The stamp illustrated is one of series issued by the postal authorities of the Canal Zone in 1939 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the opening of the Panama Canal. The vessels are shown passing through the Pedro Miguel Locks. The Duchesa D'Aosta was built at Trieste by Stabilmento Tecnico for the Lloyd-Triestina Line's service between Italy and North Pacific ports. She was cap¬tured by a British warship on January 23, 1942, while trying to slip home to Italy from Fernando Po. For the remainder of hostilities she was under Canadian Pacific management as the Empire Yukon and this company purchased the ship in 1946. Her dimensions are 464.2 ft. x 57.4 ft. x 22 ft., gross tonnage 7,872, speed 14 knots. She is a single-screw, passenger and cargo liner.
The President Polk was built in 1921 by the New York Ship Building Corporation, at Camden, NJ., for the Dollar Steamship Lines of San Francisco, and was the first ship of the name. She was a twin-screw passenger and cargo steamer with a gross tonnage of 10,500 and a speed of 131/2 knots. In 1938 the U.S. Maritime Commission took over the Dollar Line and the company then became known as the American President Lines. In 1941 a new President Polk was built and the
name of the older vessel (pictured on the stamp) was changed to President Taylor. Like her successor, the old ship fought in the recent conflict but was sunk at Canton Island in 1942. Before the Second World War she was engaged on the well-known round-the-world Dollar Line service, covering 23 ports in 13 countries, which is now maintained by the American President Lines.
The founder of the Company, Robert Dollar, was born in Falkirk, Scotland, in 1844. At the age of 11 he was earning his own living as a chore boy in a Canadian lumber camp. Like Abraham Lincoln, young Dollar learned to read and write by a log fire. By the year 1893 he had saved enough money to enable him to purchase a sawmill on the Pacific coast. That was the beginning of Robert Dollar's vast lumber enterprises which were to lead to his more enviable position as "dean of American shipping." In 1901 he purchased his first ship, the steam schooner Newsboy, for the pur¬pose of getting his lumber from N.W. Pacific ports to markets down the coast. The Newsboy was only 129 feet long and scarcely more than 200 gross tons. Mr. Dollar, whose primary interest at that time was lumber, was nearly 60 years old when he made this modest and inconspicuous start in the business of shipping. In 1923, despite the fact that he was then 80 years of age, he purchased a fleet of President liners from the U.S. Shipping Board to start the Dollar Line round-the-world service. The first Dollar liner, President Harrison, sailed through the Golden Gate, San Francisco, on January 5, 1924, on a 26,000-miles voyage to 21 ports In 14 countries.
SG162 Sea Breezes 1/48