Baltic (1903) arrived in New York for the first time on 8 July 1904.
Here’s what the New York Times had to say about the occasion:
“Amid the tooting of hundreds of whistles and the dipping of flags, the new White Star Line steamship Baltic, the largest ever built, made her way up the bay yesterday, completing her maiden voyage from Liverpool to this port. Thousands of eyes along the shore watched the big vessel as she steamed slowly up the harbor on the breast of the tide, and every floating craft to be seen dwindled into insignificance beside the big liner. When the Baltic appeared in the upper bay ferryboats, steamboats, tugs and sailing craft went out of their course to give those aboard better views of the steamship, and those vessels which were coming down the channel as the Baltic came up made way for her.”
And later on in the story…
“She is in command of Lieut. E. J. Smith, R. N. R., who has become well known to seagoers as Captain of the steamship Majestic, from which he was transferred to take command of the new vessel. The Baltic is the tenth command which Lieut. Smith has held in the service of the White Star Line.”
Smith’s career would end abruptly less than eight years later on the morning of 15 April 1912.
