Baltimore Steam Packet Company
Encyclopedia
The Baltimore Steam Packet Company, which was also known as the , was an American
steamship line from 1840 to 1962, providing overnight steamboat
service on the Chesapeake Bay
, primarily between Baltimore
, Maryland
, and Norfolk, Virginia
. Called a "packet" for the mail packets carried on government mail contracts, the term in the 19th century came to mean a steamer line operating on a regular, fixed daily schedule between two or more cities. By the time the venerable packet line ceased operation in 1962 after 122 years of existence, it was the last surviving overnight steamship passenger service in the United States.
In addition to regularly calling on Baltimore and Norfolk, the Baltimore Steam Packet Company also provided freight, passenger and vehicle transport to Washington, D.C.
, Old Point Comfort
, and Richmond, Virginia
, at various times during its history. The Old Bay Line, as it came to be known by the 1860s, was acclaimed for its genteel service and fine dining, serving Chesapeake Bay specialties. Walter Lord
, famed author of A Night to Remember (and whose grandfather had been the packet line's president from 1893 to 1899), mused that its reputation for excellent service was attributable to "... some magical blending of the best in the North and the South, made possible by the Company's unique role in 'bridging' the two sections ... the North contributed its tradition of mechanical proficiency, making the ships so reliable; while the South contributed its gracious ease".
One of the Old Bay Line's steamers, the former President Warfield, later became famous as the Exodus
ship of book and movie fame, when Jewish refugees from war-torn Europe sailed aboard her in 1947 in an unsuccessful attempt to emigrate to Palestine
.
proved the commercial viability of steam-powered ships with his North River Steamboat
(more commonly known today as Clermont) in 1807, small wood-burning steamers began to ply the Chesapeake Bay
. Prior to the coming of the railroads and river steamboats in the early 19th century, overland travel was an exceedingly slow and tedious undertaking. Rivers were the main means of transportation and most cities were founded on them. This was especially so in North America, where journeys over vast distances of hundreds or even thousands of miles required months of hazardous, uncomfortable travel by stagecoach
or wagon on rutted, unpaved trails. In the 1830s, railroads were being built, but the technology was crude and average passenger train speed was only 12 miles per hour (19 km/h). Perhaps more importantly, most early railroads did not interconnect. It would be many years before the various lines were knitted together to make intercity rail travel in the U.S. a reality. Not until 1863, for example, was it possible to travel between New York City
and Washington, D. C., without changing trains en route.
In this period, steamships on rivers such as the Ohio
and Mississippi
or large inland bodies of water such as the Great Lakes
and the Chesapeake Bay offered a comfortable and relatively fast mode of transportation. The first steamboat to serve Baltimore
was the locally built Chesapeake, constructed in 1813 to link Baltimore with Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
. Operated by the Union Line, the boat connected with a stagecoach for the overland portion of the journey. Two years later, the Briscoe-Partridge Line's Eagle was the first steamboat to sail the length of Chesapeake Bay.
The direct ancestor of the Baltimore Steam Packet Company was the Maryland & Virginia Steam Boat Company formed in 1828 to link Baltimore, Richmond, and Norfolk, traversing the Chesapeake Bay and the James River. By 1839, the Maryland & Virginia was heavily in debt from the purchase of two new, large ships the year before: the 210 feet (64 m) long Alabama and the 173 feet (53 m) Jewess. The Alabama was expensive to operate and proved to be impractical for Chesapeake Bay operations, causing the bankruptcy of the Maryland & Virginia later that year.
passenger and freight service daily except Sundays between Baltimore and Norfolk, under the company's first president, Andrew Fisher Henderson. Also instrumental in the company's founding was Thomas Kelso
, who subsequently served as a director of the line. By 1848, the company's steamship Herald was making the trip in less than 12 hours, a time which the line would maintain until the end in 1962. An affiliate, the Powhatan Line, started service between Norfolk and Richmond in 1845, interchanging freight and passengers with the Old Bay Line.
By the 1850s, competition was keen as steamships grew in size and efficiency to serve the fast-growing nation. The Old Bay Line, in particular, served as a link between the antebellum South and northern markets, hauling large quantities of cotton north and manufactured goods south, along with a thriving passenger business between Baltimore and Norfolk. Railroads also began acquiring steamship lines in the 1850s, and the Seaboard & Roanoke Railroad, a predecessor of the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad
(RF&P), acquired a controlling interest in the Baltimore Steam Packet Company in 1851. As competitors entered the field, each line vied to outdo its competitors in the luxurious appointments of their ships' staterooms and dining service. The company acquired newer and larger ships in the 1850s, such as the North Carolina in 1852 and the Louisiana in 1854, the latter at 266 feet (81 m) in length being the largest wooden vessel the company would own. A passenger on the Baltimore Steam Packet Company's Georgia, carried away by delight over his travel experience in 1853, was effusive in his description of an overnight trip:
The North Carolina similarly impressed a Baltimore Patriot reporter in 1852, who described the ship's dining saloon as "having imported Belgian carpets, velvet chairs with marble-topped tables, and white panelling with gilded mouldings".
On February 20, 1858, the northbound steamer Louisiana collided with a sailing vessel, the William K. Perrin, causing the sailboat to founder near the mouth of the Rappahannock River
. In a case that reached all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court
, Haney etal. v Baltimore Steam Packet Company, the Louisiana was found to be at fault. The high court considered the rules of the sea pertaining to steamers and sailing ships approaching one another and concluded (with Chief Justice
Roger B. Taney
dissenting) that "entire disregard of these rules of navigation by the steamer" caused the collision, reversing a Circuit Court ruling.
The North Carolina burned on January 29, 1859, when a fire started in a passenger stateroom. She sank the following day with the loss of two lives. The following month, the line acquired the Adelaide
to replace the lost steamer.
in April 1861 immediately affected the Baltimore Steam Packet Company. On April 19, two days after Virginia's secession, a violently pro-Southern mob in Baltimore attacked Union soldiers en route to Washington, D.C. as the troops marched through the city's streets between railroad stations. Thereafter known as the Baltimore riot of 1861
, the resulting loss of life and local unrest also threatened the , a U.S. Navy ship in Baltimore at the time. Later that same day, the Baltimore Steam Packet Company declined to transport Union forces from Baltimore to the beleaguered Union naval yard facility at Portsmouth, Virginia
.
Two weeks later, on May 7, the Adelaide was chartered by the U.S. Navy and attached to the Atlantic Blockading Squadron
. In that role, she was used to transport Federal troops in support of operations in North Carolina's Outer Banks
, directed against the Confederate-held forts guarding Hatteras Inlet
. Later that year, the Adelaide was returned to the Baltimore Steam Packet Company.
As a steamship line connecting northern cities and the south, the Old Bay Line hauled a considerable volume of freight between the two regions and their ships' cargo holds were filled with bales of cotton, produce, and other goods. When hostilities commenced, Southern ports were blockaded
by the Federal Navy and the Old Bay Line was unable to serve Norfolk for the duration of the war, going no further south than Old Point Comfort. Passenger traffic as well as cargo shipping declined significantly. The Powhatan Line discontinued operations altogether between Norfolk and Richmond until the war's end.
As soon as the war ended in 1865, the Leary Line of New York briefly challenged the Baltimore Steam Packet Company on the Chesapeake, starting its own Baltimore-Norfolk steamship service. A fare war ensued, with one-way prices reduced to $3.00. Emphasizing the longevity of its service compared to their upstart rival, the Baltimore Steam Packet Company began referring to itself as the "Old Established Bay Line" in advertising, a moniker that would soon become simply the Old Bay Line for the next century.
The Leary Line withdrew in January 1867, selling its George Leary to the Old Bay Line. Two years later, the Norfolk Journal of August 2, 1869, described the vessel as having a "gorgeous style of furniture and elegant fittings ... magnificently furnished with upholstered sofas and lounges of rich red velvet ...". Another competitor, the Chesapeake Steamship Company, began directly competing on the Baltimore-Norfolk route in 1874. Controlled by the Southern Railway, a rival of the RF&P, it would be a formidable competitor until 1941, when the two steamship lines merged. Cargo traffic was also booming in the 1870s as the South recovered from the Civil War, resulting in the Old Bay Line's freight revenue surpassing passenger revenue by the end of the decade.
By the time of John Moncure Robinson's retirement as president of the company in 1893, the Old Bay Line had upgraded its fleet with propeller
-driven, steel-hulled steamers equipped with modern conveniences such as electric lighting and staterooms with private baths. The Georgia introduced in 1887 was the first Old Bay Line boat to have a modern screw propeller instead of old-fashioned side paddlewheels
and the Alabama launched in 1893 was the company's first steel-hulled vessel. Robinson served the Old Bay Line as president for 26 years (1867–1893), longer than any other person in the company's history.
The halcyon days of the 1890s were the company's heyday, under president Richard Curzon Hoffman (the grandfather of noted author Walter Lord
), when the prosperous line's gleaming steamships were heavily patronized by passengers enjoying the well-appointed staterooms and Chesapeake Bay culinary delights while dining to the accompaniment of live music. The nightly menu on board included oyster fritters, diamondback terrapin, duck, and turkey.
The company built a new terminal and headquarters in Baltimore on Light Street
in 1898 to accommodate the increasing traffic. Rebuilt after the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904
, the building with its four-sided clocktower would be a landmark for decades on Baltimore's Inner Harbor
waterfront. (The location of the now-demolished terminal is between the present Harborplace
and Maryland Science Center
.)
The Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad
, which had first acquired a controlling interest in the Baltimore Steam Packet Company in 1851, gained total control of the company's stock on September 5, 1901. The Old Bay Line continued to be managed separately from the RF&P, however.
In contrast to the Civil War, when hostilities sharply curtailed business on the Old Bay Line, World War I
doubled freight and passenger business on the line to the busy ports of Norfolk and the Hampton Roads
area, with 107,664 passengers using the line in 1917. As a result of congestion on the nation's railroads and ports when the U.S. entered the war in April 1917, the Federal government established the wartime U.S. Railroad Administration
(USRA) to take charge of railroads and steamship companies, including the Baltimore Steam Packet Company. The USRA directed the operations of the Old Bay Line and the rival Chesapeake line for the duration of the war and more than a year thereafter, until March 1, 1920.
Baltimore-native John Roberts Sherwood, who had joined the Old Bay Line as a 22-year old engineer in 1868 and became president in 1907, retired in October 1918 after 49 years with the company. The Baltimore Sun
extolled Sherwood's distinguished half-century of service to the steamer line when he retired, noting approvingly that his oft-expressed philosophy was, "Stand up for your home city wherever you may go." (His son, John W. Sherwood, founded Baltimore's celebrated Sherwood Gardens
in the mid-1920s.) Sherwood was succeeded by S. Davies Warfield
as president (1918–1927).
Catastrophe struck the Old Bay Line on May 24, 1919, when the Virginia II caught fire shortly after midnight in the middle of Chesapeake Bay with 156 passengers and a crew of 82 on board. The ship burned completely as many passengers jumped overboard and a lifeboat capsized. The Chesapeake Line's City of Norfolk and other vessels came to the rescue and pulled people from the water to safety. The Virginia's captain, Walter Lane, remained with his ship to the end and suffered burns.
(SAL) formed the Seaboard–Bay Line Company, which owned all of the outstanding shares of the Baltimore Steam Packet Company, making the steamship company a wholly owned subsidiary of the SAL on February 6, 1922. In addition to the infusion of capital from the SAL, the Old Bay Line also obtained a $4.4 million Federal loan to build two new steamers for the Old Bay Line: the State of Maryland and the State of Virginia. The Old Bay Line's president, S. Davies Warfield
, was named president of SAL railroad as well as the Old Bay Line in 1922.
In 1928, the Baltimore Steam Packet Company took delivery of two more new ships – the President Warfield and the Yorktown. The President Warfield, built by Pusey and Jones
Corp. in Wilmington, Delaware
, was named for the Old Bay Line's president of the time, S. Davies Warfield
. She would be the last new ship built for the Old Bay Line.
As the new-fangled Ford Model T
s and other early automobiles increasingly took to the roads in the 1920s, inland steamship lines in the U.S. initially resisted carrying automobiles on their boats. By the Depression
-ravaged 1930s, however, the Old Bay Line became one of the first inland steamship companies to promote the carriage of automobiles as a means of filling its ships' empty cargo holds. The Depression and loss of business to improved highways took an increasing toll of many U.S. steamship lines in the 1930s, as historic companies such as the Fall River Line
ceased operation in 1937, preceded by the Lake Champlain company, which was the oldest steamboat line in the U.S. at its demise in 1932.
Fortunately for the Old Bay Line, its freight and passenger traffic remained relatively strong in the 1930s and the company embarked on a modernization program for its main boats of the line. The President Warfield and State of Maryland were converted from coal to oil burning in 1933 and had sprinkler systems installed in 1938. In 1939, the State of Virginia was converted to oil burning and all three ships were equipped with radio direction finder
s and ship-to-shore telephones.
On June 14, 1941, the Baltimore Steam Packet Company's owner, the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, entered into an agreement with a consortium of railroads and steamship companies to merge the Chesapeake Steamship Company into the Old Bay Line. The railroad group, consisting of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad
, Southern Railway, and the SAL, together controlled the Baltimore Steam Packet Company and the Chesapeake Steamship Company. As a result, the Old Bay Line took over the Chesapeake Line's business and assets and became the sole operator of passenger and freight steamship transportation between the important ports of Baltimore and Norfolk. As part of this agreement, half of the outstanding shares of the Baltimore Steam Packet Company was assigned to Chesapeake Steamship Company, which was one-third owned by Southern Railway and two-thirds owned by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad. With the amalgamation, two of the Chesapeake Line's steamboats, the City of Norfolk and City of Richmond, were transferred to the Old Bay Line. As it turned out, these would be the last two vessels operated by the Old Bay Line when it went out of business in 1962. Robert E. Dunn was named president of the Old Bay Line in 1941, remaining at the helm of the company to the end of service in 1962.
on December 7, 1941, the Federal government set up the War Shipping Administration
to manage the vitally important maritime shipping and Naval support needs of the U.S. and its Allies, including the power to expropriate
civilian-owned boats. On April 1, 1942, the government acquired the Old Bay Line's State of Virginia and State of Maryland. On July 13, the President Warfield and Yorktown were also taken over. Thus, by mid-1942, four of the Old Bay Line's six ships had become government property, leaving the company only the two oldest and smallest ships in its fleet for the duration of the war, the City of Norfolk and City of Richmond.
, the line promoted its automobile service to Florida-bound motorists, advertising the elimination of 230 miles (370 km) of driving by taking the family car on an overnight cruise down the Chesapeake to Virginia, while enjoying a sumptuous dinner and relaxing stateroom aboard an Old Bay Line steamer instead of a roadside motel. In March 1946, the Old Bay Line installed radar
on the City of Richmond and City of Norfolk, the first commercial passenger ships to be equipped with radar.
After the President Warfield was expropriated in 1942 by the War Shipping Administration for national defense as a transport during World War II
, it was transferred to the United Kingdom
on September 21, 1942. Later in the war, it was returned to the U.S. Navy and commissioned as the on May 21, 1944. Following the end of World War II, the President Warfield was decommissioned and returned to the War Shipping Administration for disposal as surplus. After inspecting the President Warfield, Old Bay Line officials decided that the expense for reconditioning the badly deteriorated ship was excessive, and accepted a cash settlement from the War Shipping Administration instead of taking back the war surplus vessel.
The old President Warfield was eventually acquired in early 1947 by Mossad Le'aliyah Bet
, a Jewish organization helping Holocaust survivors illegally reach Palestine
, then under British mandate. The former Baltimore Steam Packet and U.S. Navy steamship was renamed Exodus
when she embarked from France for Palestine on July 11, 1947, carrying 4,515 passengers. Two Royal Navy
destroyers rammed the Exodus as she entered Palestinian waters near Haifa
on July 18. British forces boarded the damaged ship and eventually deported the passengers. The Exodus remained in Haifa harbor until 1952, when the derelict caught fire and burned completely. The 1960 film Exodus
depicted the refugees' odyssey aboard the former President Warfield.
waterfront festival marketplace
. The company relocated to a pier on Pratt Street at the foot of Gay Street
, where it remained until it went out of business in 1962.
Various travel writers in the 1950s extolled the pleasures of the nightly cruises and meals on the Old Bay Line's antique steamers. By the mid-1950s, however, improved highways and the increase in air travel meant that the Old Bay Line's 12-hour transit time between Baltimore and Norfolk was a comparatively slow means of transportation. Old Bay Line officials hoped that the steamship line's unique service might continue to appeal to travellers seeking the pleasures of a cruise on the scenic Chesapeake with fine dining en route and a well-furnished, private stateroom. The Sunday travel section of The New York Times
in 1954 featured the "long established, more leisurely water route across Chesapeake Bay", as the writer described the Old Bay Line, recommending "the boat trip can be made comfortably and comparatively inexpensively every night between Baltimore, Old Point Comfort and Norfolk, and on alternate nights between Washington, D. C., and the Virginia communities".
In the end too few people opted for this leisurely form of travel and passenger volume steadily declined. As deficits rose during the 1950s, the Old Bay Line began cutting back. On September 30, 1957, it abandoned service to Washington, D.C., discontinuing its Washington–Norfolk overnight service on the Potomac River. By 1960, the Old Bay Line reduced operation of its mainstay Baltimore–Norfolk route to freight service only during the lightly travelled winter months of October–April, eliminating all passenger service on the Chesapeake Bay during those months. In October 1961, the company announced that its passenger service was "temporarily suspended until further notice", indicating that resumption of passenger service was expected the following summer season beginning in April 1962. Finally, on April 14, 1962, the venerable Old Bay Line discontinued all operations entirely, ending the last remaining overnight steamship passenger service in the United States
. The following month, the stockholders of the Baltimore Steam Packet Company formally voted on May 25, 1962 to liquidate the 122-year-old corporation, ending forever the melodious whistles of Old Bay Line steamboats on the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.
or "screw" design. The Georgia also was the first Old Bay Line vessel to be equipped with electric lighting and steam heating. Passenger ships of the line provided large, lavishly furnished staterooms to accommodate passengers on the overnight trip. The Alabama built in 1892 represented the inception of modern shipbuilding and design for the Old Bay Line: the first vessel to have a steel hull instead of iron or wood and propelled by a four-cylinder triple-expansion reciprocating engine
, the same type engine that all of the line's later steamers would have. Notable Old Bay Line passenger vessels used in scheduled overnight service, with dates acquired and gross tonnage
s, were:
At the time of the Old Bay Line's dissolution in April 1962, three ships remained docked at the Pratt Street pier: the District of Columbia, which had been kept as a spare since the Washington–Norfolk service ended in 1957, was scrapped soon afterwards. The City of Richmond was sold for use as a floating restaurant in the Virgin Islands
, but sank in the Atlantic Ocean off Georgetown, South Carolina
, while under tow to her new home. The City of Norfolk was idled in Norfolk until 1966, when it was towed to Fieldsboro, New Jersey
on the Delaware River
and scrapped.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
steamship line from 1840 to 1962, providing overnight steamboat
Steamboat
A steamboat or steamship, sometimes called a steamer, is a ship in which the primary method of propulsion is steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels...
service on the Chesapeake Bay
Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. It lies off the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by Maryland and Virginia. The Chesapeake Bay's drainage basin covers in the District of Columbia and parts of six states: New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West...
, primarily between Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
, Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
, and Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 242,803 as of the 2010 Census, it is Virginia's second-largest city behind neighboring Virginia Beach....
. Called a "packet" for the mail packets carried on government mail contracts, the term in the 19th century came to mean a steamer line operating on a regular, fixed daily schedule between two or more cities. By the time the venerable packet line ceased operation in 1962 after 122 years of existence, it was the last surviving overnight steamship passenger service in the United States.
In addition to regularly calling on Baltimore and Norfolk, the Baltimore Steam Packet Company also provided freight, passenger and vehicle transport to Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, Old Point Comfort
Old Point Comfort
Old Point Comfort is a point of land located in the independent city of Hampton. It lies at the extreme tip of the Virginia Peninsula at the mouth of Hampton Roads in the United States....
, and Richmond, Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
, at various times during its history. The Old Bay Line, as it came to be known by the 1860s, was acclaimed for its genteel service and fine dining, serving Chesapeake Bay specialties. Walter Lord
Walter Lord
John Walter Lord, Jr. , was an American author, best known for his documentary-style non-fiction account A Night to Remember, about the sinking of the RMS Titanic.-Early life:...
, famed author of A Night to Remember (and whose grandfather had been the packet line's president from 1893 to 1899), mused that its reputation for excellent service was attributable to "... some magical blending of the best in the North and the South, made possible by the Company's unique role in 'bridging' the two sections ... the North contributed its tradition of mechanical proficiency, making the ships so reliable; while the South contributed its gracious ease".
One of the Old Bay Line's steamers, the former President Warfield, later became famous as the Exodus
Exodus (ship)
Exodus 1947 was a ship that carried Jewish emigrants, that left France on July 11, 1947, with the intent of taking its passengers to the British mandate for Palestine. Most of the emigrants were Holocaust survivor refugees, who had no legal immigration certificates to Palestine...
ship of book and movie fame, when Jewish refugees from war-torn Europe sailed aboard her in 1947 in an unsuccessful attempt to emigrate to Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
.
History
Just seven years after Robert FultonRobert Fulton
Robert Fulton was an American engineer and inventor who is widely credited with developing the first commercially successful steamboat...
proved the commercial viability of steam-powered ships with his North River Steamboat
North River Steamboat
The North River Steam Boat or Clermont was the first commercially successful steamship of the paddle steamer design. It operated on the Hudson River between New York and Albany...
(more commonly known today as Clermont) in 1807, small wood-burning steamers began to ply the Chesapeake Bay
Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. It lies off the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by Maryland and Virginia. The Chesapeake Bay's drainage basin covers in the District of Columbia and parts of six states: New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West...
. Prior to the coming of the railroads and river steamboats in the early 19th century, overland travel was an exceedingly slow and tedious undertaking. Rivers were the main means of transportation and most cities were founded on them. This was especially so in North America, where journeys over vast distances of hundreds or even thousands of miles required months of hazardous, uncomfortable travel by stagecoach
Stagecoach
A stagecoach is a type of covered wagon for passengers and goods, strongly sprung and drawn by four horses, usually four-in-hand. Widely used before the introduction of railway transport, it made regular trips between stages or stations, which were places of rest provided for stagecoach travelers...
or wagon on rutted, unpaved trails. In the 1830s, railroads were being built, but the technology was crude and average passenger train speed was only 12 miles per hour (19 km/h). Perhaps more importantly, most early railroads did not interconnect. It would be many years before the various lines were knitted together to make intercity rail travel in the U.S. a reality. Not until 1863, for example, was it possible to travel between New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and Washington, D. C., without changing trains en route.
In this period, steamships on rivers such as the Ohio
Ohio River
The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. At the confluence, the Ohio is even bigger than the Mississippi and, thus, is hydrologically the main stream of the whole river system, including the Allegheny River further upstream...
and Mississippi
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
or large inland bodies of water such as the Great Lakes
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...
and the Chesapeake Bay offered a comfortable and relatively fast mode of transportation. The first steamboat to serve Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
was the locally built Chesapeake, constructed in 1813 to link Baltimore with Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
. Operated by the Union Line, the boat connected with a stagecoach for the overland portion of the journey. Two years later, the Briscoe-Partridge Line's Eagle was the first steamboat to sail the length of Chesapeake Bay.
The direct ancestor of the Baltimore Steam Packet Company was the Maryland & Virginia Steam Boat Company formed in 1828 to link Baltimore, Richmond, and Norfolk, traversing the Chesapeake Bay and the James River. By 1839, the Maryland & Virginia was heavily in debt from the purchase of two new, large ships the year before: the 210 feet (64 m) long Alabama and the 173 feet (53 m) Jewess. The Alabama was expensive to operate and proved to be impractical for Chesapeake Bay operations, causing the bankruptcy of the Maryland & Virginia later that year.
1840s–1850s
When the Maryland & Virginia collapsed in late 1839, the Maryland legislature convened to grant a charter to the Baltimore Steam Packet Company, organized in Baltimore to provide overnight steamship service on the Chesapeake Bay. The company was granted a 20-year charter on March 18, 1840 by the Maryland legislature and then acquired three of the former Maryland & Virginia's steamboats: Pocahontas, Georgia, and Jewess. The company began overnight paddlewheel steamshipPaddle steamer
A paddle steamer is a steamship or riverboat, powered by a steam engine, using paddle wheels to propel it through the water. In antiquity, Paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses were wheelers driven by animals or humans...
passenger and freight service daily except Sundays between Baltimore and Norfolk, under the company's first president, Andrew Fisher Henderson. Also instrumental in the company's founding was Thomas Kelso
Thomas Kelso
Thomas Kelso was born in Clonis, Ireland, August 28, 1784. He died July 26, 1878 at his home on East Baltimore St. in Baltimore, Maryland.-Life:...
, who subsequently served as a director of the line. By 1848, the company's steamship Herald was making the trip in less than 12 hours, a time which the line would maintain until the end in 1962. An affiliate, the Powhatan Line, started service between Norfolk and Richmond in 1845, interchanging freight and passengers with the Old Bay Line.
By the 1850s, competition was keen as steamships grew in size and efficiency to serve the fast-growing nation. The Old Bay Line, in particular, served as a link between the antebellum South and northern markets, hauling large quantities of cotton north and manufactured goods south, along with a thriving passenger business between Baltimore and Norfolk. Railroads also began acquiring steamship lines in the 1850s, and the Seaboard & Roanoke Railroad, a predecessor of the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad
Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad
The Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad was a railroad connecting Richmond, Virginia, to Washington, D.C. It is now a portion of the CSX Transportation system....
(RF&P), acquired a controlling interest in the Baltimore Steam Packet Company in 1851. As competitors entered the field, each line vied to outdo its competitors in the luxurious appointments of their ships' staterooms and dining service. The company acquired newer and larger ships in the 1850s, such as the North Carolina in 1852 and the Louisiana in 1854, the latter at 266 feet (81 m) in length being the largest wooden vessel the company would own. A passenger on the Baltimore Steam Packet Company's Georgia, carried away by delight over his travel experience in 1853, was effusive in his description of an overnight trip:
The North Carolina similarly impressed a Baltimore Patriot reporter in 1852, who described the ship's dining saloon as "having imported Belgian carpets, velvet chairs with marble-topped tables, and white panelling with gilded mouldings".
On February 20, 1858, the northbound steamer Louisiana collided with a sailing vessel, the William K. Perrin, causing the sailboat to founder near the mouth of the Rappahannock River
Rappahannock River
The Rappahannock River is a river in eastern Virginia, in the United States, approximately in length. It traverses the entire northern part of the state, from the Blue Ridge Mountains in the west, across the Piedmont, to the Chesapeake Bay, south of the Potomac River.An important river in American...
. In a case that reached all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
, Haney etal. v Baltimore Steam Packet Company, the Louisiana was found to be at fault. The high court considered the rules of the sea pertaining to steamers and sailing ships approaching one another and concluded (with Chief Justice
Chief Justice of the United States
The Chief Justice of the United States is the head of the United States federal court system and the chief judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. The Chief Justice is one of nine Supreme Court justices; the other eight are the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States...
Roger B. Taney
Roger B. Taney
Roger Brooke Taney was the fifth Chief Justice of the United States, holding that office from 1836 until his death in 1864. He was the first Roman Catholic to hold that office or sit on the Supreme Court of the United States. He was also the eleventh United States Attorney General. He is most...
dissenting) that "entire disregard of these rules of navigation by the steamer" caused the collision, reversing a Circuit Court ruling.
The North Carolina burned on January 29, 1859, when a fire started in a passenger stateroom. She sank the following day with the loss of two lives. The following month, the line acquired the Adelaide
USS Adelaide (1854)
USS Adelaide was a steamer chartered by the Union Navy during the beginning of the American Civil War. She was used by the Union Navy as a transport in support of the Union Navy blockade of Confederate waterways....
to replace the lost steamer.
1860s–1910s
The outbreak of the Civil WarAmerican Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
in April 1861 immediately affected the Baltimore Steam Packet Company. On April 19, two days after Virginia's secession, a violently pro-Southern mob in Baltimore attacked Union soldiers en route to Washington, D.C. as the troops marched through the city's streets between railroad stations. Thereafter known as the Baltimore riot of 1861
Baltimore riot of 1861
The Baltimore riot of 1861 was an incident that took place on April 19, 1861, in Baltimore, Maryland between Confederate sympathizers and members of the Massachusetts militia en route to Washington for Federal service...
, the resulting loss of life and local unrest also threatened the , a U.S. Navy ship in Baltimore at the time. Later that same day, the Baltimore Steam Packet Company declined to transport Union forces from Baltimore to the beleaguered Union naval yard facility at Portsmouth, Virginia
Portsmouth, Virginia
Portsmouth is located in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area of the U.S. Commonwealth of Virginia. As of 2010, the city had a total population of 95,535.The Norfolk Naval Shipyard, often called the Norfolk Navy Yard, is a historic and active U.S...
.
Two weeks later, on May 7, the Adelaide was chartered by the U.S. Navy and attached to the Atlantic Blockading Squadron
Atlantic Blockading Squadron
The Atlantic Blockading Squadron was a unit of the United States Navy created in the early days of the American Civil War to enforce a blockade of the ports of the Confederate States...
. In that role, she was used to transport Federal troops in support of operations in North Carolina's Outer Banks
Outer Banks
The Outer Banks is a 200-mile long string of narrow barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina, beginning in the southeastern corner of Virginia Beach on the east coast of the United States....
, directed against the Confederate-held forts guarding Hatteras Inlet
Hatteras Inlet
Hatteras Inlet is a estuary in North Carolina, located along the Outer Banks, separating Hatteras Island and Ocracoke Island. It connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Pamlico Sound. Hatteras Inlet is located entirely within Hyde County.- History :...
. Later that year, the Adelaide was returned to the Baltimore Steam Packet Company.
As a steamship line connecting northern cities and the south, the Old Bay Line hauled a considerable volume of freight between the two regions and their ships' cargo holds were filled with bales of cotton, produce, and other goods. When hostilities commenced, Southern ports were blockaded
Union blockade
The Union Blockade, or the Blockade of the South, took place between 1861 and 1865, during the American Civil War, when the Union Navy maintained a strenuous effort on the Atlantic and Gulf Coast of the Confederate States of America designed to prevent the passage of trade goods, supplies, and arms...
by the Federal Navy and the Old Bay Line was unable to serve Norfolk for the duration of the war, going no further south than Old Point Comfort. Passenger traffic as well as cargo shipping declined significantly. The Powhatan Line discontinued operations altogether between Norfolk and Richmond until the war's end.
The Leary Line withdrew in January 1867, selling its George Leary to the Old Bay Line. Two years later, the Norfolk Journal of August 2, 1869, described the vessel as having a "gorgeous style of furniture and elegant fittings ... magnificently furnished with upholstered sofas and lounges of rich red velvet ...". Another competitor, the Chesapeake Steamship Company, began directly competing on the Baltimore-Norfolk route in 1874. Controlled by the Southern Railway, a rival of the RF&P, it would be a formidable competitor until 1941, when the two steamship lines merged. Cargo traffic was also booming in the 1870s as the South recovered from the Civil War, resulting in the Old Bay Line's freight revenue surpassing passenger revenue by the end of the decade.
By the time of John Moncure Robinson's retirement as president of the company in 1893, the Old Bay Line had upgraded its fleet with propeller
Propeller
A propeller is a type of fan that transmits power by converting rotational motion into thrust. A pressure difference is produced between the forward and rear surfaces of the airfoil-shaped blade, and a fluid is accelerated behind the blade. Propeller dynamics can be modeled by both Bernoulli's...
-driven, steel-hulled steamers equipped with modern conveniences such as electric lighting and staterooms with private baths. The Georgia introduced in 1887 was the first Old Bay Line boat to have a modern screw propeller instead of old-fashioned side paddlewheels
Paddle steamer
A paddle steamer is a steamship or riverboat, powered by a steam engine, using paddle wheels to propel it through the water. In antiquity, Paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses were wheelers driven by animals or humans...
and the Alabama launched in 1893 was the company's first steel-hulled vessel. Robinson served the Old Bay Line as president for 26 years (1867–1893), longer than any other person in the company's history.
The halcyon days of the 1890s were the company's heyday, under president Richard Curzon Hoffman (the grandfather of noted author Walter Lord
Walter Lord
John Walter Lord, Jr. , was an American author, best known for his documentary-style non-fiction account A Night to Remember, about the sinking of the RMS Titanic.-Early life:...
), when the prosperous line's gleaming steamships were heavily patronized by passengers enjoying the well-appointed staterooms and Chesapeake Bay culinary delights while dining to the accompaniment of live music. The nightly menu on board included oyster fritters, diamondback terrapin, duck, and turkey.
The company built a new terminal and headquarters in Baltimore on Light Street
St. Paul Street-Calvert Street
St. Paul Street and Calvert Street are a one-way pair of streets in Downtown Baltimore and areas north. The streets, which are part of Maryland Route 2, are two of Baltimore's best-known streets in the downtown area.-St. Paul Street:...
in 1898 to accommodate the increasing traffic. Rebuilt after the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904
Great Baltimore Fire
The Great Baltimore Fire raged in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, on Sunday, February 7, and Monday, February 8, 1904. 1,231 firefighters were required to bring the blaze under control...
, the building with its four-sided clocktower would be a landmark for decades on Baltimore's Inner Harbor
Inner Harbor
The Inner Harbor is a historic seaport, tourist attraction, and iconic landmark of the City of Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Described by the Urban Land Institute in 2009 as “the model for post-industrial waterfront redevelopment around the World.” The Inner Harbor is actually the end of the...
waterfront. (The location of the now-demolished terminal is between the present Harborplace
Harborplace
Harborplace is a festival marketplace in Baltimore, Maryland, that opened in 1980 as a centerpiece of the revival of downtown Baltimore. As its name suggests, it is located on the Inner Harbor....
and Maryland Science Center
Maryland Science Center
The Maryland Science Center, located in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, opened to the public in 1976. It includes three levels of exhibits, a planetarium, and an observatory. It was one of the original structures that drove the revitalization of the Baltimore Inner Harbor from its industrial roots to a...
.)
The Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad
Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad
The Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad was a railroad connecting Richmond, Virginia, to Washington, D.C. It is now a portion of the CSX Transportation system....
, which had first acquired a controlling interest in the Baltimore Steam Packet Company in 1851, gained total control of the company's stock on September 5, 1901. The Old Bay Line continued to be managed separately from the RF&P, however.
World War I and aftermath
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
doubled freight and passenger business on the line to the busy ports of Norfolk and the Hampton Roads
Hampton Roads
Hampton Roads is the name for both a body of water and the Norfolk–Virginia Beach metropolitan area which surrounds it in southeastern Virginia, United States...
area, with 107,664 passengers using the line in 1917. As a result of congestion on the nation's railroads and ports when the U.S. entered the war in April 1917, the Federal government established the wartime U.S. Railroad Administration
United States Railroad Administration
The United States Railroad Administration was the name of the nationalized railroad system of the United States between 1917 and 1920. It was possibly the largest American experiment with nationalization, and was undertaken against a background of war emergency.- Background :On April 6, 1917, the...
(USRA) to take charge of railroads and steamship companies, including the Baltimore Steam Packet Company. The USRA directed the operations of the Old Bay Line and the rival Chesapeake line for the duration of the war and more than a year thereafter, until March 1, 1920.
Baltimore-native John Roberts Sherwood, who had joined the Old Bay Line as a 22-year old engineer in 1868 and became president in 1907, retired in October 1918 after 49 years with the company. The Baltimore Sun
The Baltimore Sun
The Baltimore Sun is the U.S. state of Maryland’s largest general circulation daily newspaper and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries....
extolled Sherwood's distinguished half-century of service to the steamer line when he retired, noting approvingly that his oft-expressed philosophy was, "Stand up for your home city wherever you may go." (His son, John W. Sherwood, founded Baltimore's celebrated Sherwood Gardens
Sherwood gardens
Sherwood Gardens is a park located in the Guilford neighborhood of Northern Baltimore, Maryland. The gardens are bordered by East Highfield, Underwood, Stratford and Greenway Roads. In addition to well-groomed, standard ground cover , Sherwood Gardens is famous for its nearly 80,000 tulips that...
in the mid-1920s.) Sherwood was succeeded by S. Davies Warfield
S. Davies Warfield
S. Davies Warfield was an American railroad executive and banker. He is primarily remembered for extending the Seaboard Air Line Railway into South Florida in the 1920s and for connecting the east and west coasts of Florida by rail...
as president (1918–1927).
Catastrophe struck the Old Bay Line on May 24, 1919, when the Virginia II caught fire shortly after midnight in the middle of Chesapeake Bay with 156 passengers and a crew of 82 on board. The ship burned completely as many passengers jumped overboard and a lifeboat capsized. The Chesapeake Line's City of Norfolk and other vessels came to the rescue and pulled people from the water to safety. The Virginia's captain, Walter Lane, remained with his ship to the end and suffered burns.
1920s–1930s
The corporate ownership of the Baltimore Steam Packet Company changed again in 1922, when the Seaboard Air Line RailroadSeaboard Air Line Railroad
The Seaboard Air Line Railroad , which styled itself "The Route of Courteous Service," was an American railroad whose corporate existence extended from April 14, 1900, until July 1, 1967, when it merged with the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, its longtime rival, to form the Seaboard Coast Line...
(SAL) formed the Seaboard–Bay Line Company, which owned all of the outstanding shares of the Baltimore Steam Packet Company, making the steamship company a wholly owned subsidiary of the SAL on February 6, 1922. In addition to the infusion of capital from the SAL, the Old Bay Line also obtained a $4.4 million Federal loan to build two new steamers for the Old Bay Line: the State of Maryland and the State of Virginia. The Old Bay Line's president, S. Davies Warfield
S. Davies Warfield
S. Davies Warfield was an American railroad executive and banker. He is primarily remembered for extending the Seaboard Air Line Railway into South Florida in the 1920s and for connecting the east and west coasts of Florida by rail...
, was named president of SAL railroad as well as the Old Bay Line in 1922.
Pusey and Jones
The Pusey and Jones Corporation was a major ship and equipment manufacturer from 1846 to 1959. Ship building was the primary focus from 1853 until the end of World War II, when the company converted the shipyard to production of paper manufacturing machinery...
Corp. in Wilmington, Delaware
Wilmington, Delaware
Wilmington is the largest city in the state of Delaware, United States, and is located at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine Creek, near where the Christina flows into the Delaware River. It is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley...
, was named for the Old Bay Line's president of the time, S. Davies Warfield
S. Davies Warfield
S. Davies Warfield was an American railroad executive and banker. He is primarily remembered for extending the Seaboard Air Line Railway into South Florida in the 1920s and for connecting the east and west coasts of Florida by rail...
. She would be the last new ship built for the Old Bay Line.
As the new-fangled Ford Model T
Ford Model T
The Ford Model T is an automobile that was produced by Henry Ford's Ford Motor Company from September 1908 to May 1927...
s and other early automobiles increasingly took to the roads in the 1920s, inland steamship lines in the U.S. initially resisted carrying automobiles on their boats. By the Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
-ravaged 1930s, however, the Old Bay Line became one of the first inland steamship companies to promote the carriage of automobiles as a means of filling its ships' empty cargo holds. The Depression and loss of business to improved highways took an increasing toll of many U.S. steamship lines in the 1930s, as historic companies such as the Fall River Line
Fall River Line
The Fall River Line was a combination steamboat and railroad connection between New York City and Boston that operated between 1847 and 1937. It consisted of a railroad journey between Boston and Fall River, Massachusetts, where passengers would then board steamboats for the journey through...
ceased operation in 1937, preceded by the Lake Champlain company, which was the oldest steamboat line in the U.S. at its demise in 1932.
Fortunately for the Old Bay Line, its freight and passenger traffic remained relatively strong in the 1930s and the company embarked on a modernization program for its main boats of the line. The President Warfield and State of Maryland were converted from coal to oil burning in 1933 and had sprinkler systems installed in 1938. In 1939, the State of Virginia was converted to oil burning and all three ships were equipped with radio direction finder
Radio direction finder
A radio direction finder is a device for finding the direction to a radio source. Due to low frequency propagation characteristic to travel very long distances and "over the horizon", it makes a particularly good navigation system for ships, small boats, and aircraft that might be some distance...
s and ship-to-shore telephones.
1940s
As the Old Bay Line celebrated its centennial in 1940 with parades and other events in Baltimore, the company's future seemed bright. Business was steady and the company's facilities were in sound condition. Commemorative dinner plates in blue and pink decorated with a map of the Chesapeake Bay were introduced.Atlantic Coast Line Railroad
The Atlantic Coast Line Railroad was an American railroad that existed between 1900 and 1967, when it merged with the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, its long-time rival, to form the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad...
, Southern Railway, and the SAL, together controlled the Baltimore Steam Packet Company and the Chesapeake Steamship Company. As a result, the Old Bay Line took over the Chesapeake Line's business and assets and became the sole operator of passenger and freight steamship transportation between the important ports of Baltimore and Norfolk. As part of this agreement, half of the outstanding shares of the Baltimore Steam Packet Company was assigned to Chesapeake Steamship Company, which was one-third owned by Southern Railway and two-thirds owned by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad. With the amalgamation, two of the Chesapeake Line's steamboats, the City of Norfolk and City of Richmond, were transferred to the Old Bay Line. As it turned out, these would be the last two vessels operated by the Old Bay Line when it went out of business in 1962. Robert E. Dunn was named president of the Old Bay Line in 1941, remaining at the helm of the company to the end of service in 1962.
World War II
After the United States entered World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
on December 7, 1941, the Federal government set up the War Shipping Administration
War Shipping Administration
The War Shipping Administration was a World War II emergency war agency of the US Government, tasked to purchase and operate the civilian shipping tonnage the US needed for fighting the war....
to manage the vitally important maritime shipping and Naval support needs of the U.S. and its Allies, including the power to expropriate
Nationalization
Nationalisation, also spelled nationalization, is the process of taking an industry or assets into government ownership by a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to private assets, but may also mean assets owned by lower levels of government, such as municipalities, being...
civilian-owned boats. On April 1, 1942, the government acquired the Old Bay Line's State of Virginia and State of Maryland. On July 13, the President Warfield and Yorktown were also taken over. Thus, by mid-1942, four of the Old Bay Line's six ships had become government property, leaving the company only the two oldest and smallest ships in its fleet for the duration of the war, the City of Norfolk and City of Richmond.
Postwar and the Exodus
After World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the line promoted its automobile service to Florida-bound motorists, advertising the elimination of 230 miles (370 km) of driving by taking the family car on an overnight cruise down the Chesapeake to Virginia, while enjoying a sumptuous dinner and relaxing stateroom aboard an Old Bay Line steamer instead of a roadside motel. In March 1946, the Old Bay Line installed radar
Radar
Radar is an object-detection system which uses radio waves to determine the range, altitude, direction, or speed of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The radar dish or antenna transmits pulses of radio...
on the City of Richmond and City of Norfolk, the first commercial passenger ships to be equipped with radar.
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, it was transferred to the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
on September 21, 1942. Later in the war, it was returned to the U.S. Navy and commissioned as the on May 21, 1944. Following the end of World War II, the President Warfield was decommissioned and returned to the War Shipping Administration for disposal as surplus. After inspecting the President Warfield, Old Bay Line officials decided that the expense for reconditioning the badly deteriorated ship was excessive, and accepted a cash settlement from the War Shipping Administration instead of taking back the war surplus vessel.
The old President Warfield was eventually acquired in early 1947 by Mossad Le'aliyah Bet
Mossad Le'aliyah Bet
The Mossad LeAliyah Bet was a branch of the Haganah in the British Mandate of Palestine that operated to facilitate Jewish immigration to Palestine in violation of unilateral British restrictions. It operated from 1938 until the founding of the State of Israel in 1948...
, a Jewish organization helping Holocaust survivors illegally reach Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
, then under British mandate. The former Baltimore Steam Packet and U.S. Navy steamship was renamed Exodus
Exodus (ship)
Exodus 1947 was a ship that carried Jewish emigrants, that left France on July 11, 1947, with the intent of taking its passengers to the British mandate for Palestine. Most of the emigrants were Holocaust survivor refugees, who had no legal immigration certificates to Palestine...
when she embarked from France for Palestine on July 11, 1947, carrying 4,515 passengers. Two Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
destroyers rammed the Exodus as she entered Palestinian waters near Haifa
Haifa
Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
on July 18. British forces boarded the damaged ship and eventually deported the passengers. The Exodus remained in Haifa harbor until 1952, when the derelict caught fire and burned completely. The 1960 film Exodus
Exodus (film)
Exodus is a 1960 epic war film made by Alpha and Carlyle Productions and distributed by United Artists. Produced and directed by Otto Preminger, the film was based on the 1958 novel Exodus, by Leon Uris. The screenplay was written by Dalton Trumbo, which represented the breaking of the Hollywood...
depicted the refugees' odyssey aboard the former President Warfield.
1950s and demise
The Bay Line's Light Street terminal and headquarters building in Baltimore, where it had been located since 1898, were sold to the city in October 1950 for the widening of Light Street and later development as the acclaimed Inner HarborInner Harbor
The Inner Harbor is a historic seaport, tourist attraction, and iconic landmark of the City of Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Described by the Urban Land Institute in 2009 as “the model for post-industrial waterfront redevelopment around the World.” The Inner Harbor is actually the end of the...
waterfront festival marketplace
Festival marketplace
A festival marketplace is a realization by James W. Rouse and the Rouse Company in the United States of an idea conceived by Benjamin C. Thompson of Benjamin Thompson and Associates for European style markets taking hold in the United States in an effort to revitalize downtown areas in major US...
. The company relocated to a pier on Pratt Street at the foot of Gay Street
Gay Street (Baltimore)
Gay Street is a street in Baltimore, Maryland that gets its name from Nicholas Ruxton Gay, who surveyed the area in 1747. It begins at the intersection of East Pratt Street near the Baltimore World Trade Center and proceeds north and east through Baltimore until it crosses Orleans Street and...
, where it remained until it went out of business in 1962.
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
in 1954 featured the "long established, more leisurely water route across Chesapeake Bay", as the writer described the Old Bay Line, recommending "the boat trip can be made comfortably and comparatively inexpensively every night between Baltimore, Old Point Comfort and Norfolk, and on alternate nights between Washington, D. C., and the Virginia communities".
In the end too few people opted for this leisurely form of travel and passenger volume steadily declined. As deficits rose during the 1950s, the Old Bay Line began cutting back. On September 30, 1957, it abandoned service to Washington, D.C., discontinuing its Washington–Norfolk overnight service on the Potomac River. By 1960, the Old Bay Line reduced operation of its mainstay Baltimore–Norfolk route to freight service only during the lightly travelled winter months of October–April, eliminating all passenger service on the Chesapeake Bay during those months. In October 1961, the company announced that its passenger service was "temporarily suspended until further notice", indicating that resumption of passenger service was expected the following summer season beginning in April 1962. Finally, on April 14, 1962, the venerable Old Bay Line discontinued all operations entirely, ending the last remaining overnight steamship passenger service in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The following month, the stockholders of the Baltimore Steam Packet Company formally voted on May 25, 1962 to liquidate the 122-year-old corporation, ending forever the melodious whistles of Old Bay Line steamboats on the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.
Routes operated
The routes over which the Baltimore Steam Packet Company operated passenger, mail, and freight service on a scheduled basis were:| Origin | Destination | Began | Ended |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baltimore, Maryland | Norfolk, Virginia Norfolk, Virginia Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. With a population of 242,803 as of the 2010 Census, it is Virginia's second-largest city behind neighboring Virginia Beach.... |
1840 | 1962 |
| Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution.... |
Norfolk | 1949 | 1957 |
| Baltimore, Maryland | Richmond, Virginia Richmond, Virginia Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area... |
1874 | 1897 |
| Baltimore, Maryland | Old Point Comfort, Va. Old Point Comfort Old Point Comfort is a point of land located in the independent city of Hampton. It lies at the extreme tip of the Virginia Peninsula at the mouth of Hampton Roads in the United States.... |
1840 | 1859 |
| Norfolk, Virginia | Old Point Comfort, Va. | 1840 | 1859 |
Old Bay Line fleet
The company owned 54 ships during its 122 years of existence, many being small cargo vessels. Originally, all of the line's steamboats were of wooden construction with side paddlewheels and used wood logs for fuel. The first boat with an iron hull acquired by the Old Bay Line was the Georgeanna, in 1860. By the late 1870s, the company had acquired its last paddlewheel steamers: Florida, Carolina, and Virginia. Later, ships would use coal for fuel until the 1930s, when oil began to be used. Beginning with the Georgia built in 1887, their ships used the more modern propellerPropeller
A propeller is a type of fan that transmits power by converting rotational motion into thrust. A pressure difference is produced between the forward and rear surfaces of the airfoil-shaped blade, and a fluid is accelerated behind the blade. Propeller dynamics can be modeled by both Bernoulli's...
or "screw" design. The Georgia also was the first Old Bay Line vessel to be equipped with electric lighting and steam heating. Passenger ships of the line provided large, lavishly furnished staterooms to accommodate passengers on the overnight trip. The Alabama built in 1892 represented the inception of modern shipbuilding and design for the Old Bay Line: the first vessel to have a steel hull instead of iron or wood and propelled by a four-cylinder triple-expansion reciprocating engine
Reciprocating engine
A reciprocating engine, also often known as a piston engine, is a heat engine that uses one or more reciprocating pistons to convert pressure into a rotating motion. This article describes the common features of all types...
, the same type engine that all of the line's later steamers would have. Notable Old Bay Line passenger vessels used in scheduled overnight service, with dates acquired and gross tonnage
Gross tonnage
Gross tonnage is a unitless index related to a ship's overall internal volume. Gross tonnage is different from gross register tonnage...
s, were:
-
-
- Key: paddlewheel propulsion (‡) steel-hull construction (¶)
-
| Ship/Type | Built | Acquired | Length | Tonnage | Disposition | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pocahontas ‡ | 1829 | 1840 | 138 feet (42 m) | sold 1845 | built for Maryland & Delaware line | |
| Georgia ‡ | 1836 | 1840 | 194 feet (59 m) | sold 1865 | built for Atlantic Line | |
| Jewess ‡ | 1838 | 1840 | 173 feet (53 m) | sank 1856 | built for Maryland & Delaware line | |
| Medora ‡ | 1842 | – | 189 feet (58 m) | – | exploded on April 15, 1842 |
wreck rebuilt as Herald |
| Herald ‡ | 1842 | 1842 | 184 feet (56 m) | sold 1867 | rebuilt from Medora, coal conversion 1852 | |
| North Carolina ‡ | 1852 | 1852 | 239 feet (73 m) | sank on January 30, 1859 | ||
| Louisiana ‡ | 1854 | 1854 | 266 feet (81 m) | sank 1874 | ||
| Adelaide USS Adelaide (1854) USS Adelaide was a steamer chartered by the Union Navy during the beginning of the American Civil War. She was used by the Union Navy as a transport in support of the Union Navy blockade of Confederate waterways.... ‡ |
1854 | 1859 | 233 feet (71 m) | sold 1879 | used by Navy in 1861 | |
| Georgeanna ‡ | 1859 | 1860 | 199 feet (61 m) | sold 1869 | first iron-hulled boat | |
| Eolus ‡ | 1864 | 1865 | 144 feet (44 m) | sold 1869 | ||
| Thomas Kelso ‡ | 1865 | 1865 | 237 feet (72 m) | sold 1869 | named in honor of Thomas Kelso Thomas Kelso Thomas Kelso was born in Clonis, Ireland, August 28, 1784. He died July 26, 1878 at his home on East Baltimore St. in Baltimore, Maryland.-Life:... |
|
| George Leary ‡ | 1864 | 1867 | 237 feet (72 m) | sold 1879 | bought from Leary Line | |
| Florida ‡ | 1876 | 1876 | 259 feet (79 m) | sold 1892 | last wooden boat | |
| Carolina ‡ | 1877 | 1877 | 251 feet (77 m) | sold 1893 | ||
| Virginia ‡ | 1879 | 1879 | 251 feet (77 m) | sold 1900 | last paddlewheel boat | |
| Georgia | 1887 | 1887 | 280 feet (85 m) | sold 1909 | first screw-type boat | |
| Alabama ¶ | 1893 | 1893 | 294 feet (90 m) | sold 1928 | first steel-hulled boat | |
| Virginia II ¶ | 1905 | 1905 | 296 feet (90 m) | burned at sea on May 24, 1919 |
||
| Florida II ¶ | 1907 | 1907 | 298 feet (91 m) | sold 1924 | ||
| State of Maryland ¶ | 1922 | 1923 | 320 feet (98 m) | requisitioned for World War II on April 2, 1942 | converted to oil 1933 | |
| State of Virginia ¶ | 1923 | 1923 | 320 feet (98 m) | requisitioned for World War II on April 1, 1942 | converted to oil 1939 | |
| Yorktown ¶ | 1928 | 1941 | 269 feet (82 m) | requisitioned for World War II on July 13, 1942 | torpedoed and sank September 27, 1942 | |
| ¶ | 1928 | 1928 | 320 feet (98 m) | requisitioned for World War II on July 12, 1942 | renamed as Exodus Exodus (ship) Exodus 1947 was a ship that carried Jewish emigrants, that left France on July 11, 1947, with the intent of taking its passengers to the British mandate for Palestine. Most of the emigrants were Holocaust survivor refugees, who had no legal immigration certificates to Palestine... in 1947, burned in 1952 |
|
| City of Norfolk ¶ | 1911 | 1941 | 297 feet (91 m) | in service to 1962, on final roster |
Chesapeake Line merger acquisition | |
| City of Richmond ¶ | 1913 | 1941 | 261 feet (80 m) | in service to 1962, on final roster |
Chesapeake Line merger acquisition | |
| District of Columbia ¶ | 1925 | 1949 | 298 feet (91 m) | in service to 1956, on final roster |
acquired from Norfolk and Washington line | |
| Source: Alexander Brown, Steam Packets on the Chesapeake, pp. 160–171 | ||||||
At the time of the Old Bay Line's dissolution in April 1962, three ships remained docked at the Pratt Street pier: the District of Columbia, which had been kept as a spare since the Washington–Norfolk service ended in 1957, was scrapped soon afterwards. The City of Richmond was sold for use as a floating restaurant in the Virgin Islands
Virgin Islands
The Virgin Islands are the western island group of the Leeward Islands, which are the northern part of the Lesser Antilles, which form the border between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean...
, but sank in the Atlantic Ocean off Georgetown, South Carolina
Georgetown, South Carolina
Georgetown is the third oldest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina and the county seat of Georgetown County, in the Low Country. Located on Winyah Bay at the confluence of the Great Pee Dee River, Waccamaw River, and Sampit River, Georgetown is the second largest seaport in South Carolina,...
, while under tow to her new home. The City of Norfolk was idled in Norfolk until 1966, when it was towed to Fieldsboro, New Jersey
Fieldsboro, New Jersey
Fieldsboro is a Borough in Burlington County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the borough population was 522.Fieldsboro was incorporated as a borough by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature as Fieldsborough on March 7, 1850, within portions of Mansfield Township. It...
on the Delaware River
Delaware River
The Delaware River is a major river on the Atlantic coast of the United States.A Dutch expedition led by Henry Hudson in 1609 first mapped the river. The river was christened the South River in the New Netherland colony that followed, in contrast to the North River, as the Hudson River was then...
and scrapped.