Shipbuilding in America during the late nineteenth century was a bustling business, especially along the banks of the Kennebec River in Maine. But at a time when many shipbuilders were focusing their efforts on constructing iron and steel ships to compete with the vessels being built in Europe, one Maine shipbuilder had his sights set on proving that the days of wooden sailing ships were anything but over—and with his ship Shenandoah, built in 1890, he came close to doing just that.
Shipbuilder Arthur Sewall and the “Big Four”
Arthur Sewall, owner of the shipbuilding company Arthur Sewall & Co. of Bath, Maine, came up with an ambitious plan in 1889. He wanted to build a fleet of enormous wooden sailing ships for transporting cargo—ships that would compare in fame to the clipper ships of the 1850s and that, he hoped, would restore the American merchant marine to an all-time high. His skeptics doubted the plan would work. To them, the days of wooden sailing ships in the deepwater trades were over. Iron and steel vessels were in. They were stronger and more durable, cost less to insure, and proved more profitable.
But Sewall wasn’t ready to turn his attention to steel. He had four more ships to build. They were dubbed the “Big Four” and consisted of the Rappahannock, the Shenandoah, the Susquehanna, and the Roanoke, each carrying the name of a famous river in the United States. Though all four ships would boast admirable qualities and decent careers at sea, one in particular outshined—and outlived—them all: the Shenandoah. What made this ship so extraordinary was a combination of her size, her strength and beauty, and a captain who was a perfect match for the great ship.
Largest American-built Ship Proved Seaworthy
When the Shenandoah was launched in November of 1890 before 8,000 spectators, she was the largest sailing ship in America and “second in size only to the five-master La France” worldwide, according to a December 18, 1890, article in the New York Times. Measuring 322 feet long on deck and 3,406 gross tons and carrying 11,000 square yards of sail, she was indeed impressive. But what many admirers didn’t realize was that Shenandoah, though called a ship, wasn’t technically a ship.
Designed by William Pattee of Bath, she was rigged as a four-masted bark (three masts square-rigged and one fore-and-aft), but since three of her masts were square-rigged—the definition of a full-rigged ship—and since barks didn’t carry the prestige that ships did, her owners preferred to call her a ship. And why not? Three other four-masted barks had been labeled ships by the Bureau of Navigation, including the late, 325-foot Great Republic, built in 1853. Didn’t Shenandoah deserve the same status? Indeed, of the “Big Four,” only one was a true ship, yet all four were called ships.
What mattered more to her owners and skeptics, however, was whether such a large wooden vessel would prove seaworthy. So far, her predecessor Rappahannock had made a lengthy passage laden with mishaps—and she measured 25 feet and more than 200 tons less than Shenandoah. Author Frederick C. Matthews writes in American Merchant Ships (Dover, 1987), “many old-timers stuck to the theory that so long a ship would be unsteady and behave badly in heavy seas.” However, continues Matthews, “the career of the ship…shows how incorrect these predictions were, for the Shenandoah was seaworthy in all respects, steered like a pilot boat, and handled well in any weather.”
Of course, it didn’t hurt that the Sewalls hired one of the most able ship captains around to command the Shenandoah, Captain James Murphy. A longtime sailor and captain of several previous vessels, Murphy had the reputation of being an excellent navigator and seaman. And at 280 pounds plus and carrying an air of confidence, he and the enormous vessel were a match made in heaven. With Murphy in command for the first seven years of the Shenandoah’s career, she performed well, made good time on many passages, and brought in good money for the Sewalls. Though Murphy left the Shenandoah to command another Sewall ship in 1898, he made three more single voyages in the Shenandoah in later years. In the intervening time, the ship continued to sail successfully with other captains at the helm.
Unique Features Put Shenandoah in a League of Her Own
Unfortunately, the remaining “Big Four” didn’t fare as well, and by 1905 the Shenandoah was the only vessel left of the fleet. The other ships had succumbed to fire, but not before making their share of respectable passages. Even the Roanoke, larger than the Shenandoah and known as “The Great Brute,” had been a good sailer that made decent time given her size. Still, the Shenandoah outlasted her sister ships, but exactly why remains unclear. Her ship design and construction were similar to the others, with the exception of one feature: close spacing of her deck beams, explains W. H. Bunting in Live Yankees (Tilbury House, 2009), with each beam connected to a bilge keelson by wing stanchions that were “perhaps in no other vessel…spaced so closely together.”
Whether this feature contributed to Shenandoah’s strength is uncertain, but the Shenandoah’s strength was not. Maybe it was the 800 tons of oak that went into her frame or the one-and-a-half million feet of Georgia pine used in her ceilings and planking that helped give her sturdiness and long life. Or maybe it was just plain luck. On a passage from Baltimore to San Francisco in 1898, she managed to barely miss a meteor that, had it struck the ship, would have done her in. Yet, despite this and several other close calls, including grounding on San Francisco’s Potato Patch shoal and a fire from a coal cargo that nearly burned the ship’s hull, the Shenandoah endured.
What may have also set Shenandoah apart from her sister ships was her remarkable beauty. Afloat and with her magnificent sails blowing in the wind, she was a sight to behold. Her picture, in fact, adorned the licenses of American ship captains as well as the registers of ships flying the American flag, and she was called by the leading English shipping magazine Fairplay in December of 1892 “the last of the beautiful American sailing ships of wood.” It was a label that couldn’t have been more true because as all good things come to an end, so too did Shenandoah and the days of wooden sailing ships.
In 1910, the Shenandoah was sold to Scully Brothers for $36,000 and converted to a coal barge. Stripped of her spars and rigging, she worked the East Coast being towed by a steam tug until 1915, when she was rammed by the steamer Powhattan near Fire Island, New York, and sank. Months later, the U.S. government blew up her hull. By then, the Sewall shipbuilding company had constructed a fleet of fine steel ships that had proved superior to wood. But the Shenandoah hadn't let her builders down. She had given them twenty years of success at sea, and she had helped make the end of an era unforgettable.
Sources:
“A Big American Ship: The Four-Masted Shenandoah, the Finest of Her Class,” New York Times, December 17, 1890, nytimes.com (accessed February 7, 2012).
Baker, William Avery, A Maritime History of Bath, Maine, and the Kennebec River Region (Vol. 2), Bath, ME: Marine Research Society of Bath, 1973, 650-52.
Bunting, W. H., Live Yankees: The Sewalls and Their Ships, Gardiner, ME: Tilbury House; Bath, ME: Maine Maritime Museum, 2009.
Matthews, Frederick C., American Merchant Ships: 1850-1900 (Series I), New York: Dover Publications, 1987, 289-97.
Susie Yakowicz - Susie Yakowicz is a Minnesota freelance writer whose work has appeared in dozens of publications for children and adults.
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