PHOENIX paddlesteamer 1808

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shipstamps
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Joined: Fri Mar 13, 2009 8:12 pm

PHOENIX paddlesteamer 1808

Post by shipstamps » Tue Jan 20, 2009 3:23 pm


The contract to build her was dated 07 January 1808, her builders are given as Nathaniel Sayre, William Gailer, Joseph Morgan and William Williams and the building was supervised by John Floyd. The order to build her was given by Colonel John Stevens a wealthy scientist.
She was built at Hoboken, New York.
09 April 1808 was she launched as the PHOENIX.
Displacement 95 tons, dim. 103.3ft. loa, length of keel 100ft. beam 16ft and a depth of 6.4ft.
Powered by a 2-cyl cross-head steam engine.
Building cost $900.00 not including joinery, building material was supplied by John Stevens.
Not a date of completing found, but in a letter of Stevens of 23 July 1808 he gives that she was almost finished.

Livingstone and Fulton had obtained an effective monopoly of steamer operation on the Hudson River, and Stevens could not reach an agreement with these two men to operate the PHOENIX on the Hudson River.
The only report of her in use was that she made a trip on 27 September 1808 from Hoboken to Perth Amboy, New Jersey, and then it is quit till late summer 1809 as Stevens gives in some letters that she was in service.
10 June 1809 she sailed from Hoboken under command of Robert Stevens the son of John Stevens, (he was also the engineer on the voyage) for the Delaware River, but after two hours she anchored at the Quarantine station off Staten Island.
It was a long voyage over open waters along the USA east coast, and a schooner was hired for escort, and there were delays waiting for good weather to make the voyage.
Two days later she got underway again but a heavy wind and sea damaged her starboard paddle wheel, the next day when passing Sandy Hook her port wheel gave way and she had to enter Cranberry Inlet for repairs.
She stayed there till the 17th before she sailed to Barnegat Bay where she stayed for 4 days.
21 June she sailed again till she reached Cape May where she anchored for the night, then she proceeded the next day to Newcastle, Delaware. The next morning sailed again and arrived the same day after a passage of 13 days in Philadelphia.
She was the first steamship which made a trip over sea, during the trip of around 120 miles when steaming with average weather she reached a speed of four miles.

In Philadelphia Moses Rogers became her captain and Robert Stevens her engineer. Cabins were installed and she commenced a regular service with passengers in August 1809 from Philadelphia to Trenton.
Not a commercial success, the stage coaches used between these two places made the voyage quicker.
In October advertisements ceased, it looks that then the service ended.
24 July 1810 in an advertisement it is given that the PHOENIX was sailing from Philadelphia to Bordentown on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
She was later rebuilt, a new engine and boiler placed, she kept in service from Philadelphia except the winter months when ice made service impossible.
1813 She was replaced by the PHILADELPHIA and the PHOENIX was laid up.
1814 was she wrecked.

USA 1989 25c sg 2390, scott 2406.

Source: Watercraft Philately Vol 36 page 1. American Steamships on the Atlantic by Cedrie Ridgely-Nevitt.

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aukepalmhof
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Re: PHOENIX paddlesteamer 1808

Post by aukepalmhof » Wed Oct 11, 2017 6:57 pm

In the beginning of the steamboat era, two gentlemen by the names of Fulton and Livingston had a monopoly on steamboat operation in the New York area. John Stevens, Jr., a wealthy New Jersey inventor who had also been involved in steamboat development for many years, launched his own steamboat, the PHOENIX, in defiance of the Fulton-Livingston monopoly of the area. Stevens worked his steamboat on the Hudson and in New Jersey waters for close to a year, and then decided to move her to the Delaware, far from Fulton-Livingston territory. It was a weighty decision, for it meant that the craft would have to steam through over 150 miles of open water. Nevertheless, the PHOENIX put to sea, with Captain Moses Rogers as her master. Thirteen days later, after several delays due to bad weather and engine trouble, the PHOENIX reached Philadelphia. The successful completion of her treacherous journey earned the little sidewheeler her place in American history. She was the first ocean-going steamboat in the world!

http://www.artworkoriginals.com/EB5SCB6U.htm
Marshall Islands 2017 49c sg?, scott?
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