on ships around the world, this was where a man could go when he was worn out. " Working a ship,'' as delightful as that may sound to some, is an occupation that offers an abundance of hazardous possibilities. In the 19th century most American ships were still under sail , and a man could fall 50 or 100 feet from aloft to the deck, and become permanently disabled . If the man was lucky he was killed on impact. Falling from the rigging was a frequent enough event that in one account of a 19th century voyage that was particularly boring, the sailor on deck actually wished someone would fall to liven up the day. If he lived , but was to be handicapped , this would be his last voyage. And as if ship related injuries were not enough , Jack Tar also had to contend with diseases of the general population-arthritis, arteriosclerosis, diabetes, heart disease and of course the "gentleman's disease," syphilis. A landsman might be able to tend his shop or clerk his desk , but a seaman suffering from any of the above certainly would not be able to carry his own weight on shipboard. These once young lively men whose robust bodies opened the trade to China , fought in the War of 1812, commanded the seas and literally made New York City rich beyond the dreams of Peter Stuyvesant , were put ashore. Aged and decrepit , worn and ravaged with disease, their death would not come easy. Too often there was no wife or children to tend the
final hour. They were on land and they were in a hostile environment. There were no agencies of relief for these old men. With the bright eyes and braggadocio ways they had stormed about the oceans ; they were destined to die in pitiful surroundings without love or care in the Port of New York. Without knowing it , Thomas Randall , privateer par excellence, was going to alleviate this suffering. Thomas Randall appears to have come to America in 1740, becoming a ship's captain after his captain died during a battle. He sailed the Caribbean in pursuit of French merchantmen , and he prospered , becoming a landowner in New Orleans. He also operated in New York, where he apparently secured land in exchange for land he held in Louisiana. He owned the ships Delancy, General Abercrombie, Charming Sally, The Fox and Goldfinch. He not only prospered but became wealthy. New York became an open port like New Orleans, and encouraged privateering. Goods captured from foreign vessels were sold in New York and exported back to Europe. James Lydon in Pirates, Privateering and Profits estimates that the return from privateering in the years 1756-58 was substantially greater than that of importing goods from England . Randall's brig Charming Sally did particularly well. In the Seven Years' War, 1756-63, she captured 24 prizes, valued at over ÂŁ41,000. Shipowner and merchant , Thomas Randall was also an early member of the Marine Society (charged with caring for sea captains' widows and orphans) and as a member of the Committee of 100 he helped lay the foundation of the new republic. He also became a city landowner with a farm in Manhattan at present-day Washington Square. It was this rich heritage that led to the establishment of a home for old sailors , by Thomas's son Robert Richard . Little is known of this bachelor heir to the privateersman's fortune. Stuyvesant Fish in The New York Privateers, 1756-1763, gives us this picture: SEA HISTORY, FALL 1983