I heard about a guy who convinced some people to invest money in his dream, built himself a huge mansion and lived happily ever after. Of course you rarely hear about the fifty or sixty guys who came up with exactly the same idea and then went broke. I call it the “Savannah Effect”, that being the name of the first ship (above) to cross the Atlantic using steam power.
It you check most history books you will discover that the first steam ship to cross the Atlantic was the “Great Western” (above) or the “Cape Breton” in 1833, or the “Siruis” in 1838. The Savannah was first but it is largely forgotten because, well, because it never made a dime. And in a Capitalist culture this is the big secret; Failure.
The alternative energy folks are now selling the idea that sailing ships can cross the ocean powered by the the wind: except the wind is not free. It requires masts and sails and a lot of rope and it once required a large crew to handle it all. And even with all of that you could only move when and where the wind was blowing.
By the beginning of the nineteenth century the world had five thousand years invested in sailing technology and experience. But living with wind technology meant the advantages of steam power were obvious.
A steam powered ship could leave port when it wanted, and even travel against the wind. The crew could be a tenth of the size needed on a sailing ship, which meant more of the power was used for moving cargo. The crew are expenses. The cargo is profit.
Besides, the new nation of America had a shortage of manpower, meaning a shortage of sailors. Steam ships were the obvious way to increase profits. And that is what capitalism is all about.
Anyway, in 1818, the successful cotton merchant William Scarbrough (above) of Savannah, Georgia paid $50,000 for a 319 ton packet ship then under construction at the Fickett and Crockett shipyard, on the East River, in New York City.
Mr. Scarbrough was convinced the future of naval commerce was in steam, and he was president of (and principle investor in) the newly formed Savannah Steamship Company, which was to pioneer steam ship service between America and Europe. And to shepherd that intention into reality Scarbough sought out Captain Moses Rogers.
Moses Rogers (above) seemed to have been born at almost the perfect time and place for a young man with a maritime heritage, a mechanical bearing mind and an adventurous spirit. Fifty years earlier those talents would have been wasted. But at the turn of the 19th century he seemed to be perfectly positioned.
He was pure Yankee, born in New London, Connecticut. He had been one of the first captains of Robert Fulton’s “North River Steamboat” (Later called the “Claremont”- above).
In June of 1808 Moses Rogers had shared command of John C. Steven’s (above) steamboat “The Phoenix”. Stevens had missed beating Fulton to the honor of first steamboat in America by just a month, and missed profitability by not having the Governor of New York as his partner.
While Governor Livingston had granted Fulton (his partner, of course) the sole right to operate steamboats on the Hudson River, Steven’s "Phoenix "(above) was forced to make the riskier runs between New York and Philadelphia. And it was in costal waters that Rogers built his reputation as a navigator and an engineer, because the early naval engines kept breaking down. And these constant repairs mean that Captain Rogers had discussed meeting the challenges of oceanic steam voyages with Stephen Vail.
Stephan Vail (above) owned an iron works in Moorestown, New Jersey. Vail employed engineers who had worked with Watson Watt, the developer of the steam engine. Vail’s engineers not only had personal experience at building steam engines but they had also managed to smuggle vital data about them out of England. It seemed like a partnership of these three men, William Scarbrough, Moses Rogers and Stephan Vail was made in heaven.
On 22 August, 1818 the newly re-named sailing ship “Savannah”, 98’6” long by 25’10” wide, with three masts and a man’s bust for a figurehead, slid off the ways in upper Manhattan. Rather than carrying cargo she had been redesigned as a passenger ship, with 32 berths in 16 staterooms, described as feeling more like a pleasure yacht then a passenger ship.
The Savannah was immediately sailed to Vail’s Speedwell Iron Works, in Mooristown, New Jersey where a 90 horsepower 30 ton steam engine, removable side paddlewheels and a 17’ bent smokestack were installed. That work took six months.
On 29 March, 1819, the Savannah sailed south on her shakedown cruise to her namesake port. Then on 22 May she set sail again, this time headed for Liverpool, England. Scarbrough could already smell the money piling up in his pockets.
The correct word here is “sailed” as the Savannah’s 90 horse power engine gobbled up 10 tons of coal a day to drive her two 16 foot paddle wheels. She could only carry 75 tons of coal (with about another 5 cords of wood as an emergency backup). Besides, under sail, the Savannah could make 10 knots an hour, while under steam alone she could barely average half that. So the steam power was used only when the winds failed. She used her steam engine less than 80 hours in total during her crossing.
The Savannah broke no speed records. She covered the 3,000 miles in a mediocre 22 days, and ran out of coal in the process. Still she did make an impression as she approached Liverpool.
The British were not impressed. In the first place they had not invented the thing. Pish posh, and poo hoo. It seemed to the Limies that the limited power of the steam engine was not worth the loss of all the cargo space the engine and coal took up.
Given the cold shoulder in England the Savannah sailed on for Copenhagen, where Jean Bernadotte, Charles XIV of Sweden and Norway (above), offered to buy the ship for $100,000. But not having been authorized in advance to sell the ship, Captain Rogers said no. And when the Russian Czar made a similar offer, Rodger again said no.
Ah, if he had only said yes, this story might have had a happier ending, because back home in America, the nation was being rocked by the Panic of 1819, and Mr. Scarbrough desperately needed a cash infusion.
Record numbers of people in Boston were sent to debtors’ prison. In Richmond, Virginia, property values fell by half. Farm workers, making $1.50 a day in 1818, were only earning fifty-three cents a day a year later; wood cutters were being paid thirty-three cents for a cord of wood in 1818, but only ten cents for a cord by 1821.
And one of the bigger victims of the panic was the Savannah Steamship Company. On 5 June 1819 Scarbrough had to take out a mortgage on his new mansion (above) to secure his loans, which then totaled $87,534.50. Selling the Savannah would have made him whole again. But by the time the world's first steam ship had made it back to her home port, on 30 November, 1818, the Savannah Steamship company was flat broke.
A year later, 13 May, 1820, Scarborough was forced to sell his beautiful home (above) to Robert Isaac, his brother-in-law, for $20,000. Isaac allowed William to continue to live in the house. But the very next day he laid claim to everything else that Scarborough still owned, including the steamship Savannah.
The Savannah was stripped of her boilers and put back into service as a sailing ship between Savannah and New York City. But she was a failure at that too. In November 1821, in a gale, she ran aground and broke up off of Long Island, New York. I can only hope she was insured.
Stephen Vail, whose Speedwell Iron Works had installed the engine on the Savannah, was still owed $3,527.84 for his work. He never got paid.
Moses Rogers went back to work running a dull coastal steamer, the “Pee Dee”.
He died of yellow fever at Georgetown, South Carolina on 15 November, 1821, at the age of 42. And somehow I am sure a contributing factor to his early death was his loss of faith in the Savannah.
William Scarborough, the inspiration for this noble misadventure, lived out the rest of his life in his own home, (thanks to his brother-in-law), even leaving it to his daughter in his will, just as if he still owned it. He died in 1838, at the ripe old age of 62 and is buried in the Colonial Park Cemetery in the city of Savannah.
His home is still standing. It's address is now 42 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, an address which might take some explaining to an old slave owner. But the building now houses "The Savannah “Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum", featuring a model of that amazing failure, the steamship Savannah. And that should make the old man proud.
The steamship Savannah was a good idea. But like most good ideas, nobody got rich off the Savannah and most people associated with her went broke. Failure is required to give capitalism meaning. And somebody should explain that to the Wall Street Bankers and the Health Care Leeches who think they are entitled to suck America dry so they can avoid going broke.
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