USS Old Colony

In this detail of a panoramic view of the wrecked Halifax waterfront, the bow of Old Colony can be seen in the distance to the left of the brick smokestack and to the right of the smoke-belching funnels of HMCS Niobe.
Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, MP207.1.184/1b

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Old Colony was an American coastal passenger steamship which was en route to Britain for conversion to a patrol ship. She was at the dry dock wharf in Halifax for engine repairs. Old Colony was spared from any significant damage and was quickly put to use as an improvised hospital ship, treating victims of the Halifax Explosion using doctors from other ships and medical personnel from the Halifax Naval Dockyard.

Name: Old Colony

Official Number:

Signal Letters: KWHQ

Name Changes:

Tonnage: 3800 displacement, 4779 Gross, 2428 Net

Dimensions: 375.0' long, 52.2' breadth, 31.6' deep

Built: Philadelphia, USA

Builder: W. Cramp & Sons, S&EB Co.

Year: 1907

Registered Port: Boston, USA

Owners (Pre-War): Eastern Steamship Corp.

Engines: Steam	Horsepower:
Crew: 270

Career: Old Colony was a coastal passenger steamship which served Northeastern American ports. In World War One, she was commissioned into the US Navy.

Sources: The Halifax Explosion and the Royal Canadian Navy, John G. Armstrong; Shattered City, Janet Kitz; "Source of Threat and Source of Assistance: The Maritime aspects of the 1917 Halifax Explosion" by Joseph Scanlon in The Northern Mariner (October 2000).

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