Defiance (laterKingston)
History
Name	Defiance (Kingston)
Owner	McDowell Trans. Co.; others
Route	Puget Sound
Completed	1901
Out of service	1933
Fate	Wrecked.
General characteristics
Tonnage	91
Length	93 ft (28.3 m)
Installed power	steam engine; diesel in 1933
Propulsion	propeller

The steamboatDefiance operated in the early 1900s as part of thePuget Sound Mosquito Fleet. In later years this vessel was calledKingston.

Defiance was built in 1901 byMatthew McDowell atTacoma to replace theDauntless on theSeattle-Tacoma-West Pass run. (McDowell soldDauntless to theMoe Brothers to run on their Bainbridge Island route.).Defiance was 93' long.

Defiance originally ran in the Seattle-Tacoma-West Pass route. The steamerGlide also served this route as did later theVirginia V.^[1] In about 1913,Defiance was sold to theKingston Transportation Company, which renamed herKingston and put her on a route betweenBallard, Washington andKingson.^[2][3]

By about 1923,Kingston (ex-Defiance) had come under the ownership of theWhidby Island Transportation Company, run by Captain F.G. Reeve and associates, and doing business as the Washington Route. The Washington Route operatedKingston and another steamer,F.G. Reeve, from Seattle to Chico,Silverdale and other points on theKitsap Peninsula andBainbridge Island. Captain Reeve also placedKingston and another steamer,Atalanta, on the Seattle-Coupeville route, this was in the fall of 1923.^[3] In 1932, Kingston was sold by the Washington Route to Captain Charles West and others.

In 1933,Kingston was converted to diesel and outfitted with refrigerated compartments to run in the southeastern Alaska trade.^[4] On May 20, 1933, on her first voyage north,Kingston (ex-Defiance) was wrecked in the Whitestone Narrows nearSitka and became a total loss.^[4]

• Matthew McDowell
• Puget Sound Mosquito Fleet

• Kline, M.S., and Bayless, G.A.,Ferryboats – A Legend on Puget Sound, Bayless Books, Seattle WA 1983ISBN 0-914515-00-4
• Newell, Gordon R., and Williamson, Joe,Pacific Steamboats, Superior Publishing, Seattle, WA 1958
• Newell, Gordon R.,Ships of the Inland Sea, Binford and Mort, Portland, Oregon (2nd Ed. 1960).
• Newell, Gordon R., ed.,H.W. McCurdy Marine History of the Pacific Northwest, Superior Publishing, Seattle, WA 1966

• Photograph of steamboatDefiance leaving Des Moines, Washington^{[permanent dead link]}
• Photograph of steamboatDefiance, a typical example of a Mosquito Fleet craft^{[permanent dead link]}

• Steamboats of Washington (state)
• Propeller-driven steamboats of Washington (state)
• History of Washington (state)
• Ships built in Tacoma, Washington
• Merchant ship stubs

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• Articles with dead external links from November 2019
• Articles with permanently dead external links
• All stub articles