Journal of Sheldon Leavitt
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S.S. Sirius
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Tuesday Sept. 1. 1840.. Embarked this morning at 8 o’clock on board steamer Sirius for St Petersburgh via Copenhagen, in company with my future travelling companion Chapman. Punctual to the moment as stated, and after rather a disagreeable passage of about three days, arrived at Copenhagen. The scenery around is much spoken of for its beauty, and fully justifies our expectations. Without any detention from Passports we landed and proceeded to the Hotel d’Angleterre, where we were quite refreshed with a good breakfast, and taking a carriage we went in company with the American, Mr Hancock and his pretty cousin Mrs. [Wade?] to view the City of Copenhagen. The city naturally has the appearance greatly of a Dutch town plainly but substantially built, and [2] the houses almost all of them covered with the Dutch tiles and built of the Dutch Brick. Our first ride was around the ramparts of the city to the Palace Rosenburg, fitted up four hundred years or more since and throughout unoccupied by the Royal Family, still kept in the same state as though it were, and containing all the furniture, adornments, &c. of former times as well as the insignia of the Danish Royalty.
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The Sirius became world famous in 1838 when it became the first ship ever to cross the Atlantic completely on steam power. Running out of coal, the captain refused to give up and fed spars, furniture, and any other nonessential wooden object to the boiler. It arrived in New York one day ahead of the famous Great Western, ushering in "the beginning of a new era in the history of Atlantic navigation" (Army and Navy CHronicle, Vol. 6 (1838), 276).
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