Hello and welcome to Tuesday Cuppa Tea! I hope you had a wonderful Easter or Passover and are enjoying the wonderful spring weather we are having here...too wonderful for me to go out...the blossoming trees has me locked in at the moment. But...I am so blessed anyway, it doesn't matter!!!!
This is a bit unusual for a Tuesday Cuppa Tea...bear with me! It is connected....My choice of teacup today is related to what else I have to post. I am sharing a teacups and saucer by Homer Laughlin, USA in the Eggshell Nautilus Ferndale pattern. I am out of them, so this picture is from an Etsy story called LBF Collections.
Homer Laughlin is a USA company founded in Ohio in 1871 and moved to West Virginia in 1903. The company is till in operation and open for tours. The company is most famous for it's Fiesta line, but in it's earlier days was famous for it's restaurant wares and made products for ships, trains, restaurants, clubs and other organizations...the more utilitarian wares in white ironstone in contrast to the pretty dinnerware patterns the one above is an example of. Here are 3 more patterns in items I have at the moment.
The pattern below is from the 1890s and is made of ironstone.
But the reason I am sharing about Homer Laughlin, is because April 2 is the anniversary of the sinking, in 1912 of the S. S. Governor right in our local water just off Port Townsend in the waters of the Puget Sound.
This period postcard shows the S. S. Governor. The ship had left San Francisco and was heading to Victoria BC with 417 passengers, when at night it confused the running lights on the freighter West Hartland heading out of Seattle with the Point Wilson lighthouse and rammed the West Hartland. Luckily most of the passengers were saved, due to the captain of the west Hartland keeping the freighter positioned into the Governor until most passengers were saved except those trapped or killed by the collision itself. There was a loss of 8 lives, 2 of them children.
Enter the Maritime Documentation Society, a group of professional maritime archaeologists and researchers who track missing wrecks, document them and leave them intact. 2 weeks ago, members of the group gave a lecture and slideshow about their dives to locate and identify the wreck in 2008 at our Sequim Museum And Art Center. Now here is where Homer Laughlin comes in.
In this photo from the Peninsula Daily News, one of our local papers, you see Society member Rob Wilson....one of the presenters at our program...with a water pitcher and tooth mug that were brought up from the wreck for identification purposes, and after 5 years with the state, the relics are on loan to the society for educational purposes. You can see a photo of them cleaned down below. When the items were cleaned, they were identified by a stamp on the bottom as Homer Laughlin white ironstone restaurant ware, and came from a 1st class cabin. Here is a photo of the china they found (and left) and a photo Rob took of the original banding of all the dishes identifying them as the line that ran the S. S. Governor, the Pacific Coast Steamship Company.
One of the other Society members, Paul Hangartner, one of the divers who took part in the program is holding the jug seen in the first picture, encrusted with decades of sea accretions in the first photo, with the cleaned jug. The next photos were taken with my phone...forgot my camera@!
The exhibits included their propulsion devices, charts of how the Governor sank and by blueprints of the ship. All fascinating.
It was a wonderful program. As it is so close to the anniversary of the Titanic, it was so amazing to realize we have similar ships, sites and stories so close to home. Apparently there are hundreds of undocumented wrecks just off our shores.
There are several wonderful websites for more info on this particular site and Society as well as the local news stories about the expedition, and the website of the film arm of the society which includes videos:
Maritime Documentation Society
DCS Films site for the S S Governor dives
Peninsula Daily News article: Diver Tells Of Visit To SS Governor
Sequim Gazette: Exploring History Beneath The Waves
USAToday: History Of Homer Laughlin
So thanks for visiting today. I hope you will link your tea related post with the linky below, and visit the blogs listed...just a few of the wonderful blogs I'll be visiting. Have a wonderful week , and have a cuppa tea with someone you love!
This is a bit unusual for a Tuesday Cuppa Tea...bear with me! It is connected....My choice of teacup today is related to what else I have to post. I am sharing a teacups and saucer by Homer Laughlin, USA in the Eggshell Nautilus Ferndale pattern. I am out of them, so this picture is from an Etsy story called LBF Collections.
Homer Laughlin is a USA company founded in Ohio in 1871 and moved to West Virginia in 1903. The company is till in operation and open for tours. The company is most famous for it's Fiesta line, but in it's earlier days was famous for it's restaurant wares and made products for ships, trains, restaurants, clubs and other organizations...the more utilitarian wares in white ironstone in contrast to the pretty dinnerware patterns the one above is an example of. Here are 3 more patterns in items I have at the moment.
The pattern below is from the 1890s and is made of ironstone.
But the reason I am sharing about Homer Laughlin, is because April 2 is the anniversary of the sinking, in 1912 of the S. S. Governor right in our local water just off Port Townsend in the waters of the Puget Sound.
This period postcard shows the S. S. Governor. The ship had left San Francisco and was heading to Victoria BC with 417 passengers, when at night it confused the running lights on the freighter West Hartland heading out of Seattle with the Point Wilson lighthouse and rammed the West Hartland. Luckily most of the passengers were saved, due to the captain of the west Hartland keeping the freighter positioned into the Governor until most passengers were saved except those trapped or killed by the collision itself. There was a loss of 8 lives, 2 of them children.
Enter the Maritime Documentation Society, a group of professional maritime archaeologists and researchers who track missing wrecks, document them and leave them intact. 2 weeks ago, members of the group gave a lecture and slideshow about their dives to locate and identify the wreck in 2008 at our Sequim Museum And Art Center. Now here is where Homer Laughlin comes in.
In this photo from the Peninsula Daily News, one of our local papers, you see Society member Rob Wilson....one of the presenters at our program...with a water pitcher and tooth mug that were brought up from the wreck for identification purposes, and after 5 years with the state, the relics are on loan to the society for educational purposes. You can see a photo of them cleaned down below. When the items were cleaned, they were identified by a stamp on the bottom as Homer Laughlin white ironstone restaurant ware, and came from a 1st class cabin. Here is a photo of the china they found (and left) and a photo Rob took of the original banding of all the dishes identifying them as the line that ran the S. S. Governor, the Pacific Coast Steamship Company.
One of the other Society members, Paul Hangartner, one of the divers who took part in the program is holding the jug seen in the first picture, encrusted with decades of sea accretions in the first photo, with the cleaned jug. The next photos were taken with my phone...forgot my camera@!
The exhibits included their propulsion devices, charts of how the Governor sank and by blueprints of the ship. All fascinating.
It was a wonderful program. As it is so close to the anniversary of the Titanic, it was so amazing to realize we have similar ships, sites and stories so close to home. Apparently there are hundreds of undocumented wrecks just off our shores.
There are several wonderful websites for more info on this particular site and Society as well as the local news stories about the expedition, and the website of the film arm of the society which includes videos:
Maritime Documentation Society
DCS Films site for the S S Governor dives
Peninsula Daily News article: Diver Tells Of Visit To SS Governor
Sequim Gazette: Exploring History Beneath The Waves
USAToday: History Of Homer Laughlin
So thanks for visiting today. I hope you will link your tea related post with the linky below, and visit the blogs listed...just a few of the wonderful blogs I'll be visiting. Have a wonderful week , and have a cuppa tea with someone you love!
Common
Ground ~ http://commonground-debrasvintagedesigns.blogspot.com
Monday Marketplace
Terri~ http://artfulaffirmations.blogspot.com/
Teacup Tuesday
Teacup Tuesday
Trisha~ http://sweetology101.blogspot.com/
Tea Party Tuesday
Tea Party Tuesday
Teatime Tuesday
Kathy~ http://blissfulrhythm.blogspot.com/
Victoria - A Return to Loveliness
Victoria - A Return to Loveliness
Martha~ http://www.marthasfavorites.com/
Tea On Tuesday
Miss Kathy ~http://thewritersreverie.blogspot.com/
Miss Kathy ~http://thewritersreverie.blogspot.com/
Tuesday
Tea
Michelle ~ http://www.finchrest.com/
Tea On
Tuesday
Tea
Tuesday
Phyllis ~ http://www.relevanttealeaf.blogspot.com/
Tea On
Tuesday
Poetry
In A Pot Of Tea
Bernideen’s
~ http://bernideensteatimeblog.blogspot.com/
Friends
Sharing Tea Wednesday
Ivy And
Elephants ~http://ivyandelephants.blogspot.com/
What’s It Wednesday
Home On Wednesday
