Ward Line

The New York and Cuba Mail Steamship Company, commonly called the Ward Line, was a shipping company that operated from 1841 until liquidated in 1954. The line operated out of New York City's Piers 15, 16, and 17—land which later became the site of the South Street Seaport and also the Manhattan terminal of the IKEA-Red Hook ferry route. The company’s steamers linked New York City with Nassau, Havana, and Mexican Gulf ports. The company had a good reputation for safety until a series of disasters in the mid-1930s, including the SS Morro Castle disaster. Soon after, the company changed its name to the Cuba Mail Line. In 1947, the Ward Line name was restored when service was resumed after World War II, but rising fuel prices and competition from airlines caused the company to cease operation in 1954.

The Ward Line evolved from the freight consignment company established by James Otis Ward in New York in 1841. After Ward's death in 1856, his son James Edward Ward took over and expanded the company, eventually incorporating under the name New York and Cuba Mail Steamship Company in 1881. In 1888 the company bought out its main competitor on the Cubans routes, the Alexandre Line, in the process acquiring all of Alexandre's ships, property, and it Mexican freight contracts and subsidies.

Upon James Edward Ward's death in 1894, control of the company passed to Henry Prosper Booth. In 1897, the Ward steamer Valencia was purposely attacked by the Spanish cruiser Reina Mercedes off Guantánamo Bay, which fired two shots at the steamer. The Valencia was chartered from the Red D Line to serve a route from New York City to Nassau, Bahamas while visiting small Cuban ports along the way. It was later reported the Reina Mercedes was well aware of Valencia's identity and had fired the shots so as to intimidate the smaller steamer to raise her colors. In 1898 all of the Ward Line ships were requisitioned for United States military use during the Spanish–American War. Increased demand for passenger and freight service helped the line modernize its fleet and become a leader in the coastal trade.

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