VESSEL PROFILE
Catawissa: Last Deepwater Steam Tug on the East Coast by Norman Brouwer
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cean towing has been a part of the American seafaring experience for over a century. Today , powerful tugs, either with barges on the hawser or in integrated tug-barge units , move giant barges carrying freight containers, petroleum products and bulk cement between ports on our Atlantic and Gulf coasts. A century ago the primary cargo was anthracite from the coal fields of Pennsylvania, used to fuel industries, heat homes, and generate electricity to light cities and power trolley systems. One outstanding artifact survives from that trade. She is the 158foot steam tugboat Catawissa , better known in recent years as New York Harbor ' s floating tank cleaning plant Tank Master No. 1, which now lies in storage, afloat, at the New York State Barge Canal maintenance facility in Waterford, New York, north of Albany. Anthracite is a hard coal which is difficult to ignite but, once burning, provides a very hot flame . It did not come into favor for industrial or heating use until well into the first half of the 1800s. In the US, high quality anthracite is found in only five counties of northeastern Pennsylvania. In 1837 the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, which was still building its original line between those two cities , petitioned the State Legislature for permission to extend northward from Reading into the heart of the coal fields. During the 1840s the company built Port Richmond on the Delaware River above Philadelphia as a shipment point for coal. Because of the lack of rail way bridges or tunnel s crossing the Hudson River, anthracite was carried by sea from the Delaware north to New England . It was first carried by small sailing vessels, usually brigs or schooners. In the 1870s the Philadelphia and Reading felt prosperous enough to begin transporting the coal itself, in a large fleet of steam colliers built for the purpose. Towing was adopted in the 1880s because it was far more economical. Each collier had an engine to fuel and maintain and required a sizeable crew. One steam tug with a smaller crew could tow a series of three or four good-sized barges with very few men on board. Barges were readily available in the form of deepwater sailing vessel s that 32
were becoming uneconomical. By the mid-80s these could be purchased at bargain prices and rigged down to " baldheaded" schooners, setting only foreand-aft sails for steadying and as an assist for the tug when winds were favorable. When old sailing ships were not available, New England shipyards built wooden schooner barges. In 1894 the Philadelphia and Reading Company ordered ten barges from a yard in Noank, Connecticut, and converted three of its older colliers to barges. Between 1896 and 1912 the company built ten almost identical seagoing tugs . All were named for important Pennsylvania towns served by the Railroad. The first was the Tamaqua , launched by the Cramp Shipyard in Philadelphia. The next was Catawissa (length: 158 ft; width: 29 feet; tonnage: 558 gross), completed in February 1897 , first of four produced by the Harlan & Hollingsworth Shipyard in Wilmington, Delaware. The firm of Harlan & Hollingsworth , like the Philadelphia & Reading , could trace its beginnings to the 1830s. It produced this country's first seagoing vessel with an iron hull, the steamer Bangor of 1844, and the first American steamship with a steelplated hull , the sidewheeler Olympian of 1884 whose remains survive on a beach in the Straits of Magellan. Catawissa was powered by a 1000 horsepower triple-expansion steam en-
gine supplied by two coal-burning scotch boilers 12 feet in diameter. She had a single tall stack and two masts. The forward mast was stepped immediately forward of the large pilothouse. She could set four large triangular riding sails, a staysail forward of each mast, and a trysail abaft each mast. The hull and deckhouse were steel , and the pilothouse was panelled wood. The Philadelphia & Reading color scheme for its tugs was a black hull with a wide creamcolored band on the outside of the bulwarks , a green deckhouse with red trim , and a black and red stack. In September 1917 , following thi s country ' s entry into World War I, Catawissa's si sters Lykens and Conestoga were taken into the Navy. During the war they operated between Bermuda and the Azores assi sting di sabled ships from North Atlantic convoys. At the war's end the Lykens was attached to the Third Naval District at New York, and the Conestoga was sent to Norfolk. She left Norfolk for the Pacific in November 1920. On 25 March 1921 she sailed from the Mare Island Navy Yard at Vallejo, California, for Tutuila, American Samoa, and went mi ss ing with everyone on board. The Lykens was sold out of the Navy the following year. Steam colliers had been reintroduced around 1907, initially in the bituminous coal trade. During the 1930s and 1940s
Shoved along by her powe1ful reciprocating engine, th e great J58-foo t tug presents a handsome spectacle in her prime. (Photo: South Street Seaport Museum )
SIBA HISTORY 77, SPRING 1996
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