Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
December 30, 1899 With a new century fast approaching, the Great Lakes sidewheeler steamboat Tashmoo was launched at 11:30 a.m. at the Wyandotte Yards in the Detroit area. This passenger ship, which was built by the Detroit Shipbuilding Company for the White Star Line, had already achieved a large measure of fame at the time of... Continue Reading →
Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery in Maryland in 1849. She subsequently risked her life to help others from that state likewise escape to freedom. As an Underground Railroad conductor in those years prior to the American Civil War, Tubman led about 70 enslaved people to the North. In addition, it has been estimated that Tubman... Continue Reading →
August 25, 1866 Shipbuilder and naval architect Fop Smit died in the town of Niewe Leckerland (now known as Nieuw Lekkerland) in the Netherlands. He was 88. Smit had been born on October 11, 1777, in the Dutch town and municipality of Alblassderdam. His father Jan Foppe Smith (1742-1807) and uncle Jacques Foppe Smit (1756-1820)... Continue Reading →
June 8, 1809 The steamboat Phoenix departed from New York City for Philadelphia. This voyage would earn the Phoenix a place in transportation history as the first steamboat to sail the open ocean. The Phoenix was built about two years earlier in Hoboken, New Jersey, by engineer and lawyer John Stevens (1749-1838) and his son... Continue Reading →
August 17, 1807 The world’s first commercially successful steamboat service was launched when the North River Steamboat left New York City for Albany, New York, via the Hudson River (widely known at that time as the North River). The North River Steamboat -- often erroneously called the Clermont instead -- had been built at New York... Continue Reading →
June 9, 1900 The steamboat Natoma was officially launched on Harvey’s Lake in northeastern Pennsylvania. The lake, which is one of the largest in Pennsylvania, had developed into a highly popular summer resort by the early 1890s. Steamboats were a major source of the appeal for those vacationing at the resort and the Natoma – a... Continue Reading →
October 24, 1858 In what is now central Oregon, entrepreneurs E.F. Coe and R.R. Thompson launched their newly built steamboat Colonel Wright at the mouth of the Deschutes River. The sternwheel-propelled vessel proved to be a reliable means of transporting freight and passengers in the Pacific Northwest. She also played a pioneering role in the... Continue Reading →
Mary Millicent Miller (1846-1894) was a maritime transportation pioneer who started out life in Louisville, Kentucky, as the daughter of a steamboat engineer. She set upon a career path similar to her father’s after she married a riverboat operator named George Miller. Using a steamboat called the Saline, the couple regularly transported passengers and freight... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 