Chesapeake Bay Steamers (Images of America)

They remained there until 18, years ago. When the glacial melt from the last Ice Age began to form the Susquehanna River Valley- the precursor to the Chesapeake Bay- the icy flow eroded the ancient sea floor. As the modern Chesapeake continued to emerge, the brittle Miocene artifacts were exposed. Members of Smithsonian Institution collecting fossils at Calvert Cliffs, summer of Courtesy of the Calvert Marine Museum. There are several sites along Calvert Cliffs that are open to the public and welcome fossil hunters.

A common sight on rivers during the midsummer around the Chesapeake Bay— pound nets. Used to trap fish, pound nets are one of the oldest gear types used by watermen in the Chesapeake. Herons, osprey, eagles and other fish-loving birds of prey are often thickly settled on the pound nets, poles and trees nearby— anything that will get them closer to the fish that seethe within. From now until first frost, the crabs will only get fatter- good news for anybody who loves a Sunday spent at a picnic table with an ice-cold beer and a pile of these delicious monsters.

On this day, May 31, in , a Chesapeake steamboat was the object of one of the earliest pre-Jim Crow cases in Maryland. When Carr refused to move, the captain and crew dragged her to the black-only forward cabin, where Carr declined to wait. Instead, she moved to the bow, where she stood until the Chester reached Chestertown and Carr disembarked. She would later file a libel suit against the Chester for her mistreatment. Occupying a fishhook-shaped island of white churches, prosperous 19th century homes, a long promenade, bustling shops, and a signature museum, Solomons is a place that seems to have effortlessly transitioned from working waterfront town built on the oyster industry to a modern mix of savvy commerce and tourism seasoned with a deeply Chesapeake flavor.

The maritime roots of the town are clear. Cheek to jowl with the Patuxent River, local churches bear stained glass decorated with boats, not saints.

Docks protrude like piano keys into the river. Adjacent to the long promenade, small runabouts are moored under the gentle curve of the Johnson bridge. Drum Point lighthouse at the Calvert Marine Museum. Solomons Island seems remote today, when urban centers are the locus around which populations congregate. Historically, however, it was located adjacent to one of the richest oyster troves in the entire Chesapeake Bay. Solomon was a major investor in the island. Solomon also invented a rapid sterilization process that allowed packinghouses to increase their production from 3, cans a day to 20, a boom that allowed packers like Solomon to turn an enormous profit.

Image from the Library of Congress Collections. Between , the population on Solomons Island grew from people to more than 2,— all of them requiring homes, utilities, stores and services. Today, Solomons Island, despite many transformations remains waterbound, bustling, and full of Chesapeake charm. Watermen still work on the river, and locals crowd restaurant patios on fine summer evenings. Built on its past, like a packinghouse on oyster shells, it sits at the tideline, timelessly.

Within its three rooms, which he built himself, Byron crafted short stories and poetry, all inspired by the people, places and landscapes of the Chesapeake Bay. A prolific writer of the late twentieth century, Gilbert Byron published 14 books and 70 short stories, articles and poems during his writing career, and most were composed here. Relocated from its little cove outside of St. Signs of spring- menhaden are moving into the Bay. This time of year, the water clarity is excellent- providing a clear view to the massive, undulating schools. Menhaden are often found at the top of the water column near the surface, where, as filter feeders, the gape-mouthed fish will devour copious quantities of both plant and animal plankton.

Menhaden are essential to the Chesapeake food chain, both digesting plankton and in turn feeding predators, whether birds or large fish species. For more information on menhaden: Collections of the New York Public Library.

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The Chesapeake Bay was the setting for one of the most important naval battles in history. After four hours of brutal fighting, the battle ended in a draw. Monitor prevented Virginia from destroying the rest of the Union fleet stationed at Hampton Roads. This gave the Union a moral victory. The squat, iron-encased ships, which could withstand nearly all attacks, ushered in a new era in naval engineering. The intact wreckage was located in The ,man army—the largest ever assembled in North America—used nearly vessels of every size and stature. Along with the troops, thousands of horses, cattle, wagons, ambulances and artillery pieces traveled on the voyage.

By late June, the Union Army advanced to within six miles of Richmond. However, during a series of bloody clashes known as the Seven Days Battle, Confederate forces pushed back the Union advance. The campaign for Richmond came to a quiet close. The prison camp at Point Lookout is one of the darkest chapters in Chesapeake Bay history. The prisoners were given only thin tents for shelter.

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The tents offered little protection from the extreme weather on the unprotected peninsula. Early attempts at powering a boat by steam were made by the French inventor Denis Papin and the English inventor Thomas Newcomen. Papin invented the steam digester a type of pressure cooker and experimented with closed cylinders and pistons pushed in by atmospheric pressure, analogous to the pump built by Thomas Savery in England during the same period. Papin proposed applying this steam pump to the operation of a paddlewheel boat and tried to market his idea in Britain.

He was unable to successfully convert the piston motion into rotary motion and the steam could not produce enough pressure. Newcomen's was able to produce mechanical power, but produced reciprocating motion and was very large and heavy. A steamboat was described and patented by English physician John Allen in William Henry of Lancaster, Pennsylvania , having learned of Watt's engine on a visit to England, made his own engine. In he put it in a boat.

The boat sank, and while Henry made an improved model, he did not appear to have much success, though he may have inspired others. Presumably this was easily repaired as the boat is said to have made several such journeys. De Jouffroy did not have the funds for this, and, following the events of the French revolution, work on the project was discontinued after he left the country. Fitch successfully trialled his boat in , and in , he began operating a regular commercial service along the Delaware River between Philadelphia and Burlington, New Jersey, carrying as many as 30 passengers.

The Fitch steamboat was not a commercial success, as this travel route was adequately covered by relatively good wagon roads. The boat was successfully tried out on Dalswinton Loch in and was followed by a larger steamboat the next year.

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Miller then abandoned the project. The failed project of Patrick Miller caught the attention of Lord Dundas , Governor of the Forth and Clyde Canal Company, and at a meeting with the canal company's directors on 5 June , they approved his proposals for the use of "a model of a boat by Captain Schank to be worked by a steam engine by Mr Symington" on the canal. The boat was built by Alexander Hart at Grangemouth to Symington's design with a vertical cylinder engine and crosshead transmitting power to a crank driving the paddlewheels.

Trials on the River Carron in June were successful and included towing sloops from the river Forth up the Carron and thence along the Forth and Clyde Canal. In , Symington patented a horizontal steam engine directly linked to a crank. He got support from Lord Dundas to build a second steamboat, which became famous as the Charlotte Dundas , named in honour of Lord Dundas's daughter.

Symington designed a new hull around his powerful horizontal engine, with the crank driving a large paddle wheel in a central upstand in the hull, aimed at avoiding damage to the canal banks. The boat was built by John Allan and the engine by the Carron Company. The first sailing was on the canal in Glasgow on 4 January , with Lord Dundas and a few of his relatives and friends on board. The crowd were pleased with what they saw, but Symington wanted to make improvements and another more ambitious trial was made on March The Charlotte Dundas was the first practical steamboat, in that it demonstrated the practicality of steam power for ships, and was the first to be followed by continuous development of steamboats.

The American, Robert Fulton , was present at the trials of the Charlotte Dundas and was intrigued by the potential of the steamboat. While working in France, he corresponded with and was helped by the Scottish engineer Henry Bell , who may have given him the first model of his working steamboat. He later obtained a Boulton and Watt steam engine, shipped to America where his first proper steamship was built in , [12] North River Steamboat later known as Clermont , which carried passengers between New York City and Albany, New York.

The steamboat was powered by a Boulton and Watt engine and was capable of long-distance travel.

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It was the first commercially successful steamboat, transporting passengers along the Hudson River. In Robert L. Stevens began operation of the Phoenix , which used a high pressure engine in combination with a low pressure condensing engine. The first steamboats powered only by high pressure were the Aetna and Pennsylvania designed and built by Oliver Evans. Stevens' ship was engineered as a twin screw-driven steamboat in juxtaposition to Clermont ' s Boulton and Watt engine. The Margery , launched in Dumbarton in , in January became the first steamboat on the River Thames, much to the amazement of Londoners.

She operated a London to Gravesend river service until , when she was sold to the French and became the first steamboat to cross the Channel. When she reached Paris, the new owners renamed her Elise and inaugurated a Seine steamboat service. In , Ferdinando I , the first Italian steamboat, left the port of Naples , where it had been built. The first sea-going steamboat was Richard Wright's first steamboat "Experiment", an ex-French lugger; she steamed from Leeds to Yarmouth, arriving Yarmouth 19 July The era of the steamboat began in Philadelphia in when John Fitch — made the first successful trial of a foot meter steamboat on the Delaware River on August 22, , in the presence of members of the United States Constitutional Convention.

Fitch later built a larger vessel that carried passengers and freight between Philadelphia and Burlington, New Jersey on the Delaware. His steamboat was not a financial success and was shut down after a few months service, however this marks the first use of marine steam propulsion in scheduled regular passenger transport service.

Oliver Evans — was a Philadelphian inventor born in Newport, Delaware to a family of Welsh settlers. He designed an improved high-pressure steam engine in but did not build it [20] patented It was built but was only marginally successful. They successfully obtained a monopoly on Hudson River traffic after Livingston terminated a prior agreement with John Stevens , who owned extensive land on the Hudson River in New Jersey.

The former agreement had partitioned northern Hudson River traffic to Livingston and southern to Stevens, agreeing to use ships designed by Stevens for both operations. The Clermont was nicknamed "Fulton's Folly" by doubters. On Monday, August 17, , the memorable first voyage of the Clermont up the Hudson River was begun. The use of steamboats on major US rivers soon followed Fulton's success.

In the first in a continuous still in commercial passenger operation as of [update] line of river steamboats left the dock at Pittsburgh to steam down the Ohio River to the Mississippi and on to New Orleans. By the shipping industry was in transition from sail-powered boats to steam-powered boats and from wood construction to an ever-increasing metal construction. There were basically three different types of ships being used: River steamboats typically used rear-mounted paddles and had flat bottoms and shallow hulls designed to carry large loads on generally smooth and occasionally shallow rivers.

Ocean-going paddle steamers typically used side-wheeled paddles and used narrower, deeper hulls designed to travel in the often stormy weather encountered at sea.

Civil War | Chesapeake Bay Program

The ship hull design was often based on the clipper ship design with extra bracing to support the loads and strains imposed by the paddle wheels when they encountered rough water. The Allaire Iron Works of New York supplied Savannah's 's engine cylinder , [28] while the rest of the engine components and running gear were manufactured by the Speedwell Ironworks of New Jersey.

Savannah 's engine and machinery were unusually large for their time. The ship's wrought-iron paddlewheels were 16 feet in diameter with eight buckets per wheel. The SS Savannah was too small to carry much fuel, and the engine was intended only for use in calm weather and to get in and out of harbors.

Under favorable winds the sails alone were able to provide a speed of at least four knots. The Savannah was judged not a commercial success, and its engine was removed and it was converted back to a regular sailing ship.

Chesapeake Bay Steamers (Electronic book text)

Since paddle steamers typically required from 5 to 16 short tons 4. Initially, nearly all seagoing steamboats were equipped with mast and sails to supplement the steam engine power and provide power for occasions when the steam engine needed repair or maintenance. These steamships typically concentrated on high value cargo, mail and passengers and only had moderate cargo capabilities because of their required loads of coal. The typical paddle wheel steamship was powered by a coal burning engine that required firemen to shovel the coal to the burners. By the screw propeller had been invented and was slowly being introduced as iron increasingly was used in ship construction and the stress introduced by propellers could be compensated for.

As the s progressed the timber and lumber needed to make wooden ships got ever more expensive and the iron plate needed for iron ship construction got much cheaper as the massive iron works at Merthyr Tydfil , Wales, for example, got ever more efficient. The propeller put a lot of stress on the rear of the ships and would not see large spread use till the conversion from wood boats to iron boats was complete—well underway by By the s the ocean-going steam ship industry was well established as the Cunard Line and others demonstrated.

The last sailing frigate of the US Navy, Santee , had been launched in In the mids the acquisition of Oregon and California opened up the West Coast to American steamboat traffic. Only a few were going all the way to California. She had left behind about another — potential passengers still looking for passage from Panama City. Trips across the Isthmus of Panama or Nicaragua typically took about one week by native canoe and mule back.

In addition to this travel time via the Panama route typically had a two- to four-week waiting period to find a ship going from Panama City, Panama to San Francisco before It was before enough paddle wheel steamers were available in the Atlantic and Pacific routes to establish regularly scheduled journeys. Steam powered tugboats and towboats started working in the San Francisco Bay soon after this to expedite shipping in and out of the bay.

As the passenger, mail and high value freight business to and from California boomed more and more paddle steamers were brought into service—eleven by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company alone. The trip to and from California via Panama and paddle wheeled steamers could be done, if there were no waits for shipping, in about 40 days—over days less than by wagon or days less than a trip around Cape Horn.

Most used the Panama or Nicaragua route till when the completion of the Panama Railroad made the Panama Route much easier, faster and more reliable. Between the and when the First Transcontinental Railroad was completed across the United States about , travelers had used the Panama route.

After when the Panama Railroad was completed the Panama Route was by far the quickest and easiest way to get to or from California from the East Coast of the U. Most California bound merchandise still used the slower but cheaper Cape Horn sailing ship route. Steamboat traffic including passenger and freight business grew exponentially in the decades before the Civil War.

So too did the economic and human losses inflicted by snags, shoals, boiler explosions, and human error. The battle was a part of the effort of the Confederate States of America to break the Union Naval blockade, which had cut off Virginia from all international trade. The Civil War in the West was fought to control major rivers, especially the Mississippi and Tennessee Rivers using paddlewheelers.

Only the Union had them the Confederacy captured a few, but were unable to use them. The Battle of Vicksburg involved monitors and ironclad riverboats.