SS Savannah
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The SS Savannah was the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
The Savannah left the port of Savannah, Georgia on May 22, 1819, captained by Moses Rogers, on its famous voyage and arrived in Liverpool, England on June 20, the steam engine having been in use for part of the time on 18 days.
A humorous account of the voyage appeared in certain 19th-century publications.
- This...story we find in the Tuscumbia North Alabamian:‘ ...The Savannah left Savannah, Ga., in May 1819, for Liverpool, with a supply of pitch pine in lieu of coal, which could not be had. She was a sailor also, and used but little steam until she neared the coast of Ireland, when she fired up with the Georgia pine knots, producing a pillar of fire by night and of cloud by day, that demoralized the whole British nation.
- When the fire and smoke were first seen, an English Admiral sent his cutter to the relief of what he thought was a ship on fire. The more the gallant tars strove to reach the burning vessel to rescue its people, the more they would not be rescued, but kept puffing right along like the devil, which it was thought to be, going straight to Liverpool, where it created a commotion from thence to Johnny Groat’s house.
- On learning that it was not the devil’s boat, or that his majesty was not aboard, the British Admiralty took possession of it and held it for weeks, fearing that it was to be used in rescuing England’s terror, the Great Napoleon, from St. Helena. The English nation was as much afraid of Bonaparte [sic], and prayed as earnestly for deliverance from him then, as their Continental neighbors formerly prayed to be delivered from the Turk, the Devil, and the Comet. -- The South. (reprinted in The Corvallis Gazette, Jan 14, 1876.)
The nuclear-powered NS Savannah was named after this ship.
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