Frederick Townsend Ward - Early Life

Early Life

Frederick Townsend Ward was born in Salem, Massachusetts on November 29, 1831. Ward was rebellious in his youth, so his father removed Ward from High School 1847 and found him a position as second mate on the Hamilton, a clipper ship commanded by a family friend. (Carr, 40 & Smith, 25) Another version is that Ward demanded to leave high school.

Life at sea was tough. Ward was given authority over many “old salts”. He was thrown overboard after complaints that he gave too many orders for a youth. (Carr, 40). Captain William Allen recalled that Ward possessed traits of “reckless daring”, but was on the whole a valuable officer. (Smith, 26).

On the Hamilton, Ward sailed from New York to Hong Kong in 1847, but probably saw little beyond the port city because the Qing Dynasty forbade foreigners from venturing inland (Hong Kong Island had become a British Crown Colony in 1842, at the end of the First Opium War).

In 1849 Ward enrolled at the “American Literary, Scientific and Military Academy”, now Norwich University, in Vermont, where the curriculum included military tactics, strategy, drill and ceremonies. He attended for only a few months, before he left school and never returned. In 1850 he shipped out as first mate of the clipper ship Russell Clover. His father was the captain.

Frederick Townsend Ward in the 1850s

• 1850 First Mate, clipper ship Russell Clover, New York to San Francisco. Visits Gold Fields (?) Meets Giuseppe Garibaldi in Panama or Peru (?)
• 1851 First Mate, trading barque, San Francisco & Shanghai. Sailor, coastal cargo ships, China coast
• 1852 Sailor, coastal cargo ships, China coast, First Officer (XO), cargo ship Gold Hunter, carrying coolie labor to Mexico. Debarks in Tehauntapec, Mexico. Meets William Walker, joins Walker forces as filibuster.
• 1853 Part of Walker's Sonora Filibuster Invasion of Mexico, resigns sometime in 1853 or 1854, remains in Mexico
• 1854 Mexico, scrap metal business. Venture fails, travels to San Francisco by mule. First Mate, Westward Ho! clipper ship, San Francisco – New York – Hong Kong. Refuses to filibuster for Taiping's (?) Manchu Government unwilling to employ Westerners. Ward returns to New York, enlists in French Army, Enters Crimean War
• 1855 Ward in Crimean War, allowed to resign after insubordination to superior
• 1856 Whereabouts unknown
• 1857 China, First Mate on coastal steamship Antelope
• 1858 Mercenary for Juarez in Mexico(?) Texas Ranger (?)
• 1859 New York City, clerk in father's shipping agency office. Travels to San Francisco en route to Shanghai (accompanied by brother Harry)
• 1860 Arrives in Shanghai, (never to return to United States). XO on the Confucius, armed pirate suppression river steamer. Commander, Foreign Army Corps.

Sources – Luong, David