Albion (steamboat)

Albion and other steamers at Galbraith dock (now Pier 54), Seattle, circa 1904.
History
Name:	Albion
Builder:	Harry Barthtop and several others.
Completed:	1898
Identification:	US registry #107443
Fate:	destroyed by fire 1924
General characteristics
Type:	inland steamboat
Tonnage:	155 gross; 101 regist.
Length:	94.2 ft (28.71 m)
Beam:	19 ft (5.79 m)
Depth:	4.9 ft (1.49 m) depth of hold
Installed power:	compound steam engine, 77 indicated horsepower; converted to diesel in 1924.
Propulsion:	propeller
Crew:	seven (7).

Albion was a steamboat which ran on Puget Sound from 1898 to 1924. The vessel is perhaps best remembered for its service as beer delivery vessel and for a 1910 collision with the steamship Chippewa.

Albion was built at Coupeville, Washington by Capt. H.B. Lovejoy, who intended the vessel to be sold for service on the Yukon River according to one source or Cook Inlet according to another. Power was supplied by an innovative compound steam engine devised by R.D. Ross.

According to a news report from 1910, Albion was actually taken up to Cook Inlet, but it was found that the headwaters of the inlet were too shallow to allow the vessel to operate, and so the ship was returned to Puget Sound. Albion was placed on the route from Seattle to Coupeville. Albion was the first steamer on the Seattle-Everett-Whidbey Island route.

Lovejoy sold Albion to J.B. Treadwell in 1903, and he took the vessel on one trip to Cook Inlet in Alaska. In 1906, Albion was sold to the Merchants Transportation Company, a Tacoma firm. In 1907, Albion was sold again, this time to the Angeles Brewing and Malting Company, and in this capacity was engaged to haul cargos of beer from Port Angeles to Seattle and other cities, as well as haul freight and carry passengers to Port Angeles

On August 2, 1910, at about 11:00, Albion was involved in a collision with the much larger, steel-hulled steamer Chippewa. At 906 gross tons, Chippewa was six times the size of Albion.Chippewa was coming from Bellingham, Washington to Seattle and had reached the West Point at the northern entrance to Elliott Bay when the collision occurred. Albion was then en route from Seattle to Port Angeles, and many of her passengers were asleep in cabins at the time of the collision.