Port of San Francisco clearance document for the JIREH SWIFT

Maker District and Port of San Francisco Collectors Office

Date5 December 1864

Object number00028292

NameClearance document

MediumInk on paper

DimensionsOverall: 262 x 206 mm, 2 mm, 0.01 kg

ClassificationsEphemera

Credit LineANMM Collection Purchased with USA Bicentennial Gift funds

Terms

DescriptionThis Port of San Francisco general clearance document for the barque JIREH SWIFT was signed in 1864. It states that the SWIFT, bound for a whaling voyage, is cleared by Customs. The JIREH SWIFT was a Union whaler who sailed during the American Civil War.HistoryAfrican American shipwright and former slave John Mashow built the whaler Jireh Swift in 1853 at Dartmouth, Mass. near New Bedford. The vessel measured 122 feet in length and 454 tons. Its first voyage was to the northern Pacific and lasted nearly four years. The ship collected 45 barrels of sperm oil, 2,719 barrels of whale oil and 14,900 lbs of whalebone. Swift’s second voyage, to the same grounds, lasted more than four years and netted much more oil and bone for her owners. Nearly three years into her third voyage, on 22 June 1865 she was captured in the Arctic by the Confederate raider Shenandoah and burned, for a loss of more than $40,000 The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History hold a builder's half model of the Jireh Swift in its collection under ID Number TR*076323.SignificanceThe JIREH SWIFT was one of the last American vessels captured and burned by the CSS SHENANDOAH. Research suggests that the last shots fired by SHENANDOAH were directed at the SWIFT.