The incredible story of a Chesapeake steamship that helped create Israel
Of all the passenger vessels that once plied the waters of the Chesapeake Bay, perhaps none had as interesting a life as the S.S. President Warfield, flagship of the Baltimore Steam Packet Co., aka the Old Bay Line. It saw more of the world than most ships of its kind.
The ships namesake was Solomon Davies Warfield, president of the Old Bay Line. Warfield came from a wealthy Baltimore family with a deep affection for the South. (Or an antipathy for the North. Warfields father was one of the Maryland legislators imprisoned by the Union after the start of the Civil War.)
The 400-passenger boat was originally going to be called the Florida, but a month after its keel was laid at the Pusey & Jones shipyard in Wilmington, Del., Warfield died. One of Warfields nieces did the honors when it was christened in 1928, but not his most notorious niece, Bessie Wallis Warfield, whom the world would later know as the Duchess of Windsor.
The President Warfield was the nicest boat in the Old Bay Lines fleet, painted a gleaming white, with a saloon paneled in ivory, a double staircase and some staterooms fitted with actual bathtubs. Dinner came from Marylands bounty: terrapin, canvas back duck, quail, oysters, roe. When the 18th Amendment was repealed, the ship even boasted a bar. (Before then, the space was a barbershop.)
rest of the John Kelly article from the Washington Post here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/the-story-of-a-chesapeake-steamship-that-helped-create-israel/2015/10/23/aab185a0-799a-11e5-a958-d889faf561dc_story.html?wpisrc=nl_buzz