The company was founded ca. 1815 as Fish, Grinnell & Co. ; the Grinnell was Joseph Grinnell, one of six sons of a shipper and merchant in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Joseph Grinnell's two younger brothers, Henry and Moses, became members of the firm in 1825, and in 1828 Joseph retired. In ca. 1830, Robert Bowne Minturn, a member of a family long prominent in New England and New York shipping circles, joined the firm and it became Grinnell, Minturn & Co., or simply Grinnell & Minturn. The company stayed "in the family" and remained active until 1880.
The company's first major endeavor was its Liverpool Line, known as the Blue Swallowtail Line from its distinctive blue and white swallowtailed house flag. This enterprise was originally started by Fish, Grinnell and Co. in cooperation with Thaddeus Phelps and was called the "Fourth Line of Liverpool Packets." The Blue Swallowtail line originally sailed monthly and, like the other Liverpool-New York packet lines, did a thriving business in the wave of Irish immigration in the wake of the potato famine. Its ships included the New World, Queen of the West, Henry Clay, Ashburton, Patrick Henry, Roscoe, American Union, and Albert Gallatin.
The company entered the New York-London market a year later with its London Line, which also endured until 1880. The flag was the same as for the Liverpool line, but with red at the hoist instead of blue. The ships included the Columbia, Sir Robert Peel, Patrick Henry, Prince Albert, Yorktown, London, and Rhine. Many of these ships were actually owned by the partners individually, and not owned by the company itself. As its business grew, the company's reputation expanded, even to Canada. In 1835, the Quebec Mercury commented on "he exertions of Messrs. Grinnell, Minturn & Co.... to increase the efficiency of the London line" and called for "every encouragement on the part of those of our community who are in the habit of frequently crossing the Atlantic."
Later, when the discovery of gold in the Sierra Nevada made California a popular destination for travelers from the East Coast, the company founded a California Line of clippers. The demands of the voyage were such that larger ships were required, and the Flying Cloud was purchased for this route for the phenomenal sum of $90,000 before the ship was even launched. The ship set a record for the New York-to-San Francisco run aroundCape Horn in 1851, and improved on its own mark in 1853, setting a record for ships under sail that lasted for over 100 years. The Flying Cloud, like many of the line's ships, had individual ownership. Moses H. Grinnell and Robert Minturn each held 9/32 shares. Henry Grinnell, John E. Williams, and Francis S. Hathaway each held 4/32 shares. Captain Creesy held 2/32 shares.
Additional significance
Because of its extensive shipping operations, the company was involved in a number of landmark legal cases having to do with ships and shipping, including Minturn v. United States and Lawrence v. Minturn. Another of these cases described the company as "Grinnell, Minturn & Co., large shipping merchants of New York".
Miscellaneous information
The first name of Preserved Fish was properly pronounced with three syllables, and was a reference to being "preserved from sin" or "preserved in grace"; his family, prominent in New York, also gave rise to Hamilton Fish, governor, senator, and secretary of state. Robert B. Minturn is an ancestor of Edie Sedgwick. Robert B. Minturn, Jr. was also vice president of the railroad that founded the town of Minturn, Colorado, giving his name to that town.
