FISHING VESSELS AND BOATS OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 
15 
3. The first steam-whaler . — A limited number of steamers have been built in the 
United States in recent years, especially for the whale fishery. The pioneer of this 
fleet was the bark Mary and Helen , which was launched at Bath, Maine, July 17, 
1879.* This vessel was bark -rigged, and provided with a full sail plan, besides which 
she had auxiliary steam-power and a screw-propeller. She was able to steam 6 to 8 
knots an hour. The boiler and engine occupied one-third of the space below deck. 
She was also provided with a steam- windlass, which was operated by a separate engine, 
and used both for weighing anchor and for hoisting in blubber. The Mary and Helen 
was 420 tons register, her dimensions being as follows: 130 feet long on deck; 30 feet 
3 inches beam; and 16 feet 8 inches deep in the hold. In her full suit of sails she had 
2,850 yards of canvas. Her hull was made a trifle fuller than common, in order that 
she might support the increased weight of her engine and the necessary coal carried in 
the bunkers. She was built of oak, yellow pine, and hackmatack ; she cost, when ready 
for sea, $65,000. 
Brown makes the following interesting reference to the Mary and Helen : 
She sailed from her home port September 12, 1879, and was sent into the ice in 1880, under the 
command of Capt. Leauder C. Owen. After a successful cruise she was sold to the United States 
Government for $100,000, and under the name of Rodgers proceeded in search of the missing research 
steamer Jeannette and the whalers Mount Wollaston and Vigilant. She went into winter quarters at 
St. Lawrence Bay, Siberia, in 1881. On November 30 of that year a lire broke out in her fore-hold 
and she was abandoned. Her officers and crew were rescued by Captain Owen, her former commander, 
then master of the steam- whaler North Star. The North, Star, in a remarkable succession of events, 
was afterwards, during the same season, crushed by ice while cruising for whales, at an almost total 
loss to her owners. Immediately after the sale of the Mary and Helen to the Government, orders were 
given to build a twin ship, and Mary and Helen No. 2 is now afloat in the whaling service. She is a 
counterpart of her predecessor. 
4. Other steam-whalers . — The Mary and Helen eugaged in the whale fishery of the 
northern Pacific, Bering Sea, and Arctic Ocean, and met with such success that her 
first season’s catch paid for the ship and left a balance of $40,000 to be divided among 
the owners. She did not go on a second cruise, for, as has been stated, when she was 
ready to sail she was sold to the Government. Her success resulted in the building 
of other vessels of a similar type for New Bedford and San Francisco. 
In June, 1880, the steam-bark Belvidere, the second of her class, was launched at 
Bath for the same owners who had the Mary and Helen built. She was 140 feet 6 inches 
long on deck, 31 feet 3 inches beam, and 17 feet deep in the hold, registering 440 tons, 
and was furnished with a condensing engine, cylinder 22 inches, with 28 inches stroke, 
and a boiler 12J feet long and 7 feet diameter, carrying 60 pounds of steam. The 
second Mary and Helen is 151 feet long, 31 feet wide, and 17 feet deep, registering 508 
tons. She was built of white oak, pitch pine, and hackmatack, had four sets of heavy 
pointers in the bow, braced across the vessel with heavy timbers to strengthen her 
against the shock of ice-floes ; she carried the usual small propeller engine, and also 
two donkey engines in the forward house for handling the anchors and general hoisting. 
When the Thrasher was built she was considered the most complete in her equip- 
ment. She had patent try- works and iron oil tanks in the lower hold. Her engines 
are single, direct-acting, with independent condeuser and pumps. The cylinders are 
* “The most promineut vessel of this type,” remarks Brown, “both so far as the initial step in 
the North Pacific is concerned as well as in a historical point of view, was the late Rodgers, formerly 
the Mary and Helen, which was lost in the search for the Jeannette in 1881.” (See Plate v.) 
