by William Scarbrough (1776-1838) was a sea merchant and, as of 1818, the president of the Savannah Steamship Company. He was one of the principal owners of the SS Savannah; in 1819 it was the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
That same year, in 1819, he built a large Greek Revival home in Savannah, Georgia, hiring architect William Jay, who also built the mansion that has been incorporated into the Telfair Academy and the Owens-Thomas House (both of which we visited).
Unfortunately, just a year later he was declared insolvent and lost his home and furnishings. Fortunately, a relative stepped in and purchased everything, and allowed the family (including ten children!) to stay in the house.
Today this house is home to the Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum, which was founded in 1966. It primarily exhibits ship models, but also has some paintings and maritime antiques; the focus is on the local maritime history.
The majority of its models were commissioned by the Museum, so they are uniformly built to the same scale (3/8″ = 1′).
The many ships on display were pretty stunning in their detail. Unfortunately, they were also behind reflective glass that made it near impossible to take good pictures of them!
The cover photo to this post is a model of City of Chattanooga.
