ENLIVENED by remarkable illustrations, this book relates the history of steamboating on the Hudson River from the days of Robert Fulton to the present. Although the emphasis is on the Hudson River Day Line, almost all the companies who operated on the river are also covered, since they were either predecessors, successors or competitors.

The company stressed PASSENGERS ONLY and so achieved a cachet of elegance the freight carriers could not boast. It reached its zenith of operations in the 20s, and at that time had the largest and finest fleet of steamers to be found on any river. The hard times of the 30s began the decline of the line as a through carrier to Albany, despite a flurry of activity during World War II.

Today all of the old Day Line fleet is gone. The Alexander Hamilton, the last of the sidewheelers on the Hudson, retired in 1971, and her sunken remains lie at Leonardo, New Jersey. The Chauncey M. Depew was recently broken up in the Hackensack River.

In the great days of steamboating on the Hudson River, the village of Rondout (later absorbed into the City of Kingston) was the major port between New York and Albany. Located on Rondout Creek, it came into being as a result of the building of the Delaware & Hudson Canal, a waterway over 100 miles long that was constructed with private capital as a means of marketing the coal from the rich anthracite mines of northeastern Pennsylvania.

The book details the development of the service over those years and is larded with tales of the river. It includes, in appendices, the operational schedules of all of the passenger steamers known to have been employed on the Rondout-New York route from 1829 through 1863, as well as measurements and engine data for these vessels. This book has been published as part of the expanded publications program of the Steamship Historical Society of America, Inc.

Most beloved of all the steamboats on the Hudson River, and perhaps the best-known American side-wheeler of the nineteenth century, was the Mary Powell. Honored’ as the “Queen of the Hudson, for style and speed she dominated the river, becoming the standard of comparison not only for other passenger vessels but also for private steam yachts. The biography of the Mary Powell relives the days of decorum ‘when could be relaxing as well as fast.

In 1861 the Anderson family of Rondout Creek built the elegant side-wheeler as a day boat to New York, and for most of her 56-year career she was employed, on this route. So loyal were her passengers that when she did not run, many of them stayed at home!

From the first days of travel along the Hudson to the Mary Powell's abandonment in 1920, this biography covers, her life and background in detail. The book will appeal to anyone, who yearns for the days when the “floating palaces” sped across clear waters and steamboat had as much personality as people.