SS ''Mariposa'' was a steam passenger and cargo liner which served in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

from 1883 to 1917.

History

''Mariposa'' was an iron ship built in 1883 in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

by the William Cramp & Sons Shipbuilding Company. It was of 3,000 gross register tons and was built for the Oceanic Steamship Company, which had been founded in 1881 by John D. Spreckels & Brothers to provide passenger and cargo service between

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " 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 fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

and

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 ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...

. Later their service was extended to include Australia and

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. The ship was sold in 1912 to the

Alaska Steamship Company The Alaska Steamship Company was formed on August 3, 1894. While it originally set out to ship passengers and fishing products, the Alaska Steamship Company began shipping mining equipment, dog sleds, and cattle at the outbreak of the Klondike G ...

, but not renamed. On her final voyage she rescued the crew of that was wrecked 1 November and later rescued the crew of that was wrecked on 15 November. The crew of ''Manhattan'' had looted the wreck of ''Al-Ki'' and the ''Al-Ki'' crew were not happy when they found out and had to be kept separate from the other survivors. ''Mariposa'' in turn was wrecked on 18 November before making port and everyone had to be rescued after she sank after hitting a Straits Island reef off the coast of

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

. There are erroneous reports that she was wrecked on 18 December 1917, even on the ''Wrecksite.com'' page that shows newspaper article about salvage efforts being halted on 2 December. Her cargo, donkey engine and other machinery were salvaged. In 1926 the Oceanic Steamship Company was bought out by the

Matson Line Matson, Inc. is an American shipping and navigation services company headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii. Founded in 1882, Matson, Inc.'s subsidiary Matson Navigation Company provides ocean shipping services across the Pacific to Hawaii, Alaska, G ...

of which it became a subsidiary.

Famous passengers

Marianne Cope Marianne Cope, also known as Saint Marianne of Molokai, (January 23, 1838 – August 9, 1918) was a German-born American religious sister who was a member of the Sisters of St Francis of Syracuse, New York, and founding leader of its St. Jose ...

, a

missionary A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...

Religious Sister A religious sister (abbreviated ''Sr.'' or Sist.) in the Catholic Church is a woman who has taken public vows in a religious institute dedicated to apostolic works, as distinguished from a nun who lives a cloistered monastic life dedicated to pra ...

, was the leader of a small group of Franciscan Sisters who sailed to Hawaii on this ship at the request of the

King of Hawaii Kamehameha I established the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1795 after conquering most of the Hawaiian Islands. In 1810, Kaumualiʻi became a vassal of Kamehameha I, who therefore emerged as the sole sovereign of the island chain of Hawaiʻi. His dyna ...

to provide medical care for the

leper Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease (HD), is a long-term infection by the bacteria ''Mycobacterium leprae'' or ''Mycobacterium lepromatosis''. Infection can lead to damage of the nerves, respiratory tract, skin, and eyes. This nerve damag ...

s of the country. She and Sister Leopoldina Burns and their companions arrived in

on November 8, 1883, and she spent the rest of her life in this service, dying on the island of Molokai in 1918. She was declared a saint by the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

in 2012 for her heroic and holy life of service and self-sacrifice. She is also honored as a saint by the Episcopal Church. *

King O'Malley King O'Malley (2 July 1858? – 20 December 1953) was an American-born Australian politician who served in the House of Representatives from 1901 to 1917, and served two terms as Minister for Home Affairs (1910–1913; 1915–16). He is remember ...

arrived in Sydney aboard the ''Mariposa'' in late July 1888, travelling from San Francisco via Hawaii. He left the U.S. to escape embezzlement allegations. In Australia he became a member of the inaugural federal parliament and served two terms as a cabinet minister. * Sarah Bernhardt, French actress. In August 1891 the Sarah Bernhardt Company passed through Auckland on the Mariposa en route from Sydney to Honolulu. *

Jessie Ackermann Jessie Ackermann (July 4, 1857 – March 31, 1951) was a social reformer, feminist, journalist, writer and traveller. She was the second round-the-world missionary appointed by the World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WWCTU), becoming in ...

was the much-travelled delegate of the World's

Woman's Christian Temperance Union The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) is an international temperance organization, originating among women in the United States Prohibition movement. It was among the first organizations of women devoted to social reform with a program th ...

who left Sydney on the ''Mariposa'' on 20 March 1893 to return to America. *

Jack London John Griffith Chaney (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to ...

and his wife, the writer

Charmian London Charmian London ( née Kittredge; November 27, 1871 – January 14, 1955) was an American writer and the second wife of Jack London. Early life "Clara" Charmian Kittredge was born to poet and writer Dayelle "Daisy" Wiley and California hotelier ...

, traveled from Papeete to San Francisco and back in January and February, 1908. *

William Priestly MacIntosh William Priestly MacIntosh (1857 – 9 January 1930) was a sculptor in Sydney, Australia. His works often decorated significant public buildings in Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra and major provincial centres. Many of them are now heritage-listed. Ea ...

left Sydney in the ''Mariposa'' in April 1898 on the first leg of a journey to Italy where he was going to supervise the roughing out of the marble sculptures for the

Queen Victoria Building The Queen Victoria Building (abbreviated as the QVB) is a heritage-listed late-nineteenth-century building designed by the architect George McRae located at 429–481 George Street in the Sydney central business district, in the Australian st ...

. *

Victor Segalen Victor Segalen (14 January 1878 – 21 May 1919) was a French naval doctor, ethnographer, archeologist, writer, poet, explorer, art-theorist, linguist and literary critic. He was born in Brest. He studied medicine and graduated at the Navy ...

, a French Navy Doctor, who later became famous as an ethnographer, writer and poet, boarded the SS Mariposa in San Francisco on January 1903 to travel to

Tahiti Tahiti (; Tahitian ; ; previously also known as Otaheite) is the largest island of the Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is located in the central part of the Pacific Ocean and the nearest major landmass is Austra ...

for an assignment on a French Navy ship.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mariposa, SS Ocean liners Ships built by William Cramp & Sons 1883 ships Shipwrecks in the Pacific Ocean Shipwrecks of the British Columbia coast Maritime incidents in 1917

History

Famous passengers

See also

References