Black Ball Line
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Black Ball Line or Blackball Line can refer to several different things:
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[edit] Trans-Atlantic packet service
The Black Ball Line was a fleet of packet ships running between Liverpool and New York, the first scheduled trans-Atlantic service, founded in 1817. In operation for some 60 years, it took its name from its flag, a black ball on a red background. The line was founded by a group of New York Quaker merchants headed by Jeremiah Thompson, and included Isaac Wright & Son, Francis Thompson and Benjamin Marshall. In 1851, James Baines & Co. of Liverpool entered the packet trade using the same name and flag as the New York company, despite its protests. Thus, for about twenty years, two "Black Ball lines" under separate ownership were operating in direct competition on the transatlantic packet trade. James Baines & Co. also operated ships running between Liverpool, UK and Australia, including famous clipper ships such as Champion of the Seas.
[edit] British Columbia-Washington ferry service
The Black Ball Line was the name chosen in 1928 by a descendant of the Marshall family for the Puget Sound Navigation Company (PSNC), which operated a fleet of ferries on Puget Sound and the Strait of Georgia in British Columbia and Washington.
[edit] Strait of Juan de Fuca ferry service
The current descendant of the Black Ball Line, Blackball Transport, Inc., was founded in 1936 from Black Ball Freight Service, a road transport subsidiary of PSNC. Blackball Transport owns and operates a single ferry, the M/V Coho between Victoria, British Columbia and Port Angeles, Washington.
[edit] References
- Stephen Fox, Transatlantic: Samuel Cunard, Isambard Brunel, and the Great Atlantic Steamships, Harper Collins (2003) ISBN 0060195959, pp. 3-16 (introductory chapter on sailing packets).
- Transatlantic WNYC Reading Room (reproduces chapter referred to above)
- Black Ball Transport Inc
