William Wheelwright

William Wheelwright, born March 18, 1798 in Merrimac, Massachusetts, United States, played an essential role in the development of steamboat and train transit in Chile and other parts of South America. In 1838, with help from the Chilean government, he founded the Pacific Steam Navigation Company which commenced operations on October 15, 1840 and granted commercial sea access amongst cities such as Valparaíso and El Callao.

William Wheelwright, son of Ebenezer and Anna (Coombs) Wheelwright, was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts March 16, 1798. In the year 1800, Ebenezer Wheelwright built the house on High Street, and there William Wheelwright lived during his boyhood. He attended the public schools of the town until he was about twelve years of age, when he was sent to Andover Academy, where he completed his education.

Ebenezer Wheelwright was a shipmaster in early life, and his son William soon manifested a desire to pursue the same vocation. With the consent of his parents, he shipped as cabin boy on board a vessel bound to the West Indies ; and, during the next two or three years, rose rapidly through all the grades of seamanship to that of captain, in 1817, when he was only nineteen years of age.

In 1823, he was in command of the ship " Rising Empire," owned by William Bartlett, Esq., of Newburyport, when the vessel was wrecked off the coast of South America, near the mouth of the Río de La Plata. The captain and crew, with the exception of one man, after twenty-four hours' exposure in an open boat, reached the shore in safety.

Captain Wheelwright, on his arrival at Buenos Aires, made known his destitute condition to a gentleman of that city, and was soon after offered a situation as supercargo of a vessel about to sail for Valparaiso. He accepted the position; and after a long and tedious voyage of four or five months around Cape Horn he arrived at the port designated. Having a desire to inform himself in regard to the business facilities and commercial advantages of the west coast of South America, he extended his travels to Guayaquil, the seaport of Colombia, where he decided to remain and give his time and attention to the development of the foreign and domestic trade in that locality. In 1825, he was appointed United States consul at that port. Three years later, he left his business, then in a thriving and prosperous condition, in the hands of his partner, and went, by way of the Isthmus of Panama, to his home in Newburyport, from which he had been absent six years.

He married, in that town, Feb. 10, 1829, Martha Gerrish, daughter of Edmund Bartlet, Esq. A few weeks later he embarked with his wife on a sailing packet from New York, bound to Carthagena, and continued his journey in a small schooner to Chagres and thence up the river, exposed to the heat and glare of the tropical sun, and across the Isthmus of Panama on mule back, and then down the coast in a leaky boat to Guayaquil.

After a few days of rest Mr. Wheelwright resumed his business cares and duties, but found to his dismay that nearly all his property had been lost, during his absence, through the negligence and mismanagement of his partner. Surprised, but not discouraged, by this unexpected discovery, he resolved to transfer his residence to Valparaiso and there endeavor to improve his shattered fortune. He purchased of his brother-in-law in New York a small vessel, which he named "Fourth of July," and ordered her to be sent to him on the west coast of South America. He took command of this vessel immediately after her arrival at Valparaiso, and was soon engaged in a lucrative business, transporting specie and bullion from port to port along the coast.

In 1835, he commenced his great task of establishing a line of steamers between the republics of Peru and Chile and the Isthmus of Panama. "This was an undertaking of much difficulty. There were prejudices to be overcome, capital to be raised, and negotiations necessary to be carried out,— all of which required great skill and patience." He went to England in 1837, and in 1838 the Pacific Steam Navigation Company was formed with a capital of £250,000; and two steamers, each of seven hundred tons register, were built in 1840 and ordered to proceed through the straits of Magellan to the ports of Valparaiso and Callao.

After the arrival of these steamers on the Pacific coast the difficulty of procuring coal and the impossibility of providing for unexpected repairs, occasioned by an untoward accident, were embarrassing in the extreme ; but these obstacles were ultimately surmounted, and steam communication was established with Europe by way of the Isthmus of Panama.

Mr. Wheelwright next turned his attention to the improvement of harbors and to the construction of wharves and light-houses for the better accommodation and protection of commerce. In order to facilitate the communication between the sea-coast and the mining district, he built the first South American railroad from Caldera to Copiapo, and afterward extended it nearly forty miles into the interior in the direction of the Andes.

In 1841, he purchased, for the use of his father, mother, and sisters, a dwelling-house on High Street in Newburyport, Massachusetts, which remained in the family for many years.* Soon after this date he became interested in a plan to unite Valparaiso and Buenos Aires by a railway over the mountain range that separates Chile from the Argentine Republic. He organized a staff of engineers to survey the line. The work was completed in 1859; but the Chilian government, to whom the project was submitted, considered the difficulties too great to be successfully overcome, and the enterprise was abandoned.

Paragraphs from John Curriers "Ould Newbury" published in 1896, out of copyright.

External links

* [http://www.newbury375.org/onlinelibrary.htm Newburyport Vital Records, History, etc.]
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=GB0CAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=WILLIAM+WHEELWRIGHT The Life and Industrial Labors of William Wheelwright in South America"] by Juan Bautista Alberdi, published 1877, 213 pages.

* "South America: A Popular Illustrated History of the Struggle for Independence by the Andean Republics and Cuba" by Hezekiah Butterworth, published 1898, 266 pages. [http://books.google.com/books?id=y1ZDAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA154 Chapter 15 William Wheelwright and the Industrial Heroes, page 154.]

* "Ould Newbury": Historical and Biographical Sketches" by John James Currier, published 1896, 729 pages. [http://books.google.com/books?id=vws1AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA651&lpg=PA651&hl=en#PPA651,M1 William Wheelwright article page 651.]
* [http://books.google.com/books? id=HWs0AAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover "Observations on the Isthmus of Panama" ] by William Wheelwright, published 1844, 31 pages.