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PS ''Portland'' was a large side-wheel
paddle steamer A paddle steamer is a steamship or steamboat powered by a steam engine that drives paddle wheels to propel the craft through the water. In antiquity, paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses wer ...
, an ocean-going
steamship A steamship, often referred to as a steamer, is a type of steam-powered vessel, typically ocean-faring and seaworthy, that is propelled by one or more steam engines that typically move (turn) propellers or paddlewheels. The first steamships ...
with side-mounted
paddlewheel A paddle wheel is a form of waterwheel or impeller in which a number of paddles are set around the periphery of the wheel. It has several uses, of which some are: * Very low-lift water pumping, such as flooding paddy fields at no more than about ...
s. She was built in 1889 for passenger service between Boston, Massachusetts, and
Portland, Maine Portland is the largest city in the U.S. state of Maine and the seat of Cumberland County. Portland's population was 68,408 in April 2020. The Greater Portland metropolitan area is home to over half a million people, the 104th-largest metropol ...
. She is best known as the namesake of the infamous
Portland Gale The Portland Gale was a storm that struck the coast of New England on November 26 and 27, 1898. The storm formed when two low pressure areas merged off the coast of Virginia and travelled up the coast; at its peak, it produced a storm surge of abo ...
of 1898, a massive
blizzard A blizzard is a severe snowstorm characterized by strong sustained winds and low visibility, lasting for a prolonged period of time—typically at least three or four hours. A ground blizzard is a weather condition where snow is not falling b ...
that struck coastal
New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
, claiming the lives of over 400 people and more than 150 vessels.


Construction and design

''Portland''s wooden hull was built by the
New England Company The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England (also known as the New England Company or Company for Propagation of the Gospel in New England and the parts adjacent in America) is a British charitable organization created to promote ...
in
Bath, Maine Bath is a city in Sagadahoc County, Maine, in the United States. The population was 8,766 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Sagadahoc County, which includes one city and 10 towns. The city is popular with tourists, many drawn by its ...
. The 1200-horsepower vertical-beam
steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...
was constructed by the
Portland Company The Portland Company was established 10 November 1846 by John A. Poor and Norris Locomotive Works engineer Septimus Norris as a locomotive foundry to build railroad equipment for the adjacent Portland terminus of the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Ra ...
, with a bore, or
cylinder A cylinder (from ) has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an infin ...
diameter, measuring across, together with a
stroke A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functionin ...
. The ship's two iron boilers were constructed at the
Bath Iron Works Bath Iron Works (BIW) is a major United States shipyard located on the Kennebec River in Bath, Maine, founded in 1884 as Bath Iron Works, Limited. Since 1995, Bath Iron Works has been a subsidiary of General Dynamics. It is the fifth-largest de ...
, also in Bath, Maine. ''Portland'' was built for the Portland Steam Packet Company (later renamed Portland Steamship Company), at a cost of $250,000, to provide overnight passenger service between Boston and Portland. She was one of New England's largest and most luxurious paddle steamers in existence at the time, and after nine years' solid performance, she had earned a reputation as a safe and dependable vessel.


Final voyage and sinking

On November 27, 1898, ''Portland'', having departed Boston earlier, was en route to Portland, Maine, following her traditional route. Unbeknownst to the crew, a powerful storm system was quickly traveling north, and ''Portland'', despite her reputation as a remarkably safe vessel, was ill-equipped to handle such extreme conditions. At some point during the storm, ''Portland'' sank off of
Cape Ann Cape Ann is a rocky peninsula in northeastern Massachusetts, United States on the Atlantic Ocean. It is about northeast of Boston and marks the northern limit of Massachusetts Bay. Cape Ann includes the city of Gloucester and the towns of ...
with all hands, the exact number of which cannot be determined, as the only known passenger list went down with the ship. Initial newspaper accounts at the time estimated the loss as from 99 to 118 persons. The bodies of only 16 crew and 35 passengers were ever recovered, but present-day estimates are that the ''Portland'' was carrying, in total, from 193 to 245 persons, including 63 crew. Her loss represented New England's greatest steamship disaster prior to the year 1900.


Shipwreck

The
shipwreck A shipwreck is the wreckage of a ship that is located either beached on land or sunken to the bottom of a body of water. Shipwrecking may be intentional or unintentional. Angela Croome reported in January 1999 that there were approximately ...
is lying below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean near
Gloucester, Massachusetts Gloucester () is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, in the United States. It sits on Cape Ann and is a part of Massachusetts's North Shore. The population was 29,729 at the 2020 U.S. Census. An important center of the fishing industry and a ...
, at an undisclosed location within the federally-protected
Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary (officially the Gerry E. Studds Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary) is an 842-square-mile (638-square- nautical-mile) federally protected marine sanctuary located at the mouth of Massachusetts Bay, ...
. The site was first located in 1989 by John Fish and Arnold Carr of American Underwater Search and Survey. The find was confirmed in 2002 by a
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...
expedition that used ROV's to photograph the wreck. The wreck was added to the
National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
in 2005.


Divers explore The Portland wreckage

In 2008, five Massachusetts
scuba divers This is a list of underwater divers whose exploits have made them notable. Underwater divers are people who take part in underwater diving activities – Underwater diving is practiced as part of an occupation, or for recreation, where t ...
became the first to reach the steamship, also known as the "Titanic of New England". The divers made three successful dives, and reported that the wreck was strewn with artifacts, like stacks of dishes, mugs, wash basins and toilets, but no human remains. They did not, however, explore below the deck because of the danger. Because of the depth of the wreck site, they reported that some of their dive lights imploded, and they could only explore the site for 10–15 minutes before needing to return to the surface. The divers "were unable to retrieve artifacts" due to rules in place at the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary.


Purported site visit during World War II

An earlier claim of locating and reportedly visiting the wreck of the ''Portland'' arose from the last week of June 1945. A dive commissioned by noted author
Edward Rowe Snow Edward Rowe Snow (August 22, 1902 Winthrop, Massachusetts – April 10, 1982 Boston, Massachusetts) was an American writer and historian. Life He was the son of Edward Sumpter and Alice Nichsols (Rowe) Snow. He graduated from Harvard University ...
(who is also known as the Lighthouse Santa) supposedly occurred during the last week of June through the first week of July during the last year of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. Snow supposedly recorded the affidavit of diver Al George, from Malden, Massachusetts, in pages 178-180 of his book ''Strange Tales from Nova Scotia to Cape Hatteras''. According to the affidavit, George found the site by traveling to a location discovered by Captain Charles G. Carver of
Rockland, Maine Rockland is a city in Knox County, Maine, in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the town population was 6,936. It is the county seat of Knox County. The city is a popular tourist destination. It is a departure point for the Maine State ...
. The site is roughly identified as follows: "Highland Light bears 175 degrees true at a distance of 4.5 miles; the Pilgrim Monument, 6.25 miles away has a bearing of 210 degrees; Race Point Coast Guard Station, bearing 255 degrees, is seven miles distant." According to diver George, recovery of artifacts would be cost-prohibitive, and nearly impossible given the status of the wreck. Even acknowledging the likely presence of uncut diamonds in the purser's safe, George assessed the chances of recovery as a losing financial proposition, based in part on how deeply entrenched in the sand the wreck was, and how widely dispersed the impact with the bottom had spread bits and pieces of the ship. In light of more recent discovery, the accuracy of this entire account is highly questionable.


See also

*
National Register of Historic Places listings in Gloucester, Massachusetts This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Gloucester, Massachusetts. This is intended to be a complete list of the properties and districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Gloucester, Massachusetts, Un ...
*
National Register of Historic Places listings in Essex County, Massachusetts This list is of that portion of the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) designated in Essex County, Massachusetts. The locations of these properties and districts for which the latitude and longitude coordinates are included below, may b ...


Citations


References

*


External links


Reconstructed Crew list of the Portland 1898
{{National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts 1889 ships Ships built in Bath, Maine Shipwrecks on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Buildings and structures in Gloucester, Massachusetts Passenger ships of the United States Paddle steamers of the United States Maritime incidents in 1898 Ships lost with all hands National Register of Historic Places in Essex County, Massachusetts