From the Maritime History of Massachusetts, 1783-1860" by Samuel Eliot Morrison.
THOMAS C. DUNN
Morrison was talking about the speed of some of the Massachusetts-built ships and in a footnote had this:
"In 1854, the barque Dragon of Salem, 289 tons, Captain Thomas C. Dunn, built at Newburyport in 1850, made the the 16,670-mile run from Salem to the Fiji Islands in eighty-five days; an average of 8.2 knots for the entire voyage. Few tramp steamers to-day could do better."
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From "Salem Vessels and Their Voyages" by George Granville Putnam.
Thomas Dunn commanded the barque Dragon for several voyages including the one that set the speed record. However, after he left the ship, the next voyage December 23, 1858, under command of Captain William McFarland, to Zanzibar, the ship ran aground August 31, 1859, on its return voyage to Salem on Tom Shoal, 40 miles south of Zanzibar.
It was hauled off by the HMS Clive, but sustained irreparable damage and with its keel broken, she was condemned.
A part of the figurehead, which was the head and neck of a dragon was saved and for years was at the home of the ship's owner, Benjamin A. West.
--Old B-Runner
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