AFA Summer 2020

The Portland , one of New England’s largest steamships, offered luxury overnight service between Boston and Portland, Maine. In late November 1898, within hours of the ship’s departure from Boston, a vicious snowstorm slammed the coast for several days. Fishermen reported hearing the steamer, with its 176 passengers and crew, fighting to stay afloat, but it disappeared. The storm claimed over one hundred vessels, but it became known as the “Portland Storm” for its biggest casualty. Bodies eventually washed ashore, but the ship’s last hours remained a mystery. The wreck wasn’t found until 1989, when, after many search attempts, researchers located the Portland in 460 feet of water, fourteen miles east-southeast of Gloucester. A side-scan sonar image, created several years later, clearly shows the ship sitting upright on the ocean bottom. 2020 Antiques & Fine Art 67 George M. Hathaway (1852–1903, American), The steamship Portland, 1894. Oil on canvas. 18⅛ x 30 inches. Museum purchase (2016.60.1). Side-scan sonar image of the Portland on the ocean floor in Stellwagen Bank, off Gloucester, Mass. Photo courtesy of Gary Kozak/GK Consulting.