In 1816 Jonathan Morgan of Alna, Maine in an open scow, built a wooden boiler and banded it with iron. With a simple steam engine and screw propeller he ran it up the Kennebec against the tide – a technical phenomenon at the time. The Tom Thumb was Maine’s first practical wood-fired steamboat. Built in 1818, the 30-foot open boat was on the Bath to Augusta run until 1828. Another early experiment was the 83-foot Maine, built in 1824 using two schooner hulls with a paddle wheel between them. It ran between Bath and Bangor. By 1824 there was service from Augusta to Boston, a three day trip with two connections. Established the same year, the Bath-Eastport run had to make 11 stops for fuel before reaching Eastport, illustrating a major steamboat drawback – fuel consumption. Fuel storage on these boats left little room for accommodations and freight. Many early steamboats were not an economic success. In part it was the newness, but they needed a lot of fuel and the economy was depressed at the time. The steamboat, unlike the steamship with an engine in the hold, had the engine mounted on deck. The flat-bottomed, shallow-draught hulls with a mountain of free board and decks, were fairly capable of flipping over and dumping the engine through the top deck. The early boats operated at a low pressure of 20-40 pounds per cubic inch. Some of these single cylinder engines had pistons 30'' to 50'' or more in diameter. Steam was injected into the cylinder to raise the piston and again to force it down. A piston rod went up through the boat and connected to one end of a “walking beam.” Visible over the upper deck, the walking beam was pivoted in the middle and the other end was connected to the paddle wheel by a rod and an eccentric. Some steamers used cross-head engines where the cylinder lay more horizontally, but otherwise operated in the same way. Most early boats were driven by a paddle wheel. The screw propeller was developed at about the same time but was used on smaller lightly built boats. The flexing of large hulls caused leaks at the stuffing box. This flexibility also caused severe hogging. Hog frames, a truss of wood timber and rods which projected up over the top deck for the middle two thirds of the boat’s length, were built into some early boats. To protect the preferred paddle wheel from wharves, guards were built out around them. This made the boats look beamier but this part of the boat was above and hung over the waterline. The first Portland, built in 1834 was 163 feet long, 27 feet wide and 10 feet deep. Early on competition heated up, encouraged by the courts which prohibited any state or city granting a monopoly to any particular steamboat line. The Gardiner-Bath-Portland-Boston run was an early example of rival lines creating steamboat wars. Capt. Seward Porter had built, bought and run three boats to Augusta, Waterville and Boston. In 1833 a New York entrepreneur came to Maine to challenge Porter. He responded with 56-inch bore engine that had a 6-foot stroke in the first coal fired steamer in Maine. Boats continued to get bigger, and to attract customers they got faster and more luxurious. The Boston-Portland route had competition which included the 1838 Huntress at 173 feet with a 36-inch diameter main cylinder and 12 foot stroke. This boat was directly challenged by the 175-foot Commodore Vanderbilt with a 41-inch diameter cylinder and a 10 foot stroke. Steamboats or riverboats on the Mississippi have a larger reputation than eastern boats. Racing was almost required of Mississippi River steamboat captains. Those who didn’t, lost customers. Overall most Mississippi steamboat losses in one way or another were the result of racing. The steamboats had an average life span of three years in the west, but they had become profitable. Some boats lasted much longer. They were subject to several hazards, some of which could destroy a new boat thereby lowering the average. By the 1850s there were a lot of steamboats in operation. Early operation was unregulated and boats were sometimes overcrowded, poorly maintained and overloaded. There were some regulations by 1850, but the number of boats had increased as had the demand for power and speed. This was well before radar, bright running lights, radio, sonar, GPS or good charts. Operating in shoal waters they often ran aground. Shipwreck histories are littered with stories of steamboat collisions and groundings. Obstructions in the water could quickly end it for the driven hulls. Fire and explosions also took their toll. Designed for shallow protected waters, open seas on the longer runs amplified the risks. The arced shape of the Maine coast made offshore routes inevitable for long runs. Sequin to Cape Ann is a 90 mile run and was one of the early overnight passages made by steamboats headed for Boston. But the lightly built topsides could sustain severe damage if hit by a sea. The long flexible hull could get pretty rubbery in moderate seas. Engine trouble, a broken steam line, a boiler explosion, would set the boat beam to, waiting to be flipped. If unexpected weather slowed progress and fuel ran out as a result, the procedure was to burn the furnishings to keep the boiler going. Next, the boat’s interior was stripped out for fuel. Among the most famous steamboat disasters is that of the 291-foot Portland. She had a 42-foot beam, but had 13-foot paddle wheel guards on each side and a draught of 10'8'' and was considered lightly constructed. The engine had a 62-inch bore, a 12 foot stroke that drove her at 13 knots. On November 26, 1898 the Portland may have attempted to use the “fuel strategy” in struggling against a “great” storm. Ignoring or without having received telephoned instructions from Portland, Maine to not leave Boston, the new captain sailed from India Wharf for Portland at 7 p.m. The weather worsened off Gloucester. Passing vessels reported seeing her making little progress in heavy snow and high winds. The northeast wind was recorded at 90 mph on Cape Cod before the anemometer blew down. She was later sited by another passing boat below a previous position with damaged superstructure and finally adrift without lights. Blown south across Massachusetts Bay, the Portland went down with all of the nearly 200 crew and passengers somewhere near the tip of Cape Cod. The next night around 7 o’clock a life jacket washed ashore, and then bodies and wreckage for days. More ships were wrecked in that storm than in any other in New England history. Wreckage of the Portland was strewn on the bottom along the Cape and pieces of her came up in trawls for decades. While the loss of the Portland is well known and the storm that sank it named the Portland Gale, steamboat collisions, groundings, fires, explosions and sinkings were common. However, most passengers and crew survived these incidents. Most steamboats operated in shallow water, in protected or inshore waters. Running aground on a going tide meant passengers had to get off the boat, and depending on the circumstances, there may have been no great rush. Being broadsided offshore at night in thick fog while navigating by clock and compass, basically lost, was another matter, though it seldom resulted in losses like the Portland’s. Increased size, speed and luxury were more the interests of the Portland, Bangor and Boston long run boats. At the same time there was an increase in the number of smaller boats under 100 feet out of Portland, Bath, Rockland and other towns. Some made several short runs to Casco Bay Islands, Harpswell and the peninsulas down the coast with passengers cargo and mail. The railroad didn’t run down the peninsulas. Although there was regular coastal schooner and packet traffic, the steamer had its own appeal for many townspeople. It was high tech transportation until the automobile arrived, and remained the faster means until paved roads in the 1940s. It was the railroads, paved roads, trucks and better cars that led to the end of the steamboat era. During World War II many of the larger steamboats were requisitioned by the government for transports and never returned to private service after the war. |
