SS Mariposa (1883)

SS Mariposa was a steamboat which served in the Pacific Ocean from 1883 to 1917.

History
The Mariposa was an iron ship built in 1883 in Philadelphia by the William Cramp & Sons Shipbuilding Company. It had a weight of 3,000 tons and was built for the Oceanic Steamship Company, which had been founded in 1881 by John D. Spreckels & Brothers to provide passenger and cargo service between San Francisco and Honolulu, Hawaii. Later their service was extended to include Australia and New Zealand.

The ship was sold in 1912 to the Alaska Steamship Company, but not renamed. On 18 December 1917 it sank after hitting a Straits Island reef off the coast of British Columbia.

In 1926 the Oceanic Steamship Company was bought out by the Matson Line of which it became a subsidiary.

Famous passenger
Perhaps the ship's most notable passenger was Saint Marianne Cope, O.S.F., a missionary Religious Sister who sailed to Hawaii on this ship. She was the leader of a small group of Franciscan Sisters who went there at the request of the King of Hawaii to provide medical care for the lepers of the country. She and her companions arrived in Honolulu on November 8, 1883, and she spent the rest of her life in this service, dying on the island of Molokai in 1918.

She was declared a saint by the Catholic Church in 2012 for her heroic and holy life of service and self-sacrifice. She is also honored as a saint by the Episcopal Church.