The Life of the Candace: From Whaler to Wharf
What the Candace may have looked like: TOP: under full rig, and BELOW: the hull.

The Candace, built in Boston, Massachusetts in 1818, was a 99 ft. 8 in. long ship with a 26 ft. 6 in. beam, a 13 ft. 3 in. depth of hold, two decks, square stern, and was registered at 309 51/95 tons.

The Candace nearly wrecked in the Gulf Stream on a return voyage home from Peru in November 1823 by Captain Joseph Bates. In 1836, the Candace was re-registered in New York and then in the whaling port of New London, Connecticut. The ship made regular voyages in the South Atlantic, Indian Ocean, Pacific, and the Arctic to whale in 1838-1855. Mystic Seaport holds nearly all the logs for ship's voyages in the 1840s with one exception (1845-1847) which is at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. In that period, the Candace suffered from a near-mutiny on a North Pacific voyage. According to registries, the ship was re-rigged as a barque in 1849.

The crew lists for the Candace's whaling voyages of 1838-1853 are available online at Mystic Seaport. On the 1853-1855 voyage to the Arctic, the Candace shipped home 8,000 pounds of whale bone and "500 whale" but did not return to New London. The vessel put in to San Francisco on July 4, 1855. The Boston Shipping List of August 18, 1855 reported that the barque, "badly leaking", had been "condemned after being surveyed." Sold at auction, the hulk was apparently bought by Charles Hare. Presumably he could not repair the ship, but instead broke the Candace up in February 1857.



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