William Watts was born in Wales in 1850 to John Watts & Lydia Phillips.
William was a seaman, he was mean and flogged his men aboard the SS Gatherer.
William Watts Inmate #11168 San Quentin Prison (California)
Rec: 6 Mar 1884
Crime: High Seas
Term: 6 yrs
Age: 34
Discharged: 5 May 1888
The ship: SS Gatherer
Alexander Charles Stuart
Full Rigged Ship GATHERER Scottish-American (1831-1898)
A stalwart American ship clearing the Delaware headed for Honolulu with a load of coal, this broadside ship portrait by Alexander Charles Stuart is of the Ship GATHERER. In her maiden year of service, the Bath, Maine-built Downeaster went to New Orleans with hay, took a load of cotton from there to Liverpool, and crossed to collect the coal in Philadelphia before heading to Hawaii. She’d make 8 Cape Horn voyages, averaging about 129 days, a profitable and fast sailing Downeaster, and yet still record one of the bloodiest voyages in merchant maritime history.
In this portrait, A.C. Stuart shows the large wooden vessel as built by Albert Hathorn, a 1,509 ton Downeaster especially constructed for the Cape Horn Trade. Measuring 208’1” x 40’2” x 24’3”, she’d sell to Jacob Jensen at San Francisco in 1888, serve 17 years on the Pacific rigged as a bark, and then transfer to New York interests to carry lumber from Puget Sound to New York in 1905, and become a towed barge, eventually lost off the coast of Virginia in 1909 with 2,400 tons of coal.
While her first captains, Joseph and George Thompson, earned GATHERER a good reputation as a fast sailer especially for such a large square-rigger, reaching 15½ knots and 350 miles a day from Honolulu back to the Columbia River in 1874, a voyage from Antwerp to Wilmington, California in 1881 would darken her name. Under Captain John Sparks and Chief Mate Charlie (William) Watts the ship earned an unsavory reputation of “Hell Ship” and whispered title of “The Bloody Gatherer”, and eventually Watts six years in Folsom Prison for cruelty on the high seas. While the dark names stuck, she proved to be far more of a success than this one tragic voyage. Stuart has captured her early glory.
(source: https://www.vallejogallery.com/item_mobile.php?id=2032)
William had 2 sister's and 4 brother's as far as I can tell. The research on him has been shortcoming but I found out interesting things instead of filling in a tree for him on Ancestry. He father was a tailor in Cardiganshire, Aberystwith, Wales.
I just love that I found his ship and a little more to his story, his father was gone from the family after 1861 census. No idea if he left, was away earning money but by 1881 he was back and William was gone, as I know from the newspaper clippings in was aboard the SS Gatherer at that time.
William was a seaman, he was mean and flogged his men aboard the SS Gatherer.
Rec: 6 Mar 1884
Crime: High Seas
Term: 6 yrs
Age: 34
Discharged: 5 May 1888
 | ||
Full Rigged Ship GATHERER Scottish-American (1831-1898)
A stalwart American ship clearing the Delaware headed for Honolulu with a load of coal, this broadside ship portrait by Alexander Charles Stuart is of the Ship GATHERER. In her maiden year of service, the Bath, Maine-built Downeaster went to New Orleans with hay, took a load of cotton from there to Liverpool, and crossed to collect the coal in Philadelphia before heading to Hawaii. She’d make 8 Cape Horn voyages, averaging about 129 days, a profitable and fast sailing Downeaster, and yet still record one of the bloodiest voyages in merchant maritime history.
In this portrait, A.C. Stuart shows the large wooden vessel as built by Albert Hathorn, a 1,509 ton Downeaster especially constructed for the Cape Horn Trade. Measuring 208’1” x 40’2” x 24’3”, she’d sell to Jacob Jensen at San Francisco in 1888, serve 17 years on the Pacific rigged as a bark, and then transfer to New York interests to carry lumber from Puget Sound to New York in 1905, and become a towed barge, eventually lost off the coast of Virginia in 1909 with 2,400 tons of coal.
While her first captains, Joseph and George Thompson, earned GATHERER a good reputation as a fast sailer especially for such a large square-rigger, reaching 15½ knots and 350 miles a day from Honolulu back to the Columbia River in 1874, a voyage from Antwerp to Wilmington, California in 1881 would darken her name. Under Captain John Sparks and Chief Mate Charlie (William) Watts the ship earned an unsavory reputation of “Hell Ship” and whispered title of “The Bloody Gatherer”, and eventually Watts six years in Folsom Prison for cruelty on the high seas. While the dark names stuck, she proved to be far more of a success than this one tragic voyage. Stuart has captured her early glory.
(source: https://www.vallejogallery.com/item_mobile.php?id=2032)
William had 2 sister's and 4 brother's as far as I can tell. The research on him has been shortcoming but I found out interesting things instead of filling in a tree for him on Ancestry. He father was a tailor in Cardiganshire, Aberystwith, Wales.
I just love that I found his ship and a little more to his story, his father was gone from the family after 1861 census. No idea if he left, was away earning money but by 1881 he was back and William was gone, as I know from the newspaper clippings in was aboard the SS Gatherer at that time.
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