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Note: ailed on it with his family as a little boy. In 1898, the ship sunk off of Cape Horn, perhaps its 40th voyage around the Cape. The ship was completely lost, but the captain and his family survived, going ashore in small boats, where they were rescued a few days later. The painting of the Arabia hung in Alameda, Calif. in Macloon family home (Mac, the last of his family line, died in 1966), then home to my great grandmother Diana Fogerty Letts Macloon until a few years before her death in 1993. After that, it hung in the front room of my grandparents' home in Palo Alto. My grandmother, Charlotte Letts London, died in April 1999. A year later, my grandfather, A. Louis London (retired professor emeritus of Stanford's Mechanical Engineering Department) left a chair over a furnace vent, which caused a fire, destroying the house and many of the items in it, including the painting. My father, Charles London, greatly mourns its loss. I believe the Arabia to be a clipper built in Bath, Maine in the mid to latter part of the 19th century. These ships -- optimized in the 1870s and 1880s -- were highly developed sailing ships that combined speed and handiness with low operating costs and a significant cargo capacity that exceeded the capabilities of the previously revered square-riggers. The medium clippers of the latter part of the century were known as "down-easters," and they had enough sail capacity to move at great speed. The painting of the Arabia, including the steamer ships in the distance, was completed by E. York in 1894. -- Melissa London, April 2002
Note: The Arabia was my great-great grandfather's ship. My great grandfather, C.W. "Mac" Macloon, s
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