The extreme clipper, Flying Cloud was launched 4/15/1851
at the shipyard of Donald McKay, East Boston.
(She went ashore 6/19/1874 and was condemned.)

Per The Boston Daily Atlas, 4/25/1851, "her admirers are sanguine that she will outsail any vessel in the world."
        [thanx Lars Bruzelius of Maritime History Virtual Archives

          It's oft I've seen that gallant ship with the wind abaft her beam,
          With her royals and her stunsails set, a sight for to be seen,
          With the curling wave from her clipper bow a sailor's joy to feel,
          And the canvas taut in the whistling breeze logging fourteen off the reel.
  
                  "The Flying Cloud" ("John O'Halloran" etc.)

Seems there was only a single sailing ship since the 1600's of this name. The song about a slave/pirate ship may date as late as 1894 (Balad Index) but certainly no earlier than 1830. Frank Shay, in American Sea Songs and Chanteys, notes with some outrage that the popular forebitter and sailor's-hangout song besmirches the name of "the greatest of the clippers." He is upset at the notion this ship should be associated with slave trade & piracy when "her life is an open book." The ship's description in the song, however, clearly refers to the famous clipper ship.

The song was first mentioned in print as recently as 1916 but it has been suggested that it is based on a booklet entitled Dying Declaration of Nicholas Fernandez, which probably appeared in 1830.

Notice: This series of the Happy File ends today. Goodbye.
Copyright © 2005, Abby Sale - all rights reserved
What are Happy's all about? See Clicky