American-Hawaiian Steamship Company Explained

American-Hawaiian Steamship Company
Type:	Private
Foundation:	1899
Fate:	Bankruptcy
Area Served:	Transatlantic
Industry:	Shipping, transportation

The American-Hawaiian Steamship Company was founded in 1899 to carry cargos of sugar from Hawaii to the United States and manufactured goods back to Hawaii. Brothers-in-law George Dearborn and Lewis Henry Lapham were the key players in the founding of the company. The company began in 1899 with three ships, operated nine by 1904 and was operating seventeen by 1911 with three on order.

At the time of the company's founding, its steamships sailed around South America via the Straits of Magellan to reach the East Coast ports. By 1907, the company began using the Mexican Isthmus of Tehuantepec Route. Shipments on the Tehuantepec Route would transship at Atlantic Port of Coatzacoalcos (formerly Puerto) or the Pacific Port of Salina Cruz and would traverse the Isthmus of Tehuantepec on the 310km (190miles) Tehuantepec National Railway. The contract, binding until completion of the Panama Canal, with American-Hawaiian for its entire cargo moving between oceans and assuring a minimum of 500,000 tons of sugar and other cargo was important in the railway's economic plans from its beginning. For the steamship line the Tehuantepec route enabled the company to serve both a New York—Honolulu route and a coastal route from Salina Cruz to Pacific ports of the United States. With new ships to be delivered the company planned to have four 8,000 ton ships on the New York—Coatzacoalcos route, six 12,000 ton ships operating on the Salina Cruz—Honolulu route and two 6,000 ton ships serving the West Coast route.^[1]

Company ships were used on both the Pacific and Atlantic routes. When American political troubles with Mexico closed that route, American-Hawaiian returned to the Straits of Magellan route.

When the Panama Canal opened for traffic in August 1914, American-Hawaiian began routing all of its ships via this route. The temporary closure of the canal because of a series of landslides forced the company to return to the Straits of Magellan route for the third time in its history.

During World War I, twelve of the company's ships were commissioned into the United States Navy; a further five were sunk by submarines or mines during the conflict.

Roger Dearborn Lapham, a future mayor of San Francisco, California, served as company president in the mid-1920s.

Ships

• SS Alaskan
  • • SS Arizonan
    • SS Coloradan^[2]
    • SS Delawarean^[3]
• SS Floridian
  • • SS Honolulan^[4]
      • SS Mexican

• SS Nebraskan, built by Bremer Vulcan, Bremen-Vegesack for North German Lloyd in 1912 as Elsass. The ship was seized by the United States on 6 April 1917 at Pago Pago, Samoa coming under the control of the United States Shipping Board as Appeles and then renamed Kermit in 1920 before acquisition by American-Hawaiian on 5 March 1920 for the price of $538,881.99 and being named Nebraskan. On 9 February 1942 the ship was delivered by American-Hawaiian to the War Shipping Administration (WSA) for operation under United States Army Transportation Corps charter with American-Hawaiian as the WSA agent, until title was transferred to WSA on 2 December for delivery of the ship under Lend Lease to the Soviet Union where the ship became Sukhona until return to the WSA on 6 April 1944. Returned to the Nebraskan name the ship was allocated to the Army on 17 October 1944 until returned for layup in the Wilmington Reserve Fleet on 17 October 1946. The ship was used by the Army in the Pacific as a floating mobile warehouse.
  • SS Oregonian
    • SS Texan
• SS Virginian

World War II

In World War II the company operated ships under the War Shipping Administration, some of which were company owned and taken over by WSA as was Nebraskan, and others wartime built and delivered directly to WSA for operation by commercial agents.^[5]

• Alaskan November 28, 1942 torpedoed, 7 crew and one 1 US Navy Armed Guard killed
• Albert Gallatin January 2, 1944 torpedoed
• American June 11, 1942 torpedoed
• Arkansan June 15, 1942 torpedoed
• Benjamin Goodhue
  • Coloradan October 9, 1942 torpedoed
• Harrison Gray Otis August 4, 1943 mined while at anchor
• Honolulan July 22, 1942 torpedoed
• Illinoian July 28, 1944 scuttled as breakwater, Omaha Beach
• John Drake Sloat
• John Milledge
• Kentuckian August 12, 1944 scuttled as breakwater, Normandy
• April 6, 1945, sunk by kamikaze
• Marine Eagle.
• Montanan June 3, 1943 torpedoed
• Ohioan May 8, 1942 torpedoed
• Oklahoman April 8, 1942 torpedoed
• Oregonian September 13, 1942 torpedoed
• Pennsylvanian August 4, 1944 scuttled as breakwater, Omaha Beach
• Puerto Rican March 9, 1943 torpedoed
• San Juan November 11, 1943 torpedoed
• Texan March 11, 1942 torpedoed & shelled
• Washingtonian April 7, 1942 torpedoed
• William D. Burnham November 23, 1944 torpedoed
• William M. Marcy August 7, 1944 torpedoed

After World War II

In the 1950s the company ceased sailing operations and was taken over by Daniel K. Ludwig, who used it as a holding company into the 1960s. Ventures at that time included the development of Westlake Village, California.^{[6] [7]}

See also

• World War II United States Merchant Navy

Bibliography

• Cochran . Thomas C. . Thomas C. Cochran (historian) . Ray Ginger . Ray Ginger . The American-Hawaiian Steamship Company, 1899–1919 . The Business History Review . 28 . 4 . December 1954 . 343–365 . . The President and Fellows of Harvard College . 216113867 . 10.2307/3111801 . 3111801. 154716297.
• Hovey . Edmund Otis . 1907 . The Isthmus of Tehuantepec and the Tehuantepec National Railway . 39 . January 1, 1907 . Bulletin of the American Geographical Society . 10 February 2015 . .
• Heubner . S. S. . Steamship Line Agreements and Affiliations in the American Foreign and Domestic Trade . September 1914 . 55 . Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science . 10 February 2015.
• Book: Johnson, Emory R. . 1912 . The Relation of the Panama Canal to the Traffic and Rates of American Railroads . United States Senate Reports . Washington, D.C. . United States Government Printing Office .
• Web site: Lloyd's Register . Lloyds . Lloyd's Register (through PlimsollShipData) . 10 February 2015 . . https://web.archive.org/web/20150212004453/http://www.plimsollshipdata.org/pdffile.php?name=30b0807.pdf . 12 February 2015 . dead.
• Web site: Nebraskan . Maritime Administration . Ship History Database Vessel Status Card . U.S. Department of Transportation, Maritime Administration . 10 February 2014 . . https://web.archive.org/web/20150211185303/http://www.marad.dot.gov/sh/ShipHistory/Detail/3571 . 11 February 2015 . dead.
• Web site: MARAD Vessel History Database . Maritime Administration . U.S. Department of Transportation, Maritime Administration . 10 February 2014 . . https://web.archive.org/web/20140221071047/http://www.marad.dot.gov/sh/ShipHistory/ShipList?pageNumber=1&matchFromStart=True . 21 February 2014 . dead.
• Web site: A guide to the Roger D. Lapham photograph collection, 1892-1956 . San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park . Online Archive of California . 10 February 2014 . .
• Web site: Elsass (1912–1948) . schiffe-maxim.de . 10 February 2014.

External links

• History of the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company

Notes and References

1. Web site: American-Hawaiian Steamship Co . 2011-06-14 . 2013-12-14 . https://web.archive.org/web/20131214080027/http://www.ssarkansan.com/home/american-hawaiian-in-wwii . dead.
2. Web site: uboat.net. Coloradan. 23 May 2023.
3. Web site: uboat.net. Empire Hawksbill. 11 August 2022.
4. Web site: uboat.net. Honolulan. 16 August 2022.
5. From Hell Hole to High Tech: Historical Highlights, Pacific Coast Marine Firemen, Oilers, Watertenders and Wipers Association Affiliated with the Seafarers' International Union AFL-CIO. Pacific Coast Marine Firemen, Oilers, Watertenders and Wipers Association, 1983 - Merchant mariners, page 40
6. Web site: Watts . Ian . hawse pipe: American-Hawaiian Steamship Company . hawse pipe . 2015-03-15 . 2009-10-23 .
7. News: 0458-3035 . Colvin . Richard Lee . Shipping Magnate Who Created Westlake Dies . Los Angeles Times . 2015-03-15 . 1992-08-29 .