THOMAS CORNELL
AND THE
CORNELL STEAMBOAT COMPANY

Rondout Creek and the Hudson River Click for a larger version

Introduction

During the nineteenth century, a combination of the forces of geography and economics were to make the mid-Hudson Village of Rondout (later to become part of the City of Kingston) the principal center of commercial activity between New York and Albany.

The geographic factor was a valley extending in a southwest direction from Rondout to the Delaware River at Port Jervis, through which a canal was built to bring anthracite coal from northeastern Pennsylvania to the Hudson River and a commercially attractive market. The economic factor was the exponential growth of the City of New York, at the Hudson´s mouth, with its insatiable demand for the goods and services the areas bordering the Hudson could provide.

The canal, known as the Delaware and Hudson Canal, opened with the passage of the first vessel in late 1828. Less than a decade later, Thomas Cornell, age twenty-three and already the owner of a Hudson River sloop, arrived on the scene to mainly transport coal as his vessel´s cargo.

By the mid-1800s, a million tons of coal annually was carried on the canal, and the surrounding region was booming. Cornell developed a strong entrepreneurial talent and now was the owner and operator of steamboats transporting freight and passengers to New York as well as operating a cross river ferry service. By 1862, for service between Rondout and New York he had built a steamboat named Thomas Cornell, which was surpassed in size and appointments only by those operating from Albany.

Following the Civil War, there was great demand in the New York metropolitan area for coal from the D&H Canal, common brick from the brick yards lining the Hudson´s shores, ice harvested from the river´s surface north of Poughkeepsie during the preceding winter, Ulster County bluestone for sidewalks and curbing, Rosendale cement, grain from the Midwest via the Erie Canal, baled hay for the thousands of horses on the city streets, crushed stone, and agricultural products. All, except the agricultural products, which were shipped by steamboat, were moved because of their weight and bulk by barges and scows lashed together in tows pulled by steam towboats and tugs.

Towing on the Hudson River in the post-Civil War years was a highly competitive and lucrative business. Thomas Cornell and his new son-in-law, Samuel Decker Coykendall, pursued the opportunities with enterprise and vigor. The resulting Cornell Steamboat Company, in an era of unbridled free enterprise, emerged with a virtual monopoly of Hudson River towing, obtained generally by either buying out or driving out the competition. At its peak, the company owned more than sixty towing vessels and was the largest commercial organization of its kind in the nation.

In addition to his maritime activities, Thomas Cornell was a man of many and varied interests. He engaged in the building and operation of railroads on both sides of the Hudson, was a congressman elected to two separate terms, was a principal in the construction of one of the large Catskill Mountain hotels, and was a founding member and president of two banks in the Rondout section of Kingston--one a commercial and the other a savings bank.

The Cornell Steamboat Company had a long and colorful history. At its high point it was a dynamic force in the region´s economy. Its decline and final demise was in large measure due to changing economic conditions beyond its control. Railroads made canals obsolete. Changing methods of construction virtually put an end to the demand for common brick. Almost overnight the electric refrigerator ended the demand for natural ice. Fast curing Portland cement made Rosendale cement and Ulster County bluestone unnecessary. The Deeper Hudson project that permitted oceangoing ships to reach Albany was completed in 1930 and ended the towing of grain by barge.

All had been cargoes towed by Cornell in its heyday. At its end, since the company did not actively pursue the towing of petroleum products, almost its sole customer was New York Trap Rock Corporation, towing scows loaded with crushed stone for construction purposes.

On a personal note, when I was a boy growing up in Port Ewen in the late 1920s and early 1930s, the village was still pretty much a boatman´s town. A majority of the male residents worked on the river boats or at the shipyards along Rondout Creek. It seemed almost all of the Cornell tugboats had at least one crew member who lived in Port Ewen and, when going up or down the river past the hamlet, the tug would blow a salute on its whistle. There was one series of whistle blasts that even became known as the "Port Ewen Salute."

At that point in time, almost all of the tugboats were steam powered and obviously had steam whistles. Steam whistles were all different and, sight unseen, one could tell which tugboat it was by the sound of its whistle. Diesel horns, on the other hand, all seemed to sound alike. On a stormy night in early spring or late fall, when fog blanketed the river, somehow it was a comforting feeling to hear the tugs with a tow out in the river blowing their fog signals or "talking" to each other by their system of whistle signals while adding or taking barges to or from the tow.

Another sound that was peculiar to steam-powered vessels and is now history was what was known as "blowing off." When a tug would come into Rondout Creek for a day or two lay over--generally early on a Sunday morning--the engineer would, after docking, reduce the steam pressure on the boilers by opening the steam valves and "blowing off." The result was a thunderous roar that I am sure awoke every late sleeper within a two-mile radius of the Cornell shops.

The saga of Thomas Cornell and the company that bore his name is virtually forgotten today. It is fitting that a period of Hudson Valley history so colorful and important should be recorded and not left to fade away in the files of long forgotten local newspapers. This book accomplishes that goal. King of Steam by Geddy Sveikauskas in the Woodstock Times

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