SS Mascotte
American steamship (1886–1931)
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SS Mascotte was an American steamship that operated for the Plant Steamship Line, and later the Peninsular and Occidental Steamship Company, serving Tampa, Key West, and Havana, Cuba. The ship was built in 1886 by William Cramp & Sons of Philadelphia for shipping and railroad magnate Henry B. Plant and the Plant System, a network of railroads and steamship lines that linked Florida to Cuba and the rest of the country.[2]
The steamship Mascotte leaving the P&O docks at the Arsenal, Havana Harbor, Cuba, c. 1900 | |
| History | |
|---|---|
 United States | |
| Name | Mascotte |
| Owner | Plant Investment Company |
| Operator | Plant Steamship Line |
| Builder | William Cramp & Sons, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Launched | 23 October 1885 |
| Completed | 7 January 1886 |
| Owner | Peninsular and Occidental Steamship Company |
| Acquired | 19 December 1900 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Steamship (Passenger & Cargo) |
| Length | 207.9 feet (63.4 m)[1] |
In late 1885, Plant's wife Margaret christened the new vessel, naming the ship after Edmond Audran's comic opera La mascotte.[3] The Mascotte carried mail, cargo, and passengers, which helped support the growth of Ybor City and West Tampa.[3][4]
In 1898, Ybor City cigar manufacturer Vicente Martínez Ybor, fearing a Spanish embargo would cut off the supply of Cuban tobacco leaves, appealed to Plant to send his ships to Havana to bring back all the leaf available.[1] Plant complied in September 1898, dispatching the Mascotte, which returned from two trips packed with 155 and 300 bales of tobacco respectively, along with Cuban refugees, keeping Tampa's cigar factories running through the crisis.[1] The Mascotte and her sister ship, SS Olivette, are credited with having carried enough tobacco into Tampa throughout the Cuban War of Independence to shield the city's cigar industry from the Spanish embargo.[3][5] The Mascotte was reported to have carried around 900 refugees from Cuba to Tampa in total during this period.[1]
In mid-July 1898, the Mascotte also transported some 300 wounded servicemen, survivors of the sinking of the USS Maine and yellow fever victims, from Cuba to New York City without losing a single life en route, serving informally as a hospital ship.[1]
Mascotte, Florida was supposedly named after the steamship.[6] However, one account in the Orlando Sentinel attributes the naming to J. W. Payne of Boston, after an SS Mascotte that ran between Baltimore and St. Petersburg.[7] The SS Mascotte additionally appears on the seal of the city.[8]
In 1895, a likeness of the Mascotte, depicted as a sailing ship rather than a steamship, was incorporated into the Seal of Tampa, after cigar box manufacturer Henry Leiman received the Tampa City Council's permission to use it.[3][9] That seal is in turn incorporated into the city flag, superimposed on a blue "T".[10]