Josiah Perkins Creesy was born on March 23, 1814 in Marblehead, Massachusetts, United States. He was the eldest child of Josiah P. and Mary Woolridge Creesy. The family surname has been spelled in some twenty-three different ways, with several variations even in the case of Creesy himself—“Cressy” and “Cresscy” for instance.
Young Creesy shipped before the mast in an East Indiaman while still a boy. Promotion was rapid, and he was commanding a ship at twenty-three. Several fast runs from China in the Oneida gave him the reputation of a successful “driver. ” This led Grinnell, Minturn & Company of New York to give him the command of their new clipper, the Flying Cloud, built at East Boston by Donald McKay. She left New York for San Francisco on her maiden voyage June 2, 1851, seven weeks after she was launched.
Creesy, striving for a record, spared neither his ship, his crew, nor himself. Three days out, three spars were carried away; the mainmast cracked a week later; sails were torn to bits; but repairs were made without slackening speed. Shortly before noon on August 31, Creesy brought his ship to anchor at San Francisco. The voyage had been accomplished in eighty-nine days and twenty- one hours, and shattered all previous records.
Creesy then proceeded across the Pacific to China for tea, and returned to New York the following April after a ninety-four day run around Africa from Whampoa. In 1854, he shortened his original record to San Francisco by thirteen hours. No other captain or ship equaled it. Creesy’s records for his five trips to San Francisco—89, 115, 92, 89, and 108 days—average better than those of any other clipper. On her fourth voyage the ship ran into a coral reef a few days out from Whampoa and leaked at the rate of eleven inches an hour, but Creesy kept the pumps going all the way and brought the precious cargo to New York in a run of 115 days.
At the end of 1855 he retired to his home for a much-needed rest, but went to sea again for a short naval career in the Civil War, being made a volunteer acting lieutenant on August 2, 1861, and given command of the ship Ino. He had been absolute master on his own quarterdeck so long that he did not fit into naval discipline. Early in 1862 when the commander of the squadron ordered him to release two Confederate prisoners taken at Tangier, Creesy bluntly replied, “I positively decline to give these men up, ” and sailed away without orders. Commander Craven preferred charges against him for this “contemptuous disregard” and Creesy was dismissed on July 18, 1862. He returned to the China trade and commanded the clipper Archer for two voyages. He died at Salem at the age of fifty-seven and was buried at Marblehead.
In 1841 Creesy married Eleanor Horton Prentiss, who thereafter accompanied him on many of his voyages.
