 |
| The minute you set foot upon the deck of the City of Chicago you will like Captain Frederick Watkins. If you, as some people do, make the very first duty aboard ship to see what sort of a man you have for captain, and try the experiment of exchanging a word with him, you may rest assured you won't go away grumbling at his lack of courtesy when you have spoken to the Commodore of the Inman fleet. Pleasanter men are not to be found either on sea or shore. " He's made of the right sort of stuff for a mariner," one of his seamen once said to me. All his sailors like him, and it is much the same quality of polite consideration which has made him one of the most popular of all the transatlantic captains. In his uniform he looks every inch the sailor. When he has doffed the "gilded blue" for street apparel he would never be taken for one whose days and nights, year in and year out, are passed upon the bounding billow. Some one has called the commander of the Chicago the "gentleman captain." There is no man who sails the Atlantic who has received more testimonials from his passengers than Captain Watkins has elicited by his unchanging good temper and constant urbanity |
Built by Charles Connell & Co., Scotstoun, Glasgow, Scotland. Tonnage: 5,202. Dimensions: 430' x 45'. Single-screw, 14 knots. Compound engines. Four masts and two funnels. Iron hull.
Note: Laid down as the Vancouver, as she originally was intended for the Dominion Line. Maiden voyage: Liverpool-New York, September 18, 1883. Wrecked by stranding near Old Head of Kinsale, on south coast of Ireland, July 1892. Ex-Vancouver (1883).
Arrival dates:
