The steamship ERICSSON was built by Perrine, Patterson, & Stack, Williamsburg, New York; keel laid April 1852, launched 15 September 1852. 1,902 tons; 253 ft 6 in x 39 ft 8 in by 26 ft 6 in (length x breadth x depth of hold); wood construction; side-paddle wheels 32 ft in diameter, with 28 buckets, each 10 ft x 20 in. The vessel was named after the Swedish inventor John Ericsson, who designed her "caloric" (hot air) engines. The machinery, which was built by Hogg & Delameter, is described as consisting of

four working cylinders ... 168 inches in diameter by ... 6 feet stroke, and above them four air-compressing cylinders ... 137 inches in diameter by 6 fee stroke. The working cylinders, arranged in pairs along the centre of the vessel, were suspended like enormous camp-kettles over the furnace fires. Eight piston rods, each ... 14 feet long, connected the mammoth pistons of each set of cylinders [Noel Reginald Pixell Bonsor, North Atlantic Seaway; An Illustrated History of the Passenger Services Linking the Old World with the New (2nd ed.; Jersey, Channel Islands: Brookside Publications), vol. 1 (1975), p. 334].

There was no figurehead, but the stern carried a figure of Ericsson being crowned with a laurel wreath by two allegorical figures representing the United States and Great Britain. On the spar deck were the sailors' and firemen's quarters in the forecastle, and, in other deckhouses, the dining saloon, pantry, library, smoking room, and officers' rooms. Below decks were 64 staterooms for 130 passengers, all finished in Gothic style with white woodwork and "chaste" gilding. There was also space for 12 passengers' servants in the hold, forward of the engine room. There were two masts, brig-rigged, and four small stacks, two for smoke, two for air exhaust, arranged two abreast and painted white with gold tops. The small size of the stacks gave the vessel an "unfinished" appearance. When first complete, the total cost of the ERICSSON was figured at $320,000, the engines accounting for $130,000 of this.

Despite his contemporary fame as a designer of engines, Ericsson never designed a creditable engine for any large steamship (he was too impatient to increase sizes gradually and to correct his past mistakes as he went along, and it was always someone else who footed the bill when his designs did not live up to his promises). At the vessel's initial builder's trials on 4 and 5 January 1853, and a public trial, under the command of Alfred B. Lowber, who owned 5 of her original 50 shares, on 11 January 1853, the engines generated only 250 horsepower (against the promised 600) and she achieved a hopelessly slow speed of 6 1/2 knots (against the predicted 8 to 10). After a visit on 15 February 1853 to Norfolk, Virginia, where the ship was visited by President Fillmore, President-elect Pierce, and delegations from both houses of Congress, the original cylinders were replaced by two new, double-acting inclined ones of 72 inch bore and 8 foot stroke. After several unsatisfactory trials, Ericsson claimed a speed of 11 knots on 27 April 1854. Unfortunately, on the return voyage from Sandy Hook, while cargo ports on the lower deck were open, the ERICSSON was struck by a sudden squall; the vessel heeled over, water poured in, and she sank to the bottom of the Hudson River off the Cunard Line docks at Jersey City. Because the water was relatively shallow it was possible to close the ports and pump her out, and by 12 May 1854 she had been refloated and towed to a pier in the East River.

At this point, John B. Kitching, the wealthy young New Yorker who was the principal owner of the ERICSSON (30 of 50 shares--Ericsson himself owned no part of the vessel) decided that he could no longer underwrite Ericsson's novel propulsion schemes, and had the caloric engines removed, replacing them with a more conventional steam plant (two inclined cylinders of 62 inch bore by 7 foot 8 inch stroke), also, unfortunately, designed by Ericsson; the vessel did not lose her unusual, "unfinished" appearance, since, although the new steam engines required only two stacks, all four of the original stacks were retained, two of them now "dummies" serving as engine-room ventilators. New trials on 8 May 1855 logged a speed of 11 knots, a speed which, however, as later experience would prove, could not be maintained on the open sea against wind and waves.

The ERICSSON was then placed in service. The year 1855 was a good one for a new steamship to begin her career, since Paris was holding a grand Exhibition, and with most of the foreign liners engaged in Crimean War service there was much demand for passenger space. Kitching therefore advertised the ERICSSON as sailing directly from New York to Havre, carrying only first-cabin passengers, at a fare of $130, the same fare charged by the Havre Line. She sailed from New York on her maiden voyage, on 16 June 1855, and arrived at Havre on 30 June, in a very slow 14 days 4 hours, having done just over 10 knots on her best day; she returned to New York on 22 August 1855, after an even slower passage of 17 days.

Kitching, realizing that the ERICSSON was too slow to compete with the monthly sailings of the faster Havre Line or the cheap fares of Vanderbilt's European Line, thereupon shifted her to Bremen, where he hoped that the WASHINGTON and the HERMANN would provide less competition. Despite the increased distance, he reduced the fare to $120, or $80 for second-cabin. The ERICSSON sailed from New York on 15 September, reaching Cowes in 14 days, a sea speed of a little over 9 knots. After her return, Kitching returned her to Havre for two voyages, sailing from New York on 21 November 1855 and 25 January 1856.

Kitching was operating the ERICSSON at a loss, and therefore, on 13 March 1856, chartered her to the Collins Line, who in order to maintain their fortnightly mail service required another steamer to replace the PACIFIC, which had vanished without a trace. In the next year and a half, the ERICSSON made 11 voyages for the Collins Line. She was the slowest vessel in the line, and on her later voyages mail payments were reduced because of her inadequate speed. Her lack of speed also made her unpopular with with traveling public: on her first passage from Liverpool to New York (arrived 1 May 1856) she carried just 38 passengers, and when she arrived back at New York on 6 August 1857, on the return leg of her eleventh and last voyage for the Collins Line, she carried only 12.

Her owners returned the ERICSSON to the Bremen service for a single voyage, sailing from New York on 16 September 1857, carrying three classes of passengers at fares of $80, $50, and $30. Because of her low horsepower and moderate fuel consumption, she sailed directly to Bremen, without stopping at either Cowes of Southampton for coal. A second voyage was advertised, but the ERICSSON was laid up for the winter. In the spring, her agents advertised a "pleasure voyage" from New York on 1 May 1858, to Gibraltar, Malta, Alexandria, Jaffa, Constantinople, Athens, Naples, and home, for $750, but there was insufficient interest, and she sailed again for Bremen on 8 May, arriving back at New York on 20 June 1858.

The ERICSSON's owners then gave up attempting to find regular employment for her as a passenger vessel. She made a special voyage to take the New York Seventh Regiment to City Point, on the James River, came home empty, and was laid up for the next three years.

On 7 October 1861, the ERICSSON was chartered, for $1,200 per day, by the U.S. Army's Quartermaster Corps, as one of 23 steam transports sailing with Samuel F. DuPont's invasion fleet headed for Port Royal, South Carolina. Despite the Civil War's demand for steamships, however, she was employed by the U.S. Army for only 21 of the 46 months during which she was available. She was returned to her owners (now listed as Edward Dunham & Co, who had been her managers since 1855) on 13 March 1865.

Shortly afterwards, the ERICSSON was chartered by Marshall O. Roberts as a temporary replacement for the GOLDEN RULE (which had been wrecked on Roncador Reef in May 1865) on the New York-Greytown leg of his North American Steamship Co's New York-Nicaragua-San Francisco service. The ERICSSON made four voyages under this charter, at monthly intervals, the first clearing New York on 20 July 1865, the last arriving at New York on 22 November 1865. The ERICSSON was then sent to the Sectional Dock in New York for repairs. Roberts had purchased a much faster vessel, the SANTIAGO DE CUBA.

The ERICSSON was then chartered by the North American Lloyd Steamship Co, which ran a steerage service between Bremen and New York, to replace that line's WESTERN METROPOLIS, which was plagued with mechanical problems. She made two voyages for the line, the first departing from New York on 15 March 1866, via Cowes, and reaching New York again on 2 May, the second departing from New York on 24 May, via Cowes, and reaching New York again, also via Cowes, on 27 July 1866.

Immediately thereafter, the ERICSSON was chartered by the Continental Mail Steamship Co, for their brief Antwerp service. The ERICSSON made one voyage, and an equally slow screw steamer, the CIRCASSIAN, a second voyage, before the service was abandoned; fares were $90, $62.50, and $37.50, and the Channel port was Havre. The ERICSSON sailed from New York on 23 August 1866, and arrived back, with 350 passengers, on 16 October, after a passage of 20 days.

At the age of 13 years, after only 20 voyages across the Atlantic and four to Nicaragua, the ERICSSON was offered for sale. After failing to find a buyer for five months, on 14 August 1867, she was put up for auction. She was purchased by W. W. Sherman, who removed her engines and rebuilt and rerigged her as a three-masted sailing ship. Although she was a slow steamship, she proved to be exceptionally fast under sail: indeed, she was faster under sail than she had been under steam. On her first voyage under sail, she cleared New York on 17 February 1868, arriving at Liverpool in 17 days. From there, on 6 May, she sailed for San Francisco, arriving on 23 August, after a passage of 109 days; on 15 October she departed for Liverpool, which she reached in 103 days. These three consecutive runs are an outstanding, and possibly even unbeaten, record.

Cedric Ridgely-Nevitt, American Steamships on the Atlantic (Newark: University of Delaware Press, c1981), p. 215, summarizes the later career of the ERICSSON:

From 1868 through 1875 the ERICSSON was engaged in the grain trade between San Francisco and Liverpool, with a voyage via Callao, Peru, to Mejillones and another to Newcastle, New South Wales, in Australia. An 1876 trip made Manila and Iloilo, in the Philippines, with a return to New York. The years 1878 and 1879 saw her in the coastwise trade from San Francisco to Puget Sound ports. In 1880 came a second Australian visit and one to Shanghai the following year. The years 1882 and 1883 were spent coastwise, and 1884 saw her last call at Liverpool. Further Australian trips, including Sydney and Melbourne, as well as Newcastle, were made in 1886 and 1888. In 1889 she went South to Valparaiso. Most of her sailings were coastwise from 1889 to 1892. There were several changes of ownership and successive home ports were New York, Boston, and San Francisco. Late in the 1880's, George Plummer, who had long been her master, acquired her.

On 19 November 1892, en route from San Francisco to Nanaimo, she went ashore during a gale on Entrance Island, near Barclay Sound, British Columbia; there was no loss of life.

Sources: Cedric Ridgely-Nevitt, American Steamships on the Atlantic (Newark: University of Delaware Press, c1981), pp. 208-215.

The Bremen ship ERNST MORITZ ARNDT was built at Vegesack/Fähr, for the Bremen firm of F. & E. Delius, by Hermann Friedrich Ulrichs, and was launched on 23 October 1847. 273 Commerzlasten / 670 tons register; 37,6 x 9,8 x 6 meters (length x breadth x depth of hold).

The maiden voyage of the ERNST MORITZ ARNDT, under Capt. Albert Haake, was plagued with difficulties. She set sail on 20 December 1847 for Hartlepool, to load a cargo of coal for Cuba. She reached Hartlepool on 25 December 1847, but did not sail from that port until 4 February 1848. Two weeks later, on 18 February 1848, she was damaged off Land's End, Cornwall, and was forced to return to Southampton for repairs. She sailed from Southampton on 15 April 1848, and reached Havana a month later. She returned to Bremerhaven by way of Baltimore, which she reached on 31 July 1848 and left only at the end of October, on 1 December 1848, almost a year after first setting out.

Albert Haake was succeeded as captain of the ERNST MORITZ ARNDT by Lüder Rust (1853), Friedrich Harde (1854), Lüder Rust (1855), Friedrich Harde (1857), and Ferdinand Haesloop, of Vegesack (1858). The vessel remained in the possession of various firms owned by the Delius family until she was sold Norwegian in 1864, and renamed RJUKAN. She remained in service another 23 years until, in April 1887, under Capt. Andreasen (owners: O. P. Moe & Sön, of Christiansand), bound from Newport, Wales, to Quebec, she was abandoned at sea. The crew was saved and landed at Le Havre.

Source: Peter-Michael Pawlik, Von der Weser in die Welt; Die Geschichte der Segelschiffe von Weser und Lesum und ihrer Bauwerften 1770 bis 1893, Schriften des Deutschen Schiffahrtsmuseums, Bd. 33 (Hamburg: Kabel, c1993), p. 273, no. 20.