Service history SS City of Tokio

1 service history

1.1 maiden voyage
1.2 route, cargo , passengers

1.2.1 president grant s world tour
1.2.2 japanese migrants


1.3 shipwreck

service history
maiden voyage

on maiden voyage in february 1875, city of tokio s sister ship city of peking lost propeller blades, , required replacement of 5,000 rivets, amounting total repair bill of $300,000. when city of tokio made own maiden voyage in april of same year, suffered loss of propeller blades.

the problems diagnosed improper loading of ships combined weak wooden decks. wooden decks on both vessels subsequently replaced iron, after both established enviable record of reliability.

route, cargo , passengers

like sister ship city of peking, city of tokio utilized exclusively on far eastern steam packet service, operating port of san francisco yokohama, japan , hong kong. both vessels transported chinese, , later japanese, migrants united states, exporting foodstuffs , manufactured goods , importing range of goods including silk, tea, hemp, spices , opium.

president grant s world tour

in 1877, united states president ulysses s. grant embarked on highly successful world tour, during greeted @ every port of call hero of concluded civil war.

grant departed united states on first leg of tour on may 17, 1877 on american line s pennsylvania class steamship indiana. returned home 2 , half years later on board city of tokio, arriving @ san francisco on september 20, 1879.

a contemporary account described arrival thus:

a fleet of steamers , yachts met city of tokio down bay, while guns boomed until harbor cloudy smoke, bells rang, , factory whistles tooted , screamed. every vantage point overlooking channel black cheering crowds.

it dusk when general landed. great procession awaiting him, , escorted him, through streets draped bunting , bright thousands of lights , bonfires, palace hotel, chorus of 5 hundred voices sang ode of greeting.

cheered crowds @ every station, grant reached philadelphia, original point of departure 2 , half years earlier, on december 12, 1879.

japanese migrants

after chinese exclusion act passed in 1882, american industrialists began elsewhere reliable sources of cheap labor. japanese government had forbidden emigration since 1868, in 1880s relaxed of restrictions. in 1884, government of hawaii offered subsidize transport of japanese labourers territory, , advertised set of conditions under migrants employed on sugar plantations.

on february 8, 1885, first group of 943 japanese — 676 men, 159 women, , 108 children — arrived in honolulu, on board city of tokio. group first in wave of immigration members later dubbed issei, or first-generation japanese migrants united states.

shipwreck

city of tokio s service end prematurely. in hours of 24 june 1885, in conditions of poor visibility, city of tokio grounded on rocks @ entrance tokyo bay. @ first seemed if ship refloated, onset of typhoon rendered salvage impossible, , storm damaged ship beyond repair. fortunately, of passengers , of cargo safely removed before vessel foundered.