SS Minnesota (1903)

SS Minnesota was an American built ocean-liner operated by the Great Northern Steamship Company which was owned by James J. Hill.[1] From 27 February 1919 until 15 September 1919 the ship was commissioned as USS Troy for U.S. naval service.[2] She was an identical sister ship to the SS Dakota which sank in Japan in 1907. Both ships built in 1903 were the largest and most luxurious liners built in the United States at the opening of the 20th century.[3] The passenger telephone system, another was installed for ship's use, was advertised by the manufacturer, Electric Gas Lighting Company of Boston, to be the largest shipboard installation.[4]

Minnesota during WW1 in icy harbor winter of 1917-18
History
United States
Name:
  • Minnesota (1903–1919)
  • USS Troy (1919)
Owner: James J. Hill
Operator:
  • Great Northern Steamship Company
  • Atlantic Transport Line, 1917 under her original name
Route: Pacific; America-to-Japan
Builder: Eastern Shipbuilding Company, New London Connecticut
Cost: $7,803,404.00 (along with Dakota)
Laid down: January 15, 1901
Launched: April 16, 1903
Acquired: 1904
Maiden voyage: January 23, 1905, from Smith Cove, Elliott Bay Seattle
In service: January 23, 1905
Fate: Scrapped 1923 in Germany
Notes: November 1915 the ship was possibly a victim of German sabotage to her boilers
General characteristics
Tonnage: 20,718 tons
Length: 622 feet
Decks: 9 decks
Installed power: two engines of triple-expansion type
Propulsion: Twin screws, 3 bladed

Minnesota was sold in January 1917 to the Atlantic Transport Company of West Virginia, part of J. P. Morgan's International Mercantile Marine Company, reaching New York in March where she was armed in accordance with measures authorized for merchant ships and received a U.S. Navy armed guard gun crew.[2] The ship was in English waters when the United States declared war and made seven wartime round trips.[2] During one of the New York port calls the ship was inspected and accepted for U.S. Navy use assigned the identification number 1614 until the end of hostilities whereupon the armament and naval personnel were removed.[2]

The Navy chartered Minnesota to bring troops home, renamed the ship Troy and placed her in commission at the Army's Bush Terminal in Brooklyn, N.Y., on 27 February 1919 under the command of Lt. Comdr. Thomas W. Garlick, USNRF.[2] Troy departed 9 May 1919 in the first of a series of voyages until decommissioned on 15 September 1919, returned to her owners and regaining the name Minnesota.[2] The ship was converted for oil use but never operated again at sea. During the flu pandemic the ship was operated as a floating isolation hospital in New York.[2]

She was scrapped in 1923.

References
  1. S.S. Minnesota; Atlantic Transport Line(Wayback Machine)
  2. "Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships: Troy". Naval History and Heritage Command. Retrieved 23 January 2018.
  3. Travels from the Grandeurs of the West to Mysteries of the East: Or From Occident to Orient and Around the World, by Charlton Bristow Perkins, c. 1909
  4. Boardman, A. F. (1905). "Telephones on the Great Northern Steamship Minnesota". Marine Engineering. Marine Engineering, New York. 10 (March): 119. Retrieved 23 January 2018.
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