the New London Gazette in 1836 appears to have been the original source for statements regarding the Savannah's fuel capacity, her sale, and her loss in 1821 while owned and commanded by Capt. Nathaniel Holdridge, "now master of the Liverpool packet ship United States." Watkins also gives a picture of Stevens Rogers' tombstone, on which there is a small carving purported to be of the Savannah. The tombstone was made in 1868.

From a Russian newspaper contemporary with the Savannah's visit to St. Petersburg, Frank Braynard found a statement that the vessel had two boilers, each 27 feet long and 6 feet in diameter.[16] It was also shown she had at least one chain cable. Considerable information on the cabin arrangement and the method of folding the wheels was also obtained from this Russian source.

In spite of a very extensive bibliography on the Savannah, the basic sources for reliable technical description are Marestier's report on American steamers, the logbook of the ship, Watkins' extracts from the Speedwell Iron Works account book, the customhouse records, and some of the statements made by Stevens Rogers between 1836 and 1856. Plans of the ship, or a builder's half-model, have not been found. Marestier's sketch of the Savannah, which is not a scale drawing, and his drawings of the engine and paddle wheels were the only available illustrations upon which reconstruction could be based.

Through the efforts of Malcolm Bell, Jr., of Savannah, Georgia, and Frank Braynard, a search was made by Russian authorities at Leningrad for contemporary references to the ship. This work resulted in information as to how the side wheels were folded, the dimensions of the boilers, and some description of the cabins and fittings.

As to the ship itself, the customhouse registered dimensions are of prime importance; they fix the over-all hull dimensions within reasonable limits. A vessel of 1818 measuring 98 feet 6 inches between perpendiculars would have been 100 to 104 feet long at rail. The type of ship represented by the Savannah is well established. All references are in agreement that she was built as a packet ship—a Havre or transatlantic packet in most accounts.

The packet ships listed by Albion[17] show that all the pioneer ships of the transatlantic Black Ball Line—which began operation with the sailing of the 424-ton James Monroe on January 5, 1818—measured at least 103 feet 6 inches between perpendiculars. Two of the pioneer ships of the first Havre Line—which did not begin operation until 1822—were under 98 feet between perpendiculars. The second Havre Line began operation in 1823; of its four pioneer packets, two were purchased general traders measuring under 98 feet between perpendiculars. The coastal packets built between 1817 and 1823 were all under 100 feet between perpendiculars. It is apparent, then, that the size of the early packets did not indicate, with any degree of certainty, the trade in which they might be employed.

Belief that the Savannah was built as a Havre packet is based upon Stevens Rogers' statements, and her size obviously does not make this impossible; nevertheless, it seems highly improbable that she was built for the Havre service because no Havre line of packets had been organized as early as 1818 out of New York or Savannah so far as can be found. However, the matter is not of very great concern as it is probably true that the models of coastal and transatlantic packet ships were quite similar at the period of the Savannah. This statement is supported by the plan of a coastal packet built seven years after the Savannah.

The hull-type of these early packets can be established. While no half-models or plans of packets built before 1832 could be found, offset tables of a Philadelphia-New Orleans packet of 1824–1825 were obtained through the courtesy of William Salisbury, an English marine historian who had been studying the British mail packets. These offset tables had been sent from Washington on March 25, 1831, by John Lenthall, U.S. naval constructor, to William Morgan and Augustin Creuze, London editors, for publication.[18] The offset tables were for a packet ship 103 feet between the perpendiculars of the builder (rather than between those of the customhouse) and 27 feet moulded beam. An examination of the files on American packet vessels in the collection of Carl C. Cutler, curator emeritus of the Mystic Marine Museum, showed with certainty that the offsets were for the Ohio, built at Philadelphia late in 1825. The drawings of this ship (fig. 5) were made from the offset tables and from other measurements; minor details are from portraits of packet ships, particularly of the first New York (1822–1834) of the Black Ball Line.

Figure 5.—Lines of the coastal packet ship Ohio, built at Philadelphia in 1825 for the Philadelphia-New Orleans run. The Ohio represents the general type of early American packet ships.
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The Ohio was two-decked, with the upper deck flush. She had rather straight sheer, 27-inch bulwarks, a moderately full but easy entrance, a fine, long run, and little drag to the keel. The midsection was formed with moderately short and rising floor, round and easy bilge, and some tumble-home in the topside. The stem raked a good deal for a ship-rigged vessel; the post raked slightly. There was a distance of 6 feet between upper and lower deck planks. The stern was of the square transom, round tuck form, as mentioned in the Savannah's register. Lenthall reported the Ohio to have been a good sailer and to have had other desirable qualities. She was registered as being of 351.86 tons burthen, 105.5 feet between perpendiculars, and 27.4 feet in extreme beam. She was, therefore, about 7 feet longer and about 2 feet 3 inches wider than the Savannah. The plan shows she was about 2 feet 4 inches deeper in hold than the Savannah, and, according to Cutler, she had "an unexpected degree of sophistication for a coastal packet of that period."[19] By modern standards, the Ohio shows a well-advanced design for the period.

Reconstructing the Plans

The first step in the reconstruction of the Savannah's plans was to block out the register dimensions on a scale of one-quarter inch to the foot in a drawing and then to work out the profile, using the Ohio plan as a general guide. This produced a hull about 100 feet 9 inches in