Ship Olbers
Michael Palmer
> I looked at the site for the Olbers voyage listed below because one of
> my ancestors emigrated on the Olbers in 1867. Were there two ships by
> this name? The information I received from the Deutsches
> Schiffahrtsmuseum in Bremerhaven said the Olbers was launched in 1838,
> but the voyage described in the site took place in 1836. Yet the ship
> pictured on the site seems to be the same as the picture I got from the
> museum. Help!
>
> Arlene
> abr...@execpc.com
>
>
> Date: Mon, 06 Sep 1999 16:55:43 -0500
> From: Augie Braun <augi...@egyptian.net>
> Subject: The hip Donau
>
> Bob, if you are interested the following is a diary of the trip of the
> Olbers in 1836 to New Orleans. Augie
> www.azstarnet.com/~hofmann/trip.html
The vessel pictured at http://www.azstarnet.com/~hofmann/trip.html is
indeed the OLBERS launched in 1838. However, it is most emphatically
*not* the vessel that sailed to New Orleans in 1836.
Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers (1758-1840) was a famous Bremen medical
doctor and astronomer, and 5 vessels were named after him:
1. Russian frigate ALEXANDER PETION, built in Archangelsk, Russia, year
not given, although she was considered "old" when she arrived in
Bremen in 1829. 959 45/94 French tons (in the hanseatische
Schiffahrtsregister, capacity given as 480 Lasten, approximately
equal to 320 of the later standard Commerzlasten); 2 decks. She
arrived at Bremen on 19 November 1829 under the command of Arnold
Philipp Gaetjen. She was renamed OLBERS in honor of the 50th
anniversary, in 1830, of Olbers receiving his medical doctorate from
the University of G"ottingen in 1780. She was later under the
command of Johann Michael Herklotz [Dieter Gerdes, "Olbers-
Planetarium: F"unf Schiffe nach Olbers benannt,"
http://www.hs-bremen.de/planetarium/plaolb5s.htm].
*This* is the vessel that sailed to New Orleans in 1836, and she almost
certainly bore little resemblance to the ship launched in 1838.
2. Ship OLBERS, built by the shipwright Johann Lange, Vegesack/Grohn,
for the Bremen firm of F. & E. Delius, and launched on 1 October
1838. H. W. Exter, of Bremen, was her master for her entire career
under the Bremen flag. Her maiden voyage was to New Orleans; among
the passengers on this voyage were the "Old Lutheran" pastor Martin
Stephan, from Dresden, and approximately 200 of his followers, who
later settled in Perry County, Missouri [see, inter alia, Walter O.
Forster, _Zion on the Mississippi: The Settlement of the Saxon
Lutherans in Missouri, 1839-1841_ (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing
House, 1953)]. From 1838 to 1848, the OLBERS sailed exclusively
between Bremen and North American ports. However, in August 1848,
she arrived at Bordeaux, where she stranded entering the Garonne,
breaking her keel. She then passed into French hands and was renamed
first PERUANA, then, in 1849, after being purchased by the Bordeaux
firm of Civrac ainé, ASTRONOME (probably an indication that the firm
had some knowledge of Olbers and his contributions to astronomy). In
1853, the vessel was purchased by the Bordeaux firm of Ste. Aure
Couperie, which owned her until at least 1856. Her masters under the
French flag were F. Giteau and J. Dumoulin. I have at present no
information on this vessel's later history and ultimate fate [Peter-
Michael Pawlik, _Von der Weser in die Welt; Die Geschichte der
Segelschiffe von Weser und Lesum und ihrer Bauwerften 1770 bis 1893_,
Schriften des Deutschen Schiffahrtsmuseums, Bd. 33 (Hamburg: Kabel,
c1993), pp. 193-194, no. 148].
This is the vessel painted by Carl Justus Harmen Fedeler in 1839 [see copy
in Pawlik, _op. cit._, p. 199], of which you have a copy, and a copy of
which is also posted in error at
http://www.azstarnet.com/~hofmann/trip.html. It is *not*, however, the
vessel on which your ancestor sailed in 1867.
3. Ship OLBERS, built by F. W. Wencke, Bremerhaven, for the Bremen firm
of D. H. W"atjen & Co, and launched on 4 March 1851. 554 Lasten;
43,11 x 10,20 meters (length x beam); 2 decks. She was engaged
primarily in the transport of emigrants to North America, and in 1861
was sold Swedish. The Focke-Museum in Bremen has an oil painting of
her, 56 x 82 cm (height x breadth), unsigned, from the 1850's, as
well as a lithograph, published by G. Hunckel, Bremen, in 1853; the
former is reproduced in Johannes Lachs, _Schiffe aus Bremen; Bilder
und Modelle im Focke-Museum_ (Bremen: H. M. Hauschild, [1994]), p.
127, no. 101.
4. Bark OLBERS, built by J. C. Tecklenborg, Bremerhaven, for the Bremen
firm of D. H. W"atjen & Co, and delivered to the owner on 23 May
1863. 866/849 tons (gross/net); 48.03 x 10.36 x 6.49 meters (length
x beam x depth of hold). On 3 May 1887, the OLBERS was sold for
20,000 marks to Johann Frederic Pedersen, of Christiana [Peter
M"uller, "Baunummernliste Tecklenborgwerft (1),"
http://werften.fischtown.de/tabelle1.html; Dieter Gerdes, "Olbers-
Planetarium: F"unf Schiffe nach Olbers benannt,"
http://www.hs-bremen.de/planetarium/plaolb5s.htm]. I have at present
no information on her later history or ultimate fate.
*This* is the vessel on which your ancestor sailed in 1867.
5. Iron steamship OLBERS, built by Blohm & Voss, Hamburg, for the
Dampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft Neptun, of Bremen, and delivered on
19 July 1880. 528,47 tons; 51,4 x 7,5 x 4,31 meters (length x
breadth x depth of hold); 1 funnel, 2 masts, rigged as a
"Gaffelschoner". The OLBERS sank in the North Sea on 27 April 1882
[Dieter Gerdes, "Olbers-Planetarium: F"unf Schiffe nach Olbers
benannt," http://www.hs-bremen.de/planetarium/plaolb5s.htm].
Michael Palmer
---
Michael Palmer
Claremont, California
mpa...@netcom.com
Hofmann Family
Michael Palmer wrote:
>
it is most emphatically
> *not* the vessel that sailed to New Orleans in 1836.
>
Here is what is posted regarding the painting of the sailing ship Olbers
at our website......
"Here is a photo of the sailing ship "OLBERS" that I was able to obtain
on a recent visit to the Ships Museum in Bremerhaven. According to their
records this ship was built in 1838 and the painting was done in 1839.
If this is accurate, it would not be the same ship as the "OLBERS" which
sailed in 1836, but could very well be a nearly exact duplicate as we
are told that it was
common for ships to be regularly replaced as they needed extensive
repairs and given the same name."
To read about the 1836 voyage of the Olbers, go to our web site listed
below. We hope to add additional interesting stories in the months ahead
and hope you will find them interesting. The Ships Museum in Bremerhaven
told us they have no picture of the original Olbers, but this was now a
few years ago, so they may have come up with something by now. I think
when you see the picture of the 2nd Olbers, you can imagine 100 plus
people in the Zwischendeck for 2 months regardless of the exact shape
looks of such a ship.
Charles Hofmann
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