City of Peking
Encyclopedia
SS City of Peking was an iron-hulled
Hull (watercraft)
A hull is the watertight body of a ship or boat. Above the hull is the superstructure and/or deckhouse, where present. The line where the hull meets the water surface is called the waterline.The structure of the hull varies depending on the vessel type...
steamship built in 1874 by John Roach & Sons
John Roach & Sons
John Roach & Sons was a major 19th-century American shipbuilding and manufacturing firm founded in 1864 by Irish-American immigrant John Roach. Between 1871 and 1885, the company was the largest shipbuilding firm in the United States, building more iron ships than its next two major competitors...
for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company
Pacific Mail Steamship Company
The Pacific Mail Steamship Company was founded April 18, 1848 as a joint stock company under the laws of the State of New York by a group of New York City merchants, William H. Aspinwall, Edwin Bartlett, Henry Chauncey, Mr. Alsop, G.G. Howland and S.S. Howland...
. City of Peking and her sister ship City of Tokio
City of Tokio
SS City of Tokio was an iron steamship built in 1874 by John Roach & Sons for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company...
were at the time of construction the largest vessels ever built in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and the second largest in the world behind the British
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...
leviathan .
Like Great Eastern, construction of the two Pacific Mail ships was to be plagued with financial difficulties, which threatened to bankrupt the shipbuilder. Unlike Great Eastern, however, which was a commercial failure, City of Peking would go on to have a long and successful commercial career.
In addition to her cargoes, City of Peking brought many Chinese and Japanese
Issei
Issei is a Japanese language term used in countries in North America, South America and Australia to specify the Japanese people first to immigrate. Their children born in the new country are referred to as Nisei , and their grandchildren are Sansei...
immigrants to the United States, and later served as a troopship
Troopship
A troopship is a ship used to carry soldiers, either in peacetime or wartime...
in the Spanish-American War
Spanish-American War
The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, effectively the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence...
.
Construction
In 1865 the Pacific Mail Steamship Company had obtained a $500,000 annual subsidy from the U.S. Congress to operate a steam packet between the United States, ChinaChina
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. On June 1, 1872, Congress approved an additional $500,000 subsidy, raising the company's total subsidy to one million dollars annually. Under the terms of the statute, the new subsidy was contingent upon the company increasing its packet to a monthly service beginning on October 1, 1873 and continuing for a period of ten years. The statute also stipulated that the company must utilize iron ships of at least 4,000 tons for the service, built in the United States and suitable for conversion into naval auxiliaries
Auxiliary ship
An auxiliary ship is a naval ship which is designed to operate in any number of roles supporting combatant ships and other naval operations. Auxiliaries are not primary combatants, although they may have some limited combat capacity, usually of a self defensive nature.Auxiliaries are extremely...
in the event of war.
With the incentive of the new half million dollar subsidy, Pacific Mail decided to upgrade its entire fleet of ageing wooden side-wheelers
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...
with new iron vessels. The company it chose to build its new fleet was John Roach and Sons, which had recently opened a state-of-the-art shipyard, the Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Company, in Chester, Pennsylvania
Chester, Pennsylvania
Chester is a city in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States, with a population of 33,972 at the 2010 census. Chester is situated on the Delaware River, between the cities of Philadelphia and Wilmington, Delaware.- History :...
.
Pacific Mail ordered a total of nine iron ships from Roach, the first of which were to include the 4,000 ton sister ships City of Peking and City of Tokio. During construction however, rumours abounded that a newly established British company, China Transpacific, was building even larger ships in England for service on the same route. Pacific Mail concluded that it would require larger ships than originally envisaged to successfully compete, and submitted new specifications, which upgraded the two ships from 4,000 to 5,000 tons. The change required a complete redesign of the hull and machinery, and Roach, who had already laid the keels and constructed the frames to meet the original specification, was forced to start from scratch, delaying the ships' completion.
Financial crisis
Roach had initially welcomed the Pacific Mail contracts, anticipating that they would help establish a sound financial foundation for his new company. Unfortunately, in the spring of 1873, eight months into construction of the new ships, Pacific Mail reported an inability to meet its payments. Pacific Mail's President, Alden B. Stockwell, had attempted to manipulate his firm's stock price with company funds, depleting cash reserves and borrowing money to meet the company's obligations. When the stock scheme fell through, Pacific Mail's cash reserves had effectively been substituted with debt. Stockwell and another company director, Richard B. Irwin, then pocketed a loan from Roach and misappropriated about $750,000 in company funds before fleeing the country.But worse was to come. Before his flight, Stockwell had exchanged 20,000 company shares with the notorious stock speculator Jay Gould
Jay Gould
Jason "Jay" Gould was a leading American railroad developer and speculator. He has long been vilified as an archetypal robber baron, whose successes made him the ninth richest American in history. Condé Nast Portfolio ranked Gould as the 8th worst American CEO of all time...
for the sum of a million dollars. Gould now had influence on the company board, but he had no interest in immediately reviving the company's fortunes. Instead, he hatched a scheme to drive the price of the company's stock down still further, to a point where he and his co-conspirators could purchase the undervalued stock—and thus gain control of the company—at the lowest possible price. In order to realize this aim, Gould needed to somehow persuade shareholders that the company was facing financial ruin.
When Pacific Mail proved unable to initiate its new packet service on the date stipulated in the June 1872 statute, Congress was obliged to decide whether or not to cancel the subsidy. Gould seized on this issue to further his scheme of damaging the company's reputation. He organized a lobbying campaign to persuade Congress to rescind the subsidy, while Roach, concerned that without the subsidy Pacific Mail might be unable to meet its debts, lobbied for retaining it. Unknown to Roach, his trusted friend and advisor, the lawyer William E. Chandler
William E. Chandler
William Eaton Chandler was a lawyer who served as United States Secretary of the Navy and as a U.S. Senator from New Hampshire.-Early life:...
who was acting as Roach's main Washington
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....
lobbyist, also had Gould as a client, a conflict of interest that encouraged Chandler's reticence. As a result, Roach's lobbying was ineffective at combating Gould's attempt to portray Roach as an unethical raider of the public purse.
Gould's campaign was ultimately successful and Congress cancelled the subsidy. Owed a million dollars by Pacific Mail, Roach was now in financial difficulty himself as nervous creditors began calling for immediate settlement of their debts. Roach bluffed his way out of the crisis by declaring his readiness to settle any debt within three days of receiving a detailed statement. But he now had to decide whether to foreclose on Pacific Mail in order to secure at least some of his investment in the ships, or to renegotiate the payment plan. He chose the latter, accepting Pacific Mail's old ships for their scrap value as part payment, and reducing its monthly payment obligation from $75,000 to $35,000. Roach was embittered by the affair, but ironically, his handling of the crisis increased his reputation as a businessman able to deal with adverse circumstances.
Early problems
thumbCity of Peking, the largest ship ever built in the United States at the time, was finally launched in March 1874 to great fanfare. Roach himself was honoured with a testimonial dinner at which he was toasted—quite inaccurately, and to the chagrin of older, more established shipyards—as "the father of iron shipbuilding in America".
However, City of Peking
Cape Horn
Cape Horn is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island...
to her operating port of San Francisco, she was heavily loaded with railroad iron fore and aft, while her coal was stored amidships. As the coal was consumed on the voyage, the increasingly uneven weight caused the vessel's hull to "hog" or strain excessively, loosening approximately 5,000 rivets, while some propellor blades were also lost. When she arrived in San Francisco, Roach found himself faced with a stiff $300,000 repair bill.
On her next voyage, which was also her first transpacific crossing, the problems recurred, and when she arrived in Hong Kong, Roach suffered the embarrassment of having his celebrated new vessel declared unseaworthy by the British authorities. Roach was forced to despatch a team of workmen to effect on-the-spot repairs, and he now found himself denigrated in the American press as a builder of inferior ships. Even with the problems however, City of Peking had still managed to set a new speed record of 22 days on her first San Francisco to Hong Kong crossing.
Concerns about the ship's quality ultimately proved groundless. The damage sustained on these two initial voyages was determined to be caused by improper loading of the ship combined with weakness of the wooden decks, which were subsequently replaced with iron. After these repairs and modifications, City of Peking went on to establish an enviable record of reliability, suffering only one complete mechanical breakdown over the course of almost three decades of transpacific service. By 1879, American editorialists were again singing the praises of the great ship, while a period in drydock proved her still capable of attracting thousands of curious sightseers. City of Peking would eventually make a total of 116 round trips between San Francisco and Yokohama
Yokohama
is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture and the second largest city in Japan by population after Tokyo and most populous municipality of Japan. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu...
/Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
in the period from 1875 to 1903.
Passengers, cargo and crew
As a passenger-freighter, City of Peking was designed to carry either passengers or cargo, or both. She was outfitted to accommodate about 1,400 passengers — 120 first class, 250 second class and 1,000 steerageSteerage
Steerage is the act of steering a ship. "Steerage" also refers to the lowest decks of a ship.-Steerage and steerage way:The rudder of a vessel can only steer the ship when water is passing over it...
. The ship brought many Chinese and Japanese immigrants to the United States, many of whom settled in Hawaii or California. Cost of passage was $150 between San Francisco and Yokohama or $200 between San Francisco and Hong Kong, although the passage for Asian immigrants was frequently subsidized by government or employers.
Cargoes exported to Asia by the vessel were mostly foodstuffs, but also included hardware items such as sewing machines, stoves, clocks, trunks, furniture, firearms, leather goods, candles etc. A large range of staple foods were transported, including barley, bran, bread, beans, oats and flour, as well as processed foods such as molasses, olive oil, butter, cheese, yeast powder and whiskey. For her voyage on May 15 1875, for example, City of Peking carried 23,476 quarter sacks of flour, 2,193 packages of shrimp, plus meal, abalone, bread, codfish, salmon and mineral water in addition to a range of hardware items.
Cargoes imported typically included items such as silk, tea, sugar, rice, hemp, spices and opium, although again food tended to dominate. To pay for these goods, one of the ship's most valuable exports was "treasure", which could sometimes be as much as a million dollars or more in coins or bullion.
All the ships of Pacific Mail were manned by Chinese crews but commanded by American or European officers. Chinese employees were willing to work for half the wage of Westerners—$15 a month as opposed to $30—and they lacked union protection. However, their employment also meant language difficulties and it was not unusual for officers and crew to be forced to resort to communication by sign language.
Incidents and accidents
The Chinese and Japanese immigrants brought to the United States on the City of Peking came via the port of San Francisco, where they were obliged to undergo a period of quarantine before entering the country. The quarantine period was served on board ageing, unseaworthy hulks in the harbor that were leased by the company, and this arrangement occasionally led to problems. On March 4 1888, a violent gale blew up after passengers had been transferred from City of Peking to the hulk Alice Garrett, which then broke its moorings with the passengers still on board. Drifting helplessly in high waves, the hulk was swamped and quickly sank. Fortunately, no lives were lost, but the passengers lost all their belongings which went down with the ship. On an earlier occasion, in January 1880, Chinese immigrants from City of Peking were blamed for an outbreak of smallpox in the city, but a more likely cause was the fraternization of the ship's Caucasian officers—for whom quarantine restrictions were less diligently policed—with the local citizenry.Another accident involving City of Peking occurred in Hong Kong on November 29 1886, when the vessel rammed a French passenger ship, the Saghalien, causing severe damage. Both vessels survived the encounter.
City of Peking usually made the voyage from Yokohama to San Francisco in about sixteen days, but on one occasion the vessel took almost twice as long. The ship left the Port of Yokohama on January 10 1893. After she was almost a week late in arriving, concern increased to the point that the steamship San Juan was despatched to Honolulu with relief supplies, intending to trace the route of the missing vessel. However, City of Peking finally arrived unassisted, thirteen days late. It transpired that she had broken a propellor shaft and been forced to revert to her auxiliary sails, but since she had been carrying only enough sail for two of her four masts, progress had been unusually slow.
Spanish-American War
Spanish-American War
The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, effectively the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence...
broke out in late April 1898, the U.S. government quickly moved to charter a number of commercial vessels for service as naval auxiliaries. On May 1 1898, a few days after the declaration of war, City of Peking was chartered by the U.S. government for service as a troop transport, at the rate of $1,500 a day.
On May 13, the 49 officers and 979 men of the First California Volunteer Regiment boarded the City of Peking, on their way to Manila
Manila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
in the Spanish colony of the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
. The historic moment was captured by the Thomas A. Edison Company
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...
on one of the earliest surviving film reels. The ship was accompanied on her voyage by the City of Sydney and Australia, which jointly carried five companies of the regular 14th Infantry and 22 officers and 699 men of the Second Oregon Volunteer Regiment.
After a stopover of several days at Honolulu, the small convoy was joined by the protected cruiser
Protected cruiser
The protected cruiser is a type of naval cruiser of the late 19th century, so known because its armoured deck offered protection for vital machine spaces from shrapnel caused by exploding shells above...
, which was to provide the armed escort to Manila. The Captain of Charleston, Henry Glass, had been ordered to take the surrender
Capture of Guam
The Capture of Guam was a bloodless event between the United States and the Kingdom of Spain during the Spanish-American War. The U.S. Navy sent a single cruiser, the , to capture the island of Guam, then under Spanish control. However, the Spanish garrison on the island had no knowledge of the war...
of Guam
Guam
Guam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United...
, which was achieved peacefully in late May. The convoy then proceeded on to Manila Bay
Manila Bay
Manila Bay is a natural harbor which serves the Port of Manila , in the Philippines.The bay is considered to be one of the best natural harbors in Southeast Asia and one of the finest in the world...
, arriving 30 June.
After disembarking the troops, the small convoy waited several weeks before returning to San Francisco via Nagasaki. City of Peking arrived back at San Francisco with ten sailors and some naval officers on 22 August. On September 1, the ship was handed back to Pacific Mail.
On her next voyage however, loaded with 3,000 barrels of beer intended for the Philippines' occupation troops, City of Peking suffered a mechanical breakdown off Lime Point, and for the only time was unable to complete a scheduled transatlantic crossing. She was towed back to port and the problem eventually diagnosed as a broken piston follower.