MAILBOAT NAME: SS (steamship) Nassauvian PAST NAMES: J. W. SomervilleDIMENSIONS: 160.2′ long, 35.2′ wide, 12.7′ deep, 347 net tons, 632 gross tons, 400 horsepowerCONSTRUCTION: not knownYEAR BUILT: 1919, Official Number 151895BUILDER: Pocomoke City, Maine, USA EARLY CAREER: left Miami on Sunday and Nassau on Wednesdays with freight, mails (US & UK) and passengers.BAHAMAS CAREER: from at least 1923 connected Miami with Nassau on a regular runCAPTAINS: not knownOWNERS: Allan Line, owned by Allan U. Johnson, Nassau, agents Albury & Co. Nassau and MiamiFATE: not known
Source: By generosity of Mr. Ronald Lightbourn, author of several historical books about Nassau & the Bahamas.
Saunders & Craton wrote: “Although the weekly sailing SS Nassauvian, pride of the miniscule Allan Line (managing owner Captain Allan U. Johnson, also proprietor of the Allan Hotel), enjoyed the governmental mail contract and promised “First Class Accomodation to Fifty First Class Passengers,” it was built of wood and not much bigger than the timber schooners of the day or the largest modern Family Island mail boats.”
Source: Islanders in the Stream, A History of the Bahamian People: From the Ending of Slavery to the Twenty First Century, by Michael Craton and Gail Saunders, page 244, “On the Margins of a Modernizing World.”