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

CHAPTER 7

Old River Captains

Before the days of a la carte restaurants on the boats, the captain had his table in the dining saloon, and the dinner hour aboard the steamboat was one of the features of the trip. Under the present regulations the captains, though always on duty and men of character and ability, are not as much in evidence to the average passenger as in the old days.

Capt. Samuel Jenkins commanded the Clermont after she was renamed the North River, in 1808, the Car of Neptune was in command of Captain Roorback in 1810 and the Paragon, in 1818, was in charge of Captain Wiswall. These men were, accordingly, the pioneer steamboat captains of the river. They have been followed by many worthy successors, in whose charge millions of passengers have traveled in safety and comfort.

Some of the captains on the steamers in the thirties and forties were H. Moore of the Olive Branch, Fountain of the Niagara and C. Benton of the William Penn, on the Union Line; Captain Cochran of the Chancellor Livingston, P. Wiswall of the James Kent, S. Wiswall of the Richmond and Benton of the Saratoga, on the North River Line; Captain Bartholomew of the Hudson, on the Connecticut Line; R. G. Cruttenden of the Constellation and Wiswall of the Constitution, on the North River Association Line. Capt. D. Peck sailed the Swift Sure and Captain Seymour the Commerce, of the Steam Navigation Company; Captain Peck the Henry Eckford and Captain Drake the Sun, of the 0. & D. Line; while Captain Sherman had the Chief Justice Marshall and Captain Fitch the New London, of the Troy Line.

Captain Cruttenden was one of the last survivors of this class and when in command of the old Constellation he used to boast he never lost a trip or a life, had made one thousand one hundred and sixty-two trips with the old boat and carried over 172,000 passengers.

Most of the early river captains reached a hearty old age. Captain Bunker, who ran the Fulton up the Hudson during the war of 1812, lived until he was seventy-five years of age, dying in 1847, and must have rejoiced to note the great development in an industry in which he was a pioneer. Another veteran of the river, Capt. Samuel Wiswall, lived to be sixty-three years old and died in New York in 1886. He is buried in Hudson.

Among the river captains of 1847 were Capt. A. Gorham, commanding the Troy; Capt. H. J. Kellogg, the Niagara; Capt. W. W. Tupper, the Columbia; Capt. R. B. Macy, the Empire; Capt. W. H. Peck, the Isaac Newton; Capt. R. G. Cruttenden, the Hendrik Hudson; Capt. R. H. Furey, the North America; Capt. Thomas N. Hulse, the South America; Capt. G. 0. Tupper, the Alida; Capt. A. DeGroot, the Roger Williams; Capt. J. S. Odell, the Columbus; Capt. Samuel Johnson, the Thomas Powell; Capt. Charles Halstead, the Superior and Capt. John Samuels, the Emerald.

Many odd characters were to be found among the old captains. Of one it is told he used to boast he paid one hundred dollars to bury his wife and it was worth every cent of it! He, however, was an exception to the generally good humored river captains and never came to the dignity of commanding a passenger boat. He was a mighty good navigator, however, and had the reputation of putting things through in spite of wind or weather.

Captain Houghton of the old Rochester was one of the greatest characters among the old captains. He was familiarly known as “Pug” Houghton, his nose suggested the cognomen, and he was a great story-teller. He was a stage driver in Vermont when a younger man and some of his tales of the road were hair-raisers. He used to tell of frightening off some robbers at a wayside tavern with a brass candlestick which he held up as a pistol, and, as if to convince all doubters, he used to say, in the morning the heels of two boots were found on the doorsill, torn off the bold marauders footwear as the captain had jammed the door to upon them. “Pug” Houghton always had a knot of passengers about him on the river boats as he recounted his experiences on the high seas, though there were those who claimed he never sailed beyond Sandy Hook in all his life.

“Uncle” Daniel Drew, who had two steamboats, and a theological seminary in New Jersey named after him, was an able financier and a good business manager in general. He was greatly surprised on a certain occasion to find one of his captains taking a drink at the bar while the boat was running. The captain was equally surprised at being found at the bar by “Uncle” Daniel. Capt. was, however, a good bluff and held his ground, talking business as he drank his whiskey and in the presence of the owner of the line planked down a quarter on the bar for the drink.

“What,” said Mr. Drew to the captain, in surprise, “do you have to pay for your drinks on this boat?” “Always,” replied the captain, without the quiver of an eyelash. “Fact is,” said he, “Mr. Drew, I find it the best means of interposing a most desirable restraint on natural tendencies.

“Uncle” Daniel left the captain quite satisfied he was a very moderate drinker, if he had to pay steamboat prices for drinks, but had the bartender not sought out the captain and restored the quarter of a dollar before the end of that particular trip, the chances are ten to one he would have lost his job.

One of the best known river captains was Capt. A. L. Anderson who had the Mary Powell built for him and commanded her for years. She was not only the smartest boat on the river in her day, but has always been a “lucky” boat, never having met with a serious accident. She lost one of her smokestacks in a big blow in the Highlands on one of her trips, many years ago, but is ‘said to have finished her trip on time. She was owned for years by the Anderson family, but was recently purchased by the Day Line. There is still a Captain Anderson on hoard of her, however. He is A. E. Anderson, a son of the original captain, and as he has been running the Powell for over thirty years himself, is in the veteran class.

Capt. S. J. Roe, who has commanded the Rip Van Winkle, Drew, Dean Richmond and Adirondack in his day, is still living, hale and hearty, over eighty years of age, in Albany, N. Y. His memory goes back to the days of the Swallow in 1845, and he took a party of excursionists down the river in the Belle to view the wreck of the old boat. Captain Post, who ran the St. John, has been dead for a number of years and so has Capt. “Dave” Hitchcock who put the Chauncey Vibbard through by daylight and retained his popularity as a captain as long as he ran upon the river.

The captains alone should not be remembered of the great steamboat days of the thirties, forties and fifties. The times developed many engineers, men of resource and ingenuity, who made their boats jump through the water under the impulse of every pound of steam that could be crowded on the boilers, in the great efforts to make records for speed. Many of the older men, on the decline of steam navigation, following the opening of the railroads, took to the deep water business and became chief engineers on ocean steamships and it would he interesting, indeed, if one were able, to follow the old-timers of the starting bar in their wanderings from their river habitat.

Return to Top