Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 February 1886 — The Old Ship Vanderbilt. [ARTICLE]

The Old Ship Vanderbilt.

The huge three-masted ship Three Brothers, built by William H. Webb as a steamer at Greenpoint, L. 1., in 1855, to the order of the late Commodore Vanderbilt, is now at Gibraltar being altered into a coal hulk. This vessel used to be the pride of every American sailor, for she was the largest that sported the red, white, and blue ensign. Her length was 320 feet, breadth forty-eight feet three inches, and depth twenty-nine feet nine inches. She had three decks and beams, and registered 2,936 tons. When the war broke out Mr. Vanderbilt chartered her as a transport to the Government, and toward the close of the war presented her to the United States. She was then used as a cruiser, and owing to her burning such a large quantity of coal she was surnamed the “Pickpocket of the Navy.” Captain, now Admiral, Baldwin commanded her. In 1866 the Howes Bros, purchased the Vanderbilt from the navy, and, altering her into a sailing ship, rechristened her the Three Brothers. She was then put on the route between this city and San Francisco. In 1881 she was bought by several well-kqown shipping men of Liverpool* and they made extensive repairs and placed her under the British flag. —New York Express.