96 Long-man-hao old pier, South shore district, Chongqing (重庆市南岸区龙门浩街道老码头96号)
CAPTAIN PLANT’S CHONGQING ORIGINS
Captain Plant made his name in Chongqing in 1900 as the first pilot to ply a commercial steamship Pioneer from Yichang to Chongqing without trackers. After its maiden voyage, Pioneer was sold to the British Royal Navy and relaunched as British gunboat Kinsha. Captain Plant then joined Lt. Hourst’s French Naval Upper Yangtze exploratory mission from 1901-1909, as their pilot for Upper Yangtze steamships Olry and Ta Chiang. However, in low water seasons when steamships were inoperable, Plant did the unthinkable. He became the first westerner to pilot a Chinese Upper Yangtze river craft. In 1904, Captain Cornell Plant constructed a kwadza, or houseboat passenger named Junie, designed for the conveyance of passengers and goods on the Upper Yangtze.
CAPTAIN PLANT’S CHONGQING CONSTRUCTION
In 1905, Captain and Mrs. Plant established a residence on the hills opposite Chongqing after purchasing Land Deeds Lot 53 (Hsieh Wen An), Lot 58 (from the French postmaster’s wife Mrs. Viallon) and Lot 59 (from Ch’ing Shui Ch’i). By combining three lots, the Plants built a “palatial home” where the “Chungking Club” was housed and offered a billiards room, card room, reading room, smoke-room and bedrooms for visitors and pilots. The “Chungking Club” served as a hotel of sorts in the city that had no western guest quarters.
Once settled in his new Chongqing home, Plant began work with the local Sichuan government and investors from Chengdu and Chongqing to form Sichuan Steam Navigation Company on March 11, 1908. In 1909, with Plant’s steamship expertise and Chinese financial backing, the company established the first regular steamship service on the Upper Yangtze River, revolutionizing trade and communication between the east and the west. In 1915, Plant was named the First River Inspector of the Upper Yangtze River for Chinese Maritime Customs and charged with introducing more ships, establishing river guidelines, pilot training, inspections and a navigational guidebook.
However, warlord disturbances in Sichuan in 1919 began to interfer with trade efforts. Local militia commandeered boats and looted cargo. Plant sold his Chongqing home in November 1919 to Standard Oil Company and retired to Xintan in the community of Chinese river pilots and trackers he admired and collaborated with throughout his career.
CAPTAIN PLANT’S HISTORICAL HOME PRESERVED IN CHONGQING
From 1938 – 1942 the building was used by the American Consulate.
CAPTAIN PLANT CHONGQING LEGACY
It is my sincere hope that the Chongqing government will turn Captain Plant’s home into a museum to celebrate the advent of Upper Yangtze commercial steamship service and remember Minsheng Shipping’s herculean mass evacuation efforts during the Sino-Japanese War – the Chinese “Dunkirk.”
