FMI: USS Onkahye
Colonel Robert L. Stephens
Lieutenant Benjamin F. B. Hunter, USN
Charles Lundgren, ASMA
Stamps available through Unicover
Reposted from Times of the Island. Winter 2013/14 website (https://www.timespub.tc/2014/01/cold-case/)
"Cold Case
The loss of the US Navy Schooner Onkahye, 1848.
By Dr. Donald H. Keith, Chairman, TCI National Museum, and Dr. James W. Hunter
“Near Nine O Clock on Wednesday night the Vessel Struck and from the grating of her Keel . . . I concluded . . . that She Had run up and Lodged on Rocks her entire Length . . . [I] Believed the vessel would go to pieces before morning and never Expected myself to See the Light of another day.”
These are the words of Elija Hise, written while waiting in the survivor’s camp on Providenciales, June 24, 1848. The wreck he survived—in spite of his expectations to the contrary—was the US Navy schooner Onkahye. Its loss ended the career of what was then widely recognized as the most cutting-edge yacht built in America, but is now largely forgotten. There are many shipwrecks in the waters of the Turks & Caicos Islands. Not all of them are so interesting that they warrant a search, let alone excavation and recovery. But Onkahye is on the Museum’s “A List” of important shipwrecks. No, it was not carrying precious metals, bronze cannons, or works of art. Its “treasure” is the place it holds in the history of fast American-built sailing yachts.
Genesis of the American sailing yacht
The backstory begins in 1839 in Williamsburg, NY, where engineer Robert L. Stevens was designing and testing a series of small boat models to verify his theories about the sailing performance of a radical new hull design combining the best attributes of both centerboard and keel type yachts. Satisfied with his findings, he commissioned the construction of a single-decked yacht with an overall length of 96 feet, waterline length of 92 feet, beam of 24 feet, 2 inches, and a depth of hold of 10 feet, 9 inches when the centerboard was up and the vessel was in sailing trim. Christened OnKaHyE (an Oneida Indian term meaning “dancing feather”), it displaced 211 tons. The vessel’s uniquely innovative hull attributes included a deep forefoot, slightly rockered keel, perpendicular ends on the rabbet line, and a large centerboard. The hull’s maximum beam and draft dimensions were placed slightly aft of the midpoint of the waterline length.
Onkahye’s most unusual design feature was the shape of its midsection, which had a shallow, wide-mouthed wine glass cross-section rather than the bowl shape commonly seen in traditional ship design. This allowed Stevens to experiment with a large centerboard and, according to early reports, both iron and lead outside ballast on the keel (another innovation). Stevens also introduced the sliding-gear sail hoist and sail slides familiar to yachtsmen today.
The design was unorthodox by the standards of the day and according to America’s most famous naval historian Charles Chapelle, Onkahye was the genesis of the American sailing yacht. By all accounts the ship was fast and in a Boston newspaper article about a cruise to the West Indies in 1842, Stevens stated: “Enquire her character of anyone that ever crossed her path in water of any color, rough or smooth, in any wind or weather. Under no circumstances, on the Atlantic or elsewhere . . . was she ever beaten, [running] either before or by the wind. In a voyage to Santa Cruz she fell in with vessels of all sorts, and none had the slightest chance with her.” (Boston Globe 1844).
Onkahye was built in 1839–1840 before the United States had a single yacht club and yachting as an organized sport existed in America. Perhaps this cruise and the success of Onkahye’s radical design is what led Robert’s brother, John Cox Stevens, to become a founding member of the New York Yacht Club in 1844, ushering in the first such club in the United States. In any case, ten years later John formed a syndicate to build a yacht and race it in England with the intention of showing off US shipbuilding skill — and making money! Christened America upon its launch, the schooner rigged vessel was taken to England for the great industrial exhibition of 1851 where its victory in a race around the Isle of Wight led to the creation of the America’s Cup.
Onkahye Joins the Navy
After three years of sea trials, various modifications, and the 1842 cruise to the West Indies, Stevens sold Onkahye to the US Navy in 1843. Why would the Navy want a yacht? The answer may be in how the yacht was used. Between 1843 and 1845 it was modified, armed with cannon, and deployed for anti-slavery and anti-piracy patrols in the Caribbean and off the coast of South America. It was also used as a mail packet and dispatch ship between Virginia, Texas and, on its last voyage, to Panama to take US diplomats on urgent State business. These missions required a speedy and nimble ship to chase down pirates or slavers and quickly deliver people and secret documents. By all contemporary accounts, Onkahye was a fast ship and, therefore, well-suited for these duties.
On June 21, 1848, while sailing from New York to Chagres, Panama, Onkahye was shipwrecked on one of the fringe reefs that border the Turks & Caicos Islands. In addition to its regular complement of officers and men, the schooner accommodated John Appleton, the United States Chargé d’ Affaires to the Republic of Bolivia, his clerk James S. Dodge, and three other civilian passengers. Foremost among Appleton’s varied diplomatic duties was the delivery of news of the impending termination of hostilities between the United States and Mexico to the U.S. Consulate in Callao, Peru. Onkahye’s mission being very time-sensitive, Lt. Otway H. Berryman, Master and Commander, decided to make a daring night approach to the Caicos Pass.
Onkahye’s loss: bravado, negligence or unfortunate accident?
If Onkahye wrecked today, a team of forensic investigators would be dispatched to examine the site and interview witnesses. Lacking that ability in 1848, the US Navy convened a Court of Inquiry to determine if negligence or inattention to duty was involved. In August 1848 a detailed statement of the wreck event was taken from Henry S. Newcomb, Acting Master of Onkahye on its last voyage. By carefully examining Newcomb’s statement we can deconstruct the wreck event and decide for ourselves the answer to this important question.
Maybe you are asking yourself, why go to all this trouble? After all, the ship wrecked 165 years ago. Broadly speaking, archaeologists love a mystery. If it involves a shipwreck so much the better—particularly if that shipwreck has historical significance. Because Onkahye was never decommissioned, it is still property of the US Navy. It is also important to a little-known period in the history of the Turks & Caicos Islands. For these and other reasons, Onkahye is important to the Turks & Caicos National Museum and Ships of Discovery, its maritime archaeological partner. Working together, we are trying to solve this mystery, determine the cause and perhaps in so doing, find this important site."
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