Rich, Henry, Sir, 1803-1869

Senator Weber was built in Boston in 1853 as the ship Wellfleet. Under captain Henry S. Rich, of Bucksport, Me., she sailed for Enoch Train's Boston Liverpool Line of packets in 1854, then transferred to the Regular Line, sailing in the Boston- New Orleans cotton packet trade. In the summer of 1856, two groups of Mormon immigrants sailed to America aboard the Wellfleet. The Civil War idled ships like the Wellfleet and she was sold to Hamburg, Germany in 1863. There she was renamed Senator Weber and flew the flag of Hamburg, which then had its own merchant fleet. In 1866, following Prussia's victory over Austria, Hamburg was incorporated into the North German Confederation and the Senator Weber was sold to the Liverpool based Andrew Gibson and Co. During this period, the Senator Weber was the first ship on which Edward John Smith, future captain of the Titanic, served. By 1885, the ship was owned by Axel Petterson and sailing out of Helsingberg, Sweden under the command of Captain J.W. Wenck. In March 1891, the Senator Weber, still under the command of Captain Wenck, was caught in a heavy gale off the English coast and sank with the loss of fourteen men.