The Bohemian was an iron vessel of 2.200 tons burden. She was bark-rigged and in case of accident to her machinery, she had still the means of reaching port. She was about three hundred feet long, and had a draft of twenty feet. She was fitted with a direct-acting engine of five hundred horse-power. The Bohemian ran between Liverpool and Portland in winter, and Liverpool and Quebec in summer, touching it Montreal during the latter season.



On Feb. 22, 1864, the Bohemian mastered by Capt. Borland from Liverpool struck on Alden’s Rock, four miles outside Cape Elisabeth, about 9 o’clock in the evening. She beat over, turned head toward the shore and sunk in about an hour and a half, about two miles outside of Richmond’s Island. Capt. Borland supposed himself four miles off from his real position. The haze probably misled him as to the true position of the lights. He had been looking for a pilot, and throwing up rockets and blue lights for half for half an hour, and was going at the rate of a mile and a half an hour when the vessel struck. Half an hour before the grounding he had got soundings in forty fathoms of water, with a soft bottom. As the Bohemian had six watertight compartments, it is held that the concussion which caused her to sink was as severe as to materially Injure her frame or that the rock on which she struck must have torn off a very large portion of her bottom, and exposed all or most of her bulkheads. She was carrying about 19 cabin passengers and 199 steerage passengers. About 20n passengers were lost.