Thomas Cornell and the Cornell Steamboat Company
Hudson River Maritime Museum Exhibit
May 5 through October 8, 2001

Exhibit Panel 5

THE REIGN OF SAMUEL DECKER COYKENDALL

By 1862, Coykendall was a clerk on the Cornell passenger steamboat Manhattan. As assistant to the captain, a clerk had considerable responsibility and authority and, in some cases, might be second in command. Thomas Cornell's seventeen-year-old daughter, Mary Augusta, and Samuel Coykendall were falling in love, but first came the Civil War. Coykendall enlisted as a lieutenant in the 156th New York Volunteers, the "Mountain Legion," serving as a supply officer until his enlistment ended on May 1865. He soon married Mary and became a partner in the Cornell business empire. When Thomas Cornell died in 1890, he was succeeded by "".D.," as Coykendall was known. Coykendall became the leading citizen of Ulster County, heading up banks, developing railroads, a hotel, and a ferryboat line, and building and operating trolley lines and an amusement park. He invested in many enterprises, including cement works, the ice industry, brick yards, and quarrying operations.

Well known for his quiet but generous philanthropy, Coykendall was a trustee at Vassar College, in Poughkeepsie. He was sounded out to run for governor of New York, but declined to be placed in nomination. In January 1913, S.D. Coykendall died suddenly at his home in Kingston at the age of seventy-six.