Arabella — 1630 Winthrop Fleet Flagship Model | Admiral Line
Arabella — 1630 Winthrop Fleet Flagship Model | Admiral Line
Model details
- Materials
- Mahogany, Western red cedar, Rosewood, Brass, Linen sails
- Construction
- Plank-on-frame, built by hand
- Condition
- Fully assembled, ready to display
- Display
- Wooden base with brass nameplate
- Collection
- Tall Ship Models - Admiral Line
- Item no.
- T291
The ship that carried the Massachusetts Bay Colony's charter across the Atlantic — and the sermon that gave America the phrase "a city upon a hill."
Built plank on frame in western red cedar, rosewood and mahogany, fully assembled.
Construction
- Plank-on-frame hull with the high stern and deep waist of a 17th-century armed merchantman
- Gun ports with cast cannon
- Three masts with hand-knotted standing and running rigging
- Hand-stitched linen sails
- Deck detail: capstan, ship's boat, gratings, ladders and rails
- Metal anchors and wooden rudder
- Solid wood base and engraved brass nameplate
History
Originally the Eagle, she was renamed Arbella for Lady Arbella Johnson, who sailed in her. In April 1630 she led a fleet of eleven ships out of the Isle of Wight carrying John Winthrop, some 700 colonists, and the Massachusetts Bay Company charter — taken with them rather than left in London, which quietly made the colony self-governing. Winthrop's shipboard address, A Model of Christian Charity, contains the line about a city upon a hill that American politicians have been quoting ever since. She reached Salem in June 1630.