Wilhelm II was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia from 1888 until his abdication in 1918, which marked the end of the German Empire as well as the Hohenzollern dynasty's 300-year rule of Prussia.
Shooters Island is a 43-acre (17 ha) uninhabited island at the southern end of Newark Bay, off the North Shore of Staten Island in New York City. The boundary between the modern states of New York and New Jersey runs through the island, with a small portion on the north end of the island belonging to the nearby cities of Bayonne and Elizabeth in New Jersey and the rest since 1898, as a part of the borough of Staten Island in New York City of New York state.
Prince Heinrich of Prussia was a younger brother of German Emperor Wilhelm II and a Prince of Prussia. Through his mother, he was also a grandson of Queen Victoria. A career naval officer, he held various commands in the Imperial German Navy and eventually rose to the rank of Grand Admiral and the office of Inspector General of the Navy.
The Order of the Black Eagle was the highest order of chivalry in the Kingdom of Prussia. The order was founded on 17 January 1701 by Elector Friedrich III of Brandenburg. In his Dutch exile after World War I, deposed Emperor Wilhelm II continued to award the order to his family. He made his second wife, Princess Hermine Reuss of Greiz, a Lady in the Order of the Black Eagle.
The Order of the Red Eagle was an order of chivalry of the Kingdom of Prussia. It was awarded to both military personnel and civilians, to recognize valor in combat, excellence in military leadership, long and faithful service to the kingdom, or other achievements. As with most German other European orders, the Order of the Red Eagle could be awarded only to commissioned officers or civilians of approximately equivalent status. However, there was a medal of the order, which could be awarded to non-commissioned officers and enlisted men, lower ranking civil servants and other civilians.
SS Kaiser Wilhelm II was a Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL) Kaiser-class ocean liner. She was launched in 1902 in Stettin, Germany. In the First World War she was laid up in New York from 1914 until 1917, when the US Government seized her and renamed her USS Agamemnon. In 1919 she was decommissioned from the Navy and laid up. In 1927 she was transferred to the United States Army, who renamed her USAT Monticello. She was scrapped in 1940.
Aktien-Gesellschaft Vulcan Stettin was a German shipbuilding and locomotive building company. Founded in 1851, it was located near the former eastern German city of Stettin, today Polish Szczecin. Because of the limited facilities in Stettin, in 1907 an additional yard was built in Hamburg. The now named Vulcan-Werke Hamburg und Stettin Actiengesellschaft constructed some of the most famous civilian German ships and it played a significant role in both World Wars, building warships for the Kaiserliche Marine and the Kriegsmarine later.
Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft was a German shipbuilding company, located in the harbour at Kiel, and one of the largest and most important builders of U-boats for the Kaiserliche Marine in World War I and the Kriegsmarine in World War II. The original company was founded in 1867 but went bankrupt and was bought out by Friedrich Krupp. Krupp was very interested in building warships and in the time before the First World War built a number of battleships for the Kaiserliche Marine, including SMS Posen, SMS Prinzregent Luitpold, SMS Kronprinz, and SMS Sachsen. A total of 84 U-boats were built in the shipyard during the war. After the war it returned to the normal production of yachts and transports.
The Treaty of Björkö, also known as the Treaty of Koivisto, was a secret mutual defence agreement signed on 24 July 1905 in Björkö between Wilhelm II of the German Empire and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. Although Wilhelm was the chief author, he acted without consulting his ministers. The treaty was quickly repudiated and never took effect.
Kaiserliche Werft Wilhelmshaven was a German shipbuilding company in Wilhelmshaven, founded in 1871 and closed in 1918. Together with Kaiserliche Werft Danzig and Kaiserliche Werft Kiel it was one of three shipyards which solely produced warships for the Preußische Marine and the following German Kaiserliche Marine. With the end of World War I all three imperial shipyards were closed, but the Wilhelmshaven shipyard was reopened in 1919, first as Reichsmarinewerft Wilhelmshaven, and after 1935 named Kriegsmarinewerft Wilhelmshaven.
SMY Hohenzollern was the name of several yachts used by the German Emperors between 1878 and 1918, named after their House of Hohenzollern.
The Atlantic was a three-masted schooner built in 1903 by Townsend and Downey shipyard on Shooters Island, New Jersey. She was designed by William Gardner, and Frederick Maxfield Hoyt for Wilson Marshall.
Alexander Smith Cochran was a manufacturer, sportsman and philanthropist from Yonkers, New York.
Sir James Pender, 1st Baronet was a British businessman, yachtsman and Conservative Party politician. He sat in the House of Commons from 1895 to 1900.
George Lennox Watson was a Scottish naval architect. Born in Glasgow, son of Thomas Lennox Watson, a doctor at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, and grandson of Sir Timothy Burstall, engineer and entrant at the 1829 Rainhill Trials.
The Shenandoah is a three-masted schooner with a steel hull, built in New York in 1902 as a private yacht for the American financier Gibson Fahnestock. She has had a series of private owners since, and is available today for charter.
The Yampa was an American ocean-going cruising schooner yacht for pleasure use from 1887 to 1899. The yacht was originally built for Chester W. Chapin, a rail baron and U.S. Congressman from Massachusetts. It completed several ocean cruises with no accidents. It passed through several hands and ultimately was purchased by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany as a birthday present for his wife. He had another larger yacht built based on the design of the Yampa, which was named the Meteor.
SMS Grille was an aviso of the Prussian Navy built in France in the mid-1850s as part of a naval expansion program directed by Prince Adalbert of Prussia, who saw the need for a stronger fleet. She was authorized in 1855 in the aftermath of the First Schleswig War, which had demonstrated the weakness of the Prussian fleet. Grille was the first screw propeller-driven steamship to be built for Prussia; all earlier steam-powered vessels had been paddle steamers.
Constellation was the largest steel schooner when completed, having been designed by the yacht designer Edward Burgess and launched in 1889. She was built at the Piepgras Shipyard on City Island in the Town of Pelham on Long Island, New York. It was built for yachtsman Edwin D. Morgan III, who was a commodore of the New York Yacht Club, and grandson of New York Governor and state senator Edwin D. Morgan. The vessel remained in service on the United States East Coast at Marblehead, Massachusetts, until 1941 when the schooner was taken out of service and scrapped for its metal to aid the war effort.
