So, What About That Jenny Lind Figurehead?-- Part 1

 During this Jennymania/rage  people named towns, babies and furniture after her.  There is a Jenny Lind, North Carolina, according to stories, she sang a song under a nearby tree.  At least four ships were named after her, including the Nightingale that I have been writing about.  Many consider this Nightingale to be one of the fastest clipper ships ever built.

In 1851, the same year Jenny arrived in Boston, the Nightingale (originally to be named  Sarah Cowles) was built in Eliot, Maine.  The owners planned to use the ship to take wealthy passengers to London for the World's Fair in 1851 ($125 round trip).  The idea fell through, but a figurehead of a woman bearing the likeness of Jenny Lind was made and attached to the front of the ship.

Having difficulties paying the cost of the ship, this was when it turned to bringing slaves to the Americas.  Of interest, the Nightingale was captured by the USS Saratoga, which had been built in 1842 at the nearby Portsmouth Navy Yard in Kittery, Maine.

After its capture, the Nightingale became a U.S. warship during the Civil War and afterwards went through owner after owner before being abandoned off Norway in 1894.

By this time, both Jenny Lind and P.T. Barnum were dead.  Jenny died in 1887 after a long self-imposed retirement.  

What Next?  --Old B-Runner

So, Who Was This Jenny Lind the Nightingale Was Named After?

From the  SeaCoast NH.com "Saga of the Jenny Linn figurehead" by J. Dennis  Robinson.

Her triumphant arrival and tour of the United States in the early 1850s was quite the bit like the coming of the British Invasion Beatles a 110 years later for those of you who know nothing of the saga of Jenny Linn.

Jenny Lind was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1820 and lived a poor life as a child, but by her early 20s had become the toast of Europe as the soprano "Nightingale."   Rather plain-looking and painfully shy, she turned down a marriage offer from author Hans Christian Anderson.  Legend has it that he  penned "The Ugly Duckling" in her honor.  Jenny toured Europe with composer Felix Mendelssohn, whom she fell in love with, but he was married.

People mobbed her concerts.  She was very popular.

So popular that all this attracted the attention of one P.T. Barnum, who brought her to the United States in 1850.  Essentially, he had the role of Ed Sullivan and the Beatles.   She performed in over 100 concerts in the United States.  She was bigger than all of Barnum's acts that came before her and they were quite popular.  That would include the midget Tom Thumb, Jumbo the Elephant and even  Chang and Eng, the famed Siamese Twins.

That is surely saying a lot.

--Old B-Lind