William Kidd, also known as Captain Kidd, was a Scottish sea captain who was commissioned as a privateer and was also a pirate. Following a trial that heavily involved politics, he was executed in London in 1701 for murder and piracy. Stories swirl that Captain Kidd buried treasure in two ponds that are near the foot of where the Montauk Point Lighthouse now stands. This supposedly took place around 1699, and the two ponds are called “Money Ponds” today.
Captain Kidd in New York Harbor, in a...
Gasoline prices are increasing almost daily, pinching the wallets and pocketbooks of nearly all Americans with cars. However, as bad as that news is, diesel prices are surging even more across the country. Today’s truckstop retail diesel prices hit a new record of $5.32/gallon. Since February 1st, national truckstop diesel prices have increased by $1.57/gallon. For an owner-operator whose truck gets 6.5 miles per gallon, this equates to a cost increase of $0.24 per mile.
Diesel’s importance to...
An intertwined history
The Black Diamond Steamship Company (BDSC) was established in 1919 following World War I by J.E. Dockendorff. He sought to build a line of passenger and cargo ships.
Meanwhile, the American Diamond Lines was founded at about the same time by the United States Shipping Board (USSB). As noted in an earlier FreightWaves Classics article, the USSB was established as an emergency agency by the 1916 Shipping Act on September 7, 1916. Once the U.S. entered World War I, the...
The two Torrijos-Carter Treaties are treaties signed by the United States and Panama in Washington, D.C. on September 7, 1977. The 1977 treaties superseded the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty of 1903. The 1977 treaties guaranteed that Panama would gain control of the Panama Canal and the Panama Canal Zone on December 31, 2000, ending the control of the canal that the U.S. had exercised since 1903.
Between the signing of the treaties and the formal transfer of the Canal Zone, there were intermediate...
This is the latest in a periodic series that profiles U.S. ports. While the ports have similarities, all have different histories and many focus on certain cargoes. The nation is fortunate to have ports along its three coasts, major rivers and the Great Lakes.
Overview
The Port of Corpus Christi (Port Corpus Christi) is located on the south-central coast of Texas in the western Gulf of Mexico and on the southern shores of Corpus Christi Bay. The port is 190 nautical miles southwest of the Port...
There are many people interested in former transportation companies, whether they were trucking companies, railroads, airlines or ocean lines. These companies are called “fallen flags,” and the term describes companies whose corporate names have been dissolved through merger, bankruptcy or liquidation.
Today’s FreightWaves Classics profiles another fallen flag in the ocean shipping industry – the AGWI Lines. “AGWI” was an acronym for the Atlantic, Gulf & West Indies Steamship Lines.
This was...
The Luckenbach Steamship Company was a long-lived and successful U.S. shipping company. It survived two world wars, but did not survive the industry’s change to container ships…
The company was founded by Lewis Luckenbach in 1850, who began with a single tugboat in New York Harbor. Luckenbach found success by pioneering tug-and-barge transport of coal from Norfolk, Virginia. Norfolk was the primary port used to ship coal from the fields and mines of Virginia and West Virginia to cities and...
Background
No matter the time of year, you can visit a grocery store or supermarket in almost any community in the United States and find fresh fruit and vegetables from across the country and around the world. In contrast, during the late 1800s, the diets of most U.S. residents did not contain nearly as many fresh fruits and vegetables as we eat today. Also, most fruit and vegetables were consumed relatively near where they were grown. (However, refrigerated railroad freight cars began to be...
On Saturday, November 6, those near the northwestern Pennsylvania city of Erie noted the 103rd anniversary of a lighthouse on Lake Erie.
The lighthouse began to operate on November 6, 1818 when lighthouse keeper John Bone lit the oil wick in the new structure for the first time. Bone was the Presque Isle Light keeper for 14 years. He, his wife and their four daughters and two sons lived in a one-story, three-room house built near the lighthouse.
The lighthouse was constructed on a bluff that...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/freightwaves-classics-lighthouse-on-lake-erie-began-operations
The Black Star Line (BSL) was a steamship company that was completely owned, operated and financed by people of African descent. Marcus Garvey (1887-1940), a Jamaican national and master propagandist, was the leader of the Black Star Line. Garvey was a “Black nationalist and a leader of the pan-Africanism movement, which sought to unify and connect people of African descent worldwide.” Garvey also headed the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA); he told UNIA members in 1921, that...