Pennsylvania
Ship Number
302
Vessel Type
Passenger / Cargo Ship
Built
Belfast
Slip Number
6
Launch Date
10 September 1896
Delivered
30 January 1897
Owner
Hamburg Amerika Line
Weight
13726 grt
BP Length
560 feet
Breadth
62 feet
No. of Screws
Twin
Speed (approx)
14 knots
Propulsion
Quadruple expansion constructed in Belfast
Official No.
Registered
Fate
Scrapped
Pennsylvania

[Harland and Wolff Collection]
One funnel, four masts, twin screw and a speed of 14 knots. There was accommodation for 162-1st, 197-2nd and 2,382-3rd class passengers. She made her maiden voyage from Belfast to New York on 30 January 1897 and then entered Hapag's Hamburg to New York service. She had an enormous steerage capacity of 2,382, as compared to a total of 340 in first and second classes combined.
Pennsylvania's aftmost deckhouse was briefly fitted with a flight deck in 1910, with a view toward airplane takeoffs up to 50 miles (80 km) offshore, but it was removed after several Navy test flights. The same year she was rebuilt to 13,333 gross tons with accommodation for 404-2nd and 2,200-3rd class passengers

Interned at Hoboken, New Jersey, when World War I began in 1914.

She was seized by the United States Authorities in April 1917 and renamed Nansemond.

She was operated by the United States Shipping Board as a naval transport until 1919, when she was laid up in the Hudson River.
 
Nansemond was scrapped in 1924.