The clipper Malay, 821 tons, was built by John Taylor of Chelsea, Massachusetts, and launched there on 26 August 1852. Her original owners were Silsbee, Stone & Pickman of Salem, from which port she traded between New York or Boston and the Far East, Australia or California. Although not a record breaker, her passages were usually faster than the average and she was a popular ship. In 1872, she began a regular packet service between San Francisco and Hong Kong which lasted until March 1875, when she arrived back in California a near wreck, badly damaged by exceptionally heavy weather in the Pacific. Sold and re-rigged as a barque, she then started running to Australia with timber and remained on that route until being serverely damaged in another Pacific storm in 1891 and thereafter condemned.