Providence Steamboat Company Collection (2007.01)

Biographical note

The Providence Steamboat Company was incorporated in 1881 by Capt. Nat Sutton and Frank Mauran, both having operated a tugboat business in Providence and Narragansett Bay since 1876. Being family run, Howard Sutton took over as President in the early 1900s. Upon his death in 1923, his wife, Kate A. Sutton, assumed control and became one of the first women in the country to efficiently operate a fleet of steamboats along with Frank Mauran, Sr. She was known to be an important authority in maritime knowledge, yet hardly ever stepped aboard a tug, preferring to work in the business office. It seems probable that Sutton was a model for the famous “Tugboat Annie” according to an article from the "Pacific Motor Boat" in November of 1934, in which a Mr. Paine states that Tugboat Annie was a suggested subject for a local story by a friend, who informed him about the woman from Providence who took over a tugboat business from her deceased husband.

The Providence Steamboat Company remained family run up until 2007, when the McAllister Towing Company from New York bought the Providence Steamboat Company from the Mauran family. The new company continues to serve ports in Rhode Island and Southern Massachusetts with its small fleet of tugs.