page_title: Ice Boat No. 3
section_title: Municipal service, 1874–1898
hierarchical_section_title: Ice Boat No. 3 / Service history / Municipal service, 1874–1898
caption_attribution_description: English: "City Ice Boat No. 3", an 1877 painting by George Essig. The painting depicts the City of Philadelphia's City Ice Boat No. 3 towing a sailing ship with a damaged mast through ice floes on the Delaware River.
context_page_description: City Ice Boat No. 3, commonly known as Ice Boat No. 3 or just No. 3, was a municipal sidewheel icebreaker built in 1873 to assist in keeping Philadelphia's waterways free of ice during the winter months. The vessel was also used for occasional excursions and other duties through the rest of the year.
  During the Spanish–American War, Ice Boat No. 3 was briefly commissioned into the U.S. Navy as the coastal patrol vessel USS Arctic, before returning to her normal duties under her original name. Ice Boat No. 3 was sunk in a collision with an underwater obstruction in February 1905.
context_section_description: Ice Boat No. 3's trial trip was scheduled for 31 January 1874, with Philadelphia's city council members invited to attend. Almost immediately thereafter, the ice boat entered service in the vicinity of New Castle, Delaware, towing two vessels, a bark bound for Hamburg and a brig for Matanzas, on 3 February. The following winter, No. 3 was again in service off New Castle, towing a bark bound for Bremen and another for Yokohama in early March. 
   
  On 4 February 1881, Ice Boat No. 3, operating under the command of Captain Henry F. Virden near the Delaware Breakwater, went to the assistance of two pilot boats, Bavard and Knight, towing them into harbor, and later aided an imperilled lightship. That same day, the ice boat conducted a search for the abandoned bark Arundel, which was eventually located five miles offshore "in a dangerous position ... fast in the ice" and "with great difficulty" towed the vessel to the Breakwater harbor, arriving 11 pm. Later, the ice boat took aboard the crew of Arundel and resumed tow of the vessel, returning it to the port of Philadelphia on 8 February. Because the Arundel had been abandoned by its crew, the crew of Ice Boat No. 3 sued for salvage, the sum of $2,500 eventually being granted to them by the U.S. District Court.
  On 10 January 1891, Ice Boat No. 3 was scheduled to tow the school ship Saratoga to sea from the port of Philadelphia, when a change of personnel aboard the ship necessitated a postponement. The following year, on December 28, the tug Crawford was caught in an ice floe at New Castle and "carried almost to Fort Delaware" where she was holed by a collision with the schooner Aaron Reppard, but was towed to shoal water to prevent sinking by Ice Boat No. 3.
  On January 20, 1893, Ice Boat No. 3 arrived at the Delaware Breakwater with the Reading Railroad steamer Panther in tow, which had experienced continual westerly winds and snowstorms since departing Newburyport, Massachusetts ten days earlier. Some weeks later, on the night of 7 February, Ice Boat No. 3 was towing the ship Standard past the Delaware Breakwater when the towing hawser broke, propelling the Standard into the Italian bark Giovanni anchored at the Breakwater and damaging the latter vessel to the amount of $4,000. The captain of Giovanni sued the City of Philadelphia for damages and won the ensuing court case, with the master of the ice boat found to have exercised "gross carelessness" for failing to see the Giovanni in time, and for his "sudden veering" manoeuvre which caused the hawser to catch on Standard's bobstays and snap.
  In July 1896, the navy organized training exercises for the Pennsylvania Naval Militia to be held aboard USS Indiana, which was anchored off the Delaware Breakwater for the purpose. Two of Philadelphia's ice boats, No. 2 and No. 3, were recommissioned to transport the militia from Philadelphia to the Indiana, with No. 2, commanded by Lt. Stout, embarking the Pittsburgh division consisting of 66 officers and men, and No. 3, under the command of Lt.-Commander Breed, embarking the 26 officers and 88 men of the Philadelphia division. The two ice boats departed Philadelphia on the 10th, arriving at the Breakwater on the 11th where they anchored. The militiamen apparently remained aboard the ice boats until the 14th when they were taken aboard Indiana for several days of training, including gunnery, target, signals and boating practice, before being returned to the ice boats for the return journey to Philadelphia.
  The winter of 1897-98 was a mild one, with only two ice boats, No. 1 and No. 2, needed to keep the ice in check from 2 to 19 January, when they were stood down. The two returned to service on the 28th, and on 3 February, they were joined by Ice Boat No. 3. On 5 February, No. 2 and No. 3 were despatched to the assistance of the steamer Pennland, which had grounded near Tinicum Island. Pennland was refloated by No. 1 and No. 2 on 7 February. By mid-February, all three ice boats had been decommissioned, the last being Ice Boat No. 3, which was decommissioned on 15 February after only thi
caption: An 1877 painting depicting Ice Boat No. 3 on the Delaware, towing a sailing ship
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot SD630", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "QuickTime 7.4.1", "Image DateTime": "2008:03:08 13:04:31", "Image HostComputer": "Mac OS X 10.5.2", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "254", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1106", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "2816", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "7/2", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:03:05 11:24:33", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:03:05 11:24:33", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "189/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "29/8", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "29/8", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "10093/1000", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3300", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1704", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "90880/9", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1704000/169", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}