Robert Kermit Red Star Line
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In 1818 the Red Star Line (also known as Red Star Packet Line, New Line, and Second Line) was founded by Byrnes, Trimble & Co. from New York.''Portrait gallery of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York: catalogue and biographical sketches (1890)'', by George Wilson, pages 206-208. (It should not be confused with the same-named Belgian/ US-American shipping company
Red Star Line The Red Star Line was a shipping line founded in 1871 as a joint venture between the International Navigation Company of Philadelphia, which also ran the American Line, and the Société Anonyme de Navigation Belgo-Américaine of Antwerp, Belgi ...
, whose main ports of call were
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and
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in the United States and
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in Belgium). On September 11, 1835 the line was bought by Robert Kermit from New York, a ship-owner and agent for packet ships, and was renamed Robert Kermits Red Star Line (aka Kermit Line). In 1851 Robert Kermit took his brother-in-law Charles Carow into partnership as Kermit & Carow to carry on the business of general ship owning, commission and commercial trading.''Biographical register of Saint Andrew's society of the state of New York (1922)'' by William M. MacBean, page 169/170. Robert Kermit died in 1855 and Carow assumed the business. In 1867 the Red Star Line went down.


Establishment

In August 1817 Thomas S. Byrnes, George T. Trimble and Silas Wood''The old merchants of New York City (1863)'' by Joseph Alfred Scoville, page 215/216. established Byrnes, Trimble & Co. This was some years before the opening of the
Erie Canal The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east–west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigability, navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, ...
, when the chief supplies of breadstuffs for this market came from
Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...
and Virginia, and the firm, for some years engaged in the
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trade,''Across the Oceans'' by Seija-Riitta Laakso, page 41. was among the largest receivers of
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and
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from there. Silas Wood was by birth a New Yorker but he resided at the city of Fredericksburg upon the
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to promote that part of the business. The partners also became owners and managers of several merchant ships, and in late 1818 established the Red Star Line of packet ships.


Regularly scheduled sailings

The first line of regular packet ships between New York and Liverpool, the Black Ball Line was established in 1817 by Isaac Wright & Son (William),
Jeremiah Jeremiah ( – ), also called Jeremias, was one of the major prophets of the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition, Jeremiah authored the Book of Jeremiah, book that bears his name, the Books of Kings, and the Book of Lamentations, with t ...
and Francis Thompson as well as Benjamin Marshall, and made semi-monthly sailings for Liverpool. The initial announcement of new competition for the Black Ball Line (now also called the Old Line) came in early January, 1822, from Byrnes, Trimble & Co. and their Red Star Line (aka New Line). Since the partners had been operating ordinary traders to Liverpool for a few years, they finally decided to start a regularly scheduled line traffic with four
packet ship Packet boats were medium-sized boats designed mainly for domestic mail and freight transport in European countries and in North American rivers and canals. Eventually including basic passenger accommodation, they were used extensively during t ...
s between New York and
Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...
: the ''Panthea'',
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, ''Hercules'' and the ''Manhattan''. The monthly service included sailings from New York on the 25th and from Liverpool on the 12th of each month. In 1823, the dates were changed to the 24th and 8th. Soon other
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merchants launched competing lines to race against the Black Ball Line, and the Red Star Line finally was called the Second Line instead of the New Line. In 1822, Messrs Fish, Grinnell & Co. began the Swallowtail Line, known as the “Fourth Line of Packets for New York,” their first ships being the ''Silas Richards, Napoleon, George'' and ''York'', which soon moved to bi-weekly service. By 1825, vessels were advertised as leaving New York on the 8th and leaving Liverpool on the 24th of every month. Their actual schedules eventually varied, sometimes wildly, due to weather and other conditions. The names of the lines were somewhat confusing and mixed, as their organizations and owners changed during the years. The classification above is adequate for what has been used by Albion and Staff. Within the following years, new ships were added to the Red Star Line-fleet, for example the ''John Wells'' and ''John Jay'' which was replaced by ''England'' in 1834. The new vessels were not necessarily faster than the old ones, but they were certainly more attractive from the passenger's point of view. Thomas S. Byrnes died in 1828, but the business was continued under the name Byrnes, Trimble & Co. until 1831. When Silas Wood returned to New York to take an active share in its management, the name became Wood & Trimble, and so continued until its final dissolution, September 11, 1835, after the sale of their shipping interest to Robert Kermit.


Robert Kermit

Robert Kermit, who gained a mercantile training in the shipping house of William Codman, and who went into own business in 1817, already owned the Saint Line in his earlier years, but was not successful. With the help of some wealthy backers, he finally took over the ownership of the ''Red Star Line'' in 1835. Unlike other operators, Kermit owned shares in all the ships of the line, while the rest of them were mainly owned by various ship builders and ship captains.''Across the Oceans'' by Seija-Riitta Laakso Under Kermit's management, several misadventures and shipwrecks occurred, but in the quality of the ships, and their speed and regularity, the performance of Red Star Line was still better than it had been before. A list of ships, that finally sailed under the flag of the Red Star Line: ''John R. Skeddy (1845)'', ''West Point'', ''Constellation (1849)'', ''Underwriter (1850)'' and ''Waterloo''. Other ships of Robert Kermits Red Star Line included ''John Wells'', ''England'', ''Empire'', ''Virginian'', ''Samuel Hicks'', ''Stephen Whitney'', ''United States'' as well as ''Sheffield''. In the pressure of hard competition, packet schedules were tightened when reorganizing sailings due to disasters, new launchings, etc. In 1844-1848, several ships made three-month round trips instead of the traditional four months, calculated from one Liverpool departure to the following one. ''West Point'', ''Waterloo'', and especially ''Virginian'' were among the fastest on the North Atlantic route. ''Virginian'' also was one of the most susceptible ships and often ended in reporting problems and misadventures. For many years, Kermit operated the line in his own name (it was often called ''Kermit Line'' too) but since 1851 he was associated with his brother-in-law, Charles Carow. After Robert Kermit's death in 1855, Carow took over the business, but faced a disastrous drop in incomeMorris, Sylvia J. ''Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt: Portrait of a First Lady'' p. 20. and immense losses during the slump after the end of the
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. Another reason for closing was simply that steamships had taken the business, first the mail service and the fine freight, and by the late 1860s, also the emigrant business. Red Star Line continued their service until 1867.


Notes


Literature

*Albion, Robert Greenhalgh: ''Square-Riggers on Schedule. The New York Sailing Packets to England, France, and the Cotton Ports'', Princeton 1938.
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B0006AO5QE *Staff, Frank: ''The Transatlantic Mail'', Massachusetts 1980. *Scoville, Joseph Alfred (Barrett, Walter = pseud.): ''The old merchants of New York City (1863)'', , *Laakso, Seija-Riitta: ''Across the Oceans'' (academic dissertation, University of Helsinki, Finland), , *Morris, Sylvia J.: ''Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt: Portrait of a First Lady'', , , {{ISBN, 978-0-375-75768-6 Shipping companies of the United States Packet trade