The last of a series of four Pennsylvania-class vessels, Illinois and her three sister ships—Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana—were the largest iron ships ever built in the United States at the time of their construction, and amongst the first to be fitted with compound steam engines.
In the 1870s, Illinois may have been the first ship to successfully transport a shipment of fresh meat from the United States to Europe, twenty years before the introduction of refrigeration.
[1] The Railroad intended to utilize the vessels to bring European immigrants direct to Philadelphia, thus ensuring the company a steady stream of customers.
The company established an entirely new shipyard for construction of the vessels, serviced by its own blacksmith, engine, boiler and carpentry shops, as well as providing it with a 700-foot outfitting wharf.
[7] A short-lived shipbuilding boom in the early 1870s made it difficult for the Cramp shipyard to obtain iron plates and other materials, and the yard was also affected by shortages of skilled labor.
[9] With the American Line struggling to turn a profit in the wake of the 1873 financial panic, the company decided to experiment with some novel exports.
A glut of peaches in the summer of 1875 encouraged the company to try and export some of the surplus fruit to Great Britain on the Ohio, but the experiment was a costly failure.
This time the ice lasted through the voyage, and the meat arrived in Liverpool in excellent condition, encouraging the client, Martin, Fuller & Company, to make a second shipment of 100 head of dressed beef.
The new engine, manufactured and installed by the ship's original builder, William Cramp & Sons,[10] was smaller, allowing for more cargo space, and more economical to run.
[15] When the United States entered the First World War on April 6, 1917, USS Supply was in port at Guam together with the German auxiliary cruiser SMS Cormoran, which had been interned there since 1914.
A party from Supply attempted to seize the German vessel, but Cormoran's captain had prepared for such a possibility and scuttled the ship.