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Regulator was a passenger-cargo sidewheel steamboat built in Portland, Maine, in 1864. Initially employed in service along the Massachusetts coast, she was sold in early 1865 and would spend the next two years in operation between Portland and Bangor, Maine.

In mid-1866, Regulator was briefly chartered by the United States government to help foil a raid on British Canadian territory from northern Maine, planned by the Fenian Brotherhood. After returning to commercial service in Maine, the steamer was sold in late 1866 for service in Brazilian waters, where she was active in 1867. Her disposition thereafter is unknown.

Construction and design

Regulator, a wooden-hulled, passenger-cargo sidewheel steamboat, was ordered by Massachusetts parties who planned to put the steamer in service between Boston and Gloucester, Massachusetts. She was built at Portland, Maine in the newly established shipyard of W. & A. Curtis, launched on 28 May 1864, and completed the following August.

Regulator was built of white oak and hackmatack with copper and iron fastenings. She was 153 feet (47 m) in length, with a beam of 26 feet (7.9 m), hold depth of 8 feet (2.4 m) and draft of 5 feet (1.5 m). Her gross register tonnage was 430. The Portland Daily Press described her at the time as a "beautiful little craft".

Regulator was powered by a steam engine of unknown type, built by the Portland Company of that city. According to an 1864 news item, she was capable of a speed of 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph), which would have made her a very fast vessel of her type for the era; however, later reports make no mention of exceptional speed.

Service history

Merchant service, 1864–1865

Regulator entered service in August 1864, on her originally intended route between Boston and Gloucester. The following February, however, she was purchased by Spear, Lang & Delano of Boston to replace their steamer Lady Lang in Maine service on the Portland to Bangor route, after the latter vessel had been chartered to the government for use as a transport in the ongoing American Civil War.

Before returning her to service, Regulator's new owners improved and expanded her passenger accommodations, adding a new saloon with 18 staterooms on her after promenade deck, and an additional 32 berths to the gentlemen's cabin. The refreshment room was also converted to a forward cabin with additional berths. After these modifications, the main deck, where the saloon was located, was completely enclosed. The steamer was also thoroughly cleaned and repainted.

Regulator entered service for her new owners on Wednesday, 15 March 1865. Initially, the steamer was only able to travel as far north as Winterport on the Penobscot River due to river ice. Her schedule at this time consisted of two trips per week, departing Portland on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 6 am and returning from Winterport Mondays and Thursdays, again with a departure time of 6 am. No mention of way-landings is made in early company advertisements, but typical stops on this route are known to have included Bucksport, Belfast, Camden and Rockland, with Searsport included intermittently. At Portland, Regulator connected with steamers of the Portland Steamship Company continuing on to Boston, and also with the Boston and Maine and Eastern railroads for Boston and intermediate stops.

By late March, ice was clearing on the Penobscot, and on Sunday, 2 April, Regulator was able to reach Bangor for the first time. Her schedule through the spring and summer thereafter was increased to three trips per week, departing Bangor at 6 am on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and returning to Portland the same days with a departure time of 10 pm. With Bangor now the terminus, Winterport became a way-landing, along with Hampden. From June, through fares between Bangor and Boston were reduced from $5 to $4, with fares between Bangor and Portland reduced from $4 to $3 and intermediate stops enjoying proportional reductions.

In late October, Regulator's service was reduced to twice weekly, leaving Bangor at 6 am Mondays and Thursdays, and returning from Portland from 10 pm Mondays and Fridays. In early December, the steamer's northern terminus reverted to Winterport due to the presence of river ice.

Regulator made her last trip of the 1865 season on December 21. Over the course of the year, she had completed a total of 216 passages between Portland and Bangor, and was praised by the press for having done so without missing a single scheduled trip or causing any injury to either passengers or crew.

Merchant service, early 1866

During the 1865–1866 winter off-season, Regulator was repainted, recarpeted and refitted, with the saloon extended further to incorporate six new staterooms. The steamer returned to service on Friday, March 2, running twice per week from Portland on Tuesdays and Fridays at 10 pm, and returning from Winterport Mondays and Thursdays with a 6 am start, touching at all the regular way-landings both ways.

Fenian incident, April–May 1866

In March 1866, news spread that the Fenian Brotherhood, a group dedicated to the cause of Irish independence, was planning a series of raids from the United States against British territories in Canada. One of these planned raids was to be launched from Eastport, Maine, to Campobello Island, New Brunswick. Fearing an international incident, U.S. President Andrew Johnson ordered Major-General George Meade to Eastport with a company of U.S. troops to prevent the raid occuring. To facilitate their movements, federal authorities chartered Regulator on April 16 and placed her at the disposal of Meade, who used the steamer to travel with the troops to Eastport on the 19th, where they seized a cache of arms belonging to the Fenians.

Meade also traveled to Calais, Maine, aboard Regulator to consult with British Major-General Charles Hastings Doyle, who was organizing defenses on the Canadian side. Meeting aboard the steamer, the two agreed that Meade would prevent a raid from Calais to St. Stephen, while Doyle would deploy his own troops to defend St. Andrews. Discouraged by the quick response to their plans, the Fenians were forced to cancel their raid. With the threat thus neutralized, Meade returned to Portland aboard Regulator on May 3, after which the steamer was returned to her owners.

Return to merchant service, 1866

While Regulator was under charter to the government, her stablemate Lady Lang had been released from government charter to take Regulator's place on the Portland–Bangor route. With Regulator's return, the two steamers were thus able to provide a daily service on the route for the first time. the two leaving Bangor for Portland on alternate days at 5 am Mondays through Saturdays, beginning May 15.

In early August, Lady Lang suffered an engine breakdown and was absent from the route for most of the month, leaving Regulator to maintain the service alone, running three times a week. Regulator however appears to have also found time through the month to offer regular Monday afternoon excursions to Mount Desert. By late August, Lady Lang had returned and the daily service from Bangor was resumed.

At around midnight on 6 September, Regulator struck a rock in thick fog near the Portland Light and began taking water, forcing her to return to Portland. She was repaired at a Cape Elizabeth marine railway. In spite of the damage being only relatively minor, Regulator would not return to service on the route, Lady Lang evidently being found sufficient to meet declining demand with the approach of winter.

Sale and later history

By August 1866, Charles Spear, Regulator's principal owner, was running into increasing financial difficulty through disputes over contracts signed with the federal government during the war, and would eventually be forced into bankruptcy. On December 19, a few days after Lady Lang's final trip of the season, it was announced that both she and Regulator had been sold to the South American Navigation and Marine Railway Company of New York for service in South American waters, with Regulator's sale price being $60,000. Soon after, both steamers traveled to Providence, Rhode Island, to be refitted for their new role.

Although both steamers had originally been slated for operation on the Parana River, on arrival they were instead placed in coastal service between Rio de Janeiro and Santa Catarina, including intermediate stops. Regulator's last known record is an insurance reassessment, completed at New York, in January 1870. Her disposition thereafter is unknown.

Footnotes

1. The vast majority of sidewheel steamboats built in the eastern United States at this time were powered by walking beam engines, but occasionally other types, such as inclined engines, were used.
2. Regulator's stablemate Harvest Moon, for example, had a documented speed of 15 knots—the same as that claimed for Regulator—but was widely cited in contemporaneous journals for her exceptional speed and was used as a dispatch boat and flag vessel during the civil war—uses typically reserved for the fastest class of vessels.
3. Company advertisements describe her as a "fast" vessel, but no independent reports other than the 1864 item have been found.

References

1. ^ "Launch". Portland Daily Press. 1864-05-30. p. 3.
2. "Original and Selected". Portland Daily Press. 1864-08-13. p. 2.
3. ^ Lloyd's American Register of Shipping. New York: Board of Underwriters. 1866. p. 675.
4. ^ "The Class of Vessels Sent in Pursuit of the Tallahassee". The New York Herald. 1854-08-26. p. 9.
5. "Original and Selected". Portland Daily Press. 1864-08-13. p. 2.
6. "Local and Other Items". Bangor Daily Whig and Courier. 1864-12-26. p. 3.
7. "Marine News". Portland Daily Press. 1865-02-20. p. 2.
8. "The Inside Route". Bangor Daily Whig and Courier. 1865-02-23. p. 3.
9. ^ "Local and Other Items". Bangor Daily Whig and Courier. 1865-03-08. p. 3.
10. ^ "First Trip". Bangor Daily Whig and Courier. p. 3.
11. ^ "Portland & Penobscot River". Bangor Daily Whig and Courier. 1865-03-13. p. 2.
12. ^ "Fare Reduced". Bangor Daily Whig and Courier. 1865-05-30. p. 2.
13. "For Searsport". Portland Daily Press. 1865-04-14. p. 3.
14. ^ "For Portland and Boston". Bangor Daily Whig and Courier. 1865-04-22. p. 2.
15. "Local and Other Items". Bangor Daily Whig and Courier. 1865-03-31. p. 2.
16. "Arrivals". Bangor Daily Whig and Courier. 1865-04-03. p. 2.
17. "Twice a Week". Bangor Daily Whig and Courier. 1865-10-27. p. 3.
18. "Portland and Penobscot River". Portland Daily Press. 1865-10-27. p. 2.
19. "For Portland and Boston". Bangor Daily Whig and Courier. 1865-12-09. p. 2.
20. "Local and Other Items". Bangor Daily Whig and Courier. 1865-12-18. p. 3.
21. "Items of State News". Portland Daily Press. 1865-12-29. p. 2.
22. "Steamer Regulator". Bangor Daily Whig and Courier. 1866-03-09. p. 2.
23. "Steamers". Portland Daily Press. 1866-03-02. p. 4.
24. Dunbaugh 1992. p. 193.

refs

• Fenian raids
• meade capture of arms
• charter dates
• sold foreign 1867

• charter list
• webster charter dates