 Old Dominion Steamship Company ship list from the 1880s | |
| Industry | Shipping, Passenger |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1867 in Norfolk, Virginia, United States |
| Founder | Isaac Bell |
| Defunct | 1920s |
| Fate | Sold to Eastern Steamship Lines |
Area served | East Coast of the United States |
Old Dominion Steamship Company, also referred to as the Old Dominion Line, was a major cargo and passenger shipping company founded in 1867 [1] in Norfolk, Virginia. [2] [3] [4]
Established in 1867, the founder and first President of the Old Dominion Steamship Company was Isaac Bell (1814–1897), and its first Vice President was George W. Elder. [5] [6] [7] Former Attorney General of Delaware Jacob Moore served for a period as the company's legal counsel. [8] Subsequent presidents of the company included H.B. Walker and W.L. Woodrow. [9]
The company's "Main Line Division" offered an overnight transportation service between New York and Norfolk could make 16 knots (30 km/h). [10] That service was between New York pier 26, North River, and Norfolk connecting with the line's "Virginia Division" steamers, including Old Dominion's "Night Line Steamers" Berkley and Brandon serving Richmond with overnight service to Norfolk. [2] [11]
In the 1880s, the longshoremen employed by the company began a widely publicized strike, seeking an increase in wages and overtime pay. [12] [13] Charles H. Kennerly served as the port engineer for the company for several years. [14] In the early 1920s, the Old Dominion Steamship Company became a subsidiary of Eastern Steamship Lines. [15] [16]
Ships owned by the Old Dominion Steamship Company included:
An 1876 painting by Antonio Jacobsen titled, Old Dominion Line Steamer Isaac Bell off Sandy Hook, is on display at the Barry Art Museum at Old Dominion University. [5]
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. Incorporators included William H. Aspinwall, Edwin Bartlett, Henry Chauncey, Mr. Alsop, G.G. Howland and S.S. Howland.
USS Monadnock (ACM-10) was a coastal minelayer in the U.S. Navy, the third vessel named after Mount Monadnock, a solitary mountain (monadnock) of more than 3,100 feet in southern New Hampshire close to the border of Massachusetts. The ship was built as the cargo vessel Cavalier for the Philadelphia and Norfolk Steamship Company by Pusey and Jones Corporation, Wilmington, Delaware in 1938. The Navy purchased the ship 9 June 1941 for wartime use. After decommissioning the ship was sold in June 1947 for commercial use then sold to a Panamanian company in 1949 to be renamed Karukara. In 1952 the ship became Monte de la Esperanza for a company in Bilbao, Spain transporting bananas to the United Kingdom from the Canary Islands for more than 20 years. She was later sold to the Marine Institute of Spain for operation as a hospital ship for more than 10 years serving the fishing fleet of the Canary Islands as Esperanza del Mar until becoming an artificial reef off Spain in 2000.
Furness Withy was a major British transport business. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange.
The Baltimore Steam Packet Company, nicknamed the Old Bay Line, was an American steamship line from 1840 to 1962 that provided overnight steamboat service on 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. When it closed in 1962 after 122 years of existence, it was the last surviving overnight steamship passenger service in the United States.
SS El Occidente was a cargo ship for the Morgan Line, a subsidiary of the Southern Pacific Company. During World War I, she was known as USAT El Occidente in service with the United States Army and as USS El Occidente (ID-3307) in service with the United States Navy. At the end of war, she reverted to her original name of SS El Occidente.
SS Point Bonita was constructed in 1918 and launched 27 March 1918 after a hull being built for foreign owners at Albina Engine and Machine Works was requisitioned during World War I by the United States Shipping Board (USSB). The ship saw service as the Navy transport USS Point Bonita, assigned Identification Number 3496, from 7 October 1918 to 7 April 1919, was returned to the USSB and saw civilian service with several commercial companies as San Pedro and Oliver Olson before again seeing service in World War II as USS Camanga (AG-42). After return to commercial service as Oliver Olson the ship was wrecked at the entrance to Bandon harbor in Oregon.
USS West Carnifax (ID-3812) was a cargo ship in the United States Navy shortly after World War I. After she was decommissioned from the Navy, the ship was known as SS West Carnifax, SS Exford, and SS Pan Royal in civilian service under American registry.
SS Yorktown was launched February 10, 1894, by Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Works, Chester, Pennsylvania for the Old Dominion Steamship Company for the company's overnight New York City/Norfolk, Virginia service. The United States Navy purchased Yorktown on April 21, 1898, to be commissioned as the second USS Resolute, an auxiliary cruiser and transport that saw naval service during the Spanish–American War 1898–1899. The United States Department of War acquired the ship on January 22, 1900, for service as the United States Army Transport (USAT) Rawlins. The ship was sold to the Merchants and Miners Transportation Company of Baltimore, Maryland on July 27, 1901, and renamed Powhatan. Powhatan was wrecked in 1916 and in 1919 rebuilt as the world's first turbo-electric propelled passenger ship Cuba for luxury passenger and express freight service between Florida and Cuba with the Miami Steamship Company beginning service in 1920. Renamed Seneca, the ship burned and sank December 30, 1927, at Hoboken, New Jersey then refloated September 2, 1928, and scrapped.
The Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Works was a major late-19th-century American shipyard located on the Delaware River in Chester, Pennsylvania. It was founded by the industrialist John Roach and is often referred to by its parent company name of John Roach & Sons, or just known as the Roach shipyard. For the first fifteen years of its existence, the shipyard was by far the largest and most productive in the United States, building more tonnage of ships than its next two major competitors combined, in addition to being the U.S. Navy's largest contractor. The yard specialized in the production of large passenger freighters, but built every kind of vessel from warships to cargo ships, oil tankers, ferries, barges, tugs and yachts.
The Ocean ships were a class of sixty cargo ships built in the United States by Todd Shipyards Corporation during the Second World War for the British Ministry of War Transport under contracts let by the British Purchasing Commission. Eighteen were lost to enemy action and eight to accidents; survivors were sold postwar into merchant service.
SS Monroe was an Old Dominion Steamship Company steamship launched 18 October 1902 and completed 3 April 1903 by Newport News Shipbuilding of Norfolk, Virginia for operation in the company's Old Dominion Line's "Main Line Division" for overnight service between New York and Norfolk and could make 16 knots (30 km/h). The ship had accommodations for 150 first class, 78 steerage and 53 deck passengers. That service was between New York pier 26, North River, and Norfolk connecting with the line's "Virginia Division" steamers, including Old Dominion's "Night Line Steamers" Berkley and Brandon serving Richmond with overnight service to Norfolk, other steamer lines and rail lines serving the Chesapeake Bay area. The Monroe was struck at about 2 a.m. on 30 January 1914 by the southbound steamer Nantucket and sank with loss of forty-one lives.
Lawrence & Foulks was a 19th-century American shipbuilding company based in New York. Established in the early 1850s, the company built 144 vessels of all types over the course of some fifty years, but is best known for its production of high-speed wooden-hulled steamboats and steamships. Notable vessels built by the company include the record-breaking Hudson River steamboat Chauncey Vibbard, the luxury Long Island Sound steamer Commonwealth, and the fast oceangoing steamships—later U.S. Navy gunboats—Bienville and De Soto. In addition to the domestic market, the company also built ships for service as far afield as South America and China.
SS Aleutian was a passenger ship in North American coastal service. Built in 1899 for the Ward Line as SS Havana, she would later serve the building of the Panama Canal as SS Panama and ultimately enter Alaskan service as SS Aleutian.
The third USS Quinnebaug was originally the Old Dominion Steamship Company Jefferson built by the Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Works, Chester, Pennsylvania. She was launched on 14 October 1898 and completed during June, 1899. The ship was acquired for World War I naval service and, as USS Quinnebaug, participated in planting the North Sea Mine Barrage. In March 1919 the ship returned to service as Jefferson with the Old Dominion Line.
The Type C7 ship(Lancer Class) is a United States Maritime Administration (MARAD) designation for a cargo ship and the first US purpose-built container ship. The vessels were constructed in US shipyards and entered service starting in 1968. As US-built ships they were Jones Act qualified for shipments between US domestic ports. Under the Jones Act, domestic US maritime trade is restricted to US-built and flagged vessels of US owners and manned by predominantly US-citizen crews. The last active Lancer container-configured ship was scrapped in 2019. Lancers of the vehicle Roll-on/Roll-off (RO/RO) configuration remain held in the Ready Reserve Force, National Defense Reserve Fleet and the US Navy Military Sealift Command. All are steam powered.
SS San Juan was a passenger steamship owned by the Los Angeles and San Francisco Navigation Company. Previously, she was owned by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company and White Flyer Line. At the age of 47 years, San Juan was involved in a collision with the steel-hulled oil tanker S.C.T. Dodd. Because of her aged iron hull, San Juan was fatally damaged in the collision and sank three minutes later, killing 65 people. The loss of San Juan was strikingly similar to the loss of Columbia.
The SS Caracas (1881–1889) was a coastal passenger steamship built by William Cramp & Sons in Philadelphia. She was the older sister ship to the Valencia. Both Caracas and Valencia served from New York City to Venezuela. The short life of Caracas ended in 1889, when she ran aground in Yaquina Bay under the name Yaquina Bay.
Eastern Steamship Lines was a shipping company in the United States that operated from 1901 to 1955. It was created through successive mergers by Wall Street financier and speculator Charles W. Morse. The line sailed along the eastern seaboard of the United States and Canada, operating out of Boston and New York. Much of its fleet was sold Boston to the US government for use in World War I. After the war the company would order additional ships for the Post-war period. Eastern Steamship Lines served as operator for the War Shipping Administration in World War II. The United States government requisitioned all of the fleets vessels for military duty on both the Atlantic and Pacific.
SS Roanoke (1882–1916) was a passenger and cargo ship built by John Roach & Sons in Chester, Pennsylvania. The Roanoke was built for the Old Dominion Steamship Company's service from New York to Norfolk Virginia. In 1898 the ship was sold to the North American Transportation and Trading Company to take miners, supplies and gold between Seattle and ports in Alaska. Later the Roanoke was sold to the Oregon-based North Pacific Steamship Company. In 1907, the Roanoke helped to rescue the survivors of her former running mate Columbia. On May 9, 1916, the Roanoke sank in heavy seas off the California coast near San Luis Obispo with the loss of 47 lives. There were only three survivors.
SS John Cadwalader was a coastal passenger and cargo steamer launched in March 1926 by Pusey & Jones Corporation, Wilmington, Delaware for the Baltimore-Philadelphia Steamship Company for operation on overnight service between Baltimore and Philadelphia. The intended route used the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal for an inland passage using Chesapeake Bay, Delaware Bay and the Delaware River.
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