Benoni Lockwood III

Benoni Lockwood III (1805–1851) was an American ship captain who set an ocean-crossing speed record during the era of the clipper ships.

Biography

Benoni Lockwood III was the son of sea captain and engineer Benoni Lockwood II (1777-1852) and Phebe Greene of Rhode Island and the brother of engineer Amos D. Lockwood. He married Amelia Cooley, with whom he had a son, Benoni Lockwood IV. Their granddaughter Florence Bayard Lockwood married the architect Christopher Grant La Farge and was the mother of writer Christopher La Farge.

Lockwood was a ship captain engaged in the East India trade. In 1845, he sailed the 573-ton Tartar, built in Philadelphia, from Holyhead, Wales, to Bombay, India, in a then-record time of 77 days (April 4—June 19).^[1]^: 115

In 1851, he captained the 200-foot-long, 1100-ton fast clipper White Squall from San Francisco to Hong Kong, where he died.^[1]^: 255 ^[2] Although newly built in 1851, the White Squall only saw two years of service, burning in a fire in New York Harbor in 1853.^[2]

References

^ ^a ^b Cutler, Carl C. Greyhounds of the Sea: The Story of the American Clipper Ship. Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Institute, 1930.
^ ^a ^b "The Great Conflagration: Three Clipper-Ships Destroyed: Total Loss of the Great Republic: Burning of the White Squall, and Joseph Walker." New York Times, Dec. 28, 1853.

[cutler-1] Cutler, Carl C. Greyhounds of the Sea: The Story of the American Clipper Ship. Annapolis, MD: U.S. Naval Institute, 1930.

[nyt-2] "The Great Conflagration: Three Clipper-Ships Destroyed: Total Loss of the Great Republic: Burning of the White Squall, and Joseph Walker." New York Times, Dec. 28, 1853.

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