QUARTERDECK
REVIEW ,A
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SHlP
COLUMBIA 1792
CAPT. ROBERT GRAY
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SUMMER 1981
roR1A·o VOL. 9
16TH & EXCHANGE STREET, ASTORIA, OREGON 97103
NO. 2
S.S. STATE OF CALIFORNIA OFF ASTORIA, 1908 A rakish new passenger liner was completed for the Pacific Coast Steamship Company in 1879 at William Cramp and Sons' Philadelphia shipyard. She was an iron propeller steamer of 2,266 gross tons, with a net tonnage of 1,260. The State of California measured 300 by 38.6 by 24.4 feet and was driven by compound engines of 51-inch stroke and 1,800 I.H.P. She required a crew of 75. Captain J.M. Lachlan brought her into San Francisco on May 8, 1879, 50 days and 12½ hours out from Philadelphia. It is a somewhat curious fact that the State of California had an exact sistership in Russian service. The latter vessel was also originally called State of California and was built for the Pacific Coast Steamship Company at Cramp's shipyard in 1878. Upon her completion she was purchased by
the Russian government at a price substantially above her original cost. The builders immediately laid down a duplicate ship (the subject of this article) to replace her. The Pacific Coast Steamship Company placed its new liner on the San Francisco-Portland route and she arrived at the latter port for the first time on May 25, 1879, commanded by Captain Gerard Debney. She was to remain in this trarli> until 1900, when the owners terminated an agree ment with the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company (owned by the Union Pacific) and switched her to San Francisco-Puget Sound service. The year 1886 proved a particularly bad one for the State of California. In April she received $10,000 damage (continued on page 2)