SS of the Plant Line, - · PDF fileSS Mascotte of the Plant Line, ... ball-end, iron stock Trotman types, slung from davits, even at sea. ... A few of the inaccurate city seals and

NAUTICAL RESEARCH JOURNAL 243

SS Mascotte of the Plant Line, 1885–1931

. . . . .by Irwin Schuster

As long-time Secretary and Newslet-ter Editor of the Tampa Bay Ship Model So-ciety, my incoming calls are often about shipmodels damaged in transit from the north,or on how to disperse models, kits and toolsof a model maker recently passed. So, it wasrefreshing to hear from a young womanwhose significant other was taken with anhistoric steamer prominent in Tampa’s his-tory. Katie O’Brien wanted to give her beau,Brant Peterson, a surprise model of Mas-cotte for his upcoming birthday, and askedif I knew of one.

This set off a search and research

project on this iconic ship...truly iconic, be-cause it is purportedly depicted on the sealof the City of Tampa, and on that of the Cityof Mascotte, Florida (settled 1885, incorpo-rated 1925) as well. But it has long beenknown that neither seal portrays thissteamer. In fact, both show sailing ships, al-though a couple of the many iterations ofTampa’s seal have a stack, while the man-hole covers do not even sport that feature.This is odd, because the ship was built in1885 and there were a number of contem-poraneous photographic images, postcardsand a few illustrations readily available

Figure 1. “A... real photo postcard (RPPC) showing Mascotte... Based upon info on back of card we can date the production of thecard to before April, 1907 when divided back cards became legal (both message and address could be on the back (which is whythere’s some white space under the photo for a short message) and after 6 March, 1905 which is the earliest known date for thistype of photo paper.” Courtesy of Phil Stager, St. Petersburg.

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Figure 2. This image, titled by one source as “The Mascotte at the P&O docks, Mulela Arsenal, Havana Cuba, 1920”. It shows nogaffs, and what appears to be an antennae rig. The first ship-to-shore was used in 1899. She is flying the P&O pennant aft andSouthern Express Company nearest. Southern Express goes back to at least 1884, and was formed by Henry Plant, but when itwas folded into the Railway Express Agency is murkier, not entirely until 1938. Mascotte appears to have carried her anchors, thatappear to be fixed, ball-end, iron stock Trotman types, slung from davits, even at sea. Her hawse pipes are quite round, precludingthe practice in larger ships of drawing stockless types up into that opening. Crown-arms-flukes are not clearly visible on any pho-tograph found. Courtesy of Florida Memory Store.


when the seal was created. One documentstates that the seal serves through tradition,never having been officially adopted as thelegal insignia of the city. It has been pro-posed that the illustration be corrected, butthat was rejected for the expense of replacingit in its many applications. On this subject,a Tampa tobacconeer named Val(entine)Maestro Antuono is credited with havingthe original seal made in Italy in the 1920sfor presentation to the city. A Tampa em-ployee, Margaret Joan Hug, updated thegraphic version of it around 1980. Back-story: Originally the site of Ft. Brooke in1823, the city at the head of Tampa Bay sawspasmodic growth and decline until finallyseeing incorporation, with a fresh charter, in1887.

SS Mascotte

The Plant Improvement Companyplaced the order for Mascotte with the

William Cramp and Sons Ship and EngineBuilding Company in 1885. According toPaul Camp, former librarian of the Univer-sity of South Florida Special Collections, theship was originally listed with a homeportof New Haven, as the Plant ImprovementCompany was incorporated in Connecticut.Mascotte was Cramp hull #247, of 884.09gross, and 520.43 net tons, with a length ondeck of 207 feet 9 inches and a beam of 30feet. Two 18-foot long steel boilers with a di-ameter of 10 feet generated steam at 160pounds per square inch to power a triple ex-pansion engine producing 1,200-1,250horsepower driving a single 10-foot diameterpropeller of 14-foot pitch. Mascotte also wasequipped with a generator and separate en-gines for steering, hoisting and hauling. Fur-thermore, it had the latest in incandescentelectric lighting and all the creature com-forts available at that time. Seventy first-class and fifty second-class passengers couldbe accommodated, served by a total crew ofabout thirty.

Figure 3. SS Mascotte displaying the Plant graphic (pre-1899). SSHSA 01723C. Location unknown. Courtesy of the SteamshipHistorical Society of America, Warwick, RI.

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In his 1983 Steamboat Bill article,Edward Mueller reported that Mascotte wasplanned to be the fastest ship of its kindbuilt in the United States, guaranteed tomake seventeen statute miles per hour. AndCramp was to be assessed a penalty of$5,000 for each quarter of a mile less thanthat rate the steamer achieved.

Into Service

Mascotte (official registration num-ber 91818) was put into service on January7, 1886, skippered by Captain JamesMcKay, and soon was on a twice per weekrun between Tampa, Key West and Havana(387 miles). The steamer soon was fol-lowed by a larger “sister,” Olivette, with alength on deck of 291 feet and a beam of35 feet, also commissioned from Cramp,and launched in 1887. The two vesselswere named after a pair of comic operas by

Figure 4. Postcard titled: “P. & O. S. S. CO’S STEAMSHIP MASCOTTE LEAVING HAVANA”, hand-colored, with ship name retouched,substantially enlarged. Courtesy of Florida Memory Store

Figure 5. A few of the inaccurate city seals and a manholecover; decorative and dramatic but fantasy, as images of Mas-cotte were available. Some say the seal is official and somesay it is not. Clearly we can say that one version is carved instone.


Figure 6. Plant “Attractions” advertisement.

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would be cut off as a supplier of tobacco, heand other cigar factory owners imploredHenry Plant to send his ships to Cuba tobring back all the available leaf. Plant com-plied in September of 1898, sending Mas-cotte, which, in two trips, returned withholds and staterooms stuffed with 155 and300 bales respectively (along with Cubanrefugees) so that the cigar factories could re-main in business for the duration.

What is a bale of tobacco? Not aneasily answered question, it turns out. It ap-pears that the size and weight varied overthe years, possibly related to whether baleshad to be manhandled or conveyed with ma-chinery. Various references mention weightsof 50-70, and 92-94 pounds, and later of650-850 pounds. At the point of origin,weight was registered by the quintal, with 1to 1.5 and 2.5 quintales mentioned, a quin-tal being a hundredweight. In 2000, one sizewas given as 42 inches by 42 inches by 40

Edmond Audran, which Mr. and Mrs. Plantenjoyed. Both ships operated on northeastruns in summers.

At this time, Florida was becoming atourist destination, and that was the moti-vation for railroad magnate, Henry B. Plant,to commission the ship, supplementing histransportation system. Another was toshorten the time needed to deliver passen-gers, mail and freight between Florida andCuba, and collect the associated fees.

In 1898, with the Spanish-AmericanWar looming, Tampa was designated as amajor gathering point, a logistical centerand jump-off site for troops because of prox-imity to Cuba, accessibility with both railand port facilities, and, due to its semi-trop-ical climate, suitability for helping to accli-mate troops.

When it became apparent to VicenteMartinez-Ybor, a major cigar manufacturerin Tampa, that war was imminent and Cuba

Figure 6. 1888 Steamship Line schedule.


inches high. The Farmers Cyclopedia of1916 says: “The size of the tobacco balevaries according to the type of tobacco. Theweight of the Sumatra tobacco bale variesfrom 175 to 200 pounds, the Cuban from90 to 100 pounds. The bale of either typeshould be about a foot in thickness afterbeing compressed.” It goes on to recom-

mend: “Every tobacco company shouldadopt a standard and adhere to it.” It seemsI am not the first to be unsure on this mat-ter, but I suggest that 100 pounds per balewould be a reasonable guess to measureMascotte’s cargo.

A 1978 Tampa Times article reportedthat Mascotte carried Teddy Roosevelt’s

Figure 7. A print from the Cramp & Sons design vellum with details enlarged, from the Steamship Historical Society of America.

Figure 8. Hull plan, redrawn for clarity, by author.

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Rough Riders to Havana; however, a photo-graph in The Steamships of the Two Henrysshows “Rough Riders and other troops”aboard Concho of New York, ready to departTampa in 1898. Both could be true, as therewere over thirty ships chartered for the massmovement of troops and supplies. TheRough Riders alone constituted about 1,200men and 1,260 animals. Mascotte was re-ported to have transported about 900refugees from Cuba to Tampa in those diffi-cult and turbulent times. Finally, in mid-July, 1898, the steamer carried 300wounded servicemen, both survivors of USSMaine and yellow fever victims, from the is-land nation to New York City, not losing asingle soul en route. It appears this was as ahospital ship–transport not transferred tocommand of the armed services. For refer-ence, around this time, the 235-foot side-wheeler Whitney was chartered to theUnited States Army Quartermaster for

$350 per day.Upon Henry Plant’s death in July

1899, the Plant Line was rolled into thenewly-formed Peninsular & Occidental SSCo. (P&O) along with the ships of HenryFlagler, another vigorous Florida entrepre-neur. Mascotte was transferred to the P&Oon December 19, 1900. Flagler ’s line was,until that merger, titled the Florida EastCoast Steamship Company, and was basedin Miami.

Becoming dated, Mascotte was sold,in late 1923, to the Boston and GloucesterSteamship Line and used as a ferry-packetbetween those Massachusetts cities. By thatyear, coastal steamers had been servingBoston passengers for just over a century.The vessel was sold once more in Decemberof 1925, and again in 1929, stripped of itssuperstructure, and employed as a barge. Itslast record indicates a final sale, likely forscrap, in 1931, along with two similar hulls,

Figure 9. Accommodation plan redrawn by author for legibility. The original illustration is proportioned inaccurately, and showedno masts. This follows suit.


Figure 10. Sections redrawn from the Cramp print, for model making, by author.

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Edgewater and Riverside, for a total of $100($33 = $517 in 2016 dollars).

Where Were the Models?

Since it was such a prominent localship, I expected to turn up a model or two,but none at all were immediately found, soI solicited my fellow model club membersand found a willing participant in long-timeGuild member, Keith Van Husen. We allstarted a search for plans and images tobuild a model, and, thanks to the vast worldwide web, located a hull plan by the originalbuilder, the William Cramp and Sons ship-yard in Philadelphia. It was offered by Inde-pendence Seaport Museum, and Katiebought a print. In addition, we found a fewpostcard images, and Keith started construc-tion while we looked for additional detail for

the superstructure.Accommodation plans exist but do

not appear to be properly proportioned whencompared with the photographic record.Early on, Mascotte was “lengthened” to in-crease accommodations. I take that to referto the accommodation decks, not the hull,as there is no record of a change in overalllength and it is reported that accommoda-tions for fifteen first-class passengers wereadded, plus an additional second-classcabin.

Finally, Mascotte Models

Two undated photographs of a modelof Mascotte, built by a Gus Rodriguez, werefound in the University of South FloridaSpecial Collections, noted as scaled 3/16-inch to the foot (1:64). I later found that this

Figure 11. A Trotman anchor drawn by the author from several photographs and information and illustrations in Anchors byBetty Nelson Curryer.


Figure 12. Gus Rodriguez/Tampa City Hall Model, 1:64 scale, courtesy of the Mayor’s Office. Photograph by Jeremy Rex, SeniorGraphic Artist & Digital Strategist, City of Tampa, 2016.

Figure 13. Keith Van Husen Model, 1:128 scale, wood plank on bulkhead. Photograph courtesy of Keith Van Husen, Zephyrhills,FL.

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same model resides in the City of Tampa of-fices, when, in my search for any model ofMascotte, I tracked it down with the helpand guidance of former Tampa Mayor PamIorio.

The commissioned Van Husenmodel was built to 1:128 scale, planked onposter board bulkheads hardened by coatingwith a cyanoacrylate product. The wood bot-tom of the hull was covered with an auto-

Figure 14. Author’s 1:148 scale High Density Polyurethane (structural) Foam set-up, templates and tools for carving. Photo-graph by the author.

Figure 15. Author’s foam hull, in process. Photograph by the author.


motive resin for added strength: BONDO®431 Fiberglass Resin Jelly Kit. Due to theimpending deadline, this model was com-pleted before the most definitive, continu-ous tone photograph (the Stager postcard)was found. Ms. O’Brien duly gifted themodel and the ozalid print to Mr. Peterson.Mission accomplished with much secrecy,and happily received!

The author’s 1:148-scale half-modelwas carved of High Density Polyurethane(HDU) foam, coated with Durham’s WaterPutty as a sanding sealer, sprayed with Rust-Oleum® Fast Drying Professional Primerand painted with satin acrylic spray. The au-thor has had great success with fine-grainedHDU foam, which is readily shaped andtakes an automotive quality finish if the

Figure 17. Elevation drawn by author from the Cramp hull print with topsides proportioned from available photographs, princi-pally, the postcard from the Stager collection.

Figure 16. Author’s half-model, complete. Photograph by the author.

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usual and necessary care is taken. This foamis used commercially for letters, routedsigns, monuments, architectural details (in-terior and exterior), props, displays, lami-nate cores and even tooling.

Both of the recent models were basedon lines redrawn in Adobe Illustrator, and,while the hull form is known definitively,the superstructure on the Van Husen model,and, no doubt, the Rodriguez model as well,is speculative, based on scaling from theavailable photographs.

ResourcesBurgert Bros. Photographic Collection - Hillsborough County and Tampa Bay

Florida Maritime Museum, Cortez, FLFlorida Memory, Division of Library Infor-mation Services: [email protected]

Henry B. Plant Museum/University ofTampa

Hillsborough County Public Library System(HCPLC, Bill Harris, Principal Librarian,Florida History & Genealogy)

Independence Seaport Museum (MascotteHull plan and history of Cramp Shipyard)

Manatee County Historical Society

Mariners’ Museum and Park, NewportNews

Mystic Seaport (some shipping records andreferences)

Port Tampa Library Maritime Reading Room

Tampa Bay History Center - McKay/TampaTribune

Tampa Tribune and St. Petersburg Timesarchives

University of South Florida (USF), TampaCampus Special Collections (Andy Huse,Asst. Librarian, Florida Studies, and staff)

Carrie Caignet, Florida Maritime Historian& Consultant

Jim Gleason, City Manager, City of Mas-cotte, FL

Pam Iorio, Mayor of The City of Tampa,2003 – 2011

Phillip J. Stager, U.S. Coast Guard officerand naval engineer, lifelong stamp and post-card collector, author

Steamship Historical Society of America(SSHSA) Steamboat Bill, #167, Fall 1983.

Carrie Caignet, Dedication to Service, TheHistory of Piloting on Tampa Bay ThroughThree Centuries, 2012.

Betty Nelson Currier, Anchors, An Illus-trated History,1999.

Julius J. Gordon, Marine History of TampaBay, Florida – 19th Century.

Karl H. Grimser, Tampa, a History of theCity of Tampa and the Tampa Bay Region ofFlorida.

Edward A. Mueller, The Steamships of theTwo Henrys. Flagler and Plant, 1996.

Tony Pizzo, Sunland Tribune (Publication ofTampa Historical Society Assoc.)

Richard E. Prince, Atlantic Coast Line Rail-road Steam Locomotive Ships and History.Tampa Public Library SP.C 335.0975

Documents

SS of the Plant Line, - · PDF fileSS Mascotte of the Plant Line, ... ball-end, iron stock Trotman types, slung from davits, even at sea. ... A few of the inaccurate city seals and