Dancing Feather

Type

Schooner

Period

19th Century

Nation

United States

Overview: Dancing Feather was a mid-19th-century Boston pilot schooner designed by naval architect Dennison J. Lawlor and built in 1853 at his East Boston shipyard. She is chiefly of interest to modelers because Lawlor's own builder's half-model survives in the Smithsonian's National Watercraft Collection and has informed multiple later reproductions, and because a separate cased amateur model by Nicol Bissell also documents her appearance. Specifications: She measured 68 ft in length, 20 ft beam, and 8 ft depth of hold, and was a schooner-rigged vessel with a clipper-sharp bow and round stern, a style borrowed from New York pilot-boat practice. Recorded paint schemes vary between sources: Wikipedia describes her as painted black with green below the waterline and gold-leaf trailboards, while the Bissell cased builder's model shows a hull painted white above the waterline and green below with a red bootstripe, and the modern Piel Craftsmen reproduction model instead renders the hull dark green with black topsides and a dark brown main rail — suggesting either repainting over her career or differing modeler interpretations. Service History: In 1853 she sailed from Boston to San Francisco to join the pilot service under Captain James L. Fowler. The Dancing Feather met up with the wreck SS Yankee Blade in 1854 and was able to raise four boxes of treasure from the sunken vessel. On May 7, 1857 she ran ashore in thick fog on the beach north of Point Bonita in San Francisco Bay; crew and pilots escaped safely but a rescuing tugboat could not save her and she became a total loss, though insured for about $10,000. Notable Facts: The half-model of the Dancing Feather (TR.076032) was a gift by D. J. Lawlor to the Watercraft collection in the "United States National Museum" now the Smithsonian Institution. It has since informed later reproductions, including a 1:16-scale radio-control build documented on Model Ship World and a twentieth-century mahogany scale model by Rob Napier held at the Peabody Essex Museum. Lawlor went on to design other well-regarded Boston pilot schooners, including the larger Hesper, continuing the sharp-bow, round-stern style he pioneered with Dancing Feather. Image Note: No confirmed open-license historical image or museum photo of the half-model could be located after search. The image on file is a manufacturer's product photo of a built scale model by Piel Craftsmen of Newburyport, MA, taken from their own product page, and should be understood as a modern representative model, not a picture of the real ship or the original half-model.