loading 
Fitz Henry Lane
HISTORICAL ARCHIVE • CATALOGUE RAISONNÉ • EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE
An online project under the direction of the CAPE ANN MUSEUM
An online project under the direction of the CAPE ANN MUSEUM
Catalog entry
|
inv. 187
Tow Boat
Steam Propeller "Tow Boat"
1850s Graphite on paper 8 1/4 x 11 1/8 in. (21 x 28.3 cm) Signed lower right (in pencil): F.H. Lane del.; Inscribed right of center (in pencil): red / white
|
Related Work in the Catalog
Provenance (Information known to date; research ongoing.)
the Artist, Gloucester, Mass.
Joseph L. Stevens, Jr., Gloucester, Mass.
Samuel H. Mansfield, Gloucester, Mass.
Cape Ann Museum, Gloucester, Mass., 1927
Marks & Labels
Marks: Inscribed upper left (in red ink): 48 [numbering system used by curator A. M. Brooks upon Samuel H. Mansfield's donation of the drawings to the Cape Ann Museum]
Exhibition History
No known exhibitions.Published References
Paintings and Drawings by Fitz Hugh Lane. Gloucester, MA: Cape Ann Historical Association, 1974., fig. 121.
Wilmerding, John. Paintings by Fitz Hugh Lane. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art; in association with Harry N. Abrams, 1988., ill. in b/w p. 71 fig. 13, Steam Propeller "Tow Boat".
Commentary
Although not identified by Lane or his contemporaries, this drawing appears to be the sketch for the tow boat "R. B. Forbes" which appears behind the port quarter of the sloop of war "Jamestown" leaving Boston Harbor for Ireland in Lane’s lithograph, Departure of the "Jamestown" for Cork, Ireland, 1847 (inv. 475).
One of the earliest steam tow boats built in the United States for coastwise towing, the "R. B. Forbes" was built in Boston by Otis Tufts for the Boston Board of Marine Underwriters, at the behest of Robert Bennet Forbes, and for whom the vessel was named. The first iron-hull vessel built in Boston, she measured 320 tons. Her two Ericson screw propellers were driven by a pair of condensing engines, each with a bore of 36 inches and a 32-inch stroke. (Ref. 1)
Built for coastwise towing, the "R. B. Forbes" was mainly used to tow newly-built sailing ships from New England shipyards to New York, where their owners would complete the fitting-out process and send them to sea. Unable to use her profitably to this end, the owners sold her, as did her subsequent owners. She was sold to the government soon after the outbreak of the Civil War, went aground on the coast of North Carolina, February 25, 1862, a total loss. (Ref. 2)
– Erik Ronnberg
References:
1. Forbes, R(obert) B(ennet), Personal Reminiscences (3rd.ed. Revised, Boston, 1892), appended list of vessels.
2. Bradlee, Francis B. C., “Some Account of Steam Navigation in New England,” The Essex Institute Historical Collections (Vol. LVI, 1920), p. 187.