USRC Thomas Corwin (1876) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Thomas Corwin was a United States Revenue Cutter and subsequently a merchant vessel. These two very different roles both centered on Alaska and the Bering Sea. In 1912, Frank Willard Kimball wrote: "The Corwin has probably had a more varied and interesting career than any other vessel which plies the Alaskan waters."

The United States Revenue Cutter Thomas Corwin (aka the Corwin) was the first revenue cutter to regularly cruise the Bering Sea

Bering Sea

The Bering Sea is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean. It comprises a deep water basin, which then rises through a narrow slope into the shallower water above the continental shelves....

and the Arctic Ocean

Arctic Ocean

The Arctic Ocean, located in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Arctic north polar region, is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceanic divisions...

. Built in the state of Oregon

Oregon

Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...

, she was finished and commissioned in San Francisco which remained her home port. In a 23-year federal career, she participated in the search for the , landed scientific parties on Wrangel

Wrangel Island

Wrangel Island is an island in the Arctic Ocean, between the Chukchi Sea and East Siberian Sea. Wrangel Island lies astride the 180° meridian. The International Date Line is displaced eastwards at this latitude to avoid the island as well as the Chukchi Peninsula on the Russian mainland...

and Herald

Herald Island (Arctic)

Herald Island or Gerald Island is a small, isolated Russian island in the Chukchi Sea, to the east of Wrangel Island. It rises in sheer cliffs, making it quite inaccessible, either by ship or by plane. The only sliver of shoreline is at its northwestern point, where the cliffs have crumbled into...

islands, shelled the Tlingit village Angoon, interdicted whiskey traffic, rescued shipwrecked whalers, contributed to the exploration of Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

, and arrested seal poachers. She had at least eight captains during her federal career, but is particularly associated with two: the cool and resolute Calvin L. Hooper and the volatile Michael Healy. She continued operating in the Bering Sea as a merchant and charter vessel after she was sold in 1900.

As a merchant vessel, the SS Corwin started out as a support vessel for minerals exploration, and subsequently was extensively modified to carry passengers. She served coastal ports on Norton and Kotzebue Sounds, the Seward Peninsula, and the Bering Strait during the shipping season, and generally wintered in Puget Sound. She was the first steamer to reach Nome in the spring multiple years, and also frequently the last steamer out in the fall. Her Master through most of her commercial service was Ellsworth Luce West. She attempted to rescue the Karluk

Karluk (ship)

The last voyage of HMCS Karluk, flagship of the Canadian Arctic Expedition,ended with the loss of the ship and the subsequent deaths of nearly half her complement. On her outward voyage in August 1913 Karluk, a brigantine formerly used as a whaler, became trapped in the Arctic ice while sailing to...

survivors from Wrangel Island and participated in the search for four missing Karluk crewmen in 1914.

Construction

The Corwin was the first government vessel constructed in the state of Oregon. She was named for Thomas Corwin

Thomas Corwin

Thomas Corwin , also known as Tom Corwin and The Wagon Boy, was a politician from the state of Ohio who served as a prosecuting attorney, a member of the Ohio House of Representatives, the United States House of Representatives, and the United States Senate, and as the 15th Governor of Ohio 20th...

, a well-known mid-nineteenth-century politician who served as Secretary of the Treasury during Millard Filmore's presidency. She was the second of three Revenue Cutter Service and Coast Guard

Coast guard

A coast guard or coastguard is a national organization responsible for various services at sea. However the term implies widely different responsibilities in different countries, from being a heavily armed military force with customs and security duties to being a volunteer organization tasked with...

vessels to bear the name (there was also a patrol boat Cape Corwin
Cape class patrol boat
Cape class patrol boats were steel hull patrol boats with aluminum superstructures of the United States Coast Guard. They were unnamed until 1964, when they acquired names of US capes of land. Originally designed for anti-submarine warfare , all 35 boats in this class were built at the United...

).

The Corwin was built as a single-screw steam-powered topsail schooner

Schooner

A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....

by Oregon Iron Works at Albina

Albina, Oregon

Albina is a historical city which was consolidated into Portland, Oregon in 1891.Albina was laid out in 1872 with a plat for the new town filed in April 1873 by Edwin Russell, William Page, and George Williams. Albina was named after Mrs. Albina Page, the wife of William Page. Settlement began in...

(Portland) Oregon in 1876 and commissioned at San Francisco in 1877. She was constructed of fir and "fastened with copper, galvanized iron, and locust tree nails". Her appearance was typical of revenue cutters of the period, flush-decked with clipper bow, fantail stern, two sail-bearing masts, pilot house and funnel amidships and a deckhouse (probably the upper parts of the engine and boiler rooms) beneath and extending behind the pilot house. Her cost and displacement were somewhat greater than the Dexter-class

USRC Dexter (1874)

USRC Dexter was a Dexter-class cutter of the United States Revenue Cutter Service in commission from 1874 to 1908. She was the second ship of the United States Revenue Cutter Service to bear the name. The other Dexter-class cutters, all commissioned in 1874, were the Dallas and the Rush.Dexter was...

(1874) cutters of similar length and overall design.

Construction of the Corwin was contracted in May 1875 with completion scheduled for February 28, 1876. Captain John W. White was construction superintendent for the Revenue Cutter Service. The Corwin was launched August 23, 1876 before a large crowd. Oregon Iron Works became insolvent that fall and was declared bankrupt. This resulted in liens filed against the vessel by suppliers and subcontractors for unpaid bills. On January 2, 1877, Judge J. Deady of the U.S District Court, Oregon District ruled that the lien of libellants Coffin and Hendry was valid, that the government was not yet the owner of the vessel and had not been in possession when the vessel was seized by the marshal on November 29. However, the Corwin had been extricated about January 1, 1877 by Captain White and the USRC Rush and moved to the middle of the Columbia River (another source has this about January 10). The Government appealed Judge Deady's ruling and Coffin and Hendry withdrew their claim on the basis of assurances that they would be paid faster if they settled. After a flurry of unsuccessful legal actions by other claimants, the Corwin was removed to San Francisco where she was completed at a cost of $10150.77 and subsequently commissioned. Congress was still considering suppliers and workmen's claims in 1884.

The Corwin was reported to be capable of 12 knots under sail (48 hour average with a beam wind), 11.5 knots under steam alone, and 13–14 knots under combined power. As of 1900, her speed (probably cruising speed) was reported as 9 knots. Details of the Corwin's original three-gun armament are not available. In 1891 she reportedly carried four three-inch breech-loading

Breech-loading weapon

A breech-loading weapon is a firearm in which the cartridge or shell is inserted or loaded into a chamber integral to the rear portion of a barrel....

rifles and two Gatling gun

Gatling gun

The Gatling gun is one of the best known early rapid-fire weapons and a forerunner of the modern machine gun. It is well known for its use by the Union forces during the American Civil War in the 1860s, which was the first time it was employed in combat...

s. In July 1891, the New York Times reported that she would be rearmed with six-pounder Hotchkiss

Hotchkiss gun

The Hotchkiss gun can refer to different products of the Hotchkiss arms company starting in the late 19th century. It usually refers to the 1.65-inch light mountain gun; there was also a 3-inch Hotchkiss gun...

rapid-fire guns.

Federal career

The Corwin spent her entire career in the Pacific and Arctic oceans; her home port throughout her government service was San Francisco. She made her first trip to northern waters in 1877 under Captain J.W. White. In 1880 and 1881 with Calvin L. Hooper commanding and Michael Healy as Executive Officer, she searched in the Arctic for the USS Jeanette, a lost exploration vessel, and two lost whalers, Vigilant and Mount Wollaston. For this expedition, she was sheathed with one-inch oak planks from two feet above the water line to six feet below, with the oak applied over the copper and secured with 2.5 inch composition nails . Also added was an ice-breaking attachment for her bow, constructed of 3/8 inch iron plate, which could be put in place when needed. Captain Hooper sent out exploratory parties by dogsled along the Siberian arctic coast. Artifacts and stories collected from the Chukchi

Chukchi people

The Chukchi, or Chukchee , ) are an indigenous people inhabiting the Chukchi Peninsula and the shores of the Chukchi Sea and the Bering Sea region of the Arctic Ocean within the Russian Federation. They speak the Chukchi language...

residents of the coast confirmed that the Vigilant had been lost with no survivors, and apparently had picked up survivors from the Mount Wollaston before her own disaster. In the course of the Corwin's 1880 cruise, Captain Hooper located and mapped coal deposits in cliffs east of Cape Lisburne, Alaska, previously discovered by Captain E.E. Smith, the Corwin's ice pilot. The crew mined coal from these deposits in both 1880 and 1881, and the site has since been known as the Corwin coal mine.

In 1881 the Corwin carried a scientific detachment including John Muir

John Muir

John Muir was a Scottish-born American naturalist, author, and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, have been read by millions...

, Irving C. Rosse, M.D., and Edward W. Nelson, and in the course of the search for the Jeanette landed parties on Herald

Herald Island (Arctic)

and Wrangel Island

Wrangel Island

s in the Chukchi Sea

Chukchi Sea

Chukchi Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is bounded on the west by the De Long Strait, off Wrangel Island, and in the east by Point Barrow, Alaska, beyond which lies the Beaufort Sea. The Bering Strait forms its southernmost limit and connects it to the Bering Sea and the Pacific...

. In 1882, with Michael Healy as Captain, the Corwin was dispatched to St Lawrence Bay to pick up the stranded crew of the USS Rodgers
USS Rodgers (1879)
USS Rodgers was a steamship in the United States Navy acquired to search for Jeannette in 1881.On 3 March 1881, Congress, besieged by constituents as well as government agencies, appropriated $175,000 "to enable the Secretary of the Navy to charter, or purchase, equip, and supply a vessel for the...

, another ship of the Jeanette search which burned while overwintering in Siberia. The Rodgers crew was picked up by the whaler North Star and later transferred to the Corwin which returned them to San Francisco. That same year she participated in the shelling and burning of the Tlingit village Angoon in retaliation for a hostage-taking incident. A contemporary letter discovered about 1990 partly confirms and partly refutes the official Navy account of this incident. Her voyages in 1884 and 1885 included explorations by boat detachments of the Kobuk

Kobuk River

The Kobuk River is a river located in the Arctic region of northwestern Alaska in the United States. It is approximately long...

(1884 and 1885; Healy wrote Kowak) and Noatak

Noatak River

The Noatak River is a river in northwestern Alaska. The river's headwaters are on tall Mount Igikpak in the Schwatka Mountains of the Brooks Range in the Gates of the Arctic National Park. The Noatak flows generally westward approximately to the Chukchi Sea at Kotzebue Sound. The river's entire...

(1885) rivers in Alaska and the first ascent and investigation of the newly formed Bogoslof

Bogoslof Island

Bogoslof Island or Agasagook Island is the summit of a largely submarine stratovolcano located in the Bering Sea in the U.S. state of Alaska, behind the main Aleutian volcanic arc. It has a land area of and is unpopulated. The peak elevation of the island is...

volcano in the Aleutians.

The Corwin was replaced on the Arctic patrol by the USRC Bear starting in 1886. Among the reasons for this change was the Corwin's limited coal capacity which interfered with long cruises. The Corwin returned to the Bering Sea in 1886 and from 1890 to 1897 to combat fur seal

Fur seal

Fur seals are any of nine species of pinnipeds in the Otariidae family. One species, the northern fur seal inhabits the North Pacific, while seven species in the Arctocephalus genus are found primarily in the Southern hemisphere...

poaching. In December 1893 she carried dispatches to US ambassador Albert S. Willis

Albert S. Willis

Albert Shelby Willis was a United States Representative from Kentucky and a Minister to Hawaii.-Life:Born in Shelbyville, Kentucky, Willis attended the common schools, and graduated from the Louisville Male High School in 1860. He taught school for four years before graduating from the University...

in Hawaii

History of Hawaii

The human history of Hawaii includes phases of early Polynesian settlement, British arrival, unification, Euro-American and Asian immigrators, the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, a brief period as the Republic of Hawaii, and admission to the United States as Hawaii Territory and then as the...

at the height of the political crisis following the deposition of Queen Liliuokalani. Corwin's arrival there caused some consternation since it was thought it might signal US intervention to restore the queen. The Corwin went into the dockyard at Quartermaster Harbor

Quartermaster Harbor

Quartermaster Harbor is a small harbor located in southern Puget Sound, in Vashon Island, Washington State.-Geographic description:Quartermaster Harbor is formed by Vashon Island on the west and Maury Island on the east...

, Washington for extensive repairs including refastening and some engine work before the 1896 season. She operated under Navy orders with a Revenue Service crew during the Spanish American War, serving around San Diego, and was returned to the United States Treasury Department in August 1898. She was back in service in Alaska in 1899 The Corwin was sold out of the service February 14, 1900 for $16500 and was replaced on the Bering Sea patrol by the USRC Manning

USRC Manning (1898)

USRC Manning was a revenue cutter of the United States Revenue Cutter Service that served from 1898 to 1930, and saw service in the U.S. Navy in the Spanish-American War and World War I.-Commissioning:...

. The Corwin remained active in the Bering Sea as a merchant and charter vessel after she was sold.

Minerals exploration

In 1900 Ellsworth Luce West, a whaling captain from Martha's Vinyard, and some Boston investors formed a company to develop the coal deposits near Cape Lisburne to supply the Nome

Nome, Alaska

Nome is a city in the Nome Census Area in the Unorganized Borough of the U.S. state of Alaska, located on the southern Seward Peninsula coast on Norton Sound of the Bering Sea. According to the 2010 Census, the city population was 3,598. Nome was incorporated on April 9, 1901, and was once the...

market. Needing a suitable ship, they entered the winning bid for the Corwin and organized as the Corwin Trading Company. The project increased in scope when one investor (veteran prospector, engineer, and writer A.G. Kingsbury) pledged Nome gold claims for his shares. Although Kingsbury described them as "conservative Boston capitalists" the investors appear to have been as much enthusiasts as any Nome prospectors; all insisted on joining the expedition. To create cargo space in the Corwin, West had the entire wardroom torn out. The lost accommodations were replaced with a cabin constructed from the stern to the engine room, creating a raised poop deck

Poop deck

In naval architecture, a poop deck is a deck that forms the roof of a cabin built in the rear, or "aft", part of the superstructure of a ship.The name originates from the French word for stern, la poupe, from Latin puppis...

. This modification is shown clearly in a 1902 photograph. West describes the Corwin as brig-rigged in this period, but photos from 1900 continue to show a gaff on the foremast and no yards crossed on the mainmast, so this is more a difference of terminology than a change of sail-plan.

Captain West could not obtain a passenger license for the ship without having her re-caulked, so the small number of passengers were signed as crew members. She went up to Nome carrying expedition equipment and general cargo and from about June 3–10 was occupied with the rescue and salvage of the barkentine Catherine Sudden, which had suffered a punctured hull and two broken masts hitting ice. A little later she set out on a prospecting expedition to Cape Chaplino

Cape Chaplino

Cape Chaplino is a cape pointing eastward in the Bering Sea in the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug of the Russian Federation.This headland is located in an area of narrow beach ridges and swales which form a roughly triangular lagoon....

and stopped at St Lawrence Island about June 17. There she encountered the Russian steamer Progress, chartered by American mining engineer Washington Vanderlip and his Russian backers. Vanderlip hired the Corwin to clear a channel through the ice so Progress could reach Cape Chaplino and the clear water just off the Siberian coast.

Vanderlip described the Corwin's action as an icebreaker: "Some of the ice the Corwin can push to one side or the other but when this is not possible she backs up in order to get good headway and charges the obstruction and strikes it fairly between the eyes. She comes to a dead stop and quivers from stem to stern with the tremendous impact A rending grinding noise is heard and the berg which challenged us is a berg no longer..."

Finding the streams near Cape Chaplino still ice-clogged, the Corwin returned to Nome. In mid-July she headed north on a minerals exploration trip. She reached the coal deposits after prospecting stops at Grantley Harbor (adjacent to Port Clarence, Alaska

Port Clarence, Alaska

Port Clarence is a census-designated place in Nome Census Area, Alaska. The population was 21 at the 2000 census. It is located on the spit separating the bay of Port Clarence from the Bering Strait.-History:...

) and along the coast. The largest seam had already been staked by a competing company (that party traveled by land), but the Corwin's party staked several other claims, mined and loaded coal, and returned to Nome with 100 tons (four lighter-loads) to sell. Coal was handled in sacks of 200 lb, lowered down the cliffs by rope. It reportedly sold tor $18–20 per ton at Nome. A second trip developed the mines and brought out 25 tons.

In April 1901 the Corwin was towed from Port Townsend to Esquimalt and hauled out for refitting. She then spent most of that summer tied to the dock for nonpayment of the dockyard bill. Captain West, who had spent the early part of the season as second mate on an east coast collier, was eventually sent west with $2000 to settle up. After paying the bills, he set about finding work for the vessel to pay her keep. A plan to charter her out for halibut fishing was vetoed by F.W. Huestis, president of the Corwin Trading Company, reportedly because of insurance costs.

Passenger and freight service

By 1902 the Corwin was licensed to carry passengers as well as freight. Accommodations were rearranged to carry 35 first-class and 50 steerage

Steerage

Steerage is the act of steering a ship. "Steerage" also refers to the lowest decks of a ship.-Steerage and steerage way:The rudder of a vessel can only steer the ship when water is passing over it...

passengers. She departed Seattle in May and spent the summer and early fall serving Nome and surrounding towns and camps as far north as Deering on Kotzebue Sound. She underwent further modification at Moran's

Robert Moran (shipbuilder)

Robert Moran was a prominent Seattle shipbuilder who served as the city's mayor from 1888 to 1890.A native of New York City, Moran was 18 when, in 1875, he arrived penniless in Seattle, a frontier outpost in the Pacific Northwest, which had been settled in November 1851, and only incorporated...

yard in Seattle before the 1904 season. This work extended or replaced the stern cabin to give her an entire second deck as well as a vertical stem

Stem (ship)

The stem is the very most forward part of a boat or ship's bow and is an extension of the keel itself and curves up to the wale of the boat. The stem is more often found on wooden boats or ships, but not exclusively...

(fitted with a steel ice protector), two new deckhouses, and a forward pilothouse. This so altered her appearance that only a few of her numerous subsequent photographs give any hint of her past as a schooner. Besides the outward changes she was modernized with addition of electric lighting throughout the ship and running water in all staterooms. The changes added six first-class staterooms and more steerage space, bringing her capacity to 100 passengers and about 200 tons freight. One source reports the cost of the rebuilding as $40000. When she headed out for Alaska in May 1904 after addition of the second deck there were rumors the modification had made her topheavy. Some passengers complained before departure that she was overloaded and unseaworthy. Inspectors ordered that all freight be stowed below deck, but permitted her to sail. Subsequently there were reports that wreckage from the ship had been found on Vancouver Island leading to fears she was lost, but she reached Nome safely on June 8. The Victoria Daily Colonist could not find the origin of the reports and branded them a deliberate hoax.

The Corwin continued in the passenger and freight business and from 1906 to 1910 held a contract to transport mail to towns on Norton Sound

Norton Sound

Norton Sound is an inlet of the Bering Sea on the western coast of the U.S. state of Alaska, south of the Seward Peninsula. It is about 240 km long and 200 km wide. The Yukon River delta forms a portion of the south shore and water from the Yukon influences this body of water...

and the Seward Peninsula

Seward Peninsula

The Seward Peninsula is a large peninsula on the western coast of the U.S. state of Alaska. It projects about into the Bering Sea between Norton Sound, the Bering Strait, the Chukchi Sea, and Kotzebue Sound, just below the Arctic Circle...

. She was the first ship to reach Nome in the spring in 1902–1909, 1913 and 1914. She generally returned to Puget Sound in the fall and was often the last ship out of Nome. In part, her early arrivals were due to the fact that she was sheathed and retained a protected and reinforced bow for ice work. In 1908, after arriving at Nome during a particularly bad ice season, the Corwin headed out again and cut channels to free three steamers that were stuck in the ice 50 miles from Nome, one (the Victoria) in danger of sinking and all in danger of being carried north by moving ice. In 1914, it was arranged that she would lead the waiting fleet of steamers into Nome, following closely as the Revenue Cutter Bear picked out a channel through the ice. For most of her merchant career, she was owned by the Pacific Coal and Transportation Company (successor to the Corwin Trading Company), and her official home port was listed as Boston. Captain West returned as Master from 1902 to 1910; his wife Gertrude sailed with him as Ship's Clerk. Most of the crew were Eskimo (they were less likely to desert the ship to go prospecting), and the kitchen staff were Chinese. The Corwin held daily fire drills, and was equipped with wireless since the 1904 refit. In 1911 and 1912, the Corwin was listed as a ship of the Western Alaska Steamship Company. In 1913, her home port was listed as Seattle and her owner as Ben Moyses.

Attempted Karluk rescue

In 1914, a wealthy Nome mine-owner and businessman, Jafet Lindeberg

Jafet Lindeberg

Jafet Lindeberg was a gold prospector and co-founder of the city of Nome, Alaska.-Background:Jafet Lindeberg was born in Kvænangen, Troms county, in Norway. In his youth, he tried prospecting for gold in northern Norway. Lindeberg's father, Isak, was a farmer and fisherman...

, chartered the Corwin (Captain R.J. Healy) from the Kotzebue Transportation and Trading Company to attempt a rescue the Karluk survivors from Wrangel Island

Wrangel Island

. She reached Wrangel Island one day after the survivors had been rescued by Olaf Swenson

Olaf Swenson

Olaf Swenson was a Seattle-based fur trader and adventurer active in Siberia and Alaska in the first third of the 20th century. His career intersected with activities of notable explorers of the period, and with the Russian civil war. He is credited with leading the rescue of the Karluk...

and his crew in the King & Winge
King & Winge (fishing schooner)
The King & Winge was one of the most famous ships ever built in Seattle, Washington, United States. Built in 1914, in the next 80 years she had participated in a famous Arctic rescue, been present at a great maritime tragedy, and been employed as a halibut schooner, a rum runner, a pilot boat, a...

. She then proceeded to look for four missing members of Karluk's crew, circling Herald Island

Herald Island (Arctic)

without seeing any sign of the missing men. The Corwin struck a reef off Cape Douglas on her return trip and went hard aground. She was refloated by jettisoning and lightering supplies to lighten ship, with assistance from the USRC Bear and a crew from the Nome Lifesaving

United States Life-Saving Service

The United States Life-Saving Service was a United States government agency that grew out of private and local humanitarian efforts to save the lives of shipwrecked mariners and passengers...

station.

Ultimate fate

By 1916, the Corwin was majority-owned by Schubach & Hamilton, who sold her to Mexican owners. She burned in drydock at Salina Cruz

Salina Cruz

Salina Cruz is a major seaport on the Pacific coast of the Mexican state of Oaxaca. It is the state's third-largest city and is municipal seat of the municipality of the same name.It is part of the Tehuantepec District in the west of the Istmo Region....

that same year.

Legacy

Several places in Alaska and Yukon

Yukon

Yukon is the westernmost and smallest of Canada's three federal territories. It was named after the Yukon River. The word Yukon means "Great River" in Gwich’in....

are named for the Corwin, including Corwin Bluff (the bluff near Cape Lisburne containing the Corwin Coal Mine), Corwin Rock in the Aleutian Islands, and possibly Cape Corwin

Cape Corwin

Cape Corwin is the easternmost point of Nunivak Island in the Bering Sea in the U.S. state of Alaska. In the Cup'ig language it is known as Cing'ig . According to Donald Orth the name marks the southwest entrance point to Etolin Strait...

on Nunivak Island

Nunivak Island

Nunivak Island , the second largest island in the Bering Sea, is a permafrost-covered volcanic island lying about 30 miles offshore from the delta of the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers in the state of Alaska, at about 60° North latitude...

. Kivalina lagoon was called Corwin Lagoon by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey from 1884 to about 1950. The Corwin Cliffs in the Saint Elias Mountains

Saint Elias Mountains

The Saint Elias Mountains are a subgroup of the Pacific Coast Ranges, located in southeastern Alaska in the United States, southwestern Yukon and the very far northwestern part of British Columbia in Canada. The range spans Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve in the USA and Kluane...

, Yukon were named for the Corwin by I.C Russell

Israel Russell

Israel Cook Russell, LL.D. was an American geologist and geographer who explored Alaska in the late 19th century. He was born at Garrattsville, New York, on the 10th of December 1852. He received B.S. and C.E...

in 1890.

A contemporaneous model of the Corwin built by Captain Thomas Mountain is in the collection of the Oregon State Historical Society and was displayed at the Alaska State Museum in 2006.

External links

New York Times account of Corwin 1880 cruise June 27, 1881, Page 2

Construction

Federal career

Minerals exploration

Passenger and freight service

Attempted Karluk rescue

Ultimate fate

Legacy

External links

Further reading