The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Pioneer Steamship Savannah: A Study for a Scale Model, by Howard I. Chapelle

Title: The Pioneer Steamship Savannah: A Study for a Scale Model

United States National Museum Bulletin 228, 1961, pages 61-80

Author: Howard I. Chapelle

Release Date: May 20, 2008 [eBook #25544]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PIONEER STEAMSHIP SAVANNAH: A STUDY FOR A SCALE MODEL***

E-text prepared by Colin Bell, Joseph Cooper, Chris Logan,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net)

The United States National Museum has in its watercraft collection a rigged scale model purported to be of the pioneer transatlantic steamer Savannah. For many years this model was generally accepted as being a reasonably accurate representation and was the basis for countless illustrations. Curiously enough, the model (USNM 160364) does not agree with the published catalog description[1] as to the side paddle wheels. Neither does it agree with the material in the Marestier report,[2] which is accepted as the only source for a contemporary picture of the Savannah.

The recent naming of an atomic-powered ship in honor of the famous steamer greatly increased popular interest in the pioneer ship and its supposed model. Consequently, the National Museum undertook the research necessary to correct or replace the existing model. This research has been carried out by the staff of the Museum's transportation division with the aid of Frank O. Braynard of the American Merchant Marine Institute, Eugene S. Ferguson, curator of mechanical and civil engineering at the Museum, and others.

The Savannah crossed from Savannah, Georgia, to Liverpool, England, in the period May 22 to June 20, 1819; and proceeded to the Baltic, where she entered at St. Petersburg (now Leningrad), Stockholm, and a few other ports. On her return she reached Savannah on November 30, and on December 3 she sailed for Washington, D.C., arriving on December 16. Her original logbook now on exhibition in the Museum,[3] covers the period between March 28, 1819, when she first left New York for Savannah, to December 1819 when she was at Washington.

Figure 1.—Old model of the Savannah, built under the supervision of Captain Collins. This model has been removed from exhibition in the United States National Museum because of inaccuracies. (USNM 160364; Smithsonian photo 14355.)

The old model (fig. 1) was built about 1890–1892 by Lawrence Jenson, a master shipwright and model builder of Gloucester and Rockport, Massachusetts, under the supervision of Capt. Joseph Collins of the U.S. Fish Commission. Notes in the records of the Museum's transportation division show that the research for this model was done by Captain Collins through use of an unidentified lithograph, printed after the transatlantic voyage, and what then could be learned about American sailing ships contemporary with the Savannah. In these notes the complaint is made that no contemporary representation of the steamship had then been found.

The old, inaccurate model, built to the scale of one-half inch to the foot, represents an auxiliary, side-wheel, ship-rigged steamer. The model scale measurements are about 120 feet in over-all length, 29 feet in beam, and 13 feet 6 inches depth in hold. The tonnage is stated on the exhibit card to have been about 350 tons, old measurement. The model has crude wooden side paddles of the radial type, a tall straight smokestack between fore and main masts, a small deckhouse forward of the stack, a raised quarter-deck, and a round stern.

Figure 2.—The United States National Museum's new model of the Savannah. This model was built by Arthur Henning, Inc., of New York City, from the ship's plans as reconstructed by staff members of the Museum's division of transportation. (USNM 319026.)

The first step in the research for creating a more faithful representation of the Savannah was to obtain the customhouse description of the ship. It was readily established that she was built as a sailing packet ship by the Fickett and Crockett shipyard[4] at Corlaer's Hook, East River, New York, and that she was launched