Ticonderoga

Shelburne, VT

Today, the steamboat Ticonderoga sits high and dry on land at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont. The side-paddle-wheel passenger steamboat has a vertical beam engine and is one of the once many boats that provided freight and passenger service on America’s bays, lakes and rivers from the early 19th to the mid-20th centuries.

Commissioned by the Champlain Transportation Company, Ticonderoga was built in 1906 at the Shelburne Shipyard in Shelburne, Vermont on Lake Champlain. The Ticonderoga measures 220 ft in length and 59 ft in beam and had a displacement of 892 tons. Her steam engine (Fletcher Engine Company of Hoboken, New Jersey) was powered by two coal-fired boilers and could achieve a maximum speed of 17 mph.

Initially, Ticonderoga served a north-south route on Lake Champlain. Over the years she also operated on the east-west run from Burlington to Port Kent, New York and had a brief career as a floating casino.

By 1950 business steadily declined and hence she was sold to the museum which she is part of today. While the Shelburne Museum attempted to keep her in operation, the steamboat era had passed making it difficult to find qualified personnel to operate and maintain the vessel. In 1954 the Shelburne Museum decided to move Ticonderoga overland to the museum grounds.

Much of her interior was restored to its original look. The dining room and stateroom halls retain their butternut and cherry paneling and ceilings their gold stenciling. The barbershop, captain’s quarters, dining room, and promenade deck contain furniture and accessories used in the Ticonderoga. In 1964, the Ticonderoga was declared a National Historic Landmark.

The Ticonderoga is part of the Shelburne Museum at Shelburne, Vermont.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article “Ticonderoga (steamboat)”, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0. Please be aware that this only relies on to the text content above, not to the pictures below which are copyright protected by steamboats.org.

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