Qualla: SS Monroe (1902)

SS Monroe (1902): Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

She was supposed to be in New York by morning. The SS Monroe had left Norfolk at 7 p.m. on January 29, 1914, on the overnight run she had made hundreds of times before - 366 feet of steel and yellow pine, six Scotch boilers driving a triple-expansion engine, 150 first-class passengers and crew aboard, the painting of President Monroe watching over the social hall stairs. Sometime around 2 a.m., about 50 miles off the Virginia Capes, the fog closed in. The southbound SS Nantucket, running down from Boston, struck the Monroe and tore her open. She rolled almost immediately. Within ten or twelve minutes she was gone. Forty-one people went with her.

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SS Monroe (1902): Built for an Overnight Run

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Old Dominion Steamship Company launched Monroe at Newport News on October 18, 1902, and put her in service the following spring. She was the largest ship the line had ever owned - 366 feet long, 46 feet abeam, displacing 5,375 tons fully loaded, with six Scotch boilers drivin...

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SS Monroe (1902): A Ship of Her Time

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Monroe also reflected the casual cruelties of her era. The Old Dominion Line was a Virginia company operating into a segregated South, and the ship's accommodations made the separations explicit: sixty-one staterooms on the hurricane deck and main deck for white first-class passe...

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SS Monroe (1902): Two A.M. in Fog

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Captain Edward E. Johnson had Monroe northbound out of Norfolk; Captain Osmyn Berry had Nantucket southbound out of Boston. Both ships were running into thick fog about fifty miles east of the Virginia Capes. At roughly 2 a.m. on January 30, 1914, Nantucket struck Monroe. The dam...

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SS Monroe (1902): The Wireless Operator

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Among those lost was Monroe's wireless operator, F. J. Kuehn of the Bronx. The wireless room was where Marconi-era operators stayed when other crew were running, because the wireless was how the ship called for help and the calls had to keep going as long as power held. Kuehn sta...

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SS Monroe (1902): Inquiry and Aftermath

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Steamboat Inspection Service at Philadelphia initially found both captains jointly at fault. On appeal, Captain Osmyn Berry of Nantucket was found solely guilty and his license was revoked. Old Dominion sued Merchants and Miners Steamship Company - Nantucket's owners - for on...

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