| Summary: | This is an image of a barkentine in Southern California being converted for film usage. There were two barkentines so used, the S N Castle and the old Alaska Packers Association Centennial. The latter was originally a full-rigged ship, then later a bark of well over 1,200 tons. The vessel in this image appears significantly smaller than nearly 1,300 tons, so I have surmised it isS N Castle, but it is only conjecture. One of the things that seems inexplicable is the re-emergence of the barkentine rig; S N Castle was a three-masted schooner just before joining the Hollywood fleet. Regardless, S N Castle came into being as a sugar packet intended to operate between Hawaii and West Coast ports, principally San Francisco. Its namesake was the treasurer of the Kohala Sugar Company of what was then the Hawaiian Kingdom, later Hawaii Territory (1898). Sold in 1905 to Edward Pond, San Francisco, S N Castle then engaged in the codfish industry. In this employ, S N Castle was detained by the Russians and then ejected from Okhotsk Sea. A Russian cruiser seized the papers of the barkentine and also of the City of Papeete. Damage claims were filed in July of 1907. The Russian fracas did not help Edwards Pond’s bottom line. Pond lost his business after a couple of years, and the vessel again changed hands to George A. Moore & Co., engaged in general trading. While engaged in trade in the South Pacific, S N Castle brought news of the murder of a missionary, Reverend Alexander McLoughlin, who was subsequently eaten by cannibals on St. George Island in the Solomons. The British gunboat Hinemoa endeavored to recover what remained of the missionary, but the local chieftain seemed disinclined to cooperate. After a vigorous shelling of a thatched village, the reverend’s bones were returned. S N Castle also became the harbinger of war news from World War I in the South Pacific. Before the USA entered the fray in 1917, S N Castle arrived in Honolulu with German refugees from some of the previously German-held atolls that had been ...
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