Neptune's Needle

Merchant and shipping operator.

In 1821 Edward joined his father's company, which by this time had shifted from European trade to the Gulf Coast and Caribbean waters.

Edward made a few voyages for his father's firm, but he soon took over managing the business from the New York office. Early in January 1824 he became partner of I. G. Collins & Son, which three years later started the first regularly scheduled packet service between New York and Veracruz, Mexico. After his father's death in 1831, Edward shifted his business to the booming coastal cotton trade between New Orleans and New York. He was appointed manager of a line of large, well-appointed sailing vessels that soon dominated the Gulf Coast-New York trade. Edward owned shares in several of the vessels and also operated as a wholesale merchant.

Rapidly increasing his fortune and his reputation as a maritime entrepreneur, Collins then challenged the well-established transatlantic sailing packet lines between New York and Liverpool, England. Late in 1836 he initiated a liner service to Liverpool that was a remarkable success from the outset. Collins's "Dramatic Line" of unusually large and swift sailing ships was highly profitable and was remarkably well publicized, especially by James Gordon Bennett's New York Herald. Collins and his sailing ships became synonymous with quality, luxury, elegance, speed, daring, and style during America's "Go Ahead" age.

With the surprisingly successful crossing of the Atlantic in April 1838 by the British steamships Sirius and Great Western, Collins was among those Americans who saw that U.S. domination of the transatlantic sea-lanes by sailing packets was soon to end. Within a few years premium passenger and cargo transportation across the Atlantic Ocean was largely controlled by the British-owned and operated Cunard Line, which had begun regularly scheduled service in 1840 with heavy financial support from both private investors and the British government. Such public support of private enterprise was justified at the time by the extraordinary expense of building and operating steamships. Use of such steam-powered vessels as naval auxiliaries in wartime, or even possibly as warships, resulted in private steamship companies receiving contracts that produced large subsidy payments for carrying the mails overseas.

Faced with the British domination of transatlantic mail service and looking to create greater American naval capability without having to build and maintain more steam warships, the U.S. Congress in 1845 sought to encourage private American shipping operators to venture into the risky and largely untried business of ocean steam transportation. Edward Collins was among the first of those to propose a transatlantic liner service; unlike others, he sought to compete directly with Cunard for the most lucrative and heavily traveled route; Liverpool to the United States.

With a large federal government contract in hand and with major financial backing from the internationally powerful banking firm of the Brown Brothers, Collins supervised the construction in New York City of four essentially identical wooden-hulled, sidewheel steamships that would be the largest, fastest, and most luxurious in the world. The challenge of building machinery of unprecedented size and weight, along with numerous naval requirements adding to the difficulties of design and construction, created frequent delays. Expenses mounted far beyond expectation, but late in April 1850 the first Collins Line steamer, Atlantic, departed New York on its maiden voyage to Liverpool. By the end of the year the Baltic, Pacific, and Arctic were in service; and soon the New York and Liverpool United States Mail Steamship Company, or "Collins Line," was making serious inroads on the Cunard Line's transatlantic trade while continually setting transatlantic speed records.

In an attempt to stabilize and control the transatlantic steam transportation of premium cargoes and first-class passengers, the Cunard Line and Collins Line, with the direct involvement of the Brown Brothers firm, entered into a secret agreement to fix freight rates and also to pool and then apportion their earnings from this trade. This contract continued in force for several years, but even with all the advantages from this cartel--and a doubling of its annual government subsidy to $858,000 in 1852--the Collins Line failed to make a profit or pay any dividends on the corporation's stock. The loss of the Collins liner Arctic in a September 1854 collision off Newfoundland was a serious blow to the firm and a personal tragedy for Edward Collins, whose wife and two of their three children were drowned. Collins hoped to restore his company's fortunes with the addition of an even larger and swifter steamship, the Adriatic (designed by George Steers), but well before that long-delayed vessel went into service in late 1857 another Collins liner, the Pacific, was lost with all hands early in 1856.

Unable to maintain scheduled sailings satisfactorily, the Collins Line suffered from increasingly hostile treatment by Congress, so that when the subsidy was cut back late in 1857 at a time when a severe financial panic already had disrupted business, the Collins Line was unable to continue operations. By early 1858 the firm declared bankruptcy, the three remaining steamships were sold, and Collins ended his maritime career.

Sources

Images

Public Domain Source

Compiler

Peter Richards