CHESAPEAKE paddle steamer 1871

[aukepalmhof]

The United States Postal Service issued a set of four 25c stamps and an imperforate miniature sheet on 19 November and 27 November 1989 respectively to honor the 20th Universal Postal Congress held in Washington, DC from 13 November to 15 December 1989.
This was the first UPU Congress to be held in the USA since 1897.
The stamps feature a historical review of United States mail transportation.
One of this stamps depict a decked side-wheel paddle steamer with a cart of mail about to be loaded, the paddle steamer was identified as the CHESAPEAKE.

She was built as a wooden hulled side-wheeled paddle steamer by M. Wise & Co. yard at Ironton, Ohio for most probably Captain Uriah B. Scott and others. He supervised the building.
1871 Launched as the CHESAPEAKE.
Dim. 151.8 x 26 x 4.4ft.
Powered by steam engines, speed upstream 9 knots.
Used after completing in the service between Portsmouth to Guyandotte, under command of Captain Scott.
April 1873 sold to Parkersburg & S.Ohio River Transportation Company.
Under command of Captain E.B. Cooper and put in the service between Parkersburg and Huntington, later to Gallipolis.
Fall 1876 stranded on Sand Creek below Ravenswood.
Later sold to the shoe store owner Steve Ball.
1880 under command of Captain Edwin F. Maddy.
Later under command of Captain Steve Thompson and John Brookhart in the Wheeling to Marietta service.
April 1887 was she destroyed when a runaway wagon holed her hull when she was berthed along a wharf on the foot of Market Street, Pittsburgh where after she sunk.

The stamp was designed after a photograph furnished by the Murphy Library collection at La Crosse, Wisconsin, the date of the photograph is not known.

USA 1989 25c sg2419, scott2435

Source: http://www.riverboatdaves.com/riverboats/c.html Watercraft Philately May-June 1990 page 76.