One hundred years ago next month a group of top-hatted Manhattanites, led by their mayor, put out from a shaky pier in the North River to cheer the arrival of the British steamer Sirius, which, with 40 passengers, had made the voyage from Ireland in 18 days. Though the U. S. ship Savannah and Canada's Royal William, both with auxiliary steam equipment, had sailed the ocean years earlier, the little 178-foot, 700-ton, paddle wheeler Sirius was greeted by the mayor as the first vessel to cross the whole Atlantic under steam power....
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