Eleanor Creesy

My name was Nellie Prentiss, as you may understand

I was born ten miles from Boston town, in Marblehead’s fair land,

When I was young and' comely, sure, good fortune to me came,

My husband loved me tenderly, Josiah Creesy was his name.

My father was a mariner, a master of his trade,

He taught me navigation, the horizon I surveyed

I shot the moon and the Northern star with my sextant bright and true

Till I shipped on board the Oneida as a nurse to all the crew.

It was in the yards of East Boston town we met Donald McKay,

The builder of The Flying Cloud, with her masts that scraped the sky,

My man Josiah took her helm and from New York we did go

Sixteen thousand miles around the Horn to Califor-ni-o.

Now I became a shellback in the year of fifty-one

The fastest ship from Sandy Hook had made a record run

In two days less than e’er before I found we’d crossed the line

I did my calculations o’er to prove the right was mine.

Off Tierra del Fuego we ran our easting down

The Roaring Forties racked her ‘til the men were like to drown

Through storm and fog I set our course, at night I took no rest

For the saying of my captain was, her dead reckoning’s the best.

With Gold Rush records to be won, our own record we reversed

Sixteen hours less than ninety days, we dropped our anchor first

We caught the Hornet two days out, not even an hour late

The Andrew Jackson never beat us through the Golden Gate.

The Flying Cloud was a Boston ship, fifteen hundred tons and two,

She could outsail any clipper ship the world it ever knew

With her canvas white as the driven snow, set sails of twenty-eight

She was sharp and broad, uncommon swift, in all things she was great.

When my man he came home from war, ‘twas to find the Black Ball Line

Cut down her spars and trimmed her sails and sent her to the Tyne

She ran from Deal to Melbourne Town all under Captain Baines

She carried lumber from Shelburne, from Gravesend to Brisbane.

She broke her back on Beacon Bar and they burned her to the rails

They sold her soul for copper and her heart for iron nails

No more she’ll fly before the wind and race before the storm

Forever may her record stand for the rounding of the Horn.

Farewell unto the Flying Cloud, that ship I do adore,

I'll never shoot the stars again nor round the Horn no more,

But sextants, storms, salt air, and ships have made a life for me,

Young ladies, lesson by me take and boldly go to sea.