Description

During the early, soft days of fall,
in 1847, the pride of shipbuilders
Norman and Ralph McPherson was
the two-masted schooner Jenny Lind.
Her namesake was "the Swedish Nightingale",
opera singer Jenny Lind,
whose first performances in England
early that same year had caused a tremendous
sensation. Built under contract
at Orwell, the nautical Jenny
Lind was registered by her master and
owner William Douse on October 13,
1847. Typical of many Island-built
schooners, she was an unexceptional
vessel. Sixty-three feet in length with a
breadth of only 12 feet amidships, she
measured but 64 tons.
Her owner was a well-known figure
on Prince Edward Island. As depicted
in a crude contemporary paint ing,
he was an immense man, reportedly
weighing over 300 pounds, with what
is termed "a drinker's complexion" and
flesh bulging over his starched white
collar. After emigrating to the Island
from Wiltshire, England in the 1820s,
he took up farming, brewing, auctioneering,
the buying and selling of produce,
and shipbuilding. In 1833, Douse
became land agent for the 6th Earl of
Selkirk, whose 100,000 acres made him
the second largest landowner in the
colony.