orbitOrbit
orbitRecovery was a 154-tonne brigantine bought by the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1852.1 It was built in 1845 and originally an American vessel named orbitOrbit.2
This private correspondence reports that at the end of December, an American vessel the orbitOrbit,
was on route to Honolulu from Olympia when it ran into the same gale which ruined the unaUna.
Apparently, the orbitOrbit was blown aground and lost its rudder; it sustained other damages. Thereafter, Douglas
bought her & proceded [sic] to fit her out,
and renamed it the orbitRecovery.
In 1852 it was sent to find gold at Haida Gwaii under the command of Captain John
F. Kennedy.3 From 1852-58 it was commanded by William Mitchell who took it on various trading
runs to Hawaii.4
During the gold rush of 1858 it was stationed on the Fraser River as a guard ship
and involved with issuing mining licenses.5 It was eventually sold to Lennard and Green of Portland, who used it for trade to
Hawaii and China.6
- 1. Judith Hudson Beattie and Helen M. Buss, eds., Undelivered Letters to Hudson's Bay Company Men on the Northwest Coast of America,
1830-57 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2003), 413.
- 2. Ibid.
- 3. Ibid.
- 4. Ibid.
- 5. Ibid.
- 6. Ibid., 414.