Last modified: 2020-04-25 by rob raeside
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Cleveland & Buffalo Transit Co., Cleveland
A Great Lakes Line. Flag blue with the inscription in white shaded letters C&B
Line.
Source: 1909 update to Flaggenbuch 1905
Joe McMillan, 2 October 2001
Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company, Cleveland (1891-1984)
Quarterly red and blue, overall on a white lozenge a red "C." I have also seen
the blue quarters shown in black.) I believe but am not sure that I once sent
this flag to the list before, but include it here for completeness.
Source: www.steamship.net (no longer available)
Joe McMillan, 14 September 2001
This firm apparently was the shipping division of the Cleveland Cliffs Iron
Company. A photo of this flag can be found
here
or (enlarged)
here. This version appears to be somewhat longer and has a larger diamond
comparable with the one at the head of
this page,
which is part of a site about the company’s last ship, the ‘William G. Mather’.
Its flagship sailed from 1925 till 1952, and it stopped operations in 1980.
Other vessels, active as well as non active, were sold off starting 1985; end of
1987, the ‘Mather’ was donated to become a museum ship.
More on Cleveland-Cliffs (ore) company history, including shipping can be found
at
http://www.cleveland-cliffs.com, with, about half-way down the page, a
close-up of the house flag. It is still used as a trade mark.
Jan Mertens, 10 September 2005
Cleveland Tankers, Wilmington, DE
Despite the homeport, a company specializing in oil tanking on the Great Lakes.
Many US companies are incorporated in Delaware because of lenient incorporation
and tax policies (if any lawyers in the crowd understand this better than I,
please pitch in), so you'll sometimes find shipping companies giving Wilmington
as the port of registration rather than the port where the ships really operate
from. The flag is a quasi-monogram of the letters C T in wihte on a blue
swallowtail.
Source:
US Navy's 1961 H.O.
Joe McMillan, 15 September 2001
image by Ivan Sache, 4 December 2005
The Cleveland Tankers house flag is shown
here
(second row, third picture) and enlarged
here. The flag on the photo is of a different blue; it tapers. The ‘CT’ (the
‘T’ sitting snugly inside the ‘C’) monogram is situated near the hoist. The
house flag can be seen in action at
http://www.boatnerd.com.
Bits of history through quotes from
this page
reveal:
A new company, “Cleveland Tankers (1991) Inc., Cleveland, OH. (…) was 75% owned
by U.S. citizens who were partners in the bulk shipping consulting firm Jones,
Bardelmeier & Co. Ltd. of Nassau, Bahamas; and 25% owned by Algoma Central.”
There was also the Cleveland Tankers Ship Management Inc.
Sadly, on 14 Feb. 2005 “with the sale of the Gemini comes the probable end of
the Cleveland Tankers fleet; a fleet which was founded in 1933 as a wholly owned
subsidiary of Allied Oil Transport Co. Inc. and later a subsidiary of the
Ashland Oil and Refining Co., Ashland, KY.”
Jan Mertens, 12 September 2005
Clover Leaf Steamboat Line, Buffalo
A Great Lakes line formerly serving Buffalo and Toledo. Flag was a red
burgee-shaped pennant with a white disk bearing a green four-leaf clover.
Source: www.steamship.net (no longer available)
Joe McMillan, 18 September 2001
Clyde Steamship Company, Incorporated, New York; triband blue-white-blue, proportioned
1:4:1; in the center a red "C".
Jarig Bakker, 12 February 2005
Clyde Steamship Co., Philadelphia (later New York) (1844-1932)
The Clyde Line was established in 1844 by Thomas Clyde, connecting Philadelphia
with other
east coast ports. The headquarters moved to New York in 1872. Besides connecting
the northeast and southeast, the line also served the West Indies, especially
Dominican Republic, after 1870s.
The company was purchased in 1907 by Charles W. Morse's Consolidated Steamship
Lines, which collapsed in 1908. Clyde Line was then taken over in 1911 by the
Atlantic, Gulf & West Indies Steamship Lines, a combine of a number of lines,
but the Clyde Line name and flag continued in use until 1932, when Clyde was
combined with the Mallory Line name to form the Clyde-Mallory Line. Flag: white
with blue upper and lower ed! ge! s and a red "C" in the center. Sometimes shown
with serifs.
Sources: Manning (1874) (as NY & Havana Direct
Mail Line and NY & South Carolina SS Co.), Lloyds 1912, Wedge (1926)
Joe McMillan, 18 September 2001
Clyde-Mallory Line, New York (1932-1949)
A combination by the Atlantic, Gulf & West Indies SS Lines parent company of the
old Clyde Line and the old Mallory Line. Clyde-Mallory existed for only 17
years; it was sold to the Bull Line in 1949 and the Clyde-Mallory name and flag
went out of use. The flag combined the white with blue edges of the Clyde flag
with the red star that appeared on the Mallory flag. Note: [gsh34] shows this
flag trapezoidal, but company memorabilia depicted on steamship.net indicates it
was rectangular. A trapezoidal version of this flag is currently on FOTW at
gb~hf02.html, but this was an American, not a British, company.
Sources: Talbot-Booth (1937), www.steamship.net
(no longer available)
Joe McMillan, 18 September 2001
image by Ivan Sache, 29 February 2004
Clyde-Mallory Lines. The correct version is not tapered. The only source I
have seen showing a tapered flag is the National Geographic Magazine of 9/1934.
Neale Rosanoski, 14 April 2005
Coastwise Line, San Francisco
Flag divided from lower hoist to upper fly, white over blue, with the letters
"C" and "L" counterchanged.
Source:
US Navy's 1961 H.O.
Joe McMillan, 18 September 2001
Coleman's California Line
the originals are in the archives at the Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem,
Massachusetts
Coleman's was one of the clipper ship lines that sprung up in the 1850s to meet
the demand for transportation from the east coast to the gold fields of
California.
Source: clipper cards reported in the Time-Life book The Clipper Ships and at
www.tenpound.com
Joe McMillan, 18 September 2001
At the Alaska's Digital Archives website was an image of a canned salmon label
with some vex interest because it shows two flags for a label of Coleman Flag
Brand Red Salmon. One bears a seal showing the flag of the
Alaska Packers Association, although the proportions
and shade of blue differ. It also has a flag or flagoid- the eponymous Coleman
Flag no doubt - red and blue divided per saltire (red at hoist and fly, blue at
top and bottom), with a white disk in the center, bearing a large black C (with
serif).
Ned Smith, 17 August 2007
E. K. Collins New Orleans Line, New York (1832-1850)
Edward K. Collins joined his father's shipping business in 1821 and struck out
on his own with this line of sail packets between New York and New Orleans in
1837. The flag was a red swallowtail with a black "L" on a white disk.
Source: chart of "Private Signals of the Merchants of New York"
Joe McMillan, 18 September 2001
E. K. Collins Liverpool Line, New York (1836-1850)
Known as the "Dramatic Line" because the ships were named after Shakespeare and
other dramatists and actors. By the early 1840s, his shippng ventures had made
Collins won of the wealthiest men in New York and the most successful shipowner
in America. All the ships were sold in about 1850 to shift service to steam with
the new Collins Line. The flag was divided blue over white with two
counterchanged Ls.
Source: chart of "Private Signals of the Merchants of New York"
Joe McMillan, 18 September 2001
Collins Line (New York & Liverpool United States Mail Steamship Co.), New York
(1850-1858)
The Collins Line operated from 1850-1858 and may have been the most famous
American steamship line of the 19th century, but it was afflicted by a series of
disasters, high operating costs, cancellation of government subsidies, and
failure to keep up with British technical advances. The line's first flag was a
blue swallowtail with five rows of six white stars each, very similar to a
pre-Civil War US Navy commodore's broad pennant. The second flag, reconstructed
here from a description in North Atlantic Seaway I:201 was blue with the US
shield outlined in white, tilted toward the upper hoist.
Sources:
www.greatoceanliners.net/arctic.html and North Atlantic Seaway I:201
Joe McMillan, 18 September 2001
My copy of Bonsor has a different version for the second flag making it a
burgee, as with the first flag, and with no mention of the shield being angled.
Neale Rosanoski, 1 February 2004
Flag #679 on National Geographic (1934).
Alvin Fisher, 27 Jan 1999
Colombian Line (Colombian Steamship Co.), New York (1923-1938)
A subsidiary of the Atlantic, Gulf & West Indies combine, serving ports on the
US east coast, Colombia, and the Caribbean. Combined into AGWI's other
operations in 1938. Flag a blue swallowtail with a red C on a yellow lozenge.
Sources:
National Geographic (1934), Talbot-Booth (1937)
Joe McMillan, 20 September 2001
Based
on
http://www.timetableimages.com/maritime/images/colon.htm, the flag of the
Colonial Line or Colonial Navigation Co., document dating from 1934. The
flag image is very small and seems to consist of a red ring on a white field.
There’s eBay, however, offering a jug (Item number: 2244114503, bidding closed)
of this line showing the company flag. If the brochure’s colours are right, the
flag is white with a red disk bearing a white ‘C’ and a five-pointed star in
each corner, possibly also red.
I’ve found traces of the firm till 1941. A glimpse of its activities is given
here:
http://www.phxsg.org/johnnorris/norris79.htm
“There are many Phoenixville people who will recall the delightful overnight
trips from new York City to Providence, Rhode Island, or Boston, Mass., on the
old Colonial Line. For $4 plus $1.50 stateroom charge, one could leave New York
at 5:30 p.m. and arrive in Boston at 8:25 the next morning. The route went
northeast on Long Island Sound and followed the coast line of Connecticut and
Rhode Island. The steamer only went as far as Providence, at which place the
remainder of the trip was by New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. A
full-course dinner on board ship was only $2 and breakfast was 50 cents on the
connecting train from Providence to Boston.”
Jan Mertens, 22 September 2004
This button, found
on the "Nautique" website seems to indicate the stars were blue and the C dark
coloured.
Jan Mertens, 16 September 2005
This picture showing a house flag is a fragment of a poster shown at http://www.trainweb.org/panama/misc/columbian1894.jpg. Apparently New York and San Francisco, and the ports between them and the Panama Canal, were served by this company. The Panama Railroad Co. must have played its part as well. The house flag is light in colour and has a thin, dark-coloured saltire plus the US shield (with stars?) in the centre.
Jan Mertens, 17 June 2005
If the poster was from 1894 as the file name suggests, then the Panama Canal
would not have been involved, as it did not yet exist. The part played by the
Panama Railroad company would have been to transport the passengers across the
isthmus from Atlantic ports to Pacific ports. According to a message posted
here "The Columbian Line (1894-1895 with New York - Colon service using
chartered ships) became the Panama Railroad Steamship Line in 1896."
An image of the logo of the Panama Railroad Co. postdating the 1903
establishment of the Republic of Panama looks very similar to the emblem on the
saltire of the flag you mention, with the addition of a chief based on the
Panamanian flag. See
http://www.trainweb.org/panama/misc/prr-logo.jpg. There are already images
of the houseflags used by the Panama Railroad Steamship line
here.
Ned Smith, 19 June 2005
Commercial Pacific Cable Co., New York
In 1949 it had one cable repair ship of 3,000 gross tons. Flag diagonally red
over blue, with the company initials in blue on a white band from lower hoist to
upper fly.
Source: Lloyds Flags and Funnels 1912
Joe McMillan, 20 September 2001
See: Mooremack's Gulf [of Mexico] Line
Comstock & Co. (1850s)
Another California clipper company. Blue over white burgee with a red hoist, and
thereon a white C.
Source: clipper cards reported in Time Life's The Clipper Ships and at
www.tenpound.com; originals at Peabody
Essex Museum, Salem
Joe McMillan, 20 September 2001
Consolidated Coal Co., Baltimore
The ports of Baltimore and Norfolk were (and are) the principal shipping points
for bituminous coal mined in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and western Virginia.
This company's flag was a red-white-blue vertical tricolor with the initials CCC on the
three stripes in black letters.
Source: Flaggenbuch 1905
Joe McMillan, 4 October 2001
Lloyds 1904 shows the blue band as being red.
Neale Rosanoski, 1 February 2004
Continental Oil Co., Houston TX - white flag, rounded red outlined rectangle,
charged with red "CONOCO".
Source:
Loughran (1995)
Jarig Bakker, 5 November 2005
image located at www.conocophillips.com by Jan Mertens, 6 November 2005
The current flag can be seen at
www.conocophillips.com. Quote:
"ConocoPhillips: From their beginnings in the early days of the oil industry,
Conoco Inc. and Phillips Petroleum Company grew and prospered, becoming leaders
in the global energy industry. On August 30, 2002, they combined their
complementary strengths and shared values to create ConocoPhillips."
I see that the logo has been carried along with the quote - I hope it'll come
through. (What is the red thing supposed to mean, by the way?)
The 'CONOCO' brand has not disappeared. See the page at
www.conocophillips.com
Jan Mertens, 6 November 2005
Cosmopolitan Shipping Co. (1916-1980s), New York
Apparently an earlier flag of the Cosmopolitan Line. This flag has the initials
CL in red on a white disk on a red swallow-tailed field.
Source: 1909 update to Flaggenbuch 1905
Joe McMillan, 30 September 2001
Cosmopolitan Shipping Co. (1916-1980s), New York
Cargo service from New York to French ports; operated the America-France Line
with US government-owned ships from 1919-1939. Later operated the Southern Cross
Line down east coast of South America. Abandoned US flag market and switched to
Norwegian flag vessels in the 1950s. A pretty effective flag: red with a white
bordered blue lozenge.
Source:
US Navy's 1961 H.O.
Joe McMillan, 20 September 2001
The name similarity may only be coincidence. Lloyds 1904 shows the flag for the
company being operated by P. Wright & Sons and based Philadelphia and New York.
Lloyds 1912 does not show it and there is thus a gap between the 1909
Flaggenbuch update and the 1916 date given for the formation of the 2nd company.
Neale Rosanoski, 1 February 2004
image by Jarig Bakker, 6 January 2006
Crescent Towing & Salvage Co., Inc., New Orleans, LA - green burgee, white
"CTS".
Source:
Loughran (1995)
Jarig Bakker, 6 January 2006
Cromwell Line, New York (1858-1902)
The Cromwell Line was established by H.B. Cromwell and a group of Georgia
investors to serve Savannah and New York. It was seized by Federal forces during
the Civil War and began New York-New Orleans service after the Union capture of
New Orleans in 1862. Taken over by the Southern Pacific Railroad Co in the late
1880s but continued to operate under the Cromwell Line name and flag until 1902,
when all Southern Pacific properties were consolidated under the flag of the
former Morgan Line. The flag was simply a white C on a red swallowtail.
Sources: www.steamship.net, Manning (1874), Flaggenbuch 1905
Joe McMillan, 30 September 2001
Crowley Maritime Corp., San Francisco - white field, blue "C", red
funnel.(yeah - that's the Crowley-funnel)
Source:
Loughran (1995)
Jarig Bakker, 5 November 2005
Curtis Bay Towing Co., Baltimore, MD. - white flag, blue diamond, red "CB";
along top "CURTIS BAY TOWING CO."; along bottom "Pennsylvania".
Source:
Loughran (1995)
Jarig Bakker, 22 October 2005
image by Jarig Bakker, 19 August 2005
Another link at
http://oldwww.ballarat.edu.au/sovhill/gold150/sail2.htm to a sailing card
advertises the (M.R.) Cusack's Line, San Fransisco (see the last clickable
picture). According to the text, the ship in question ('Starr King') had
following ports of call:
- San Francisco -Melbourne-Hong Kong-San Francicso (1855)
- San Francisco-Sydney-Hong Kong-San Francisco (1857)
- San Francisco-Sydney and Melbourne (1862).
The house flag is red with a white disk bearing a black serifed 'C'.
Jan Mertens, 18 August 2005
Cuyamel Fruit Co., New Orleans
Blue burgee with a white lozenge bearing a red C. The flag is pre-1929 when this
company was bought out by United Fruit.
Source: www.steamship.net (no longer available)
Joe McMillan, 30 September 2001
US shipping lines house flags - 'D' continued