SS Pennsylvanian was a cargo ship built in 1913 for the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company. During World War I she was requisitioned by the United States Navy and commissioned as USS Pennsylvanian (ID-3511) in September 1918, and renamed two months later to USS Scranton. After her naval service, her original name of Pennsylvanian was restored.
Pennsylvanian was built by the Maryland Steel Company as one of eight sister ships for the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company, and was employed in inter-coastal service via the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and the Panama Canal after it opened. Pennsylvanian was one of the first two steamships to travel eastbound through the canal when it opened in August 1914. During World War I, as both SS Pennsylvanian and USS Scranton, the ship carried cargo and animals to France, and returned American troops after the Armistice in 1918.
After her naval service ended in 1919, she was returned to her original owners and resumed relatively uneventful cargo service over the next twenty years. Early in World War II, the ship was requisitioned by the War Shipping Administration, and shipped cargo on New York – Caribbean routes and transatlantic routes. In mid-July 1944, Pennsylvanian was scuttled as part of the breakwater for one of the Mulberry artificial harbors built to support the Normandy Invasion.
Design and construction
In September 1911, the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company placed an order with the Maryland Steel Company of Sparrows Point, Maryland, for four new cargo ships—, , , and Pennsylvanian. The contract cost of the ships was set at the construction cost plus an 8% profit for Maryland Steel, with a maximum cost of $640,000 each. The construction was financed by Maryland Steel with a credit plan that called for a 5% down payment in cash with nine monthly installments for the balance. Provisions of the deal allowed that some of the nine installments could be converted into longer-term notes or mortgages. The final cost of Pennsylvanian, including financing costs, was $70.35 per deadweight ton, which came out to just under $716,000.
Pennsylvanian (Maryland Steel yard no. 127) was the final ship built under the original contract. She was launched on 29 March 1913, and delivered to American-Hawaiian in June. Pennsylvanian was , and was in length and abeam. She had a deadweight tonnage of and a storage capacity of . Pennsylvanian had a single quadruple expansion steam engine powered by oil-fired boilers that drove a single screw propeller. It could propel the ship at a speed of . The engine had cylinders of 25½ inches (65 cm), , 53½ inches (136 cm) and diameter by stroke. It was built by the Maryland Steel Company, Sparrows Point, Maryland.
Early career
When Pennsylvanian began sailing for American-Hawaiian, the company shipped cargo from East Coast ports via the Tehuantepec Route to West Coast ports and Hawaii, and vice versa. Shipments on the Tehuantepec Route would arrive at Mexican ports—Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, for eastbound cargo, and Coatzacoalcos for westbound cargo—and would traverse the Isthmus of Tehuantepec on the Tehuantepec National Railway. Eastbound shipments were primarily sugar and pineapple from Hawaii, while westbound cargoes were more general in nature. Pennsylvanian sailed in this service on the west side of North America.
After the United States occupation of Veracruz on 21 April 1914 (which found six American-Hawaiian ships in Mexican ports), the Huerta-led Mexican government closed the Tehuantepec National Railway to American shipping. This loss of access, coupled with the fact that the Panama Canal was not yet open, caused American-Hawaii to return in late April to its historic route of sailing around South America via the Straits of Magellan. With the opening of the Panama Canal on 15 August, American-Hawaiian ships switched to taking that route. Pennsylvanian, on the west side of the canal when it opened, was one of the first two eastbound steamers to traverse the canal during her trip to New York. In late August, American-Hawaiian announced that Pennsylvanian would sail on a San Francisco – Panama Canal – Boston route, sailing opposite of , Honolulan, and sister ship Washingtonian. When landslides closed the canal in October 1915, all American-Hawaiian ships, including Pennsylvanian, returned to the Straits of Magellan route again.