❖ FULL-RIGGED SHIP HENRY VILLARD ❖ 1882-1929

Ship model of full-rigged
HENRY VILLARD
with Stanley Griffiths,
Seattle, WA.
Click image to enlarge.
Photograph from the archives of the
Saltwater People Historical Society©
Photographer and date unknown.

HENRY VILLARD
95688
219.2' x 39.8' x 24.1'
G.t. 1,552 / N.t. 1,452
Launched 17 May 1882 at
Arthur Sewall & Co, Bath, Maine.
Low-res scan courtesy of the
State Library Victoria, AU.

The Henry Villard was named for the first president of North Pacific Railway and was built to carry material used in constructing the road. She took out the first cargo of rails sent to the Columbia River and thereafter any of her voyages were to Portland, Seattle, or Tacoma with similar material. On two or three occasions she took case oil to the Orient and in 1901 made a voyage from Savannah, GA to Honolulu with phosphate rock. She was operated at intervals in the coastwise trade. 
      The Villard was a good carrier, generally loading 2250 tons of wheat, and has no fast passages to her credit. On three occasions she took sugar from Hawaii to N.Y. and these passages were made in faster time, proportionally than her runs to or from coast ports, they being 97,100, and 107 days.
1907: Capt. Charles O. Anderson was master off Cape Flattery when a gale hit; he reported the barometer dropped to 28.65, the lowest reading he had ever taken in 20 years on the North Pacific. 
1910: Operated under tow since this year by the Ocean Tug and Barge Co; they had retained much of the top hamper until taken over by Griffiths who found her laid up in the Oakland Creek.
1913: Capt. Griffiths purchased the Henry Villard at San Francisco and had her towed to Puget Sound by the steam schooner John C. Hooper, before her conversion to a barge for the ore trade between Granby mine at Anyox, B.C. and the Tacoma smelter. For over ten years she carried coal and ore on Puget Sound.
1929, Feb: After having been laid up at Winslow for a long time, she was purchased from James Griffiths & Sons by Nieder & Marcus, Seattle shipbreakers who had her towed to Richmond Beach, saturated the hull with gasoline and then burned to recover the copper and iron used in her construction. The funeral pyre of the Henry was shared by the legendary Sound speedster, Flyer, sold in her old age as the Washington by Puget Sound Navigation Co to Nieder & Marcus.

Other associated crew:
Capt. James G. Baker was her first commander. He was formerly of the Sterling, who met death while the master of the Kenilworth. Capt. Baker made two voyages in the Henry Villard then succeeded by 
Capt Fordyce B. Perkins. In command for eight years.
Capt. Frank W. Patten. (1854-1913) in command for three years. Son of Capt. Lincoln Patten.
Capt. Eben L. Murphy. Master in 1898.
Capt. Richard Quick, a native of Newfoundland who started sea life at age 12. He was in command for three years then went to Edward Sewell for 21 years.
Sources:
H.W. McCurdy's Marine History of the Pacific Northwest. Gordon Newell, editor. 1965. 
American Merchant Ships 1850-1900 by F.C. Matthews.