William P. Clyde
William Pancoast Clyde was the head of the Clyde Steamship Company, a steamship and canal boat mercantile and passenger transportation business founded by his father Thomas Clyde in 1844. In 1882 it had sailings along the west coast of Florida, to New Orleans, down to Key West and Havana. William Clyde verticalized the shipping operations to include their own drydock company and coal mining operations which supplied the fuel for their vessels.
By 1899 the company had lines from New York to Wilmington, Brunswick, New York to Philadelphia, Philadelphia to Norfolk, New York to the West Indies, from Boston, Providence, and New York to Jacksonville, Florida as well as a St. John River Line. The steamships connected to rail lines in Florida. Frederick Douglass wrote about his dealings with the company in his autobiography. He was trying to establish a steamship line to Haiti. He is buried at the Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia.
