Old Steamboat Days on The Hudson River
By: David Lear Buckman, The Grafton Press, 1907

CHAPTER 3

Some of the Old-Timers

Many others, including Col. John Stevens, of Hoboken, who closely presses Fulton for the honor of practically developing steam navigation, were at work on the same problem. Stevens developed and patented a return tubular boiler that added materially to the efficiency of the steam engine. The boilers in Fulton’s first boats were of copper, most primitive affairs, and little more than closed vessels in which to confine the steam so as to make it available for use under pressure.

Fulton’s next boat for river travel after the Clermont, had the ambitious name of the Car of Neptune. She was put on the river in 1809. She was one hundred and seventy-five feet long and was two hundred and ninety-five tons burden. In 1811 the Paragon, one hundred and seventy-three feet long, was built and ran on the river, alternating with the Car of Neptune. Each of these boats was an improvement on its immediate predecessor, but they were small, most of the space being devoted to machinery. The accommodations for passengers were limited, and freight was seldom, if ever, carried. The time of the passage was cut down nearly one-half that of the Clermont.

Fulton died in 1815 and did not witness the completion of the Chancellor Livingston, for which he had outlined plans. This vessel was a marked advance on his other boats. She was one hundred and fifty-four feet long and thirty-two feet beam, and drew seven feet three inches of water when loaded and measured four hundred and ninety-six tons burden. Her engine was seventy-five horse power with a forty-five inch cylinder and seven foot stroke. The boiler was twenty-eight feet long and twelve feet in diameter. She had two funnels and the paddle wheels were seventeen feet in diameter. There was a main cabin fifty-four feet long, with thirty-eight sleeping berths; above that a ladies’ cabin with twenty-four berths and a forward cabin, with fifty-six berths. These, with the berths for the crew, provided sleeping accommodations for one hundred and thirty-five persons and she was considered a great boat in her day.

She could make twelve miles an hour with the tide and six against it. Subsequently she was lengthened and provided with a more powerful engine. For sixteen years she successfully navigated the Hudson, taking part in the grand naval display that marked the completion of the Erie Canal, and figured in most of the important events on the river in that period. “Commodore” Vanderbilt bought her in 1882 and ran her as an opposition boat on the line between Portland and Boston where she continued until “broken up,” a fate that generally overtakes most boats, when old age has developed such a structural weakness as to render them unsafe.

Little advance was made with new river boats until the monopoly of Fulton and Livingston was broken in the twenties, after which capital was quickly found for investment in new river craft.

Two new steamers, the Constellation and Constitution, appeared in 1826. They were a marked improvement on the Chancellor Livingston. They cut down both the time to Albany, as well as the fares, and became great favorites with the public. They were much longer and of greater beam. The question was gravely considered whether craft of this length could be expected to successfully navigate the turns of the river.

The development of the steamboat in length is shown perhaps more clearly in the statement given below:

	Feet
Clermont	130
Car of Neptune	175
Ohio	192
Albany	212
Swallow	224
DeWitt Clinton	233
Alida	265
Connecticut	300
Empire State	304
Hendrik Hudson	320
Oregon	330
Isaac Newton	338
New World	385
C. W. Morse (Peoples’ Line, 1907)	427
Princeton (Peoples’ Line, 1908)	440

This list does not begin to include all the more prominent passenger boats of the time. There was the Rip Van Winkle and the Henry Clay, both popular boats with the public. Then there was the Atlas and the Express, North America, South America, Bolivar, Richmond, James Kent, Independence, Nimrod, Champion, Rhode Island, Niagara, Troy, St. Nicholas, Fanny, Berkshire, Manhattan, Glen Cove, United States, Sandusky, Ohio, Henry Eckford, Albany, Union, Shephard Knapp, Hero, Eagle, Fairfield, Hope, Advocate, Robt. L. Stevens, James Madison, Cataline, Buffalo, Diamond, Hendrik Hudson, Empire, Erie, Champlain, Emerald, New Philadelphia, City of Hudson, P. G. Coffin, Legislator, Rockand, Helen, Jenny Lind, Westchester, Knickerbocker, Kosciusko, Isaac Newton, Eureka, Nuhpa, Washington, Curtis Peck, Wave, Portsmouth, Gen’l Jackson, Illinois, Metamora, Iron Witch, Roger Williams, Confidence, New Jersey. Sun, America, Santa Claus, Thomas Powell and Columbia.

Of later date were the Mary Powell, Dean Richmond, St. John, Daniel Drew, Chauncey Vibbard, Drew, the McManus, Andrew Harder, the W. C. Redfield, the M. Martin, the Catskill now the City of Hudson, the John L. Hasbrook now the Marlboro, the D. S. Miller now the Poughkeepsie, the Jas. W. Baldwin now the Central Hudson, the Thomas Cornell, the Wm. F. Romer, the Kaaterskill, the Coxsackie, the Ulster and the Chrystenah, all of which helped to earn money for their owners and fame for their captains.

What a train of pleasant reminiscence the names of the old steamers invoke. Some will remember them, when in their pride of new paint and bunting, they endeavored to wrest the record for speed from their rivals on the river. Others will recall the journeys made to spend midsummer vacation days in the woods and mountains. To some, the memories will go back to the time of the greatest trip of all their lives—and may they have been happy ones—when they went honeymooning up the river, for mind you a steamboat journey in the days of which we write was quite the luxury of travel. Sadder journeys too have followed, when loved ones have been carried to the last resting place in the churchyards of the little North River towns from which many families have drifted to the big cities.

The favorite sons of the young Republic were not overlooked in the names of the river steamboats. One of them bore the name of Kosciusko, the young Pole who fought with the Colonists in the War of Independence, and whose name in those earlier days was far more frequently heard than now. He was one of Washington’s military family, being an aide to the General, and was much thought of by all the officers. After his return to Poland at the close of our war, he was made a prisoner for heading a revolution in his native country and imprisoned at St. Petersburg. He was finally liberated and revisited the United States in 1817, and several years after the cadets at West Point, erected the monument you can see from the deck of the passing boat, on the spot that marks the place where Fort Clinton once stood.

Another was the General Jackson, named in honor of “Old Hickory,” who, after fighting for his country in 1812, captured the presidency, and another the Henry Clay, after the people’s idol, the senator of Kentucky who never reached the Presidency, the height of his ambition, and whose namesake in the boat line became a disastrous wreck by burning near Riverdale.

Many present-day readers who have noted among the old-timers the Isaac Newton, may have imagined it was Sir Isaac, the observer of the downward tendency of unsuspended apples, that old boatmen honored, but such was not the case. Isaac Newton was a Rensselaer County man, who was thirteen years old when the first steamboat trip was made up the Hudson and retained a vivid recollection of that great event until his death in 1858. He became a boat owner, established the first line of tow boats on the Hudson and in 1835 brought out the steamboat Balloon, which was followed by the North and South America, Isaac Newton, New World, Hendrik Hudson, etc., whose elegant appointments for the accommodation of passengers secured for the Hudson River steamboats the appellation of floating palaces. Newton caused to be built nearly one hundred steamboats, ocean steamers and river barges. He lived in New York City, was one of the principal owners of the People’s Line of steamboats and an active Baptist in the Old Oliver Street Church. He was over sixty-three years old when he died.

Daniel Drew, Chauncey Vibbard, Erastus Corning, Capt. A. P. St. John and Dean Richmond were all captains of industry in their day and generation, whose investments in this line signalized them as proper persons for such historical fame as may be secured in the name of a steamboat.

Some of the old-timers have changed their names as frequently as a popular divorcee. There is the old Tolchester still doing duty, but with a history behind her. Boats, indeed, in changing their names are not unlike some women, in trying to have the past forgotten. Who remembers the Tolchester as the Samuel M. Felton, new in 1866? That is quite a way back, but there are gray heads whose memories go back to the old Sleepy Hollow which became the Long Branch and ran to the resort of the same name, then in the height of its popularity with the fashionable set as a summer place by the sea.

The Hudson River Railroad was not completed all the way through to Albany until October 8, 1851, when it was formally opened. The building had progressed as far as Poughkeepsie in 1850 and from that point the rest of the journey was made on the Armenia and Joseph Belknap, which ran in connection with the trains to and from New York City.

Reginald Fowler, an Englishman, who made a trip up the Hudson in the fifties on one of the old boats, said of them:

“The Americans take great pride in these boats and spare no expense on them—the meals are well served and the bar produces every kind of beverage. In English steamboats the ladies are generally worse accommodated than the stronger sex. In America this is not the case; the best part of the boat is used for their accommodation. All must give way to them. No man is admitted into the dining saloon until all the ladies are seated at the table, when they rush in pellmell. After that should a lady require either, the chair is, without ceremony, taken from under you and the plate from before you. No male epicure will here be able to gratify his appetite with tid bits. Should he make an attempt to do so it will be futile. A lady, sir! is considered sufficient. Away goes his plate which can only be followed with a sigh; remonstrance would be vain. The Americans pride themselves on their courtesy to women and consider it a sign of high civilization; and they are no doubt right, but it seemed to me to be carried to an extreme; that women were treated like petted children and that they must often feel rather annoyed than pleased by the excessive politeness and consideration shown them. At the same time it is an honor of this country that an unprotected woman of any age may travel through its length and breadth from Boston to New Orleans, from New York to farthest West without insult or the slightest attempt to take advantage of her youth or inexperience."

Many were the improvements introduced on the new boats to attract passengers. Each in turn and degree presented something in comfort or increased speed. One of the most notable innovations introduced was on the steamer Armenia built for the Day Line, so called because it makes the entire trip from Albany to New York by daylight so as to afford its patrons a view of the beautiful river scenery.

The Armenia had installed upon her a steam calliope on which tunes more or less musical were played. The resounding echoes awakened in the Highlands were somewhat weird and wonderful. The calliope was simply a series of steam whistles pitched in various keys, of sufficient number to produce the notes required to play a tune. Its range was about equal to that of the chimes in a church belfry. The Armenia was considered something remarkable when she first appeared, as indeed she was. The demand, however, on her boilers for steam to supply all the steam whistles was so great, that the expense of furnishing the passengers with steam tunes on the trips up and down the river was more than the operating company could afford. The calliope was taken out and sent to the junk shop. The Armenia ran for years without her musical attachment, and was one of the speedy boats of the river.

With her calliope on board she came near being an exemplification of the steamboat President Lincoln used to tell about, as reminding him of some men he knew. He said there was a fussy little steamboat on the Mississippi that had such a big whistle that every time they blew it, it took so much steam, the boat stood still.

There have been two other boats on the river with calliopes, the Glen Cove and the General Sedgwick, but the “steam organs” soon, ceased to be a novelty and in time came to be considered an expensive nuisance.

Of the many old-timers on the Hudson, the ancient and odd-looking steam ferryboat Air Line, that has been plying between Saugerties and Tivoli since 1857, is entitled to the palm. For a half century this old boat has been doing duty and her crew have been so long with her they may be regarded as eligible to the ancient mariner class. Capt. John Xl. Burnett has run the boat for twenty-seven years, and Charles Taylor who began with him as engineer kept his post for twenty-two years before he died and was succeeded by George Mower who is still on duty. The deck hand, James Dickson, began to work on the boat as a boy and is now, after ten years of service, a grown man.

In the genus steamboat, species ferry, one of the most interesting specimens extant is the old chain craft still doing duty on the creek at Rondout. The chain ferries, so numerous in the years gone by, in some sections of the country, have nearly all disappeared and certainly the one at Rondout is an antique. The boat is named the Riverside, but is more affectionately alluded to by the natives as the “Skilly Pot.”

Three other points of interest should be noted in connection with early steamboat navigation. The first: Nicholas J. Roosevelt built at Pittsburgh, Pa., the steamboat New Orleans in 1811 and sailed her down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to the city, in whose honor she was named. It was the beginning of the wonderful steamboat activity on the western rivers. The second; a boat bearing the unique name of Walk-in-the-Water, began running on Lake Erie in 1818. The third; a sailing vessel, the Savannah, which had been altered and provided with a steam engine, sailed from Savannah in 1819 for Liverpool and made the trip across the Atlantic in twenty-eight days, using both sails and steam. She was a side wheel paddle boat and the first to successfully demonstrate the application of steam to ocean navigation. She was so constructed that her paddle wheels could be unshipped in case of stormy weather and taken aboard the vessel.

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