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<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=185 BGCOLOR="#003333" TEXT="#F7F7FF" background="040b9c00dduajq.jpg"> <div> <B> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="0" WIDTH="70" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 76 WIDTH="66"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="76" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="66" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> </tR> </TABLE></B></div> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#FFFBF0" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>Falmouth Packet Archives 1688-1850</B></FONT>    |     <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Falmouth Packet Archives 16881850"><U>home</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id32.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Tallships Falmouth for Orders"><U>'Tallships' & "Falmouth for Orders"</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id121.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Falmouth Docks"><U>Falmouth Docks</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id33.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Falmouth Pilots"><U>Falmouth Pilots</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id144.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Training Ships based at Falmouth "><U>Training Ships based at Falmouth </U></A>   |   <A HREF="id85.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Tugs Local Steamers "><U>Tugs & Local Steamers </U></A>   |   <A HREF="id60.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Shipping Agents"><U>Shipping Agents</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id116.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Lifeboat"><U>Lifeboat</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id122.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Harbour Master"><U>Harbour Master</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id132.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Harbour Commissioners"><U>Harbour Commissioners</U></A>   |   <B>Misc</B></div> <div> Misc</div> <div> <B>1670</B></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> FP 20/2/<B>1897</B>:     Tenders          Time-Ball Signal</div> <div> <B>Tenders are invited for the erection of a time-ball apparatus</B> on the tower of Pendennis Castle.</div> <div> Specifications, drawings, and full particulars can be seen on application to Mr. H. L. Owen, Market Street, Falmouth.Tenders are to be sent to the Secretary, Chamber of commerce, Falmouth, not later than Monday March 8th.The Committee do not bind themselves to accept the lowest or any tender.</div> <bR> <div> FP 15/4/<B>1899</B>:     An Incident of the storm.</div> <div> Sir, when the storm was at its height last Friday, I saw <B>the Customs steam launch</B> break away from her moorings and drift with great speed towards a number of<B> watermen's boats.</B>  A big smash up seemed inevitable, but the man on board (<B>Pellow</B>) handled the craft so cleverly, that he avoided boat after boat and eventually navigated the launch, without accident of any kind, to safer moorings.   I am writing to you because I think the incident ought to be known, evidencing as it does a combination of skilfulness and cleverness on the part of Pellow. </div> <div> Yours truly, On-Looker.</div> <bR> <div> FP 26/9/<B>1930</B>: Falmouth's Shipping - <B>Recollections of Sixty Years Ago - </B>Race to Lizard in<B> six-oared gigs.</B></div> <bR> <div> A chance meeting with Mr. Henry Wills, who, many years ago was one of Falmouth's most popular boatmen, led to a reference being made - with regard to 70 ships having arrived at Falmouth for orders in two days - that he happened to be the boatman who secured the order to "tend" on the first of that particular fleet of ships, viz., the French barque <I><B>C.P.D</B></I>.</div> <bR> <div> He well remembers the vessel because she was one of the best paying ships he ever had.  One day the captain told him to come on board but not to speak to any of the crew.  Mr. Wills, however, told the captain that it was against his nature not to have a word with the sailors, and he was required to obey such an instruction he would rather not go on board.  Just then, a slip of paper was thrown into his boat from the barque on which was written that he would be given £5 if he took a note to the Mayor, the late Mr. R. C. Richards.  The note was delivered, and it concerned a charge made by the crew against one of the officers of a man from Bridgewater that he died from the effects.  No action could be taken at Falmouth because the vessel was under the French flag</div> <div> .</div> <div> Being aware that Mr. Wills had been boating at Falmouth for over half a century and that he had been held in very high esteem by hundreds of sea captains, and by quite as many visitors, our [Falmouth Packet] representative had a most interesting chat with him.</div> <bR> <div> As a boy, Mr. Wills lived at the Lizard, where his father kept the only licensed house in the parish, and was drowned while fishing off one of the rocks near one of the coves.  The family then removed to St. Keverne, and it was then that the barque JOHN went ashore [in 1855] on the Manacles and 200 lives were lost.  His grandfather was the parish clerk, and Mr. Wills remembers him keeping two curls of hair of children who were drowned.  He well remembers 60 bodies being buried in one grave in St. Keverne.  Others were placed in coffins and taken to Helston on wagons, en-route to the nearest railway station, and a very old resident of Helston, now living at Falmouth, remembers what appeared to be a never ending procession of wagons passing through the old town of the 'Furry Dance,' with coffins piled on top of each other.</div> <bR> <div> <B>The Days of the six-oared gigs</B></div> <bR> <div> Mr. Wills served his apprenticeship as a sailmaker, until he took to boating, and he recalls the days when <B>six-oared gigs were used to board vessels in the [Falmouth] bay, and even off the Lizard.</B></div> <bR> <div> There used to be great rivalry between <B>a gig owned by Messrs. </B><A HREF="id60.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Shipping Agents"><U><B>G. C. Fox and Co</B></U></A><B>.</B>, and a man named Zuppolini or Sepolini for trade of Austrian or Italian ships.  Messrs. G. C. Fox and Co. used to do a very good business in the bay sampling the cargoes af these particular vessels, and ships for which they were agents used to fly the letter "F" in white.</div> <bR> <div> The gigs would leave at three o'clock in the morning and make for Coverack, where the gigs used to land, and get something to eat.  Of course, if they met any ships of the nationality mentioned, they would board them.  Later they would make for the Lizard and would, perhaps, land to get a little bread and cheese and something to drink.  Sometimes the gigs would not return until ten o'clock at night.  In Messrs. Fox and Co's gig the crew included Bill Bray, Henry Warren, Jack Baines and a man named Medlin.</div> <bR> <div> In the old days it was the practice to take samples of cargoes of wheat, and send them to the various markets and merchants, in order that the cargoes might be sold, and this work was carried out by Messrs. G. C. Fox & Co., W. Broad and Sons and Lashbrooke and Hunt.</div> <bR> <div> 300 Sailing Ships in the Harbour</div> <bR> <div> Mr. Wills has seen three hundred sailing ships in Falmouth harbour on many occasions.</div> <div> He recalled the great gale in 1867 when a large number of vessels were driven ashore and many people drowned.  One vessel, the EUPHROSYNE, collided with another, and the captain's wife and nine men were drowned, due to the capsizing of a small boat in which they were attempting to leave the ship.  In one case a brig was driven ashore on the Eastern breakwater, all hands having been drowned.  Two Falmouth watermen, Jim Nicholls and "Dolphy" Jewell [was he related to Melinson Jewell, a mariner's widow who ran the Anchor Inn, in Flushing? (Check dates…)]  were the first to get on board and discover that the crew had been lost.</div> <bR> <div> Mr. Wills recalled the days when there were no docks or a railway [i.e. pre-1863] at Falmouth.  <B>There was a beach from Bar Point (beyond the eastern breakwater) to Simmons' Quay</B>, and <B>no less than five ship and boat-building yards</B> were carried on by;</div> <div> Jack Darby,</div> <div> Joe Haly,</div> <div> W. Simmons,</div> <div> Jimmy Tremayne,</div> <div> John Haly,</div> <div> H.S. Trethowan, who also had a yard at Little Falmouth [w.e.f. 1851], and,</div> <div> Ben Blamey.</div> <bR> <div> There were no houses at the Bar.  Lansdowne-road was not then built, and there was only a narrow path from the site on which the present Imperial Hotel [later the "Riviera,"  "Dock & Railway" and now "Admiral Nelson" ] now stands, to Gyllyngdune, the fields being in the occupation of Mr. Anthony Thomas.</div> <bR> <div> Grove Hill Gardens used to extend to the old pump at the bottom of Lansdowne-road.  There was an old well at the bottom of the hill, and boys used to descend and dip their caps in the water in order to get a drink. </div> <bR> <div> The only tug in these days was the old paddle-steamer DANDY, built of wood and commanded by Captain Foss.  There used to be a small wooden built tug at Devoran, called the SYDNEY, but if her services were requited a messenger had to be sent to Devoran.  All the craft were built of wood, nothing was known of iron or steel.</div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>