CLIPPER SHIPS, a class of sailing vessel developed princi pally by American ship-builders during the first half of the 19th century. The origin of the word clipper is not definitely known. Some authors think that the expression "going at a clip" might have been responsible for it, while others have traced the word to the poets Shelley and Burns. The first large ship of the kind was the "Ann McKim" (494 tons), built in Baltimore in 1833; but smaller vessels of similar construction were already well known as "Baltimore clippers." The gold rush in California, which gave such impetus to the building of these ships, was responsible for the launching of 160 clipper ships within 4 years, during the first of which 90,00o passengers were carried, while the discovery of gold in Australia soon after caused 400,000 people to be trans ported to that country in British-owned clippers. The Bell, Hall, Steers, Webb, Collier, McKay and Magoun are some of the Amer ican families who built clipper ships, and the Osgood, Marshall, Trask, Woodhouse, Delano, DePuyster and Russell families had among their members many captains of these vessels. The type was abandoned by American builders after 1854, when freight rates dropped, and since the American clippers were built of oak or other expensive hardwoods, it was no longer profitable to con struct them. Subsequently, for more than a decade, a modified ship known as the "medium clipper" was developed. Its speed, however, never equalled that of the original, or "extreme clip per," which might make as much as 18 knots. Typically, the ex treme clipper was a long, slender vessel, with a sharp, long bow and with the three masts slanting backwards and carrying rec tangular sails. In small vessels, these characteristics of narrow beam and great sail-carrying capacity had been developed by American builders before 1812. The invention of the type, how ever, was not American; it was an adaptation of principles that had been carefully studied by French scientists during the 18th century and accepted by the builders of French war vessels, which were then the fastest afloat. The majority of the clippers were built in New England yards, and their usual run was between ports of the eastern American seaboard and China, Australia or San Francisco. But the career of the famous "Nightingale," from the time of its launching in 1851 until its loss in 1893, shows a variety of voyages to every part of the world. The equally well known "Witch of the Wave" had a similar record, although shorter by some 20 years.
Besides the Californian and Australian gold rushes and the opium and slave trades, which gave such impetus to the building of clipper ships, one of the most potent motives for speed by water in the early nineteenth century was furnished by the Chinese tea trade. Inasmuch as this commodity quickly loses its flavour in the hold of a ship, annual prizes were offered by London merchants for the delivery at the earliest possible moment of the first crop of the season. Public excitement ran high, and rivalry among the various ships in the annual race from China was keen. One of these, the "Gutty Sark," built in 1869 and still afloat in 1928, covered 363m. in a day's travel, the record for tea clippers. By 1872, due to the opening of the Suez Canal in 1870 which shortened the route to the East, aided further by the greater im provement in and more extended use of steam-propelled boats, these romantically interesting tea races had virtually passed out of existence. With her hull picturesquely painted in bands of white and black, and dummy portholes in black, with her great number of sails and long, sharp bow the clipper ship of the nine teenth century was "the ideal of applied art and a sheer delight to the eye"—the possessor of "that peculiarly satisfying beauty which always belongs to the thing absolutely fitted for the purpose it is designed to fill." An excellent account has been compiled by Octavius T. Howe and Frederick C. Matthews, American Clipper Ships 183,3-58 (1926-27) published by the Marine Research Society at Salem.