belem's history
The shipowner Fernand Crouan
Mr. Fernand Crouan was a small corpulent man, in gold rimmed glasses, very well-known in the bourgeoisie of Nantes. From his offices on the street of Héronnière, he handled his business, mainly the commerce of Pará’s cocoa and sugar from the Islands for the famous Menier chocolate factory. He moved around the city in a black cabriolet with red lines, the colours of his vessels.
From 1890 to the liquidation of his company, he possessed the following sailboats, all built by the shipbuidling yard Dubigeon:
- Cruzeiro,
- Brazileiro,
- Pará, 1888, (name of a state of Brazil, one of the rainiest, where is located Belém and its port on the estuary of the river Pará),
- Noisiel, 1890, (an old eastern Parisian town where were located the Menier factories. It was the first three master of the armament with iron hull),
- Claire-Menier, (mother of Henri Menier, the customer of the shipowning company for the cocoa and the sugar),
- Denis-Crouan, (ancestor of Fernand Crouan, founder of a counter on the northern coast of Brazil in 1817),
- Belem, 1896, (name of capital city of the Brazilian state of Pará, near the mouth of the Amazon, contraction of Bethlehem),
- Émile-Menier, (Émile Justin Menier industrialized in 1852 the manufacturing of chocolate. He was the son of Jean Antoine Brutus Menier, founder of the Noisiel factory, and father of Henri Menier, the customer of the shipowning company for cocoa and sugar).
The pavilion of the shipowning company Crouan was white with red edges and contained a red star in its centre.
On the bow of the Belem appeared then a motto in portuguese: Ordem e progresso. This motto, Order and progress, chosen by the young Republic of Brazil, proclaimed in 1889, was inspired by Auguste Comte’s positivism. It correspondeded also well to Fernand Crouan philosophy whose vessels were for the greater part in steel and always meticulously maintained.
The Belem was the seventh three-master ship of Crouan’s shipowning company.
At Mr Crouan’s death, his son-in-law took over business but Menier decided to get its cocoa through le Havre, a closer port. Deprived of its usual freight and undergoing fierce competition from steamers, the shipowning company was liquidated in 1906. The Belem was then acquired by the company Demange Frères for their line serving Cayenne.