In 2006 the Archives and Special Collections purchased a photograph of the Coriolanus, which at 300-feet, was the “largest and finest of the Cape Verde packet ships.” Built in 1876 by Archibald McMillan & Son of Dumbarton, Scotland, this iron full-rigged ship started out carrying jute between Calcutta and Britain. After 1900 she was re-rigged as a bark. The Coriolanus changed owners several times before being purchased by Roy Teixeira and Abilio and Antonio Macedo for $1,000 in 1927 (or 1929?). The Coriolanus carried up to 200 passengers and a crew of about 38. Her days as a packet ship carrying immigrants was short. She sustained damage in a storm in 1930, and by 1936 was sold as scrap.
Source: “The Cape Verdean Connection” African-American Insitute, June 28, 1977 from a reprint in the Records of the Schooner Ernestina/Effie M. Morrissey Collection, UMass Dartmouth Archives and Special Collections; and online at www.bruzelius.info/Nautica/Ships/Merchant/Sail/C/Coriolanus(1876).html
For more information on the Schooner Ernestina, see www.ernestina.org
