Tod & Macgregor Shiplist

Notes:

          Norseman was an iron screw steam yacht, rigged as a 3-masted fore-and-aft schooner, built in 1857. Her masts and funnel had strong rake aft. She had a billethead with shield, gilt and white, and a black hull with square stern and gilt carvings of children on each quarter. (She measured 122.7 x 18.4 x 9.1; 101 gr; 49 net.)

            In 1862 she was registered in London to S.M. Pelo, Bart. Norseman moved her homeport to Liverpool and after conversion to carry cargo she left with a cargo of boots, shoes, clothing, and gunpowder, consigned to Henry Lafone in Nassau, B.W.I, to run the blockade. Under Capt. Applebee she cleared Liverpool in February 1863 by way of Waterford and Tenerife, arriving in Nassau April 27, 1863.

            She made it into Charleston, SC on the 13th May, but on her return voyage out through the blockade, on or around the 19th of May 1863 and loaded with 150 bales cotton, she was damaged by Union gunfire and striking the wreck of the steamer Georgiana and beached on Sullivan's Island.

            The wreck is still there about a hundred yards from the beach and was visited by some of the folks involved in one of Clive Cussler's NUMA searches several years ago.

[Kevin J. Foster, Chief, National Maritime Heritage Program]

[Lifeline of the Confederacy, Stephen R. Wise]