William Henry Aspinwall
and the Pacific Mail steamship company
… After 1840, William
Henry Aspinwall left day-to-day management of the mercantile business of
Howland & Aspinwall in the hands of his partners, now also including his
younger brother John Lloyd Aspinwall. He first turned his energies to ship
design, commissioning John Willis Griffiths to build the "Rainbow", one of
the first clipper ships in America. Other ships followed but very soon the
restless shipping magnate turned towards larger enterprises. In 1845, the US
Congress voted the Mail Steamship Bill, an act allowing subsidized ocean
mail contracts …
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