IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2015 - 94

electric fixtures, light bulbs, and other
materials and supplies.
As an aside, Henry Villard later purchased the Edison Lamp Company of
Newark, New Jersey, and the Edison Machine Works of Schenectady, New York,
and, in 1889, merged them to form the
Edison General Electric Company. He
served as president of the company from
1889 to his retirement in 1893 when
Edison General Electric and ThomsonHouston Electric Company merged and
reorganized as today's General Electric
Company.

The SS Columbia
The Oregon Railway and Navigation Company had its new iron-hull
coastal steamship Columbia designed
and constructed specifically for service
between San Francisco, California, and
Portland, Oregon, via Astoria, Oregon
(see Figure 1). The overall length of
the vessel was 334 ft (101.8 m), and
its beam was 38.5 ft (11.7 m). It was
reported as being rated at 3,200 gross
register tons in some sources and at

2,721 gross register tons in others.
[Gross register tonnage equals the
overall total internal volume within the
ship, with 1 gross ton equal to 100 ft3
(2.83 m3) of volume.]
The SS Columbia was both a cargo and a passenger vessel. The wellappointed and comfortable cabins for
200 passengers, the dining saloon, and
the other public rooms were finished
in hard woods, including mahogany,
bird's-eye maple, French walnut,
and Hungarian ash. Each cabin was
equipped with an electric call button,
and telephones were installed in the
smoking room and in the rooms of the
ship's captain, other operating officers,
and stewards. The ship was powered by
a single compound double-expansion
condensing engine supplied by steam
produced in four coal-fired boilers. A
single shaft drove one four-bladed propeller having a 14-ft (4.27-m) diameter.
The diameter of the two engine cylinders were 42.5 in (108 cm) and 52 in
(132 cm), respectively, and the piston
stroke was 54 in (137 cm). Auxiliary

sails were carried on two masts for use
if the steam power failed or some other
condition required their use.
By all accounts, the SS Columbia
was one of the finest and most modern
coastal steamers then afloat, but the
most significant innovation on board
was the installation and successful
use of the first shipboard incandescent
lighting system.

Columbia's Incandescent
Lighting System
The SS Columbia was launched at the
Chester, Pennsylvania, shipyard on 24
February 1880 and, after completion by
early spring, sailed to New York City
to be equipped with the incandescent
lighting system and to take on cargo and
passengers for its maiden voyage to Portland, Oregon. The ship was docked at the
foot of Wall Street where it was certain
to attract the attention of both the financial community and the general public.
The installation included four dynamos and a total of 120 incandescent lights on several circuits. Each "A

figure 1. An undated photograph of the SS Columbia under way (from Wikipedia, photo in the public domain).
94

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