SS Great Republic was a sidewheel steamship and the largest passenger liner on the US west coast when it ran aground near the mouth of the Columbia River, on Sand Island, south of Ilwaco, Washington, in 1879, in a region of frequent wrecks known as the Graveyard of the Pacific. Design Great Republic was launched from Henry Steers's shipyard (see George Steers and Co), at Greenpoint, Long Island, New York on November 8, 1866, and was the largest ship of any kind that at that date had ever been built in the United States for commercial purposes. She was the first of the ships built by Pacific Mail Steamship Company for the new line between San Francisco, California and China, China Line, and was long, wide and deep in hold. Construction details Her frame timbers were of white and live oak, fastened with copper and iron, and braced with straps of iron wide and thick, crossing each other diagonally every . The inner planking was also double-strapped, and outside the iron strapping was a double planking of Georgia yellow pine. The whole was thoroughly braced, and bolted together with three-nails of locust, iron, and composition spikes, and copper bolts. Great Republic had three masts, and was full ship-rigged, her foremast, however being the highest of the three, and her mizzenmast the shortest. She had three full decks, with an orlop deck fore and aft, extending to the engine bulkhead. She had four stout, watertight bulkheads, dividing the hold into five separate compartments. Immediately after the launch the steamer was taken to the wharf of the Novelty Iron Works (New York), at the foot of Twelfth Street, where she received her machinery, after being copper-bottomed at the Erie Basin Dock. It took 21 months to build her engines and put them in place. Steam was supplied to the cylinder by four horizontal tubular boilers, each heated by four furnaces, their grates having a surface of . The heating surface presented to the action of the furnaces was . The paddle-wheels were in diameter, having a face of , each wheel being provided with 34 oak buckets. The only accident at her launch was the loss of two anchors, the cables breaking the ship was hove to in the river. She was arranged for 20 per cent more power than the other large vessels then in the company's fleet, and was built