Forget New Orleans, Hannibal, St. Louis, Louisville, Cincinnati, and other cities that have a proud history of steamshipping the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. The real steamship city is none other than our own Savannah. I believe in backing my statements with evidence and here it is.

Do you know what is special about May 22nd? Okay landlubbers, the answer is it is National Maritime Day. It celebrates the date that the SS Savannah became the first steamship to cross the Atlantic. On May 22, 1819 the SS Savannah left the harbor for Europe. Ten days before it sailed, President James Monroe came to Savannah to take a quick cruise on this steamship.  Before returning to Savannah the ship visited St. Petersburg, Crondstadt, and Stockholm. It even had a Danish Navy ship shoot over its bough to stop it to tell the captain of the ship, Moses Rogers, that it was on fire because the Danes had never seen a steamship in the middle of the ocean. One of the leading proprietors of the Savannah Steamship Company was William Scarborough whose home on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard is now the Ships of the Sea Museum.

If this is not enough, consider the SS John Randolph. This ship was to be the first iron steamship used in commerce in the United States. For many years it sailed up and down the Savannah River and elsewhere. Being made of iron was important because the wood ships such as the SS Savannah had trouble attaining a crew for its famous trip because the sailors felt wood and the fire from the steam engines did not go well together. In fact some sailors and maritime watchers called it the ‘Steam Coffin’. So the SS Randolph removed the wood and fire combination from the equation. The Randolph launched from the Savannah Harbor on July 9th, 1834. It was once again the work of Savannah businessmen G. B. Lamar whose son Charles Lamar would later become infamous because of the illegal slave smuggling ship the Wanderer.

Now some of you cynics may say is that all the proof you have? Of course not. To emphasize my point further I present the Ocean Steamship Company of Savannah or known as the Savannah Line to some. The company was founded in 1872 to sail passenger and cargo in steamships between Savannah and New York. Along the way they would offer other lines to Boston, Philadelphia, and Jacksonville.

 In 1874 the Central Rail Road became owners of the Ocean Steamship Company of Savannah and it became a subsidiary of the Central Rail Road and Banking Company of Georgia. By 1928 it had eight steamships in its fleet. Thus when you read of the frequent trips to New York, Boston or Philadelphia by Savannahians, know the ships had luxury suites and dining rooms for the wealthy of Savannah
The company’s biggest challenge came when war started in September 1939 in Europe. City of Chattanooga was chartered by the Government to transport troops to Iceland in 1940. The ships were turned to the war efforts and as such became objects of the vagaries of war and during the war did not carry passengers. The City of Atlanta was, on January 19, 1942, torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine near Cape Hatteras with the loss of fifty four crew members. On July 30, 1942 the City of Birmingham was torpedoed and sunk by German submarine U. 202, two passengers and seven crew members lost their lives. The government purchased the other ships in the fleet so when the war ended the company was left with no ships.

For seventy years steamships had carried passengers on their various lines. But by 1947, there were no longer any vessels operated by the Savannah line. In 1958, the terminal property of the Company was sold to put it to use in the expanding Port of Savannah.
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You should be convinced by now. So the next bit is so you are up to speed on riverboats and Savannah. The Georgia Queen, built in 1995 as a luxury floating casino on the Mississippi River at a cost of 14 million dollars, is now proudly transporting people up and down the Savannah River. So the 1800s majestic paddlewheel style riverboat, which spent many years traveling the Mississippi River, came to Savannah last year. I guess it realized it needed to come to the real Steamship City.

Savannah has had some of the most revered architects of the 19th and 20th centuries leave their mark. One architect that is found in most art history books is William Strickland. Strickland heralded from Philadelphia but made his mark in the South too. Strickland was a renaissance man as he designed the sewer system of Philadelphia, was an accomplished painter, and illustrator for newspapers and the master of thirteen different styles of architecture.
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He is credited with bringing the Greek Revival style to America. His first building of note was the Second United States Bank in Philadelphia. He design was chosen in a contest of architects and was the first grand example of the Greek Revival style. Although the Greek Revival style is what literally puts him in the art books he would master thirteen other architectural styles. His mastery of the Neo-Egyptian style would greatly influence his contribution to Savannah’s landscape. He would make his greatest mark in the South with his design of the Tennessee State Capitol. He considered it his masterpiece. While it was being built he realized he was dying so he designed his crypt into the design of the Capitol. This is where his remains are today in the Tennessee State Capitol.

While he was in Nashville he also was commissioned to design the Second Presbyterian Church. It was this church that he used and showed his mastery of the Neo-Egyptian style. His reputation and visibility in the South would prompt Savannahians to recruit him to design the first monument in Savannah.

The leaders of Savannah had started on a campaign to become noted for their monuments in the 19th century. They proposed two monuments: one to Casimir Pulaski, the Revolutionary War hero who had died in the Battle of Savannah and the other to Nathaniel Greene, the Revolutionary War hero who had led the Colonial army in the South and was Gen. George Washington’s second in command. Because of Greene’s role in ridding the South of the British he was offered land outside of Savannah as an appreciation of his work. This plantation would be called Mulberry Grove. Mulberry Grove would later, under the supervision of Greene’s wife Catherine or Caty as she was called, be the place that Eli Whitney would improve the cotton gin to make cotton become King in the South.

The Marquis de Lafayette was on a grand tour of America. Because of the death of most of the original founders, this visit was hoped by the sponsors to recreate the atmosphere of those heady early days of our founding. The Savannah leaders in this spirit wanted to erect the two monuments in time for his visit. They could not raise enough money in time for both monuments so decided to make one monument in honor of the two. This monument would later become the Nathaniel Greene Monument in Johnson Square. To design the monument they chose the great and accomplished William Strickland (you were wondering when I would return to him). Strickland, who was using the Neo-Egyptian style, decided on the obelisk we currently see in Johnson Square. The most famous obelisk the Washington Monument would not be erected until 1848 eighteen years after the Greene monument in 1830.  In fact only a few obelisks could be found in the United States at the time. The obelisk and Neo-Egyptian style were not familiar to the Savannah audience and their response was one of incredulity. We hired one of the greatest architects in our country and he came up with this monument. In the years to follow they would act to add prominence by doing various things to add to heft to the monument.
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But the obelisk remained and Lafayette was able to lay the cornerstone on his visit to Savannah. Today we have built the second monument to Casimir Pulaski. The Greene Monument sits in Savannah’s first square (Johnson Square). It was rededicated when the Pulaski Monument was finished to only Greene in a ceremony with Jefferson Davis as the master of ceremonies. This was also when the bronze plaques were added to make the monument not such a stark obelisk. The bodies of Nathaniel Greene and his son have been removed from Colonial Cemetery and reinterred under this monument. Today the monument stands in memory of Greene but in its day it was a cutting edge monument by America’s great architect William Strickland. 
      
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