SS ''City of Peking'' was an iron-
hulled
Husk (or hull) in botany is the outer shell or coating of a seed. In the United States, the term husk often refers to the leafy outer covering of an ear of maize (corn) as it grows on the plant. Literally, a husk or hull includes the protective ...
steamship built in 1874 by
Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Works
Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...
,
Chester, Pennsylvania
Chester is a city in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States. Located within the Philadelphia Metropolitan Area, it is the only city in Delaware County and had a population of 32,605 as of the 2020 census.
Incorporated in 1682, Chester is ...
for the
Pacific Mail Steamship Company
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 (American consul ...
. ''City of Peking'' and her sister ship ''
City of Tokio
SS ''City of Tokio'' (sometimes spelled ''City of Tokyo'') was an iron steamship built in 1874 by Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Works for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. ''City of Tokio'' and her sister ship '' City of Peking' ...
'' were at the time of construction the largest vessels ever built in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, and the second largest in the world behind the
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
leviathan .
Like ''Great Eastern'', construction of the two Pacific Mail ships was to be plagued with financial difficulties, which threatened to bankrupt the shipbuilder. Unlike ''Great Eastern'', however, which was a commercial failure, ''City of Peking'' would go on to have a long and successful commercial career.
In addition to her cargoes, ''City of Peking'' brought many
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
and
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
immigrant
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...
s to the United States, and later served as a
troopship
A troopship (also troop ship or troop transport or trooper) is a ship used to carry soldiers, either in peacetime or wartime. Troopships were often drafted from commercial shipping fleets, and were unable land troops directly on shore, typicall ...
in the
Spanish–American War
, partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence
, image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg
, image_size = 300px
, caption = (clock ...
.
Construction
In 1865 the Pacific Mail Steamship Company had obtained a $500,000 annual subsidy from the
U.S. Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is Bicameralism, bicameral, composed of a lower body, the United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives, and an upper body, ...
to operate a
steam packet
Generally, packet trade is any regularly scheduled cargo, passenger and mail trade conducted by ship. The ships are called "packet boats" as their original function was to carry mail.
A "packet ship" was originally a vessel employed to carry post ...
between the United States,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
and
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
. On June 1, 1872, Congress approved an additional $500,000 subsidy, raising the company's total subsidy to one million dollars annually. Under the terms of the statute, the new subsidy was contingent upon the company increasing its packet to a monthly service beginning on October 1, 1873 and continuing for a period of ten years. The statute also stipulated that the company must utilize iron ships of at least 4,000 tons for the service, built in the United States and suitable for conversion into
naval auxiliaries in the event of war.
With the incentive of the new half million dollar subsidy, Pacific Mail decided to upgrade its entire fleet of aging wooden
side-wheelers with new iron vessels. The company it chose to build its new fleet was John Roach and Sons, which had recently opened a state-of-the-art shipyard, the
Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Works
Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...
, in
Chester, Pennsylvania
Chester is a city in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States. Located within the Philadelphia Metropolitan Area, it is the only city in Delaware County and had a population of 32,605 as of the 2020 census.
Incorporated in 1682, Chester is ...
.
[Swann, pp. 80–81.]
Pacific Mail ordered a total of nine iron ships from Roach, the first of which were to include the 4,000 ton sister ships ''City of Peking'' and ''City of Tokio''. During construction however, rumors abounded that a newly established British company, China Transpacific, was building even larger ships in England for service on the same route. Pacific Mail concluded that it would require larger ships than originally envisaged to successfully compete, and submitted new specifications, which upgraded the two ships from 4,000 to 5,000 tons. The change required a complete redesign of the hull and machinery, and Roach, who had already laid the keels and constructed the frames to meet the original specification, was forced to start from scratch, delaying the ships' completion.
[
]
Financial crisis
Roach had initially welcomed the Pacific Mail contracts, anticipating that they would help establish a sound financial foundation for his new company. Unfortunately, in the spring of 1873, eight months into construction of the new ships, Pacific Mail reported an inability to meet its payments. Pacific Mail's President, Alden B. Stockwell, had attempted to manipulate his firm's stock price with company funds, depleting cash reserves and borrowing money to meet the company's obligations. When the stock scheme fell through, Pacific Mail's cash reserves had effectively been substituted with debt. Stockwell and another company director, Richard B. Irwin, then pocketed a loan from Roach and misappropriated about $750,000 in company funds before fleeing the country.[Swann, pp. 81–82.]
But worse was to come. Before his flight, Stockwell had exchanged 20,000 company shares with the notorious stock speculator Jay Gould
Jason Gould (; May 27, 1836 – December 2, 1892) was an American railroad magnate and financial speculator who is generally identified as one of the robber barons of the Gilded Age. His sharp and often unscrupulous business practices made hi ...
for the sum of a million dollars. Gould now had influence on the company board, but he had no interest in immediately reviving the company's fortunes. Instead, he hatched a scheme to drive the price of the company's stock down still further, to a point where he and his co-conspirators could purchase the undervalued stock—and thus gain control of the company—at the lowest possible price. In order to realize this aim, Gould needed to somehow persuade shareholders that the company was facing financial ruin.[Swann, pp. 82–84.]
When Pacific Mail proved unable to initiate its new packet service on the date stipulated in the June 1872 statute, Congress was obliged to decide whether or not to cancel the subsidy. Gould seized on this issue to further his scheme of damaging the company's reputation. He organized a lobbying campaign to persuade Congress to rescind the subsidy, while Roach, concerned that without the subsidy Pacific Mail might be unable to meet its debts, lobbied for retaining it. Unknown to Roach, his trusted friend and adviser, the lawyer William E. Chandler
William Eaton Chandler (December 28, 1835November 30, 1917), also known as Bill Chandler, was a lawyer who served as United States Secretary of the Navy and as a U.S. Senator from New Hampshire. In the 1880s, he was a member of the Republican "H ...
who was acting as Roach's main Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...
lobbyist, also had Gould as a client, a conflict of interest that encouraged Chandler's reticence. As a result, Roach's lobbying was ineffective at combating Gould's attempt to portray Roach as an unethical raider of the public purse.
Gould's campaign was ultimately successful and Congress canceled the subsidy. Owed a million dollars by Pacific Mail, Roach was now in financial difficulty himself as nervous creditors began calling for immediate settlement of their debts. Roach bluffed his way out of the crisis by declaring his readiness to settle any debt within three days of receiving a detailed statement. But he now had to decide whether to foreclose on Pacific Mail in order to secure at least some of his investment in the ships, or to renegotiate the payment plan. He chose the latter, accepting Pacific Mail's old ships for their scrap value as part payment, and reducing its monthly payment obligation from $75,000 to $35,000. Roach was embittered by the affair, but ironically, his handling of the crisis increased his reputation as a businessman able to deal with adverse circumstances.
Service history
Early problems
''City of Peking'', the largest ship ever built in the United States at the time, was finally launched in March 1874[Bolles, Albert S. (1878): ''Industrial History of the United States, from the Earliest Settlements to the Present Time'', The H. Bill publishing company, digitized by Oxford University 2006, pp 599–600.] to great fanfare. Roach himself was honored with a testimonial dinner at which he was toasted—quite inaccurately, and to the chagrin of older, more established shipyards—as "the father of iron shipbuilding in America".[Tyler, p. 36.]
However, ''City of Peking'''s first voyages proved troublesome. For her maiden voyage around Cape Horn
Cape Horn ( es, Cabo de Hornos, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which are the Diego Ramírez ...
to her operating port of San Francisco, she was heavily loaded with railroad iron fore and aft, while her coal was stored amidships. As the coal was consumed on the voyage, the increasingly uneven weight caused the vessel's hull to "hog" or strain excessively, loosening approximately 5,000 rivets, while some propeller blades were also lost. When she arrived in San Francisco, Roach found himself faced with a stiff $300,000 repair bill.[
On her next voyage, which was also her first transpacific crossing, the problems recurred, and when she arrived in Hong Kong, Roach suffered the embarrassment of having his celebrated new vessel declared unseaworthy by the British authorities. Roach was forced to dispatch a team of workmen to effect on-the-spot repairs, and he now found himself denigrated in the American press as a builder of inferior ships.][Tyler, pp. 36–37] Even with the problems however, ''City of Peking'' had still managed to set a new speed record of 22 days on her first San Francisco to Hong Kong crossing.[
Concerns about the ship's quality ultimately proved groundless. The damage sustained on these two initial voyages was determined to be caused by improper loading of the ship combined with weakness of the wooden decks, which were subsequently replaced with iron. After these repairs and modifications, ''City of Peking'' went on to establish an enviable record of reliability,][ suffering only one complete mechanical breakdown over the course of almost three decades of transpacific service.][Tate, p. 29.] By 1879, American editorialists were again singing the praises of the great ship, while a period in drydock proved her still capable of attracting thousands of curious sightseers. ''City of Peking'' would eventually make a total of 116 round trips between San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
and Yokohama
is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of To ...
/Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
in the period from 1875 to 1903.[Troops embarking at San Francisco]
Library of Congress "American Memory" website.
Passengers, cargo and crew
As a passenger-freighter, ''City of Peking'' was designed to carry either passengers or cargo, or both. She was outfitted to accommodate about 1,400 passengers—120 first class, 250 second class and 1,000 steerage
Steerage is a term for the lowest category of passenger accommodation in a ship. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century considerable numbers of persons travelled from their homeland to seek a new life elsewhere, in many cases North America ...
. The ship brought many Chinese and Japanese immigrants to the United States, many of whom settled in Hawaii or California. Cost of passage was $150 between San Francisco and Yokohama or $200 between San Francisco and Hong Kong,[ although the passage for Asian immigrants was frequently subsidized by government or employers.
Cargoes exported to Asia by the vessel were mostly foodstuffs, but also included hardware items such as sewing machines, stoves, clocks, trunks, furniture, firearms, leather goods, candles etc. A large range of staple foods were transported, including barley, bran, bread, beans, oats and flour, as well as processed foods such as molasses, olive oil, butter, cheese, yeast powder and whiskey. For her voyage on May 15, 1875, for example, ''City of Peking'' carried 23,476 quarter sacks of flour, 2,193 packages of shrimp, plus meal, abalone, bread, codfish, salmon and mineral water in addition to a range of hardware items.][Tate p. 245.]
Cargoes imported typically included items such as silk, tea, sugar, rice, hemp, spices and opium, although again food tended to dominate. To pay for these goods, one of the ship's most valuable exports was "treasure", which could sometimes be as much as a million dollars or more in coins or bullion.[
All the ships of Pacific Mail were manned by Chinese crews but commanded by American or European officers. Chinese employees were willing to work for half the wage of Westerners—$15 a month as opposed to $30—and they lacked union protection. However, their employment also meant language difficulties and it was not unusual for officers and crew to be forced to resort to communication by sign language.
]
Incidents and accidents
The Chinese and Japanese immigrants brought to the United States on the ''City of Peking'' came via the port of San Francisco, where they were obliged to undergo a period of quarantine before entering the country. The quarantine period was served on board aging, unseaworthy hulks in the harbor that were leased by the company, and this arrangement occasionally led to problems. On March 4, 1888, a violent gale blew up after passengers had been transferred from ''City of Peking'' to the hulk ''Alice Garrett'', which then broke its moorings with the passengers still on board. Drifting helplessly in high waves, the hulk was swamped and quickly sank. Fortunately, there were no deaths, but the passengers lost all their belongings which went down with the ship. On an earlier occasion, in January 1880, Chinese immigrants from ''City of Peking'' were blamed for an outbreak of smallpox in the city, but a more likely cause was the fraternization of the ship's Caucasian officers—for whom quarantine restrictions were less diligently policed—with the local citizenry.
Another accident involving ''City of Peking'' occurred in Hong Kong on November 29, 1886, when the vessel rammed a French passenger ship, the ''Saghalien'', causing severe damage. Both vessels survived the encounter.
''City of Peking'' usually made the voyage from Yokohama to San Francisco in about sixteen days, but on one occasion the vessel took almost twice as long. The ship left the Port of Yokohama on January 10, 1893. After she was almost a week late in arriving, concern increased to the point that the steamship ''San Juan San Juan, Spanish for Saint John, may refer to:
Places Argentina
* San Juan Province, Argentina
* San Juan, Argentina, the capital of that province
* San Juan, Salta, a village in Iruya, Salta Province
* San Juan (Buenos Aires Underground), ...
'' was dispatched to Honolulu with relief supplies, intending to trace the route of the missing vessel. However, ''City of Peking'' finally arrived unassisted, thirteen days late. It transpired that she had broken a propeller shaft and been forced to revert to her auxiliary sails, but since she had been carrying only enough sail for two of her four masts, progress had been unusually slow.[Tate p. 42.]
Spanish–American War
When the Spanish–American War
, partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence
, image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg
, image_size = 300px
, caption = (clock ...
broke out in late April 1898, the U.S. government quickly moved to charter a number of commercial vessels for service as naval auxiliaries. On May 1, 1898, a few days after the declaration of war, ''City of Peking'' was chartered by the U.S. government for service as a troop transport
A troopship (also troop ship or troop transport or trooper) is a ship used to carry soldiers, either in peacetime or wartime. Troopships were often drafted from commercial shipping fleets, and were unable land troops directly on shore, typicall ...
, at the rate of $1,500 a day.[Tate p. 34.]
On May 13, the 49 officers and 979 men of the First California Volunteer Regiment boarded the ''City of Peking'', on their way to Manila
Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populate ...
in the Spanish colony
The Spanish Empire ( es, link=no, Imperio español), also known as the Hispanic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Hispánica) or the Catholic Monarchy ( es, link=no, Monarquía Católica) was a colonial empire governed by Spain and its predece ...
of the Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
. The historic moment was captured by the Thomas A. Edison Company on one of the earliest surviving film reels. The ship was accompanied on her voyage by the ''City of Sydney'' and ''Australia'', which jointly carried five companies of the regular 14th Infantry and 22 officers and 699 men of the 2nd Oregon Volunteer Infantry Regiment
The 2nd Oregon Volunteer Infantry Regiment was a military regiment recruited in the U.S. state of Oregon during the Spanish–American War. As the first foreign war in U.S. history, it was the first time members of the Oregon National Guard had fo ...
.
After a stopover of several days at Honolulu
Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...
, the small convoy was joined by the protected cruiser
Protected cruisers, a type of naval cruiser of the late-19th century, gained their description because an armoured deck offered protection for vital machine-spaces from fragments caused by shells exploding above them. Protected cruisers re ...
, which was to provide the armed escort to Manila. The Captain of ''Charleston'', Henry Glass, had been ordered to take the surrender of Guam
Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic cent ...
, which was achieved peacefully in late May. The convoy then proceeded on to Manila Bay
Manila Bay ( fil, Look ng Maynila) is a natural harbor that serves the Port of Manila (on Luzon), in the Philippines. Strategically located around the capital city of the Philippines, Manila Bay facilitated commerce and trade between the Phili ...
, arriving 30 June.
After disembarking the troops, the small convoy waited several weeks before returning to San Francisco via Nagasaki
is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan.
It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the ...
. ''City of Peking'' arrived back at San Francisco with ten sailors and some naval officers on 22 August. On September 1, the ship was handed back to Pacific Mail.
On her next voyage however, loaded with 3,000 barrels of beer intended for the Philippines' occupation troops, ''City of Peking'' suffered a mechanical breakdown off Lime Point
Lime Point Lighthouse is a lighthouse in California, on the northern side of the narrowest part of Golden Gate strait. The lighthouse sits at the base of a steep cliff, very near the North anchorage of the Golden Gate Bridge. It is built on a ...
, and for the only time was unable to complete a scheduled transpacific crossing. She was towed back to port and the problem eventually diagnosed as a broken piston follower.
Retirement
After repairs, ''City of Peking'' resumed service on her regular San Francisco-Hong Kong route, which continued for another five years. On 21 September 1903, the aging vessel was finally retired from transpacific service by Pacific Mail.[Tate p. 35.] The ship was eventually scrapped in 1920.[
]
Footnotes
References
* Swann, Leonard Alexander Jr. (1965): ''John Roach, Maritime Entrepreneur: the Years as Naval Contractor 1862–1886'', United States Naval Institute (reprinted 1980 by Ayer Publishing, ).
* Tate, E. Mowbray (1986): ''Transpacific Steam: The Story of Steam Navigation from the Pacific Coast of North America to the Far East and the Antipodes, 1867–1941'', Associated University Presses, .
* Tyler, David B. (1958): ''The American Clyde: A History of Iron and Steel Shipbuilding on the Delaware from 1840 to World War I'', University of Delaware Press (reprinted 1992, ).
{{DEFAULTSORT:City of Peking
1874 ships
Ships built by the Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Works
Record-breaking steamships
Merchant ships of the United States
Passenger ships of the United States
Spanish–American War auxiliary ships of the United States
Philippine–American War ships of the United States
Articles containing video clips