Show FIRST TRANSATLANTIC STEAMER She Wa an American Vessel Using Both Sails and Steam The first steamer to cross the Atlantic was an American vessel called the Savannah Sa-vannah She was a steamship and used both sails and steam and was built by Crocker Fickett at Corlears Hook in New York city The present belief is that she was built by a party of capitalists capital-ists who intended to sell her to some i foreign monarch She was commanded by Captain Moses Rogers and was a ship rigged vessel of nearly 400 tons She had a horizontal engine which was placed between her decks and her boilers boil-ers were in the lower hold It is generally admitted that the Savannah Sa-vannah sailed from New York in 1819 going to Savannah her namesake in seven days four ui which she used steam There she was chartered by the city corporation to go to Charleston to take President Monroe who was then traveling through the states on a pleasure pleas-ure excursion He failed to accept the invitation find the boat returned to Savannah Sa-vannah After remaining at this port for some days and taking out parties of curiosity as well os pleasure seekers the Savannah sailed for Liverpool reaching it after r voyage of 18 days seven of which wore made under steam The arrival of the strange looking vessel ves-sel with huge cloud of smoke ascending ascend-ing from her decks and obscuring her rigging rig-ging caused quite a commotion when she enters St Georges channel off the city of fork and the commander of the British manofwar lying in the harbor thought she was a vessel in distress dis-tress and sent two cutters to board her Everything found all right however the Savannah was allowed to proceoft oil her way and thousands of people greeted her as she steamed up the Mersey Mer-sey to Liverpool with the American flag flying at her head Tho Savannah then made a trip to Copenhagen Cron stadt and St Petersburg and then returned re-turned to this country where she was relieved of her steam apparatus und for many years ran as a packet between New York and Savannah finally going ashore and breaking up on Long Island The Savannah was of course a side wheeler and as itwas impossible to carry a sufficient supply of fuel in her to keep up steam on a long voyage her wheels were removed during good sailing sail-Ing weather and canvas substituted Tho king of Sweden wanted to buy the boat when it was abroad but the deal went through Now those are the facts about the first steamship that ever crossed cross-ed the Atlantio ocean Washington Star |