On April 12, 1847, the USS Jamestown reached Cork Harbor after a 15 day journey from the Charlestown Navy Yard

Cove of Cork painting, circa 1856

On this day in history, April 12, 1847, the USS Jamestown arrived at the Harbor in Cork,  bringing  food, medical supplies and clothing to the people of Ireland during the height of the Irish Famine.  It anchored at the lighthouse in the outer harbor at White Bay, exactly 15 days and three hours after leaving the Charlestown Navy Yard.

The journey was headed by Captain Robert Bennet Forbes, a wealth China trade merchant from Milton, MA, who had left Charlestown on March 28, 1847 with a crew of 38 men and 800 tons of supplies.

The fifteen day voyage faced foul weather and a blend of rain, sleet, wind and fog requisite for that time of year, but finally, they arrived in Queenstown Harbor.

Henry Lee's book, Massachusetts Helps to Ireland During the Great Famine, gives a masterful account of this extraordinary episode in Boston's history.

"Contributions of food continued to arrive from all over New England," Lee wrote.  "The cargo consisted largely of Indian corn and bread but included also hams, pork, oatmeal, potatoes, flour, rye, beans, rice, fish and sixteen barrels of clothing."

A cruel irony became apparent to Forbes as Ireland's provincial rulers greeted Forbes and his crew with an invitation to a sumptuous feast.  Forbes and his crew found this banquet most embarrassing, however, as Irish citizens lay dying in the streets nearby.

"Although Forbes strongly urged that all public demonstrations be dispensed with on account of the prevailing distress, his hosts were not to be denied the satisfaction of showing their gratitude to New England and America," Lee writes.  "This explains at least in part why at such a time a public dinner was tendered to Jamestown's officers.  It should also be remembered that one of the terrible anomalies of the famine years - and one which greatly surprised the Americans - was the availability of food to those who could afford to buy it." 

Forbes was more interested in seeing firsthand the suffering everyone had heard so much about.  He was escorted around Cork by Father Tehobald Mathew, the famous temperance priest.  Forbes later described the event:

"It was the valley of death and pestilence itself.  I would gladly forget, if I could, the scenes I witnessed."

Once on shore, Forbes immediately set about forming a local committee and setting up a distribution plan. Ireland's Government Inspector Captain Broughton produced a map of the county, divided into 160 localities each about three miles in area, and proposed that the "800 tons be distributed to the 160 districts, five tons allotted to each," Lee writes.

"Distribution was accomplished in what must have been record time, spurred on perhaps by the captain's persuasive if not entirely logical argument that since the cargo had been on 15 days in crossing the Atlantic hopefully it would not take more than a second fifteen for it to reach the poor."

The USS Jamestown voyage captured the world's imagination.  Reverend R.C. Waterson later wrote, "I consider the mission of the Jamestown as one of the grandest events in the history of our country.  A ship-of-war changed into an angel of mercy, departing on no errand of death, but with the bread of life to an unfortunate and perishing people."