United American Lines
DeKalb was decommissioned 22 September 1919 and returned to the United States Shipping Board for disposal the following day. She returned to civilian control, initially as DeKalb and, after 1920, as Mount Clay.
The ship was acquired by W. Averell Harriman and included with ten previous ships acquired from the Kerr Navigation Company in a name change so that all were prefixed with an American mountain and thus renamed Mount Clay.[2] The ship was specially modified by Morse Dry Dock and Repair Company to be a third class only (described as "first class steerage") immigrant ship for the United American Line of New York.[3][4] The ship was gutted by fire, which began early 15 December 1919, while on the Hudson River at Spuyten Duyvil. Lt. Cmdr. William A. Willetts and his crew were rescued by a tugboat, and it took fireboats several hours to quell the blaze.[5] During the rebuilding extensive tearing out of damaged decking, plating, and dismantling and rebuilding of deck structures was undertaken.[2][3]
The intent of the conversion was to carry the maximum passenger load while offering passengers better conditions than usually found on immigrant ships and "steerage" class.[3] The passenger spaces were to be well ventilated with forced draft air flow, more deck space allocated to passengers and larger and more attractive public rooms provided.[3] Passenger accommodation was in two to six person cabins that included luxuries not usually found in such ships that included washstands, mattresses and linens.[2] A kosher abattoir and galley was furnished for the ship's Jewish passengers.[6] Due to a capacity of 1,452 passengers and crew of 211, special attention had to be focused on life boats. Fourteen sets of Welin davits were fitted to each side with a variety of lifeboats and some rafts with a capacity for 1,663 persons, 1,613 in boats.[3]
In February 1921 Mount Clay inaugurated a new first class mail delivery system for mail to Germany in which mail planes would meet the ship at Cuxhaven for transfer of special bags for air delivery within Germany.[7] On 9 February 1921 Mount Clay stood by and rescued the crew and ship's cat from the sinking freighter Bombardier about four hundred miles southeast of Halifax. The sinking ship's radio operator, Edward Herno, had worked hours to make repairs and get the SOS out as the wireless had been severely damaged in the storm and wreck. All but two of Bombardier's lifeboats had been destroyed so one of the Mount Clay boats launched to assist.[8][9]
Mount Clay made the initial voyage as an immigrant ship on Christmas Day 1920 (Marine Review) or 26 December (DANFS).[2] The ship's last westbound voyage was from Hamburg via Queenstown, Ireland to New York on 15 October 1925. She was then laid up until 1934 when she was scrapped.
