Here’s another Victorian trade card. This fragile seabird illustration appeared on a postcard-sized promotion for an enormous ferry that briefly served the New Hampshire seacoast. The back of the card heralds the arrival of “the celebrated Iron Steamboat Taurus, captained by Mr. S. G. Martin.
The ferry departed Boston daily from Liverpool Wharf, not far from the site of the historic Boston Tea Party. For a single dollar (75 cents one way) visitors could stop at Portsmouth,NH, or enjoy the beaches of Hampton, Rye, York, and Old Orchard. The impressive modern ship left an hour later on Sundays.
S.S. Taurus was one in a fleet of seven iron-hulled triple deckers, each named for a constellation (Cygnus, Cepheus, Cetus, Pegasus, Perseus, Sirius and Taurus). Each ship had 12 watertight compartments and was powered by “a single cylinder vertical beam steam engine.” The Iron Steamship Company operated from 1881 to 1932, primarily between Coney Island and Manhattan. Service from Boston, from what I can gather, was a brief experimental run, probably around 1882.
VIEW another Portsmouth trade card
The little bird seems a strange mascot for Taurus, the burly bull of Greek mythology that fathered the infamous Minotaur. But for Bostonians, trapped in the city summer heat, it may have been the ideal symbol of a freewheeling day at the beach away from the stink and smog of Beantown.
By 1887 the Taurus was famous enough to appear on a series of collectible trade cards entitled “Ocean and River Steamers.” The collectible series of 36 cards could be found in packs of W. Duke Sons & Co. brand cigarettes.
By 1904, the 234-foot metal sidewheeler was best known for deep sea fishing tours, a rarity for the period. The 914-ton metal monster departed daily from the southern tip of Manhattan. Built in Philadelphia in 1881, the giant sidewheels on the Taurus measured 31 feet in diameter, and must have been a grand sight steaming up the Piscataqua River in its day. In 1908, Taurus participated in medical experiments on the nature of seasickness. Then in the summer of 1911, while traveling in a dense fog, 200 passengers of the ferry S.S. Taurus were “knocked off their feet” when the steamship collided gently with another ferry from New Jersey.
(c) J. Dennis Robinson. All rights reserved.
A Brush with the Shaggs