Frigate Essex plans

Well, here's another interesting subject. I don't have the Takakjian book; I did find a reproduction of the Stevens plans in the CD-ROM edition of the Nautical Research Journal.

My approach to problems like this is always to get back as close as possible to the original sources - which, in the case of early American sailing vessels, generally aren't numerous. So far as I can tell there are two genuine contemporary pictorial representations of the Essex. The designer, William Hackett, drew a set of hull lines, which are in the National Archives. And Joseph Howard, apparently an amateur artist (and son of the sailmaker who supplied the Essex's sails) did a rather naive but intricate watercolor painting of her, probably right after she was launched in 1799. As I understand it, all other representations of the ship are based (directly or indirectly) on those two sources.

I have in front of me a remarkable book called The Frigate Essex Papers: Building the Salem Frigate, 1798-1799, by Philip Chadwick Foster Smith. It was published by the Peabody Museum of Salem (now the Peabody-Essex Museum) in 1974. (A few used copies are available on the web, but they're priced above $50.00.) The frontispiece is a nice, color reproduction of the Howard painting, and there's a photographic copy of the original Hackett drawing folded up inside the back cover.

The Hackett drawing is disappointing. He apparently was, at best, a mediocre draftsman (and a borderline alcoholic). The drawing looks like it was whipped out in an afternoon to satisfy the requirements of the bureaucrats in the Navy Department; it may or may not have actually been used in the building of the ship. It's awfully crude, to say the least.

One nifty feature of Smith's book, though, is that it contains yet another set of plans, drawn by William A. Baker. He was a professor at M.I.T., and one of the premier scholars in the history of naval architecture. (Among his other credentials, he designed the Mayflower II.) Baker traced, elaborated on, and filled out the Hackett drawings, making use of the fantastic wealth of material Smith had dug up about the ship's rigging, spar dimensions, fittings, etc. to do a pretty thorough - and, to my eye, believable - reconstruction. He also took pains to ensure that his plans matched up with the Howard painting.

John Stevens was a deeply respected draftsman and ship model designer who worked, I believe, in the 1940s and 50s. His plans of the Essex are dated 1952. The format I have them in makes it awkward to compare them with the Baker set, but they generally look pretty similar.

Howard I. Chapelle, sugar-daddy of the history of American naval architecture,
also did a set of Essex plans for his History of the American Sailing Navy. He was a little vague about his sources, but I think he mainly used the Hackett drawing and the Howard painting.

Now to the nitty-gritty. The Hackett, Baker, Stevens, and Chapelle drawings all show six ports per side in the quarterdeck bulwarks. The Howard painting shows five, but it's barely conceivable (barely) that another one is hiding behind the foremost main lower shrouds. I can't comment on the other discrepancies Mr. Morse has noted, since I don't have the Takakjian plans.

Portia Takakjian was a fine draftsperson and writer. Her book on the Essex is part of the Conway Maritime Press "Anatomy of the Ship" series, of which I'm a big fan. I do think, though, that the format of that series is better suited to twentieth-century warships. Such detailed coverage of sailing vessels requires a great deal of reconstruction and guesswork. I suspect that may be what's going on here. (I also recall as series of articles Ms. Takakjian did about her model of the Essex for one of the other magazines. She raised some hackles with some highly questionable reconstructing.)

It's entirely possible that some of the features in question actually did change during the course of the ship's life. We know that she got extensively re-armed (almost exclusively with carronades) before the War of 1812; I suppose it's conceivable that the quarterdeck bulwarks got rebuilt at that time. And the Smith book includes some notes made by the naval constructor James Fox regarding a large repair job that was done to her in 1809. Among the changes Fox noted were "shortening the length of the counter" (which might imply a change in the rake of the transom), "increasing the size of the Gundeck Ports 2 Inches," and "giving a Tier of Air Ports fore and aft."

If I were building a model of the Essex, I'd start out by getting hold of the Smith book (they just might have one for sale at the museum) and the Baker drawings therein. By the way, the Peabody-Essex Museum has (or did the last time I was there) a beautiful model of the Essex that was built shortly after Smith's book was published. I don't recall the builder's name, but I'm inclined to regard that model as the most definitive reconstruction of the ship.

Incidentally, the voluminous documents quoted in Smith's book include some letters about the purchase of medicines for the ship's surgeon. He bought them from a "merchant and druggist" named Eliakim Morse, whose store was located at No. 6, Dock Square in Salem. Any relation?

Hope this helps a little. Interesting - and relatively well-documented - topic.

No direct relation I'm afraid(father's family left Mass Bay for Vermont sometime around 1700).

As luck would have it there are three copies of the Essex Papers at libraries up this way (Essex, Wenham and Boxford), so I should be able to grab one of them.

I forgot about the Chapelle plans. Comparing them with the Stevens and Takakjian plans, they are different as well. Just eyeballing them, the bulwarks look to flair out (not sure of the right word) on the Chapelle plans whereas on the other two they are pretty much vertical at the top. The stem is much longer on the Chapelle plans than the Stevens plan as well. I think I'm going to have to get the Essex Papers to get a 4th opinion. Probably I'll end up using the Stevens plan as the master and use Takakjian's framing plan to work up the framing stations. Thanks for all the good info. One other question. What would the typical frame size for a frigate of that time be? I'm assuming they're sided 12", but I'm finding molded numbers from 15-19 at the keel and 6-9 at the deck. All those numbers are for barks, sloops and schooners though.

The Smith book has a mass of appendices containing all sorts of dimensions for almost every part of the Essex. I just went through them looking for a straightforward figure on the frame dimensions. I didn't find it before my eyes glazed over, but I suspect it's in there somewhere. If nothing else, the original Hackett plan, though it doesn't show the frames, does show the deck beams; the frame spacing, at least, could be worked out pretty reliably from them. The Smith book is a really remarkable piece of work. It's not good recreational reading, but I don't know of a more thorough piece of documentation about a particular early American ship.

When you see the Hackett draught you'll understand why there are some doubts about the details. It's something of a mess. It apparently spent a long time rolled up, and one end of the paper is severely wrinkled. The wrinkles have blurred the reproduction of the body plan - especially the upper parts of the cross sections in the forward half of the ship. The stem and knee of the head, however, are pretty clear. I have no idea why there should be any difference of opinion about that particular feature.

Chapelle was notorious for changing features of old drawings, for reasons that sometimes are puzzling. (In an earlier post I mentioned what he did to the plan view of the Hancock's forecastle deck. I talked to a couple of gents who knew him well, and neither of them could offer any explanation.) A few years ago there was a minor Chapelle-bashing fad, in which some people denigrated his work. I didn't participate in that exercise, because I have enormous respect for the man. His books, however, need to be regarded the way any other scholarship should be: as products of their time. Chapelle was a pioneer in the history of American naval architecture, and made a contribution to it that, by definition, nobody will ever be able to match. Because he was breaking fresh ground he had virtually no other scholarship to look at, and few if any fellow researchers approached his depth and breadth of knowledge. He made some mistakes, especially in his early works, but that fact in no way detracts from his achievements or his stature. To denigrate Chapelle because his plans don't come up to the standards of 2004 makes as much sense as denigrating the Wright Brothers for failing to invent the jet engine.

When I was a sophomore in high school my parents took me on a vacation trip to Washington, including the Smithsonian. I asked one of the guards if it would be possible to visit Mr. Chapelle. The guard got on the phone with a secretary, who apologized because Mr. Chapelle was out of the office that day. He passed away a couple of years later, and I've always regretted that I so narrowly missed meeting him. Several of his acquaintances assured me much later that if he'd been there, he would have given a dumb high school kid a red-carpet reception. That's the kind of man he was.

But I'd base a ship model on a Chapelle drawing only after checking every part of that drawing that I possibly could against the contemporary sources, and against more recent research. In this particular case I'd use the William Baker plans, and keep a copy of the Hackett draught handy. Let's hope at least one of your libraries has taken good care of its copy of the Smith book. In mine, the Hackett and Baker drawings - a total of four sheets - are folded up in a pocket inside the back cover.

This is intriguing stuff. Good luck.

I just wanted to say, that this is a VERY intersting thread and a wealth of information. I have a long term goal of building the Essex, and I'm printing this thread and putting it in my file for future reference.

Thanks,
Scott