The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

THE NORTHERN STEAMSHIP COMPANY 1888-1916 By Rev. Edward J. Dowling, S.J. The Northern Steamship Company was established in 1888 by James J. Hill as an adjunct to his Great Northern Railway. Six package freighters were contracted for with the Globe Iron Works of Cleveland and were delivered in 1888 and 1889. They were fine appearing ships, quite fast, and were rigged with three masts. During the Nineties considerable chartered tonnage joined these six fleet units. In 1894 and 1895 two large passenger liners were added to the fleet. Mr. Hill stated that these vessels were to be in no way inferior to the finest Transatlantic liners of the day. The NORTH WEST and NORTH LAND originally had three stacks, were painted white and were very fast - also very expensive to operate. In 1903 the freighter service was taken over by a Buffalo managing pool known as Mutual Transit Co. Three large OSCAR T. FLINT steel package freighters were added in 1909. When the railroads were required to dispose of the Great Lakes holdings, the freighters in the fleet, as of 1916, became part of the Great Lakes Transit Corporation. The freighters of the fleet were painted black of hull, with white cabins and black stacks, originally carrying a white star on the side. The two passenger liners were white hulled, had white cabins and originally had three light yellow stacks, and a star on the sides of the middle stack. Later (after reboilering in 1902) they had two stacks, yellow with black top and white star and "N" on both stacks. The steel bulk freighter JAMES J. HILL of 1900 was not a member of this fleet. Young Photo