CHAPTER 4
Hudson River Steamboats
Organization of the Citizens' Line
The Citizens' Troy Line was organized in 1872 by Joseph Cornell, George W. Horton and Captain Thomas Abrams, leading stockholders, supported by local subscriptions. Troy was then served by Commodore J. W. Hancox's old Connecticut Line, steamers Connecticut, Captain A. Siminsky, 250 feet length, and C. Vanderbilt, Captain L. D. Deming. Connecticut holds a record of having made one or more trips in each month of a single year, and was the first steamboat sent out each season to break the ice. Both were old steamboats, of too much draught for the upper river, and the line was not popular. The newcomers brought Thomas Powell, Captain E. D. Beach, and Sunnyside, Captain H. 0. Nichols, and soon had the upper hand. They had run the Hancox boats off the route by July. Connecticut and C. Vanderbilt were cut down for towboats.
Sunnyside was built in 1866 by C. & R. Poillon, Brooklyn, with engine by Cobanks, New York, having cylinder 56 inches diameter by 12 feet stroke. Sunnyside was purchased by Joseph Cornell and Captain Black for $45,000 and ran on the Coxsackie route 1870-71, being lengthened from 265 feet to 300 feet when rebuilt for the Troy night run.
Commodore Hancox came back to the Troy route in 1874 with J. B. Schuyler, a smart two-piper, which made fast under Drew's stern one foggy night while Matt Hancox, the Commodore's son, sauntered up to the tracks with a red lantern under his coat. Western trains then pulled down to the Albany steamboat wharf to unload passengers for the New York boat. Matt Hancox waved his lantern, bringing the train to stop and the passengers disembarked.
"This way to the New York boat," he called. Passengers rushed aboard Schuyler, which pulled in gangways and started before passengers realized they were aboard the wrong boat, and before the People's Line knew their passengers had been stolen away. J. B. Schuyler did not have nearly enough staterooms and there was bitter complaint.
This kind of trickery disgusted Joe Cornell and the Citizens' Line and made the People's Line equally anxious to be rid of the Hancox competition. The two companies joined in buying out Hancox in 1875.
Sunnyside, under command of Captain Frank Teason, left Troy November 30th, 1875, early in the afternoon, five below zero and ice thick in the river, with few passengers and a crew of fifty men. When passing Barrytown it was seen that ice was cutting into the planking and the vessel making water. Pumps kept the ship clear until open water near Esopus Island was reached, which freed the ice that had wedged itself into the openings cut in the hull. Captain Teason drove Sunnyside ashore, but it slid into deep water and settled fast. Only the hurricane deck was exposed and the survivors huddled about the pilot house, but so fast did Sunnyside settle and so terrible was the exposure that eleven lives were lost. Three survivors, Theron Moore, William Fairbrother and George W. Murdock, held a reunion in 1924.
Twilight was put on the line with Thomas Powell to take Sunnyside's place during the spring of 1876 and June 15th the Citizens' Line brought on City of Troy, Captain L. D. Deming, built by John Englis & Son. The new liner was 1,527 tons, 300 feet length, 36 feet beam and 10 feet depth of hold. Quintard Iron Works, New York, built the engine, which came from the steamer Firecracker, engaged in China river trade. City of Troy ran thirty-one years to April 5, 1907, when it burned, fire being discovered in the galley after leaving Yonkers. Captain Brüder and crew fought the flames, but the vessel could not be saved and was headed for the Gould dock at Ardsley, where the 100 passengers landed. City of Troy burned to the water's edge and set fire to the dock.
The Citizens' Line replaced Thomas Powell with Saratoga, June 15, 1877, designed by Joseph Cornell and built by John Englis & Son, being 285 feet length, 36 feet beam, 70 feet over guards, 10 feet depth of hold and 6.6 feet draught. Secor Iron Works rebuilt the engine, which came from the lost Sunnyside. Thomas Powell was kept as spare boat from 1878 to 1882 and was then broken up at Port Ewen. Saratoga ran down Adirondack, near Tivoli, on the evening of October 13, 1906, Saratoga going down and being raised and rebuilt. Adirondack, though damaged and its fore deck carried away, finished the season. Each steamer lost a man. Golden Gate, a small side-wheeler, served in 1874 as tender for the Troy boats in low water periods, burning in 1879 when Belle Horton, built at Athens in 1880 followed.
L. Boardman, 116 tons, built in 1846, ran in 1869 between Haverstraw and Newburgh, as predecessor of Emeline, ex Nantasket, built in 1869. Walter Brett, ex Mary Ben ton, 418 tons, connected New York and Catskill in 1869. Magenta ran on the Haverstraw line in the '1870's, bursting a steam chimney March 23, 1878, when near Sing Sing, three persons being killed and seven scalded. Passengers were taken off by Thomas P. Way and Alexis. William C. Redfield and Thomas McManus, propellers, engaged in freight and passenger business out of Coxsackie, while Andrew Harder, a propeller, ran on the Catskill line 1872-74. In the lower Hudson P. G. Coffin, which had run from Hudson to Albany in the late '1850's, ran to Nyack, being then known as Alexis, afterwards becoming Riverdale, and exploded a boiler off West 34th Street, August 20, 1883. Adelphi, 642 tons, built at Albany in 1863, ran to Nyack in 1869 and later burned on Harlem River. Emeline ran to Haverstraw and was sunk in deep water, later raised by the underwriters.
Benjamin Franklin, a propeller 144.8 feet length, 28.8 feet beam, and 10.1 feet depth of hold, was built at Tottenville in 1894 for the Benjamin Franklin Transportation Co., a freight service connecting Yonkers and New York.
The present freighter and the company itself took its name from the packet sloop Benjamin Franklin which came to serve Yonkers in 1839, then under command of Captain Joseph Peene, whose sons long operated the Yonkers steamboat service.
The sloop Benjamin Franklin was built at Huntington, L. I., in 1836, for New Bedford and West Indies trade, taking out cattle and bringing back molasses, and was 65 feet length and 21 feet beam. The sloop was later operated by Captain John Van Keuren, to 1864 and until 1877 by Moses, Frank and Robert Collyer. Thereafter, until 1889, Benjamin Franklin was sailed by their father, Captain J. L. Collyer, until his death in 1889.
Raleigh, built at Portsmouth, Va., in 1872, has long served Peekskill. Sarah A. Jenks and Leader which ran to Sing Sing were propellers long known on the Hudson.
In addition to the regularly employed steamboats of the Hudson outside boats made occasional trips and Sunday excursions. Plymouth Rock was a favorite excursion boat in the early '1870's and until 1886, when broken up. In recent years frequent visitors have been Jesse Hoyt, Grand Republic, New Brunswick, St. John's, Thomas P. Way, Sam Sloan, John Sylvester, Bridgeport, General Slocum, Orient, Granite State, Monmouth, Sylvan Dell, Harlem, Oriental, ex Norwalk, Block Island, Monitor, Americus, Rosedale, Isabel, Empire State, Howard Carroll, City of Lawrence, City of Lowell and Richard Peck.
Sunday steamboat excursionists were not always welcomed by natives of Hudson River towns, as reported in a New York newspaper of 1882
"The fact that a cannon stood on the wharf at the village of Dobbs' Ferry on a recent Sunday, and a large force of special deputy-sheriffs paraded the river bank armed with clubs and revolvers, it would seem fair to infer that the excursionists who were expected to arrive there from the city would not have been cordially welcomed. This conjecture is strengthened by the declaration of one of the village trustees that they were ready to resort to grape and canister, if necessary, to keep visitors away."
When Dean Richmond was being built at John Englis & Son Brooklyn yard in 1865 Star of the East was building in a neighboring shipway for the Kennebec River, becoming Sagadahoc, and many years later, as Greenport, ran with Dean Richmond, filling in when City of Troy was lost until Rensselaer came out in 1909.
City of Catskill, Captain Charles Ru Ton, was built by Van Loan & Magee at Athens in 1880 for the Catskill Line, 250 feet length, 35 feet beam and 10 feet depth of hold. W. & A. Fletcher Company built the engine, having cylinder 56 inches diameter by 12 feet stroke. City of Catskill burned at Rondout February 11, 1883. Kaaterskill, Captain Charles Ru Ton, was built by Van Loan & Magee in 1882, being 1,361 tons, 285 feet length, 38 feet beam and 10 feet depth of hold. W. & A. Fletcher Company built the engine with cylinder 63 inches diameter by 12 feet stroke. Kaaterskill ran with Onteora and City of Hudson in 1845.
Albany, the first iron steamboat of the Hudson River Day Line, was built by Harlan & Hollingsworth Company, Wilmington, in 1880, originally 305 feet length, 40 feet beam, 75 feet over guards and 11.6 feet depth of hold. W. & A. Fletcher Company built the engine with cylinder 73 inches diameter by 12 feet stroke. Albany had wheels 32 feet diameter and 12 feet wide. Albany was rebuilt in 1893 at Harlan yard, lengthened to 327 feet and new feathering wheels installed and the former fan-shaped paddle boxes were replaced with dummy windows.
An interesting experimental craft, Henry W. Longfellow, was built in the summer of 1880 at Nyack, and described by a writer in Harper's Weekly:
"I'll give them rapid transit," said Commodore William Voorhis to a reporter, the other day. "I'll take people down from Nyack to New York-27 miles in one hour, and run away from everything on the river that is driven by steam." To accomplish this purpose the Commodore has built a monster steam-catamaran, which is one of the strangest looking vessels afloat. The boat consists of two iron cylinders, shaped like immense cigars, sharp at both ends, and 200 feet length. These are nine feet apart, and on them rests a deck 125 feet length, like that of an ordinary ferryboat. Each cylinder has four bulk-heads and five air-tight compartments. Just aft the midship section, in the center of the boat, is an eight-flanged screw, with a dip of eight inches. The screw, instead of being submerged, as are the propellers of all swift craft, is nearly one-half out of water. The tops of the flanges project above the flooring of the main deck. The plan of the screw, also, instead of being at right angles with the plane of the water, makes an acute angle with it. Commodore Voorhis believes this will serve to raise her over the water, and thus decrease the displacement and consequent resistance. He has, he thinks, found a means of greatly increasing the speed of his boat by increasing the buoyancy, and at the same time decreasing the resistance.
There are two engines of the "balance" order. The steam, instead of entering the cylinder head, passing down the piston one-third of the way, and leaving it to the expansion to drive the piston home, enters in the center of the cylinder, and forces the two pistons in opposite directions. The engines are of 500 horse power, and there will be a displacement of only 75 tons.
It is expected that the screw will make 250 or 300 revolutions a minute. There is a safety boiler, nine feet in diameter, containing 750 feet of two-inch pipe, inside coil. The weight of the entire vessel, including cylinders, is 43 tons.
This, it is said, will leave a carrying capacity of 475 passengers. It is said no vessel afloat has more than one-third of the power per ton of displacement that this vessel has. The new craft is named the Henry W. Longfellow. in honor of the distinguished poet.
There was much that was sound in Commodore Voorhis' pioneer design, which anticipated tunnel stern and planing craft and half submerged wheels-features which waited upon the development of power plants capable of high revolutions.
Henry W. Longfellow made a trial trip, but never ran on the Nyack route. The round form of the cylinders did not give increasing buoyancy as the twin hulls submerged in motion. Novelty, a previous experimental catamaran with a midship paddle wheel, was also built by Commodore Voorhis.
William Tittamer carried milk between Dutchess Junction and New York in 1882, later rebuilt and named Melzingah when the route was extended to Newburgh, the line being operated by James T. Brett. Daily freight and passenger service was started in 1884 with Keyport, which became James T. Brett, in opposition to the Ramsdell Line, being later absorbed by the Central Hudson Line.
City of Kingston, 1,117 tons, a propeller built in 1884 by Harlan & Hollingsworth Company for the Cornell Steamboat Company, ran to Rondout, 240 feet length, 34.6 feet beam, 15.3 feet depth of hold, was the pioneer fast passenger propeller on the Hudson, making 19 miles' speed. City of Kingston ran five years on the route and was sold for Puget Sound, hailing from Seattle and making occasional trips to Alaska. Eagle, a Captain Jacob Tremper boat running from Newburgh and Albany, burned at Milton in 1884. Union ran on the Hudson and did New York harbor towing.
Newburgh was built for the Newburgh route in 1886 by Naefie & Levy, Philadelphia, 1,033 tons, 200 feet length, 32 feet beam and 12.6 feet depth of hold. The Central Hudson Line also operated Jacob H. Tremper, a wooden side-wheeler, built at Greenport in 1885, of 1,033 tons, i8o feet length, 34 feet beam, and 8 feet depth of hold, with engine having cylinder 40 inches diameter by 10 feet stroke. William F. Romer, ex Mason L. Weems, built in 1881, came to the Central Hudson fleet in 1889 from Baltimore, running until broken up in 1920.
Homer Ramsdell, 1,181 tons, was built by Thomas S. Marvel & Company, Newburgh, in 1887 for the Homer Ramsdell Transportation Company, and when first built was 212 feet length, 32.2 feet beam, 14 feet depth of hold, being lengthened in 1892 to 237 feet. William Wright of Newburgh built the compound engine, 28 and 52 by 36 inches, rated 1,022 horse power. Benjamin B. 0dell was built in 1911 at Wilmington, 263 feet length, 48.6 feet beam and 16 feet depth of hold, with triple expansion engine and four boilers rated 2,600 horse power. Poughkeepsie was built in 1917 at Tampa, Fla., 206.5 feet length, 47 feet beam, 12 feet depth of hold and 1,566 tons registry.
The Day Line brought out New York, 1,552 tons, built in 1887 by Harlan & Hollingsworth Company, 311 feet length, 40 feet beam, 74 feet over guards and 12.6 feet depth of hold with 6 feet draught. W. & A. Fletcher Company built the engine with cylinder 75 inches diameter by 12 feet stroke. Wheels were feathering type, with 12 buckets, 12.6 feet length by 3.9 feet width. New York was later lengthened to 350 feet. While being overhauled at Newburgh, New York took fire in the galley and was damaged beyond further use in October, 1908.
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