Deborah Marx, Maritime Archaeologist, Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary

In 1844 Maine businessmen organized the Portland Steam Packet Company to renew nightboat steamship service between Boston, Massachusetts and Portland, Maine. Earlier individuals tried to operate steamships between the cities from 1823 to 1843 but none of the vessels ever provided regular passenger or freight service. The newly formed company capitalized on the higher railroad rates of the time by offering passengers timely and cheap transportation between ports. The Portland Steam Packet Company revived the night boat connection between Boston and Portland and provided continuous service from 1844 until 1901.

In general, nightboats operated between two metropolitan cities and made their passage mainly at night. Nightboats also all shared similar vessel design and construction details as well as their fare structure. Most nightboats in the 19th century competed favorably against or worked in conjunction with overnight train service in New England. The Portland Steam Packet Company consistently added new steamships to their line to stay ahead of the railroad or other steamship companies and by 1889 they were in need of a new steamship. By this time the line was operating three steamships, the Tremont, John Brooks, and Forest City. The line's side wheeler Tremont was very well furnished but the its other vessel the Forest City was out of date. The Forest City had been built in 1854 and its tired accommodations and weak engine meant that it could not satisfy the public's increasing demand for luxury. The Portland Steam Packet Company needed a new palatial night boat to maintain its service in the face of greater competition between the Boston and Maine Railroad.

In May 1889 the company contracted with the New England Shipbuilding Company of Bath, Maine, to build a wooden hulled paddle wheel steamship to be named Portland. In a time when most coastal lines were contracting steel hulled propeller driven steamships, the Portland Steam Packet Company chose the Maine shipyards to build the Portland because of the low cost and abundance of timber still in the area. The Portland's overall design was not chosen for its speed and seaworthiness, but for its shallow draft and the ability to accommodate a great number of passengers in fine style. Its construction cost was a cheap $240,000, a bargain for the time. The Portland's passenger accommodations were really what the vessel was known for. It was designed with 167 cherry paneled staterooms and 514 white pine berths.

On 14 October 1889, the Portland slid down its ways into the Kennebec River to great celebration and cheer. It measured 291 feet in overall length, with a 42-foot beam, 15- foot depth of hold, and a gross tonnage of 2,284. After its launch the mechanics from the Portland Company, in Portland, ME installed the Portland's massive walking beam engine, which had a cylinder diameter of 62 inches and a stroke of 12 feet. The single cylinder transferred power via a 20 foot long walking beam that in turn, rotated the 35- foot diameter paddle wheels. The steamship reached its top speed of 15 miles per hour with 50 pounds of steam pressure in its two iron boilers, built by the Bath Iron Works.

After the installation of its engine and boilers in Maine, the steamship made its maiden voyage to Boston on 14 June 1890. It returned to Portland that evening, marking the start of its daily trips between the two cities. This first trip was the beginning of Portland's regular schedule, which the steamer maintained until 1898 without much notoriety. Initially, the steamship operated opposite the Tremont and then later the Bay State. The nightly run between cities cost $1.00 each way with staterooms adding an additional $1.00-3.00. Passengers on the Portland Steam Packet Company's steamers traveled for various reasons. In the summer months the steamships were often crowded with vacationers escaping north. Portland was the gateway to Maine's summer resorts and tourists packed the Portland's cabins en-route to summer relaxation. Passengers also utilized the Portland for business travel. While Boston was already an established center of trade by the 1890s, Portland was growing at a fast pace and becoming Maine's coastal center of manufacturing. The Portland's timely, regular service and comfortable cabins made for a relaxing way of overnight transportation along the coast.

For nearly a decade the Portland connected Boston and Portland without much incident. However, one notable misfortune occurred on 8 September 1895 when the Portland collided with the steamer Longfellow in Boston Harbor. The Portland Steam Packet Company took advantage of its nearly pristine safety record in its advertising. An 1897 brochure for the line boasted that, "After fifty-two years of service to the traveling public, this Company, with new and powerful steamers, unrivalled passenger accommodations, careful and experienced officers in every department, will endeavor to give the same care through which, in more than half a century no passengers have lost life or received injury to person or property." A year later the line's safety record was shattered.

As the Portland laid tied up to its berth in Boston on 16 November 1898 a fierce storm was developing south of New England. The weather remained clear as the steamer's seven o'clock departure time approached, but the weather bureau soon began issuing storm warnings that evening about the impending conditions. Despite the approaching weather and a possible order from the company not to sail the Portland's captain, Hollis H. Blanchard decided to leave on schedule with 200 passengers and crew and a large shipment of freight.

Within hours of the Portland's departure the collision of two weather disturbances produced heavy snow and winds over 90 miles per hour. Sea conditions offshore likely deteriorated quickly as the steamship left the shelter of Cape Ann and ran into seas over 30 feet high. Other vessels out in the storm that night sighted the Portland as it labored against the mounting seas and the last sighting of the steamship occurred off Gloucester around eleven o'clock pm that night. It is likely that the winds and waves slowly battered the vessel until it finally flooded and sank. The storm overcame the steamship sometime around nine o'clock a.m. the following morning as indicated by watches later found on the passenger's bodies. When the steamer did not arrive in Portland on Sunday morning, as scheduled, rumors began to fly about the whereabouts and fate of the vessel.

Bodies wearing lifejackets stamped Portland and wreckage associated with the steamer began to wash ashore on Cape Cod on the evening of November 27th. Over the following several days only 40 of the nearly 200 victims were recovered. Bodies and flotsam from the Portland continued to wash ashore on Cape Cod for many weeks and the largest piece of wreckage located was only 30 feet in length. No portions of the main hull were ever found. All the pieces onshore originated from the vessel's upper decks, including the main and spare steering wheels and the cabin's woodwork. The Portland's tragic loss is New England's maritime disaster with the greatest loss of life prior to 1900. A court investigation after the catastrophe released the Portland Steam Packet Company and Hollis Blanchard from any blame. The official finding was that the Portland foundered through an act of God.

The events that led up to the Portland's demise and the actual location where it plummeted to the seafloor have haunted the citizens of Portland and Boston for over 90 years. This sense of mystery has led explorers to search for the vessel throughout the 20th century. In 1989 John Fish and Arnold Carr, of American Underwater Search and Survey located the Portland in over 400 feet of water off Cape Ann with side scan sonar. Unfortunately they did not have the technology at that time to gather imagery to prove that the wreck was indeed the Portland.

In 2002, the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary returned to Fish and Carr's coordinate and captured side scan sonar data that confirmed its identity as the Portland. The shipwreck is located in the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, one of 13 National Marine Sanctuaries managed by NOAA, an agency of the Dept of Commerce. The 842 square mile sanctuary is located in Massachusetts Bay between Cape Cod and Cape Ann 25 miles east of Boston. The sanctuary is a repository for numerous maritime heritage resources including the shipwreck Portland.

After the Portland was surveyed extensively with side scan sonar, sanctuary scientists in partnership with the National Undersea Research Center at the University of CT conducted a remotely operated vehicle or ROV investigation of the site to gather imagery to further confirm that the site was indeed the Portland. Over the past three years the sanctuary has conducted yearly projects to the site with a ROV to document the shipwreck in hopes of learning more about the vessel. Since there were no survivors from the Portland the archaeological remains are the only remnants left that might unveil why it sank. The intact remains of the steamship offer historians and archaeologists the chance to examine a virtual time capsule of information from that fateful night in November 1898. The shipwreck can give use clues as to what the condition of the hull, engine, and machinery was like prior to its demise and how the passengers and crew might have road out the storm before the steamship ultimately sank.

The Portland lies upright on a mud bottom with its wooden hull intact from its keel up to the main deck level. The vessel's entire superstructure is missing with only the walking beam and associated engine machinery protruding up 25 feet from deck level. ROV surveys have shown that the Portland's rudder is in place and the deck planking on the main deck, the deck beams, frames, outer hull planking, and copper alloy sheathing are all nearly intact. The Portland's remains are also extremely susceptible to the impacts from fishing activities. The shipwreck is draped with numerous ghost nets and associated gear. Most of these nets are tangled on the highest points of the wreck such as the walking beam, A frame, and boiler uptakes. Additional nets are caught around the bow and stern. The amount of nets on the site unfortunately limits the accessibility of an ROV to complete a detailed documentation of the entire site.

The most intact portion of the Portland today is its 291-foot long wooden hull. The vessel's bow sits upright up to the hawse hole where fishing gear has cut into the stempost and wrapped around the bottom of the hawse hole. Its keel, frames, and portions of outer hull planking are made of white oak and are in an excellent state of preservation. As you move inside of the hull the white pine main deck planking shows a much greater rate of deteriorating than the dense oak hull. In some areas the deck planking has eroded away exposing the massive deck beams that run across the width of the vessel. As you move further aft along the length of the Portland the paddle guard that protected the paddle wheel is almost entirely complete.

Machinery on the site include portions of both paddle wheels, the paddle wheel flanges, the paddle shaft, walking beam, and wooden A frame. The condition and location of the observed machinery indicates that the single-cylinder beam engine is present and nearly intact. Both 23-foot long boilers are present and in their original location based upon the position of the boiler uptakes. Steam piping lies disarticulated in many areas on the main deck in the vicinity of the steering gear and the anchor windlass. The steering gear, located under where the wheel would be in the pilothouse, is still affixed to the deck in its original position, however the anchor windlass has fallen through the deck into the chain locker.

Smaller cultural artifacts lie scattered inside and outside the hull and remind us of the passengers and crew that lost their lives when the Portland sank. Stacked plates and cups lie exposed on the main deck in the kitchen, while other pieces of dishware, an electric light, a toilet, and a stack of glass window panes have fallen to the seafloor just outside of the hull. A single large mug or cup also rests amongst the tangled steam piping near the steering gear towards the bow. Overall, the appearance of the wreck is that of a vessel that sank intact from the main deck level down. The hull settled to the bottom without much velocity leaving large machinery structures and fragile artifacts intact and near to their original positions.

In conclusion, the Portland was an integral part of the commercial and tourism economy between Portland, Maine and Boston, Massachusetts between 1890 and 1898. Its subsequent loss affected the overall design of costal steamship service throughout New England. The Portland Steamship Company replaced the Portland in 1899 with a steel hulled propeller driven steamship, the Governor Dingly. This vessel design was much more suited to open ocean travel than the Portland. The Governor Dingley's screw propulsion system was below the waterline protected from the elements and its steel hull was dramatically stronger than previous wooden hulls. Ultimately the Portland Steamship Company could not recover after the Portland's demise and in 1901 its was bought out by Eastern Steamship Company ending its 57 year service between Boston and Portland.

The Portland's wreck today represents the most intact example of a New England night boat located to date. While fishing activities have impacted the site, it still presents an excellent opportunity for archaeological analysis about the ship itself and its passengers and crew. The Portland is highly significant to the history and development of steam navigation in New England in the late 19th century and will be further investigated by the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary for years to come.

For more information about the steamship Portland and the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary please contact Deborah Marx at Deborah.Marx@noaa.gov