The Ghost and Mrs Scott

OK there’s no ghost and I’m not technically Mrs Scott, but I do, however, own a house that was once inhabited by a 19th century sea captain!

In these posts I’ll share with you my research about the people who have lived in our house. The first person on my list is Captain William Marchant Smith, or “Typhoon Bill” as he was known. His story is pretty long, so grab a cup of tea.

The Census for 1891 doesn’t actually state that William Marchant Smith lived here, as it only records the names of the people spending the night of the Census in the household. More than likely William was at sea when his wife Ruth spoke to the Census takers, giving information about herself,  their three sons and two servants.

William Marchant Smith was born on May 6, 1850 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada to an Irish father (Robert Alexander Smith) and an English mother (Susannah Smith, nee Marchant). William’s father was a Captain in the British Army, which would explain why William was born in Canada.

By the age of 14 William was serving on clipper ships like this one, engaged in the East India and Cape Horn trade.

In 1876 he joined the White Star line, the famous Liverpool-based shipping company, sailing on the Germanic. All the White Star Line ships had names ending in “-ic”, the most famous, of course, being the Titanic but William wasn’t on that one.

By 1881 at age 30 he was a Captain on the Adriatic (above) and the Britannic.

In the summer of 1882 at the age of 32 he married 24 year old Ruth Metcalfe at St Philips Church in Litherland, just north of Liverpool. Ruth was the daughter of George, a Master Mariner, so William probably met her through this seafaring connection.  They set up home in Liverpool and had three children: William Marchant Smith born in 1884, Arthur Mayer Smith (1886) and Robert Alexander Smith (1887). Some time between 1887 and 1891 the family moved into this house and employed two servants: Mary Salt and Anne Nelson.

The Lloyd’s Captains Registers say that William captained the following ships:

1881 Adriatic /Britannic
1882 Britannic
1883-85 Germanic

1885-86 Baltic (above)

1886 Germanic
1886 Baltic/Germanic /Baltic

1887 Gaelic (above)

and Republic (above)

1888 Arabic
1889-94 {unknown – but my guess is the Oceanic – see below}

1895 Oceanic

1895-99 Tauric

According to The New York Times December 10, 1932, “In the China seas he was known as “Typhoon Bill” because of the skillful and daring seamanship he displayed bringing his ship safely through the storms in Far Eastern waters while much larger vessels were kept at anchor in Hongkong, [sic] Shanghai and Kobe.”

William is probably best known as the sea captain who features in journalist Nellie Bly’s account of her journey “Around the World in Seventy-Two Days”, published in 1890.

From Chapter XII

The second day after my arrival, Captain Smith, of the Oceanic, called upon me. I expected to see a hard-faced old man; so, when I went into the drawing-room and a youthful, good-looking man, with the softest blue eyes that seemed to have caught a tinge of the ocean’s blue on a bright day, smiled down at me, I imagine I must have looked very stupid indeed. I looked at the smooth, youthful face, with its light-brown moustache, and I felt inclined to laugh at the long iron-gray beard my imagination had put upon the Captain of the Oceanic. I caught a laughing gleam of the bluest of blue eyes, and I thought of imaginary stern ones, and had to smother another insane desire to laugh. I looked at the tall, slender, shapely body, and recalled the imaginary short legs, holding upright a wide circumference under an ample waistcoat, and I laughed audibly.

“You were so different to what I imagined you would be,” I said afterwards, when we talked over our first meeting.

“And I could not believe you were the right girl, you were so unlike what I had been led to believe,” he said, with a laugh, in a burst of confidence. “I was told that you were an old maid with a dreadful temper. Such horrible things were said about you that I was hoping you would miss our ship. I said if you did come I supposed you would expect to sit at my table, but I would arrange so you should be placed elsewhere.”

From Chapter XIV

SHORTLY after my return to Hong Kong I sailed for Japan on the Oceanic. A number of friends, who had contributed so much towards my pleasure and comfort during my stay in British China, came to the ship to say farewell, and most regretfully did I take leave of them. Captain Smith took us into his cabin, where we all touched glasses and wished one another success, happiness and the other good things of this earth. The last moment having come, the final good-bye being said, we parted, and I was started on my way to the land of the Mikado.

The Oceanic, on which I traveled from Hong Kong to San Francisco, has quite a history. When it was designed and launched twenty years ago by Mr. Harland, of Belfast, it startled the shipping world. The designer was the first to introduce improvements for the comfort of passengers, such as the saloon amidships, avoiding the noise of the engines and especially the racing of the screw in rough weather. Before that time ships were gloomy and somber in appearance and constructed without a thought of the happiness of passengers. Mr. Harland, in the Oceanic, was the first to provide a promenade deck and to give the saloon and staterooms a light and cheerful appearance. In fact, the Oceanic was such a new departure that it aroused the jealousy of other ship companies, and was actually condemned by them as unseaworthy. It is said that so great was the outcry against the ship that sailors and firemen were given extra prices to induce them to make the first trip.

Instead of being the predicted failure, the Oceanic proved a great success. She became the greyhound of the Atlantic, afterwards being transferred to the Pacific in 1875. She is the favorite ship of the O. and O. line, making her voyages with speed and regularity. She retains a look of positive newness and seems to grow younger with years. In November, 1889, she made the fastest trip on record between Yokohama and San Francisco. No expense is spared to make this ship comfortable for the passengers. The catering would be hard to excel by even a first-class hotel. Passengers are accorded every liberty, and the officers do their utmost to make their guests feel at home, so that in the Orient the Oceanic is the favorite ship, and people wait for months so as to travel on her.

In 1899 William was appointed Marine Superintendant of the White Star Line in New York and spent the rest of his life living there.

Again, from The New York Times: “Captain Smith was one of the best-known figures along the Chelsea waterfront and during the World War had control of the arrival and departure of the troop ships and munition ships taking supplies over to England and France. One of the ships which Captain “William,” as he was popularly known, loaded and saw depart was the Baltic, in April, 1917, when General Pershing and his staff left with the first contingent of American troops for the Western front.”

Records for William’s wife Ruth show that she stayed in Liverpool when her husband moved to the United States and that she died some time after 1911. Their marriage clearly did not survive William’s seafaring life.

In 1912 William lived at 938 Hudson Street Hoboken, New Jersey, sharing an apartment with his friend Alexander Arthur Gordon, who worked for another shipping company in New York. On the 22nd April 1912, The Hudson Observer reported that the men had caused local controversy by hanging a British and an American flag at half mast from the rear of their home. They were showing their sympathy for the death of their friend and former ship-mate Robert C Heskith, who had died in the sinking of the Titanic.

William retired in 1921 after 43 years with the White Star Line. New York Passenger lists state that William was 5 feet 11 inches tall, had tattooed arms and a scar on his left hand. He made at least two trips back to England in his seventies to visit his brother in London. His address for the last few years of his life was 922 Bloomfield Street, Hoboken, New Jersey.  He died at the age of 82 on December 29th, 1932 at home.

William’s ashes were scattered from the bridge of the Panama Pacific Liner California (above) into the Gulf of California by his son Robert, who had also become a sea captain in America.

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