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Note: Oliver Remington Mumford was the Captain of the the clipper ship Wisconsin and later of the Tornado. He made many trips around the world. On many of these voyages his wife accompanied him. Beginning in 1850 there were many voyages around the Horn, from New York to California. On one such trip, a stop was made in Callao, the port for Lima. Uncle Oliver bought the painting of St. Peter. The painting came from a monastery inland which had been sacked, and was purported to have been painted by Giuseppe Ribera, a Spanish artist of the 17th century. Arthur C. Howland and his wife tried to have the painting authenticated, but the Metropolitan Museum of New York could not say yes or no. The painting is still in its original frame. In each corner of the frame is depicted the head of a pope. In a good light you can see that St. Peter is holding the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. A record of the trips around the Horn and the number of days each took are listed in Carl Cutler's Greyhounds of the Sea. The book also quotes from Captain Mumford's log of the 1852 trip from San Francisco to New York. A few days after leaving port, a terrible storm blew up. The crew was very inexperienced, as most of the able bodied men had jumped ship to remain in California to look for gold. The storm came with such great force that the great ship lost its masts and rigging. The were forced to jury rig masts. In spite of the delay caused by the storm and the handicap of the jury rig, the passage was made in 100 days. For his seamanship on the occasion, Uncle Oliver was presented with a beautiful silver service by the insurance company of the ship's owners. Oliver Mumford never went to sea again after 1861 or 1862. He retired to Southport, Connecticut where he and his wife bought a house and lived there until 1876. He died in Brooklyn, New York in 1882, about November. His widow Sarah (Mott) Mumford died in the fall of 1904, October. Some of the furniture in the possession of Emily Pike was brought back from these trips. They include: two carved teakwood tables from Bombay, the four rosewood chairs from France and the mahogany game table which Uncle Oliver used as his desk for writing the ships' logs.
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