SS Florinda was a 57-foot (17 m) double-masted schooner constructed on the Tangipahoa River to the north of New Orleans in 1845[1] and engaged in the lake trade on the Northern Gulf Coast.
[1] SS Florinda was a wooden commercial schooner engaged in delivering passengers, lumber and other goods from New Orleans, Louisiana to ports throughout the Northern Gulf Coast.
Frederick Arnet was the original owner and master of the schooner until he sold the vessel to Harmon Jones on July 2, 1849[2] for his 14,000-nautical-mile (26,000 km; 16,000 mi) voyage from New Orleans around Cape Horn and then to San Francisco, California.
Florinda sailed from New Orleans on July 6, 1849, with fourteen crew members to the Balize (now known as Pilottown) located at the mouth of the Mississippi River and awaited her captain, Harmon Jones.
For most of the summer of 1875, this story caught the imagination of the world until incorrect reporting from the Louisville Courier-Journal confused Florinda with another vessel and it became widely considered a hoax at the time.