Grinnell, Minturn & Co

Grinnell, Minturn & Co. was one of the leading transatlantic shipping companies in the middle 19th century. It is probably best known today as being the owner and operator of the Flying Cloud, arguably the greatest of the clipper ships.

The company was founded ca. 1815 as Fish, Grinnell & Co. (the senior partner of which had the memorable, if improbable, name of Preserved Fish (1766–1846)); the Grinnell was Joseph Grinnell, one of six sons of a shipper and merchant in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Joseph Grinnell's two younger brothers, Henry (1800–1874) and Moses (1803–1877), became members of the firm in 1825, and in 1828 Joseph retired. In ca. 1830, Robert Bowne Minturn (1805–1866), a member of a family long prominent in New England and New York shipping circles, joined the firm (his sister Sarah had married Henry Grinnell in 1822) and it became Grinnell, Minturn & Co., or simply Grinnell & Minturn. The company stayed "in the family" and remained active until 1880.

The company's first major endeavor was its Liverpool Line, known as the Blue Swallowtail Line (1822–1880) from its distinctive blue and white swallowtailed house flag. This enterprise was originally started by Fish, Grinnell and Co. in cooperation with Thaddeus Phelps and was called the "Fourth Line of Liverpool Packets." The Blue Swallowtail line originally sailed monthly and, like the other Liverpool-New York packet lines, did a thriving business in the wave of Irish immigration in the wake of the potato famine. Its ships included the New World (built 1846, and reported to be the largest merchant ship in the world at the time),Queen of the West, Henry Clay, Ashburton, Patrick Henry, Roscoe, American Union, and Albert Gallatin.

The company entered the New York-London market a year later with its London (Red Swallowtail) Line, which also endured until 1880. The flag was the same as for the Liverpool line, but with red at the hoist instead of blue. The ships included the Columbia, Sir Robert Peel (built 1846), Patrick Henry (after her 1852 transfer from the Blue Swallowtail line), Prince Albert, Yorktown (1847), London (1848), and Rhine. Many of these ships were actually owned by the partners (in shares) individually, and not owned by the company itself.

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