Emma Giles
Excursion And Packet Steamer · United States · Lost Burned for scrap sometime after her 1936 retirement from steamer service, following further use as a barge and breakwater. · Annapolis & the Upper Chesapeake
Baltimore's best-loved Chesapeake excursion steamer, the Emma Giles ended her days deliberately burned for scrap in a Patapsco tributary.
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The Vessel and Her Loss
Emma Giles was among the most popular sidewheel excursion steamers on the Chesapeake, carrying Baltimoreans to Tolchester Beach and calling at Annapolis, the West and Rhode Rivers, and other Bay landings for nearly fifty years. After a 1924 collision with the freighter Steel Trader near the Little Choptank River, from which she was repaired, she continued service until 1936. She was then converted to a barge and later a breakwater before being towed up Curtis Creek and burned to recover her metal fittings; part of her hull remained visible for decades afterward.
Vessel
- 1887
- US official number 135925
- William E. Woodall and Company
- Baltimore, Maryland
- Iron frame with wood planking
- 178 ft
- 30 ft
- 549
- Steam, sidewheel
- The Tolchester Company
Loss
- Burned for scrap sometime after her 1936 retirement from steamer service, following further use as a barge and breakwater.
- Intentional sinking
- Curtis Creek, beyond the Pennington Avenue Bridge, Baltimore
- Patapsco River
- Not established
- Not established
- Not established
- Not established
- Not established
The Wreck Today
- Not established
- Stern remnants remained visible above water as of 2005.
- Not established
- Not established
- Not established
Position
- Not established
- Position not established
- Curtis Creek, Baltimore
Evidence
Overall confidence: Partially documented (65/100)
The exact date of the final burning is not established in the sources reviewed.
Build data, service route, 1924 collision, and eventual burning.
Robert C. Keith, Baltimore Harbor: A Pictorial History (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005)
Confirmation of the Curtis Creek burning and surviving stern remnant.
