By Brigid
The Champlain II was a passenger side-wheeled steamer. Back in the 1800’s, steamboats were especially rare because many transportation companies couldn’t afford them. The parts alone were very expensive. Some thought riding steamboats were “floating bombs.’’
The Smokestacks
The Pilothouse
The Steam Whistle Passenger Decks
The Calliope
The Landing Stage
The Hull
The Steam Engine
The Paddlewheel
The original use of the Champlain II was a railroad car transfer ferry in 1868 at Mark’s Bay, Burlington, Vermont in the private shipyard of Napoleon B. Proctor. The boat was later transformed to a passenger steamer in 1873. Leonor F. Loree was the president of the Champlain Transportation, where the Champlain II lived.
•Cost : $109,000 • Length: 258 feet •Beam: 35 feet •Depth: 9 feet •Weight: 1145 tons •Horsepower: 270 horses
The average steamboat is $30,000. The Champlain II was equipped with staterooms, decks, and furniture which is why it was so expensive. When the Champlain II was a railroad transfer ferry, it could carry 14 railroad cars.
•Speed: 19 miles an hour •Captain: George Rushlow
It is very superstitious to rename a boat which is why some believed the boat crashed.
Believe it or not, the original name was the Oakes Ames Captain George Rushlow left 1st Mate, L. Rockwell, in charge so the captain could sleep. When he touched his head to the pillow, George heard an alarming crash. L. Rockwell had fallen asleep at the wheel! He suffered from Gout. The medicine he took, morphine, made him drowsy. The Captain was so calm and kind. He unloaded the luggage and the people. The First mate was so rude, he asked for his paycheck!
The Champlain II was only insured for fire. The captain sold the unusable parts for money. The Champlain II sunk July 16th, 1875. It has been lost for nearly 234 years!
The Champlain II was run aground on an underground ledge at 35 feet in Steam Mill, Westport, New York. This steamboat’s parts were stripped of any useful material that could be used on any other boats. Now, only a bare, broken hull remains. Zebra mussels infest the remains.
44°12.36 North, 73°22.58 West The crash was close to the New York shore between Barn Rock and Rock Harbor.
This is a satellite image of the Champlain II wreck.
Pictures from: Google Images 4/3/09 WreckHunter.net http://nautarch.tamu.edu/anth/abstracts/baldwin2.html http://www.steamboats.org/history- education/eexplore/virtual/steamboat. html The Maritime Museum R.O.V 5/18/09 http://www.plattscsd.org/ GLOBAL/champlainII.html 5/28/09 Google Earth