The barque Rock City calling for a pilot off Point Lynas, Anglesey

Originally launched as a full-rigged ship of 825 tons (net) in 1868, Rock City was built in McKay's yard, on the St. Lawrence River at Quebec, for Canadian owners H. Fry & Co. Measuring 172½ feet in length with a 33 foot beam, she was intended for the North Atlantic trade and operated on this route under Captain Lethbridge until the 1880s at which time she was sold to the Norwegian O.A. Stangebye of Frederickstadt. Re-rigged as a barque, slightly lengthened to 175 feet and re-registered at 803 tons (net), she reverted to British ownership and registry in the early 1890s but was Russian owned by 1900 and disappeared from record just before the Great War.