The Memoirs of Charles H. Cramp

by Augustus C. Buell

In the early part of the year 1878 the North German Lloyd steamer “Cimbria” appeared at Bar Harbor with about sixty Russian officers and about eight hundred men. Their presence at that place created a great sensation. Visitors thronged there; and the officers were entertained at Bangor and also in the neighboring towns. The common sailors, however, who were allowed to go ashore about one hundred and fifty at a time, were cruelly disappointed. They would go along the streets searching for vodka in vain. The Maine law, which was in full force, was something beyond their comprehension. “There is everything in the world here but vodka,” they would say to one another, and even to their officers, when they returned to their ship from shore liberty.

Almost at the same moment when the “Cimbria” arrived in the waters of Maine, Mr. Wharton Barker visited Cramps’ shipyard. The banking concern of Barker Brothers was at that time the representative of the Barings, who were the financial agents of Russia. Mr. Barker informed Mr. Cramp that he was delegated to arrange for the conversion and fitting out of a number of auxiliary cruisers for the Russian navy, and that he had selected the Cramp Company as the professional and mechanical instrumentality for that purpose. He arranged for a visit of a number of Russian officers to the office of the Cramp Company. These officers had come over independent of the “Cimbria,” but arrived about the same time. They were the Committee or Board which had been appointed to decide on all questions that might arise in connection with the naval project mentioned. The head of this Board was Captain Semetschkin, Chief of Staff of the Grand Duke Constantine, who was then General Admiral of the Navy. Besides Captain Semetschkin, the Board consisted of Captain Grippenburg, Captain Avalan, Captain Alexeieff, Captain Loman, Captain Rodionoff, and Naval Constructor Koutaneyoff. This was in 1879. At this writing (1903) Captains Semetschkin and Loman have passed away; Captain Avalan is now Vice-Admiral and Imperial Minister of Marine; Captain Alexeieff, now Vice-Admiral, is also Viceroy of Manchuria; Captain Rodionoff is an Admiral; and Naval Constructor Koutaneykoff is Constructor-in-Chief of the Russian navy.

Upon examination of Cramps’ shipyard, they decided that Mr. Barker’s selection was well judged, and approved his recommendations that the work projected be done there.

The war between Russia and Turkey was still in progress, and there was every indication at that moment of British intervention. The purpose of the Russians was to fit out a small fleet of auxiliary cruisers or commerce destroyers to cruise in the North Atlantic in the route of the great British traffic between the United States and England. Their idea was that the fitting out of such a fleet with its threatening attitude toward their North Atlantic commerce might or would deter the British from armed intervention in behalf of the Turks.

At first the Russians made pretence of great secrecy as to their movements. “Pretence of secrecy” is the only phrase that can adequately express their attitude. On the other hand, the appearance of the “Cimbria” on the coast of Maine at Bar Harbor, filled with Russian naval officers and seamen, was not concealed, but on the other hand ostentatious. It of course instantly attracted the attention of the British Ministry and excited their apprehension as to the possible outcome; apprehension which the stories that for the time being filled the papers of New York and New England certainly did nothing to abate. An examination of the files of the Evening Star and the North American at this time would be interesting reading. The Evening Star, May 1, 1878, has an account headed, “What brings the Russian Steamer to Maine?” May 2: “Suspicious Craft.” May 6: “Suspicious ‘Cimbria’ to leave her Station.” Some accounts “to stir up the Irish.” May 8: “An Account of the ‘egg-eating’ incident.”

The North American, May 13, states that the captain of the “Cimbria” “has said that Russia is preparing to attack Great Britain by sea;” and refers to the disastrous effects on our commerce during the Civil War by the work of the Confederate cruisers which practically drove the American flag from the ocean.

Captain Gore-Jones, the Naval Attaché of the British Legation at Washington, and others visited Bar Harbor at the time the “Cimbria” was there. They made their visit incognito, as they imagined, and they located themselves daily on the landing pier near the Bar Harbor Club House, where all the Russian officers who were aboard the ship landed every day. It happened that one of the officers knew Gore-Jones notwithstanding his disguise. The British Attaché was sitting upon the pier with a slouch hat on his head and a fishing-rod in his hand, intently watching and patiently waiting for a bite, and apparently oblivious to all that was going on except at the other end of his line. When this officer passed him on the pier, he said in very good English, “Captain Gore-Jones, the fish do not seem to be anxious to make acquaintance with you!”

The visit of these officers to the shipyard of course was carried out with a great deal of real secrecy, and arrangements were made to buy three or four fine and up-to-date merchant ships and to transform them into cruisers, and also to build a small new cruiser.

Mr. Cramp first applied to the American Line to buy three of their ships, but the president of the company was too much astonished to give him any satisfaction; or, at least, he was not prepared to act as promptly as the occasion required, and lost the chance of selling the ships, to the most profound disgust of Mr. Thomas A. Scott, of the Pennsylvania Railroad, which corporation had a paramount interest in the ships and wanted to sell them!

The “State of California” was on the stocks at Cramps about ready to launch. This board of officers inspected her. They also looked at the “Columbus,” sailing between New York and Havana, a ship that Cramps had built for Mr. Clyde,—and the “Saratoga,” a ship that had belonged to the Ward Line, built by Mr. Roach for that same trade, and were favorably impressed.