Daniel Webster was an American steamboat built in 1853 for passenger service on the coast of Maine. When new, she was the largest and fastest steamer in Maine coastal service, and widely considered to be the finest.
Daniel Webster spent her first eight years operating between the Maine cities of Portland and Bangor. With the outbreak of the American Civil War in April 1861, she was chartered by the United States War Department and used as a troop transport. In early 1862, she was assigned to the United States Sanitary Commission and converted into a hospital boat. Dubbed Daniel Webster No. 2 to distinguish her from another chartered vessel of the same name, she was used to transfer wounded soldiers from the Peninsula Campaign battlefront to hospitals in the rear. Later, under the name Expounder, she was again used as a troop transport. In between her four wartime stints in government service, she made brief returns to passenger service in Maine.
In 1864, Expounder began running in passenger service between Boston, Massachusetts, and Bath, Maine, soon thereafter resuming her original name. By 1867, competition from a newer steamboat caused her to be withdrawn from the route, and she lay idle for a time. In 1871, she was sold to a railroad company, who employed her between Baltimore, Maryland, and West Point, Virginia, but this service too lasted only a couple of seasons.
In 1872, Daniel Webster was sold to a Canadian firm. Renamed Saguenay, she ran on Quebec's St. Lawrence and Saguenay rivers, taking tourists on fishing and sightseeing tours as well as transporting freight and livestock. After 12 years on this route, she was destroyed by an accidental fire in September 1884 at Pointe au Pic, Quebec.
Construction and design
During the 1840s, two railroads, the Boston and Maine and the Eastern, independently completed rail lines between Boston, Massachusetts, and Portland in southern Maine. By the early 1850s, an increase in traffic to northeastern Maine persuaded the two rival railroads to jointly establish a steamboat service linking their depots in Portland with the northeastern Maine city of Bangor.Bradlee 1921. p. 28.Bradlee 1920. p. 97. A new firm, the Maine Steam Navigation Company, was incorporated in 1853 to achieve this end,Dunbaugh 1992. p. 130. and a new steamboat ordered from the shipyard of Samuel Sneden in Greenpoint, New York.Morrison 1903. p. 391.Heyl 1953. p. 125. The steamer was named Daniel Webster in honor of the late Massachusetts statesman.
Daniel Webster, a wooden-hulled sidewheeler, was launched at Sneden's yard on January 3, 1853, and completed in April the same year. Built of white oak and chestnut with copper and iron fastenings, the steamer was in length— between perpendiculars—with a beam of and hold depth of Her gross register tonnage was 766.
The steamer was powered by a single-cylinder vertical beam engine with bore of and stroke of , built by the West Street Foundry of Brooklyn, New York. Steam was supplied by two iron boilers, one on each —an arrangement designed to lessen injuries to passengers, and damage to the ship, in the event of a boiler explosion. Her paddlewheels were in diameter. As an additional safety feature, she was fitted with an independent engine and boiler for working the fire and water pumps.
Daniel Webster was one of the first steamers to be designed expressly for service in the rough waters of the Maine coast, having a higher than usual topside and strongly planked bulwarks forward.Lane 1943. pp. 23–24. She was also the first Maine steamer to be fitted with a full saloon deck—which included 44 staterooms and a public parlor—above the main deck, in the manner of the latest Long Island Sound steamers. As a night boat, the vessel was fitted with 200 sleeping berths. Her saloon decorations included a lifesize portrait of the steamer's namesake, donated by his friends, who also gifted the vessel an elegant piano with a value in excess of $600 ().
On entering service, Daniel Webster was the largest steamer operating on the Maine coast, and would soon prove herself the fastest. In overall appointments and finish she was widely considered the finest. Her superior qualities quickly made her a favorite with the traveling public,Richardson 1941. p. 31. and she would maintain a high reputation throughout her career.
Service history Portland–Bangor service, 1853–1861
Daniel Webster completed her maiden voyage from Portland to Bangor on April 21, 1853. She thereafter settled into a regular schedule, departing her home port of Bangor at 6 am on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and clearing Portland the same evenings—after the arrival of the express train from Boston at around 5 pm—for the overnight return trip. Intermediate stops on the route included Hampden, Frankfort and Bucksport on the Penobscot River, and Searsport, Belfast, Camden and Rockland on the Maine coast; at the latter port, she connected with the steamboat Rockland for Machiasport. The fare between Bangor and Portland was $2 ()—$3 ($) if an additional leg by train between Portland and Boston was included.
Initially, Daniel Webster found herself in competition on the route with the Sanford Independent Line's steamer Governor, but early in the season, the owners of the two steamboats decided that it was in their mutual interest to run their vessels on alternate days, the two together thus providing a daily service. By 1854, Daniel Webster had reportedly attracted most of the patronage regardless, and in July, the Sanford Line chartered Governor elsewhere, leaving Daniel Webster to operate on the route alone.Dunbaugh 1992. p. 139.
In addition to her regular service, Daniel Webster was occasionally employed on excursions, such as day trips, sightseeing tours and school outings. In July and August 1856, the steamer was chartered by the Republican Party for several political conventions—said at the time to be the largest ever held in eastern Maine—in support of presidential candidate John C. Frémont. Daniel Webster was typically loaded to capacity for these conventions, on one occasion taking 1,500 passengers in a single trip from Bangor to the convention venue at Frankfort. Both Daniel Webster and her associated railroads reduced their prices by half for convention attendees.
In late August 1856, Daniel Webster was making her way up the Penobscot in heavy fog when the brig Lady of the Lake collided with her just forward of the pilot house. Taking water rapidly, the steamer reversed almost a mile (1.6 km) to beach herself at Belfast, where her passengers and cargo were later transferred to the steamers Boston and Penobscot.Dunbaugh 1992. p. 144. The Webster was evidently not too badly damaged in this incident, as she was back in service before the end of the month.
During the 1856–1857 winter off-season, the steamer was renovated and reboilered. After returning to service, she broke a piston head in July 1857 while on the way to Bangor, arriving late as a result; the problem was quickly rectified in port and the steamer was returned to service the following day. In August 1858, a schooner collided with the Webster in heavy fog off Rockland, damaging the steamer's cutwater; the schooner disappeared quickly in the fog before she could be identified or the extent of her damage ascertained.
In early September 1858, Daniel Webster was host to then-United States senator, and future president of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis. The Mississippi senator, who had spent the summer in Maine for health reasons, traveled aboard the steamer from Portland to Belfast, where he conducted a troop inspection and gave a speech.
Daniel Webster was absent from her usual route for reasons unknown in early 1860, her place taken by the steamer Forest City, which was chartered for the purpose from the Portland Line. The Webster returned to the route, replacing Forest City, in August.Dunbaugh 1992. p. 157.
American Civil War service, 1861–1864
With the outbreak of the American Civil War in April 1861, Daniel Webster captain publicly pledged to transport Union troops and munitions on the steamer free of charge. A few weeks later, the steamer, with a contingent of the newly-formed Maine Coast Guard aboard, overtook and captured a yacht stolen from Biddeford, the Guard apparently claiming it as their first war prize. On June 17, Daniel Webster transported the 1,100 men of the 4th Maine Infantry Regiment from Rockland to Portland on their way to the battlefront.
In March 1862, Daniel Webster was chartered by the United States War Department, the first of four such charters the steamer would negotiate during the war. The first two of these were contracted for a fee of $600 () per day, and the last two for $300 per day.Morrison 1903. p. 392. In government service, the steamer was referred to as Daniel Webster No. 2 to distinguish her from the steamship Daniel Webster (dubbed Daniel Webster No. 1) which had also been chartered by the government.Olmsted and Censer 1986. p. 342.
In mid April, Daniel Webster No. 2 transported an infantry regiment from Maine to Ship Point, Virginia, (near Yorktown) to participate in the Peninsula Campaign. Shortly thereafter, the steamer was assigned to the York River headquarters of the United States Sanitary Commission and outfitted as a hospital boat. Her principal task at this time was the transportation of wounded soldiers from the front line to hospitals in the rear. As she was classified by the Army as a "coast steamer"—that is, a vessel not designed for deepwater service—her range was restricted to regional hospitals, namely those at Fort Monroe; Washington, D.C.;Wormeley 1898. p. 59. and Philadelphia. On May 9, for example, the steamer took 200 soldiers, wounded in the Battle of Williamsburg, to Fort Monroe; future memoirist Eliza Howland was a nurse on this trip.Olmsted and Censer 1986. p. 332.Bacon and Howland 1899. p. 349.
Conditions on the hospital boats could at times be dire. Nurse Katherine Prescott Wormeley described a scene in June when a surplus of wounded men were moved across Daniel Webster No. 2 to the steamer Vanderbilt:
In July, while operating on the James River, Daniel Webster No. 2 was fired upon by Confederate cannon and hit six times, one ball passing through the pilot house and another through one of the smokestacks. Both the steamer and her crew escaped serious injury, with only the pilot being slightly wounded.
Daniel Webster No. 2 completed her first government charter in October and returned to Maine, still bearing the scars of her wartime service, which included the cannonball hits, "fifty to a hundred rifle ball holes in her sides" and other damage. Briefly, she returned to her prewar commercial service between Portland and Bangor, but in late October was advertised for sale. The following month, she was purchased by Spear, Lang & Delano of Boston, who decided to remodel her with government service in mind. Planned alterations to the steamer over the winter off-season, intended to improve her seagoing abilities, included shortening her guards both fore and aft by , and relocating her boilers from the guards to the hull. Work was completed by December 19, by which time her government charter had been renewed. The clumsy former name Daniel Webster No. 2 was dispensed with during her rebuild, in favor of Expounder (after a nickname formerly applied to her namesake).Dunbaugh 1992. p. 174. To replace her on the Portland–Bangor route, Spear, Lang & Delano debuted their newly built steamer .
In July 1863, Expounder returned from government service to renew her Portland–Bangor service for a few months, taking over from Harvest Moon, which was transferred to a route from Portland to the Kennebec River.Dunbaugh 1992. p. 171. Expounder was chartered by the government again in October; her subsequent wartime operations are not known.
Boston–Bath service and after, 1864–1870