56 EVOI^UTION OF SCREW PROPULSION IN THE UNITED STATES. 



DISCUSSION. 



The President : — This paper is before you, gentlemen, for discussion. 



Mr. W. I. Babcock, Member of Council: — I think it is somewhat unfortunate 

 that Mr. Cramp has not given any dates in his paper. He speaks of a good many 

 old vessels., but it would be much more valuable if he had given absolute dates in 

 connection with them. He says that the Sampson was the first screw tug-boat 

 built in this Country, and that he built the Sampson, but he does not say in what 

 year. 



I have a letter here from one of the members of this Society. Mr. J, J. Lynn, 

 of Port Huron, Michigan, and he has asked me to read the following: 



" It may be of interest to have you mention that it is a question if the Sampson 

 was the first screw tug-boat, the Reindeer having preceded her by three years. 

 The Sampson was well known on the Lakes, if this is the boat Mr. Cramp refers 

 to. The machinery was built in Philadelphia, and she was said to have come from 

 the salt water. I would imagine that she was about one hundred and twenty feet 

 over all, nineteen feet beam, and ten and half hold. She was a straight low pressure 

 and in her day was called lazy, principally because she worked non-condensing and 

 made no fuss as the other tugs did, consequently she was unpopular and her work 

 was confined to towing rafts and barges. At this she was a marked success because 

 she carried the largest amount of fuel of any of the boats then in operation. 



"The Reindeer was brought here from Lake Ontario by Captain Sim Keeler, 

 who afterwards took her on to the St. John River, Florida. Her engines were 

 double cylinder, oscillating, on an incline of forty-five degrees, and had an outside 

 fired boiler, the boiler set on brick work and the return was made through the flues, 

 the flame passing on the shell, thence into the flues and stack, into the atmosphere. 

 I recently talked with an engineer who was aboard of her when she was in service 

 here, who claims that she was an older boat than the Sampson." 



Charles E. Hyde, Member: — Mr. President, as a contribution to the early 

 history of screw propulsion, I submit the following relative to the first Iron 

 Sea-going Steamer built in the United States. In 1844 there was organized in 

 Bangor, Maine, the Bangor Navigation Company, having as its object the building 

 and operating of a steamer between that port and Boston, the following named 

 persons forming the Company: Joseph Bryant, Jacob Drummond, Albert Emerson 

 E. C. Hyde, James Jenkins and Edward E. Upham. One of the Company having 

 been appointed manager, he was sent on a tour of observation down the coast, and 

 after having looked over the steam navigation field of that day and visited several 



