Historical Materials

The steam demi-bark "Antelope" was designed jointly by Samuel Hall and Samuel H. Pook and built in Hall's shipyard at East Boston in 1855. The design concept and construction were closely overseen by Robert Bennet Forbes; the machinery was constructed by Otis Tufts and turned a Griffith propeller. Designed for traveling in pirate-infested Far Eastern waters, the vessel was heavily armed, even fitted out with a pump able to throw hot water from her boilers to a distance of 100 yards. Even the term "demi-bark" was novel, as the barkentine rig was then a novelty itself. John W. Griffiths, in describing this vessel, proposed the term "brigantern," a cross between "brigantine" and "tern," the latter term for a three-mast schooner.

This vessel was described at length by Griffiths in The U.S. Nautical Magazine and Naval Journal 3 (October 1855), 11–17, including Lane's lithograph.

– Erik Ronnberg