SS Georgia (1890)
| History | |
|---|---|
 Germany
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| Name: |
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| Owner: |
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| Builder: | Barclay, Curle & Co., Glasgow |
| Yard number: | 365 |
| Launched: | 13 November 1890 |
| Maiden voyage: | 15 April 1891 |
| Status: |
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 United States
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| Name: | SS Housatonic |
| Owner: | Housatonic Steamship Co., Inc., New York |
| Acquired: | 16 April 1915 |
| Fate: | Sunk, 3 February 1917 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Steamship |
| Tonnage: | |
| Length: | 331 ft (101 m) |
| Beam: | 41 ft 1 in (12.52 m) |
| Propulsion: | Steam engine, single screw |
| Speed: | 11 knots (20 km/h; 13 mph) |
SS Georgia was a German passenger ship in service from 1890 until 1914. Interned in the United States during World War I she was sold to an American company, converted to a cargo ship, renamed Housatonic, and was sunk by a German submarine in February 1917.
The ship was built at the Barclay Curle shipyard in Glasgow, Scotland, for the Dampfschiffs-Reederei Hansa ("Hansa Steamship Company", not to be confused with the Hansa Line), and was launched on 13 November 1890 under the name SS Pickhuben. She sailed from Hamburg on 15 April 1891 for her maiden voyage to Quebec and Montreal. In March 1892 DRH was taken over by the Hamburg America Line, but the Pickhuben continued to sail between Hamburg and New York City or Montreal. She was renamed SS Georgia in 1895, and sailed between the then German port of Stettin and New York, transferring to a route between Genoa in northern Italy and New York in 1900. From 1902 she sailed between the Russian Black Sea port of Odessa and New York.
On the outbreak of World War I in 1914 Georgia was interned in the then neutral United States. On 16 April 1915, she was sold for $85,000 to the Housatonic Steamship Corporation, and was used as a freighter. On 23 February 1916, the ship was chartered by Brown, Jenkinson & Company of London, "for the term of the present war".
Housatonic sailed from Galveston, Texas, on 6 January 1917 carrying a cargo of 144,200 bushels of wheat, and after calling at Newport News, Virginia, she sailed for Liverpool on 16 January. According to a statement by Captain Thomas A. Ensor, at 10.30 a.m on 3 February 1917Housatonic was stopped by the German submarine U-53, under the command of Kapitänleutnant Hans Rose, when about twenty miles south-west of Bishop Rock off the Isles of Scilly.
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