The Metropolitan Steamship Company was for 75 years one of the chief transportation links between New York City and Boston, Massachusetts.
Service was inaugurated in 1866 by Captain George L. Norton with the steamer Ashland, a wooden propeller of 843 gross tons, built in 1853 at Philadelphia and owned by Thomas Clyde.
The Ashland was soon followed into service by the Jersey Blue, City of Bath, Mary Sanford, Salvor, Relief, Miami, Monticello and Fairbanks.
[5] In December 1866 the wooden propellers Nereus, Glaucus and Neptune were purchased from the failed Merchants' Steamship Company.
Their hulls had to be strengthened, as they had been built for the more protected waters of Long Island Sound, not the open seas beyond Point Judith.
[8] In 1884 the 2,625-toon iron propeller H.F. Dimock was built by William Cramp & Sons at Philadelphia and named for the line's New York agent.
There were no deaths,[11] and the H.M. Whitney was refloated and reconditioned for further service In 1893 the firm of Flint & Company purchased the steamer El Cid of the Morgan Line and outfitted her as an auxiliary cruiser named Nichtheroy(sold to United States Navy and renamed as USS Buffalo (1892)) for service in the Brazilian Civil War of 1893–94.
[12][13] The Glaucus and Neptune were withdrawn from service in 1893 and laid up at Brooklyn, New York, where they remained until July 1906, when they were finally towed to Boston for breaking up.
The Joy Line was acquired by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad in 1906, ending its freight service to Boston.
[15] On January 23, 1900, the Herman Winter was bound from New York to Boston when she collided with the freighter Ardendhu of the Munson Line off Robinson's Hole, Vineyard Sound.
Despite an initial announcement of such a sale, Morse failed in his attempt to purchase the Long Island Sound fleet of the New York, New Haven and Hartford.
[22] The H.M. Whitney was outbound from New York to Boston with passengers and freight when a failure of her steering gear caused her to run aground in the Hell Gate channel of the East River on the afternoon of May 23, 1908.
After floating off on a rising tide, she anchored in mid-channel, where her lights were concealed by a heavy fog that lay over the river and Long Island Sound all that evening and night.
[23] During 1907 three modern steamers, the Massachusetts, Bunker Hill and Old Colony, had been built by Cramps at Philadelphia as package freighters for the Maine Steamship Company, a New Haven subsidiary.
On March 10, 1909, the H.F. Dimock, bound from New York to Boston, and the coastwise steamer Horatio Hall of the Maine Steamship Company collided in the eastern Vineyard Sound shortly after 8 a.m. while sailing at half speed in a heavy fog.
[28][29] The James S. Whitney was outbound from New York to Boston when she ran aground in Hell Gate channel at 5:40 p.m. on December 18, 1909.
Crowell found it necessary to give way for a passing Fall River Line package freighter,[30] and while doing so was forced aground by the ebbing tide.
[31] Early on July 15, 1910, the James S. Whitney was again in trouble while bound from New York to Boston with a cargo of wool, cotton and oil.
The steamer backed off the shoal at 11:45 a.m. and, accompanied by the revenue cutter Acushnet, safely reached Vineyard Haven.
[33][34] Later in 1910 the Harvard and Yale were leased for $360,000 a year to the Pacific Navigation Company for service between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
The H.F. Dimock and Herman Winter were also sold during this period and placed in the banana trade between Mobile, Alabama, and Bocas del Toro, Panama.
[44] Sailings on the Metropolitan Line had always been summer-only, but Eastern assigned the steamers George Washington and Robert E. Lee to the route in the off season from 1927 to 1932.