Captain Frederick Watkins

FREDERICK WATKINS—(INMAN :"CITY OF CHICAGO"). From a photograph by Mora, New York. GGA Image ID # 12e6f8a094

The minute you set foot upon the deck of the City of Chicago you will like Captain Frederick Watkins.

A Few of the Voyages Commanded by Captain Frederick Watkins

1895-09-07 SS Paris Passenger List

• Steamship Line: American Line
• Class of Passengers: Second Cabin
• Date of Departure: 7 September 1895
• Route: Southampton to New York
• Commander: Captain Frederic Watkins

1896-08-15 SS Paris Passenger List

• Steamship Line: American Line
• Class of Passengers: Saloon
• Date of Departure: 15 August 1896
• Route: Southampton to New York
• Commander: Captain Frederick Watkins

1896-09-05 SS Paris Passenger List

• Steamship Line: American Line
• Class of Passengers: Saloon
• Date of Departure: 5 September 1896
• Route: Southampton for New York
• Commander: Captain Frederick Watkins

If you, as some people do, make the very first duty aboard ship to see what sort of a man you have for captain, and try the experiment of exchanging a word with him, you may rest assured you won't go away grumbling at his lack of courtesy when you have spoken to the Commodore of the Inman fleet.

Pleasanter men are not to be found either on sea or shore. " He's made of the right sort of stuff for a mariner," one of his seamen once said to me.

All his sailors like him, and it is much the same quality of polite consideration which has made him one of the most popular of all the transatlantic captains. In his uniform he looks every inch the sailor.

When he has doffed the "gilded blue" for street apparel he would never be taken for one whose days and nights, year in and year out, are passed upon the bounding billow. Some one has called the commander of the Chicago the "gentleman captain." There is no man who sails the Atlantic who has received more testimonials from his passengers than Captain Watkins has elicited by his unchanging good temper and constant urbanity.

A Stint with the American Line

Captain Frederick Watkins of the SS Paris. The Great Atlantic Liners, May 1895. GGA Image ID # 12e6b93247

Captain Frederick Watkins was also the popular master of the SS City of Paris of the American Line. When the American Line obtained Congressional authorization to give the ship American registry in 1892, Captain Watkins applied for American citizenship in order to retain his command, but this proved impossible to resolve. He was abnle to continue as master of vessels under the British flag.