January 2012 - Gary Crawford

The Great Eastern

by

Gary Crawford

Just 151 years ago, early on a fine August morning, a remarkable vessel was making ready to leave Hampton Roads bound for Annapolis. At 5 a.m. the captain gave orders to begin taking in the anchor. It was an operation that would take a full hour, for the cable weighed eight tons. Yes, it was a big ship.
A bay steamer came up alongside, looking tiny against the hull of the vast liner, bringing additional passengers. They paid three dollars apiece to come aboard for this brief but historic run up the Bay.
It was Sunday, the 5th of August, in the year 1860, that last peaceful summer before the Civil War. Everyone knew that events were coming to a head. There was talk of secession, though some discounted that as southern bluster. Few believed that several American states would ever come to open warfare. It was unthinkable; surely a compromise would be found.
This morning, however, all eyes were on the remarkable ship as she prepared to get underway. Some 6,000 visitors already had toured the great vessel there in Norfolk, for the people there appreciated fine ships. Not far from where the liner was getting underway lay the pride of the U.S. Navy, the USS Merrimack, undergoing an extensive refit after a long cruise into the Pacific.
Three years earlier, it was the Merrimack that was making the triumphal cruise up the Bay to Annapolis, there to be admired by thousands of visitors. One of those was a wide-eyed boy from the Eastern Shore, twelve-year-old Joe Seth. He and his father, Alexander, had come across the Bay from ‘Lancashire,” their farm on Harris Creek. Lancashire was (and still is) at the far eastern end of Pot Pie Road, over two miles from the little school near the Bay where Joe was in his fifth year.
Joe would recall, many years later, how very much impressed he was by the sleek design and sheer size of Merrimack. Although five feet narrower than the sailing frigates she replaced (like “Old Ironsides”), she was 100 feet longer. She made the big oyster dredge-boats look like toys; even the Bay steamers looked small.
Now, in 1860, Joe very much wanted to see this latest maritime wonder, a ship said to be ever so much bigger than even the Merrimack, though he had difficulty believing that. To his great disappointment, however, and despite repeated suggestions, his father did not intend to go over to Annapolis this time.
Have we mentioned the name of this wondrous new ship yet? Some of you may already have guessed it. Called by her builder simply his ‘Big Baby,’ her name was Great Eastern. She was British, brand new and remarkable in every way. Built entirely of iron, she was double-hulled with twelve water-tight compartments. Power was supplied by four engines driving a pair of side paddlewheels with another engine turning a propeller. She also had sail power, with six tall masts named for the days of the week; two funnels towered between masts Tuesday and Wednesday, another was set between Wednesday and Thursday, and two more rose between Thursday and Friday. The Great Eastern could carry about 600 passengers in grand style and another 2400 in steerage, served by a crew of 418.
To those who saw her, however, the jaw-dropping difference between Great Eastern and every ship they had ever seen was her sheer size. Eyewitnesses could not say “She is as big as…” — for there simply wasn’t anything as big. In fact, the Great Eastern was the largest movable object ever made by man, a record she held for nearly 40 years. Words, and even most pictures, simply cannot convey her immensity. Some basis for comparison is required.
Let’s try a comparison with the Merrimack, the flagship of the Pacific fleet. She was the largest warship in the U.S. Navy, at 275 feet in length. Despite Joe Seth’s doubts, however, Great Eastern really was bigger—a lot bigger. The Great Eastern was a whopping 692 feet long. Had Merrimack been at anchor on that August morning as the liner steamed out into the Bay, they would have looked something like this.
But who could have built such a monstrously huge steamship—and why?
The Great Eastern was the brainchild of Isembard Kingdom Brunel, a British engineering whiz who (at age 20) had supervised the construction of the Thames Tunnel, the first tunnel dug under a river in 4,000 years. (The Babylonians beat us to it.) Brunel knew that the age of sail was coming to a quick close. He wanted to use steam for the world’s great ocean passages, and in 1837 he designed the Great Western, an oak-hulled paddle-wheeler that was the first steamship to make regular ocean crossings, completing 45 Atlantic round trips before leaving service in 1855. He later built the Great Britain, the first large iron steamship fitted with a propeller instead of paddle-wheels.
The problem for the really long voyages, of course, was fuel. Coal was not available everywhere, and they needed lots of it just to make the jump across the Atlantic. Regular passages around the capes to India, Australia, California, or China — those were out of the question. Only clipper ships could make those lucrative voyages, though they took months, they could carry little, and their arrival schedules were guesswork.
Brunel’s solution was simple but breathtaking. As today’s supertankers demonstrate, bigger means more fuel-efficient. Brunel proposed building a ship so vast she could carry the coal needed for a run all the way to Australia, making use of sail-power to save fuel whenever possible. Her great size also would allow her to carry prodigious quantities of freight; her speed and splendid accommodations would corner the passenger market. Brunel found backers for this audacious project, the Eastern Steam Navigation Company (later, the Great Eastern Company) was formed, and in 1853 work began on his “Big Baby.” John Scott Russell was awarded the contract to build her at his yard on the Isle of Dogs, River Thames.
Readers on both sides of the Atlantic were fascinated by news of the great ship that was rising, slowly, out of the Thames mud. The project soon ran far over budget, of course, as one problem after another presented itself, though Brunel eventually found solutions for them all. The work proceeded, but slowly, there was mismanagement by the builder and Russell soon was in financial trouble. Finally, in 1856, with the hull only about three-quarters completed, the Company took the project out of Russell’s hands, finding him in breach of contract. They had to negotiate with him for the continued use of his yard, however, so there were further delays.
For the investors, their great gamble was becoming a great worry. Eager to see Great Eastern in service as soon as possible, in the spring of 1857 they insisted that Brunel set a launch date. Reluctantly, he agreed to November 11, 1857. Work proceeded day and night, under gaslight.
Brunel knew the launch was going to be a challenge. His Big Baby couldn’t slide into the water stern-first, like other ships, because she was longer than the Thames was wide at that point. He was obliged to create the machinery for the world’s first side launching, with two huge cradles and a system of pulleys and chains. He hoped to make the first attempt without much attention, but the Company directors had other ideas—they sold 3,000 tickets for front row seats. Thousands of others showed up to see if the immense structure really would move. Even Queen Victoria came to watch, arriving in the royal yacht, the vessel that gave rise to the quip: “What comes steaming out of Cowes? Answer: “The Queen’s yacht.”
It was a catastrophe. The Thames was an open sewer in those days ,and the queen held flowers to her nose. Thousands gathered to watch as workmen knocked out the last chocks and the immense structure moved for the first time! — all of four feet. The mud caused the machinery to slip. After several tries, Brunel had to go back to his drawing board. He devised massive concrete abutments against which three massive air pressure rams pushed her cradles, foot by foot, across the riverbank. Finally, with help from four steam tugs, the Great Eastern floated off her cradles on the high tide of January 30, 1858.
Mishaps continued to plague her — a crewman’s mistake caused a boiler to explode, Brunel had a seizure and died, the captain was drowned coming back to the ship. It would be 1860 before Brunel’s Big Baby was ready to cross an ocean.
The digging of the Suez Canal (begun in 1859) effectively eliminated her quest for the India and Australia trade, for the new canal would not be big enough for Great Eastern. Recognizing that the transatlantic run would have to be her bread and butter, the Company set about generating as much American interest in her as possible.
They had a ready audience. Americans were very interested. We like big things, and Great Eastern was ballyhooed as a modern wonder of the world. A new, fast and luxurious way to cross the Atlantic appealed to everyone who could afford such travel. When she finally set off on June 17 for America, she had only about 40 passengers aboard, including three Company directors. To ensure there would be lots of publicity about her first trip to America, the Company made sure two reporters from the New York Times also were aboard. She arrived in New York on the 28th, after 11 days and 3,188 miles. It would have been a record run had the captain not (very wisely) stopped twice to take soundings in a deep fog. The Times ran a detailed and positive account of the remarkable ship’s first ocean voyage.
A huge celebration greeted her in New York, and there she planned to stay for some weeks, taking in paying visitors and drumming up bookings. The Company urgently needed a full load of passengers for the return trip in August. Expenses were climbing, and she needed to top up her coal supplies, having burned 2,877 tons on the way over. The price in New York was $1.25 a ton.
Then, on July 13, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad stepped forward with a most interesting proposal. Eager to establish regular steamer links between England and the Port of Baltimore, they invited Great Eastern to visit the Chesapeake. The promoters made a good pitch. She could stop at Cape May on the way south, visit Norfolk for a day, and then anchor off Annapolis for a week. At each stop she could be seen by thousands of people, at locations much nearer to their homes than distant New York City. Visitors would generate many paid admissions and encourage bookings. Then, to sweeten the deal, the B&O offered to supply the coal the Great Eastern needed at 25¢ a ton, delivered to the ship in Annapolis, saving the Company $8,000.
The Company accepted. Two weeks later, the newspapers reported, “It is now settled that the steamer Great Eastern will visit our waters. She is expected to reach Old Point Comfort about the 3rd of August, remain there a day, and proceed thence up the Chesapeake to Annapolis Roads, reaching that port on the 6th, to be on exhibition five or six days, returning to New-York to meet her time of sailing for Europe. The bonus demanded by the Company, or agents, to permit their steamer to make the contemplated visit, has been raised by certain individual and company subscriptions. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad puts up the lion’s share. Next to this is the Norfolk and other steamboat Companies on the Chesapeake, which will be returned to them ten-fold in the way of excursions. Barnum’s, the Eutaw, the Gilmor, and other hotels, also subscribed liberally. The Corn and Flour Exchange, I believe, gives five hundred dollars. Preparations are already being made for excursions, which of course must be greatly in vogue for some days.” In vogue they were, indeed.
On the trip across the Atlantic one of the reporters had a “DiCaprio Moment,” similar to the scene in the movie “Titanic” when Jack Dawson has Rose stand at the bow. On the Great Eastern, 62 years earlier, the New York Times reporter wrote, “The view from the extreme bow is very fine. The ship’s length and the height of the waves together leave her round fore-foot out of water 10 or 12 feet back of the stem, and then bury it to the hawseholes in the extreme stem, which, filling with water, became a fountain on the alternate rise. The stem of the ship throws off no perceptible wave, but merely turns up two beautiful sheets of spray. Their resemblance to white wings and delicate feathers, with their concentric elliptical lines of drops, is very remarkable.”
There were no Atlantic swells on the Bay that summer day in 1860; indeed, it was quite calm. But while the bow wave may have been less dramatic, it was not because the captain was inclined to dawdle. He ran the great ship up the Bay at the unheard of-speed of 17 knots. The steamer George Peabody came down from Baltimore, packed with passengers, and circled around behind the liner, intending to escort her up to Annapolis. They misunderstood, however, thinking big meant slow. The reporter aboard noted that the Peabody’s captain made “erroneous calculations in regard to the speed of her colossal competitor, and did not even get near enough to read the very legible name on her stern.”
The captain’s log entry reveals his pride, “On our way we passed several vessels, the crews of which lustily cheered us as we steamed by; two steamers from Baltimore crowded with people to meet us, and the advertisements had it to accompany us up to our anchorage. They had the presumption to try their speed with us, but by the time we anchored a faint line of smoke on the horizon marked their ‘whereabouts.’”
The procession up the Bay on a sunny summer day must have been magnificent, not only for the captain but for everyone on board and the thousands who watched, agape, on land and water. A reporter aboard wrote, “Our noble ship is now gliding up the waters of Chesapeake Bay with as much self-possession as though she were at home in her own ocean drawing-room. Land is visible on either hand, and a certain circumscribed feeling in consequence prevails among the passengers which is never apparent in the open sea.”
The Great Eastern dropped anchor at Annapolis Roads about 5 o’clock in the afternoon, where she lay for five days and nights while being deluged by thousands of visitors — and taking aboard the promised 8,000 tons of very low-priced coal. Many dignitaries from Washington, and their families, made the trip down to Annapolis by rail for the six-mile steamer ride out to the Great Eastern. One visitor was President Buchanan, who arrived by Navy cutter with members of his cabinet. The party spent two full hours aboard and were treated to a luncheon.
The naval officers must have admired those vast engines that could take the Great Eastern farther and faster than anything they had in the navy at the time. They could glimpse the future — when ships would be of steel, not oak; powered by steam, not sail; and of immense size. But few of them could have imagined that within eight short months they would burn their splendid Merrimack to the water line as Norfolk suddenly came under Confederate control, or that she would rise again as the CSS Virginia and enter into history as a participant in that first duel between iron-clad warships.
On Friday the 10th, the immense ship weighed anchor again and came about for the run down the Bay, headed back to New York and, a few weeks later, England.
Young Joe Seth still was desperate to see the Great Eastern, for, as he later wrote, “when she sailed up the Chesapeake she was eagerly looked for and there was great excitement on the Eastern Shore. Visitors were invited to inspect her, and large parties were made up in all sections to take advantage of the invitation. Our school was in a wild state of excitement over the event and I was much disappointed that my father did not visit her and take me with him.” Perhaps he sensed, correctly, as it turns out, that this would be his only chance to see her on the waters of the Chesapeake, a mere ten miles from his home. Then he caught a break.
His first- and second-grade schoolteacher was Absalom Americus Vespucius Christopher Columbus Thompson. With a name like that, he had to be interested in exploring! Apparently Joe’s fifth-grade teacher felt the same, and, to Joe’s delight, he dismissed school that Friday and walked with the children across the road and out to the Bay shore.
There they watched in amazement as the Great Eastern passed by.
She was the future, but she was too soon. It wasn’t until 1899 that her great length would be exceeded by the SS Oceanic. But Great Eastern proved unable to attract the passengers needed to be profitable, and a series of mishaps marred her reputation. Because of her carrying capacity, she was contracted to lay the first two transatlantic cables, which, after some difficulties, she did. Then, in 1867, a French company leased, refurbished and returned her to service. When she departed for America, the huge vessel carried just 123 passengers. When only 191 people bought tickets for the return trip, the French company lost $100,000 and went bankrupt.
The Great Eastern went back to cable work and during the 1870s laid cables between France and America and from Bombay to Suez. When that work came to an end and there were no other prospects, she was sold at auction. In 1888, Great Eastern went to the wreckers, who had estimated the job would take 200 men one year. Once again, they underestimated the Great Eastern, for the solidly constructed ship took those 200 men, working ’round the clock, two years to break her up. Brunel might have been pleased.
Of those 191 passengers who strolled down the gangway after Great Eastern completed her last return trip to Europe in 1867, one was a young Frenchman back from his first visit to America. He had a vivid imagination, with an uncanny talent for seeing into the future, and the Great Eastern captured his interest. He realized the vessel was something from the future, a ship ahead of its time. A book would come out of his 26 days aboard the Great Eastern, called “A Floating City,” and the experience provided inspiration for other stories even more famous. His name was Jules Verne.

Gary Crawford and his wife, Susan, operate Crawford’s Nautical Books, a unique bookstore on Tilghman’s Island.