Editor's Note: This article was by Raymond A. Ruge and originally published in the February 10, 1945 issue of "The Saturday Evening Post".  The language, spelling and grammar of the article reflects the time period when it was written. For information about current ice boating on the Hudson River go to White Wings and Black Ice here.  ​

Once a rich man's game, iceboating today is a sport for anyone who has seventy-five dollars, a craving for speed—and plenty of ice.

ICE on the Shrewsbury! After half a dozen mild winters, the freeze-up of 1940 had clamped a ten-  inch layer of glassy ice over the shallow, brackish river. As if by magic, iceboats appeared from barns, garages, cellars and woodsheds, for this is real ice-boating country, where the sport's traditions run back nearly 100 years. And now the Eastern Ice Yachting Association had voted to hold its annual championship regatta on the famous New Jersey course. 

Two week ends of hard racing had all but completed the program. The pick of the fleets of twelve member clubs had fought for five class championships—an iceboat's class is based on sail area alone—from the tiny Class E Skeeters, with their pocket-handkerchief sails of only seventy-five square feet, to the big, powerful Class A racers, prides of the Shrewsbury, spreading 350 feet of creamy canvas. Between these came the champions of Class D, Class C and Class B, at 125, 175 and 200 square feet. There was just one race to go, the Open Championship, in which all these class champions fight it out without handicap to pick the year's undisputed king of the Eastern ice ways.
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Since early morning, the northwest gale had roared, driving the furred and helmeted skippers to shelter round the clubhouse stove. At the rear of the long room steamed a huge chowder bowl, brimful of tangy, salty brew, concocted from good home-grown Jersey clams by the master hand of the old salt who now pridefully dispensed it. For chowder's "on the house" at Red Bank when the ice is right.

Around the crackling stove, half a dozen younger skippers were tangled in argument with the veterans.

"Why, I can remember the Rocket—eight hunderd an' fifty foot of sail, she had! And you call those little things iceboats!"

"Okay, okay! Just wait till this race gets started—if it ever does!" 

Down the long side of the room was a workbench, where a pair of grimy characters filed away at long v-edged runners held in special blocks at just the proper angle. After filing the blades, they dressed them with light emery cloth and oil until they shone like polished silver.

"There. That ought to hold 'em," grunted one of the workers, as he straightened up and tossed aside his black oily gloves. "Only dirty job in this sport, but you can't get far without doing it, and you sure can't hire anybody to do it for you. How's for some chowder?"

"I'm your man," said his companion. "By the way, who's got a five-sixteenths drill?"

​"Look in my box—that green one under the bench," volunteered one of the men around the stove. 'Clearly, here was a gang who knew and respected one another. They swapped ideas, tools and equipment like sailors swapping telephone numbers after a six months' cruise—apparently with perfect confidence that all favors would be returned in kind whenever possible. The iceboaters are like that. Most of them build their own boats. They have a mutual love for a fast, hard sport—one which automatically weeds out all but the regular guys by the sheer discomfort and disappointments that are part of the game. 

Outside, halyards slapped a tattoo against shivering spars, taut rigging whistled and moaned, and canvas covers whipped viciously, as the fleet stood by, five champions waiting eagerly for the first lull that would permit starting of the Open. Finally, it came.
"Start at 3:15!" flashed the committee. Chowder was forgotten, the stove abandoned, as flying suits were pulled on and helmets buckled down. Shouldering runners, which are always removed at nightfall to prevent rusting, and toting sail bags, the crews lunged out into the gale. Canvas covers were stripped from gleaming mahogany and spruce. Lead weights were strapped to runner planks, runners and rigging given a last check-over before sails were hoisted for the jolting, grinding punishment to come.

"Course shortened to ten miles! Leave all marks to starboard! Skippers and crews ready! Spectators keep back!"
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And there were plenty of spectators, for this was the race that Red Bank had been waiting for. The Class A yachts of time-honored stern-steering design had been undisputed speed kings of the ice for a quarter of a century. Then in the early 1930's, in Wisconsin, where iceboating flourishes under the sponsorship of the Northwestern Ice Yachting Association, a few daring pioneers tried a boat that reversed the usual arrangement, and steered from a single runner up front, something like Sister Susie's tricycle. They gave it a boxlike fuselage for a hull, so the pilot could sit upright and see where he was going—surely desirable at seventy miles an hour. He also was seated down inside the hull, so he could stay aboard without having to be an acrobat as well as a sailor. The traditional jib-and-mainsail rig gave way to the simpler cat, with its single sail. And, surprisingly, the new reverse-English jobs began trimming the pants off the older-style boats. By 1940, several had been brought East, and here they were at Red Bank, daring to tackle the old-style boats of nearly five times their sail area. Even the boldest of the young folks had to admit that the little eighteen-foot Western-built Skeeter, with its one-man crew, looked like a toy out there beside the thirty-five-foot Class A entry boast-ing both a skipper and a sheet tender.

The roar of the cannon sent them away. As the boats leaped away down-river, the big A left the others far behind. Turning the lower mark, she started across the lower river on the outer leg of the triangular course and was nearly a quarter mile ahead.

The old-timers chuckled. "See what we told you? Those little mahogany cracker boxes can't stay with a real ice-boat. Look where they are already!"

Up the river now, they crisscrossed as they tacked their way into the teeth of the gale toward the home stake. Three of the five starters were already far behind, but the little boat was moving up! This was going to be a race, after all. As the mighty Goliath of the river roared up and around the mark to start the second lap, right on her heels, not 100 yards behind, was that pesky little cracker box, the smallest boat in the race. Down the river again, lost in the flying snow. Across the outer leg and back up that wicked zigzag leg to windward. This time the Skeeter was even closer—a hornet chasing an eagle.

 At the end of the third lap, they were even. One to go, and it was anybody's race. Downstream they went, down and across the outer leg, the eagle still ahead, but the hornet right on her tail. The last leg would tell the story. Up they came tacking, turning, fighting for every inch. Then the tiny Skeeter slipped past the big boat not a quarter mile from the finish, and went on to win by fifteen seconds.
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The victory emphasized the fact that iceboating had switched from a rich man's game, with an outlay of $2500 or more for a top-flight racer, to a sport for the average man. The Skeeter that won the 1940 Open cost $350, complete—about as much as a single set of runners for the big yacht she had so neatly trimmed. Annual maintenance on a Skeeter runs in the neighborhood of a ten-dollar bill. By building their own boats, many fans cut the initial cost be-low the $200 mark. For transportation, a car-top carrier or a small two-wheeled trailer does the trick. 

Iceboating had found a level where al-most anyone who wanted to could enjoy it. New clubs sprang up wherever there was ice enough to sail the boats. Be-tween 1931 and 1941, the number of ice-boats in active use was just about quadrupled. Allowing the usual quota of one owner—the skipper—and at least two or three enthusiastic pals per boat, the number of iceboaters was multiplied by twelve to sixteen. More accurate figures are impossible to get. Although organized iceboating was discontinued for the duration, after the regattas of 1942, informal sailing is today going on as usual.

Whenever the conversation gets around to iceboating, there are certain questions that always turn up. The first one, of course, goes: "Well, all kidding aside, how fast do they really go?" And right off the bat we run into the mystery of "faster than the wind." Actually, ice-boats do sail faster than the wind—a whole lot faster, in fact—but only when they're sailing across the wind, not running along with it. An iceboat moves so easily on her polished metal runners that a half-ton boat, once under way, can be pushed along by any ten-year-old, and there's practically no increase in ice friction as the speed increases. At the same time, the sharp V edges of the runners completely eliminate sideslip, so that every ounce of power developed by the sail goes into forward motion. As a result, when the boat is sailed directly across the wind stream, so the wind tries to push her sideways, her runners say "Nothing doing," and she has to slip ahead out of this squeeze play like a watermelon seed popping out from between your fingers.

Furthermore, the forward movement of the boat immediately brings into action a second air flow, equal to the speed of the boat, and coming from dead ahead. Her sails don't feel it, but they don't feel the same breeze as a person standing still, either. What they get and what actually drives the boat is a combination of the true wind and the air current caused by the boat's motion. This combined breeze is known as the "apparent wind," and because iceboats move so easily, they soon build up their apparent wind to a velocity far higher than that of the real wind. They can keep on working the squeeze play and the wind build-up until they get up to about four times the original wind speed. Then the apparent wind is coming from so nearly dead ahead that they can't build it up any more. But four times the speed of the wind is enough for anybody.

​Now you can begin to understand how Long Branch's famous Commodore Price broke every speed record on the books by sailing the Clarel 140 miles an hour one winter day in 1908. He didn't have a hurricane—just a typical winter westerly, with puffs hitting forty or forty-five, and he got the old girl going at just the right angle. Debutante III, of Oshkosh, claims 119 in a race on Gull Lake, Michigan. Flying Dutchman, of the same club, is credited with 124. Both these records are to the credit of the famous skipper, John Buckstaff, of Oshkosh. 

Iceboats, however, don't always go tearing around four times as fast as the wind. Most of the time their speed is closer to twice the wind speed, and because they have to tack to get to wind-ward, they cover a greater distance than the measured course in every race. The real test of a boat's ability is what she can do around a course from a standing start. A comparison of old records with new will show what streamlining and modern rigs have done for speed. In 1892, the famous Jack Frost-720 square feet—set a record by sailing a twenty-mile race on the Hudson River at an average speed of 38.3 miles per hour. Actual distance: 31.4 miles; time: 49 minutes, 30 seconds. Almost a half century later, Charette II, carrying 125 square feet of sail, covered a ten-mile course in 11 minutes, 33 seconds at an average speed of 51.9 miles an hour to win the Eastern Open Championship for 1941.

Having been convinced that iceboats really do make time, our questioner in-variably follows up with this one: "At speeds like that, how do you ever stop the darned things?" Stopping is actually a cinch, provided the skipper hasn't made that basic error known to the trade as "running out of ice." Iceboats will stop in a surprisingly short distance, if they are headed straight into the wind.

"Isn't it dangerous?" In the hands of a fool or a show-off, yes. But properly handled—and it's easy—iceboats are a lot safer than automobiles. For one thing, there's no lurking ditch, nor is there a line of fence posts and a stream of opposing traffic. There's plenty of room; collisions are practically unheard of. Furthermore, with her sharp runners, an iceboat can be steered within a fraction of an inch of where her skipper wants to send her, with one exception. The older type of boat, with stern rudder, some-times will take matters into her own hands, kick up her heels and do a whirling dervish, spinning around two or three times as if trying to shake off both skipper and crew. And sometimes she succeeds.

In 1931, Starke Meyer, of Milwaukee, did some experimenting with models he hoped would lick the spin problem. He decided to reverse the traditional design and give the bow steerer a try. In the next few seasons he built several, all named Paula. The bow steerer turned out to be tremendously fast. Even more encouraging, she proved to be spin-proof. Paula's offspring can be numbered in the thousands. Most numerous are the ubiquitous Skeeters.

In fairness, however, it should be pointed out that, while the bow steerer won't spin and toss you off, she's a dangerous lady in a capsize. She lifts her crew high in the air as she rears, and if she goes over, they may be tossed out from a height of eight or ten feet or, even worse, have the whole works fall with them, in case the mast breaks. A few bad spills of this type occurred when bow steerers were younger and not so well understood. In recent years, skippers have learned always to carry the main sheet—the rope that controls the sail—so that it can be slipped a bit if the boat tries to hike more than a few inches. They have found that the boat makes better speed if she is kept down on the ice than when one runner is reaching for the sky, the way you see them in the newsreels. Since there is no profit and there is real danger in carrying a hike too far, capsizes these days are rare indeed. When they do occur, you may be sure that they are the result of just plain bad driving.

We can just about ignore the old question, "Isn't it terribly cold?" 'Sure it's cold. But everybody gets outdoors in the winter nowadays, and all you have to do is dress for it. For coldest days, ice-boaters smear their faces with camphor ice, petroleum jelly or cold cream, and their lips with pomade—don't laugh, brother; a split lip is no joke—as do skiers, fliers, mountain climbers and lots of other outdoor sportsmen.
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And so we get to the key questions: "Isn't it expensive?" and "How do I get started?" The Skeeter, professionally built at $350, home-built for $75 to $200, has pretty well settled the financial matter, for a good Skeeter is just as fast as anything else, and a lot less trouble. In the old days, when speed was more or less proportional to size, enormous yachts were built, at costs running into the thousands. Largest of all was the Icicle, owned by President Roosevelt's uncle, Commodore John E. Roosevelt, of the Hudson River Ice Yacht Club at Hyde Park. Originally built in 1869, she was enlarged and remodeled until she reached the amazing length of sixty-nine feet and lugged a thousand-square-foot spread of canvas. 

She has been carefully preserved, and now rests in the Roosevelt museum at Hyde Park. By 1890, she was being consistently beaten by much smaller but more efficient craft, and the big boats gradually dropped into the discard.

The largest yacht still sailing is the Debutante III, owned by Douglas and Camp van Dyke, of Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Carrying 618 square feet of sail in a towering rig that completely dwarfs every other boat in sight, she has seen both the Hearst and the Stuart cups, iceboating's premier trophies, lifted from her by smaller boats. The Hearst Cup now rests at Madison, jealously guarded by the 350-square-footer Fritz, owned by Fritz Jungbluth and sailed by Carl Bernard. The Stuart Cup is in Detroit, won and held by Rex Jacobs' fine 350-square-footer Ferdinand, under the able handling of George Hendrie. And even these super-racers have now and again been beaten by little bow steerers carrying 175 square feet or less, which means that a $350 Skeeter will put you right up there with the best of them.

Of real importance is the ease with which these little boats can be transported. In the East, for example, the Skeeter crowd has actually stretched the season from a former average of two months to the present one of nearer four. Opening the season on the earliest ice, up in the hills around Kent, Connecticut, they move down into Southern New York to Orange and Greenwood lakes, or into Northern Jersey to Lakes Hopatcong and Musconetcong. If it's a really hard winter, like that of 1940, the lakes will be snowed under. But there's bound to be ice on the Shrewsbury. So south-ward they go, for a Skeeter can be knocked down ready for the road in half an hour. As the winter wears along, the trek is reversed, until the last days of March find them back in Connecticut, winding up the season in glorious spring sunshine. In Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine, most of the large lakes sport a few boats, and there are several clubs of considerable size. If you're a Midwesterner, Lake St. Clair, at Detroit, Gull Lake, near Kalamazoo, Fox Lake, northwest of Chicago, Lakes Geneva, Mendota, Pewaukee and Winnebago in Wisconsin, or White Bear and Minnetonka in Minnesota, are the hot spots. There are lots of others, and it's a safe bet you live within an hour's drive of iceboating if you're in those latitudes.

And don't think it's all racing. Not by a long shot. Many an enthusiastic ice-boater never races. He probably likes to use tools, and he likes to get outdoors in the wintertime with a group of con-genial spirits. He gets a tremendous kick out of iceboating, even though race day finds him serving on the committee instead of clipping buoys.

The best way to get started is to go where the boats are and get talking to the people who sail them. You'll find them more than friendly, glad to give you a ride, and ready to welcome you heartily if you really get the bug and decide to acquire a boat. Even if you are a fine craftsman and are pretty sure you know just what you want to build, it is far wiser to buy your first iceboat, preferably secondhand. You'll learn a lot about what makes a good one good after you've sailed, rigged and played with one for a couple of seasons. Then is the time to build that superboat for yourself. And many's the fellow who's done it. Fritz, the boat we met a few lines back, winner in 1934 of the Hearst Cup, Stuart Cup, Northwestern Class A and Free-for-All Championships; Elizabeth R., owned and sailed by Rube White, of Red Bank, holder of the North American Class A Pennant; Scout, last winner-1922—of the Ice Yacht Challenge Pennant of America, sailed by Capt. Frank Drake, of New Hamburg, who still sails every winter, though shading seventy; my own, Charette II, four times Eastern Class C Champion and twice winner of the Eastern Open—all are home-built boats.
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Iceboating flourished in Northeastern Europe for many years. Stockholm, Riga and Berlin boasted many clubs and active fleets of yachts. Just before the war, the nations around the Baltic Sea banded together into the Europiiischen Eissegel Union, and sailed annual inter-national championships in several sail-area classes. It may well be that the next winter Olympics will see the inauguration of truly international ice yachting. Steps toward this end were under way when war broke out. Once it's over, you can look for more and faster iceboating wherever Jack Frost hangs his hat.

​            p. 50                                                                 July 7, 1801
Very suddenly conceived the design of voyaging up the Hudson river, as far as Albany.  Had heard much of the grandeur of its shores, but never had gone above ten miles from New York.  My friend C. having some leisure was willing to adventure for ten days or a fortnight, and I having still more, and being greatly in want of air and exercise, agreed to accompany him.  We found a most spacious and well furnished vessel, captain R.----- in which we embarked at sunset this day.  The wind propitious and the air wonderfully bland. 
p. 51     We bade adieu to our friends B.----- J.----- and D.----.  I took my post at the stern, and found much employment for my feelings, in marking through the dusk, the receding city and the glimmering lights; first of quays and avenues, and afterwards of farms and village.  It is just three years since my visit to New York in 1798.  an interval replete with events, various and momentous.  Some of them humiliating and disastrous, but, on the whole leading me to my present situation in which I have reason for congratulation. 
                                                                    
July 8, 1801
I write this seated in the cabin, from the windows of which, we have a view of wooded slopes, rocky promontories and waving summits.  Our attention has been, for some time, fixed upon Stony Point, a memorable post in the late war, a spot familiar to my ears since my infancy, but which I have now seen for the first time.  It is a rocky and rugged mass advancing into the river, the sides of which are covered with dwarf cedars, and the summit conspicuous still with some remains of fortification, a general solitude and vacancy around it, and a white cow grazing within the ruinous walls, produce a pleasing effect on my imagination.  A craggy eminence, crowned with the ruins of a fortress, is an interesting spectacle every where, but a very rare one in America.  I much wished to go ashore and ascend this hill, but it was not convenient.
           
What are called the highlands of the North river, are a mountainous district, through which the river flows for some miles.  I had heard much of the stupendous and alpine magnificence of the scenery.  We entered it this morning, with a mild breeze and serene sky, and the prospect hitherto has been soft and beautiful.  Nothing abrupt, rugged or gigantic.  Farms and cultivated fields seldom appear.  Six or eight vessels like our own, have been constantly in sight, and greatly enliven the scene.
           
We are now at anchor, have just dined.  My companions have gone to sleep.  The utmost stillness prevails.  Nothing to be heard but the buzzing of flies near at hand, and the (p. 52) cawing of distant crows.  We lay surrounded on all hands by loftier ridges, than I ever before saw bordered by water.
           
We have formed various conjectures as to the heights of these summits.  The captain's statements of five and six hundred feet are extravagant.  Three hundred would be nearer the truth.  Few or none of them are absolute precipices, but most of them are steep, and not to be scaled without difficulty.
           
​I have gazed at the passing scene from Stony Point to West Point, with great eagerness, and till my eye was weary and pained.  how shall I describe them.  I cannot particularize the substance of the rock, or the kind of tree, save oaks and cedars.  I am as little versed in the picturesque.  I can only describe their influence on me.

​My friend is a very diligent observer, and frequently betakes himself to the pen.  Heavy brows and languid blood has made me indolent, and I have done nothing but look about me, or muse for the last two days. 
           
On Thursday afternoon with a brisk southward gale and a serene sky, we left the highlands.  At the spot where the mountains recede from the river, the river expands into a kind of lake, about two miles wide and ten miles long.  The entrance is formed by cliffs, lofty, steep and gloomy with woods, which the borders of the lake itself are easy slopes, checkered with cultivated fields, farms and villages.
           
The highlands from the heights and boldness of the promontories and ruggedness of the rocks, and the fantastic shape the assume, fully answer the expectations which my friends had excited.  But the voyage over the lake, exceeded whatever my fancy had pictured of delightful.  Three populous villages, Peekskill, New Windsor and Newburg, and innumerable farms decorate its borders.
           
Yesterday we moved but slowly, the wind becoming adverse.  At noon we drew into a wharf at Red-hook, and remained there till evening.  My friend and I seized the opportunity of wandering.  The river bank is lofty, and wooded as usual, but no wise remarkable.

p. 53     Some hours before, a waving and bluish line in the horizon reminded us of the Kaats-kill mountains.  These are seen very advantageously from Red-hook, distant about twenty miles, and appear of stupendous height.  Their elevation has been ascertained, but I do not recollect what it is.
           
We roamed along the shore and among the bushes, highly pleased with the exercise, and concluded our rambles with a bathing in the river.  In leaving the sloop, I left most of my sluggish feelings behind me, and walked enough to make the night's repose acceptable and sound.
           
With the tide to favour us we left Red-hook at eight o'clock, but were obliged to anchor again before morning.  At six o'clock my friend and I accompanied the captain ashore, in search of milk and blackberries.  I have since seated myself on deck, watching the shore, as the breeze carried us along.  My friend is busy with his spy glass, reconnoitering the rocks and ay stacks, and surveying the wharves and store houses of Lunenburg and Hudson, villages we have just passed.  I have observed but little besides a steep bank, roughened by rocks and bushes, occasionally yielding to slopes of a parched and yellowish soil, with poor cottages sparingly scattered, and now and then a small garden or field of corn.  A fellow passenger left us at Hudson.  One only remaining, a Mr. H.---- of Albany, a well behaved man, whose attention is swallowed up by Mrs. Bennet's "Beggar Girl." [Editor's Note: A 7 volume work by Anna Maria Bennett in 1797 "The Beggar Girl and Her Benefactors"]
           
The sloop's crew consists of captain, mate, a man and a boy as cook; all orderly, peaceful obliging persons. The cabin being perfectly clean and comfortable, and provisions plentiful and good, we have no reason to regret the delays occasioned by adverse winds, and by calms.  I have some vacant moments when a book might amuse. The captain's whole stock consists of a book on navigation, Dillworth's Arithmetic, and Goldsmith's Citizen of the World.  I have looked into the last, but it does not please me.  The fiction is ill supported, the style smooth and elegant, but the sentiments and observations far from judicious or profound.
           
The mate has been telling me his adventures.  A very crude and brief tale it was, but acceptable and pleasing to me.  (p. 54)  A voyage round the globe is a very trivial adventure, now-a-days.  This man has been twice to Nootka, thence to Canton, and thence to Europe and home.  He performed one whaling voyage to Greenland, and was fifteen months a seaman in a British seventy-four.  His South Sea voyage occupied eighteen months, during which there was neither sickness nor death among the crew.

           
In the mid-1800s, the Hudson River was a busy waterway between the fast-growing New York metropolitan area and the cities, crop lands, timber, and mining regions of the West and North. The Delaware and Hudson Canal linked the Pennsylvania coal fields to the Hudson River at its harbor town of Rondout, about one hundred miles north of New York city.
           
In the 1830s, Thomas Cornell came with a sailing sloop to Rondout to ship coal from the D&H Canal. A native of White Plains, N.Y., Cornell was just twenty-two years old. Until then, sailboats had done the work of carrying freight and passengers, but Cornell saw that steam-powered vessels were the future. In a few years, he became the owner and operator of steamboats running between Rondout and New York. Cornell settled in Rondout, where he established the Cornell Steamboat Company.
           
In those booming years of growth and construction, there was plenty of business for steamboats plying the Hudson. New York City’s thriving metropolitan area needed coal from the D&H Canal, ice that was harvested in winter from the frozen river, building material produced in the mid-Hudson valley brick, lumber, stone, and cement- and agricultural products grain, livestock, dairy, fruit, and hay- which came from near and far.
           
Rondout Creek offered the best deep-water port in the Hudson Valley and thus became the center of maritime activity between New York and Albany. The Cornell Steamboat Company made its headquarters in Rondout village, where many boats were berthed and repaired, and some were built. Between 1830 and 1900, few harbors of comparable size anywhere in America were as busy as Rondout Creek.
                                                                
By the mid-1800s, the Hudson River had many sidewheel steamboats passing north and south, one grander than the other. They carried both freight and passengers, and speed was of the essence- both for bragging rights and because passengers favored the fastest boats. In the 1860s, Thomas Cornell acquired Mary Powell, the Hudson River’s fastest and most beautiful passenger boat.
           
In this time, Cornell built a magnificent sidewheeler to ply the route from Rondout to New York. She was named in his honor- Thomas Cornell- and was one of the finest vessels operating on the Hudson.
           
Steamboats not able to compete in speed or luxury were often turned into towboats, hauling loaded barges that were lashed together to be towed up or down the river. Cornell began to develop a fleet of towboats, which in time would be replaced by tugboats, designed and built especially for towing on the river.
           
After the Civil War, Cornell was joined in the business by Samuel D. Coykendall, who became his son-in-law as well as a partner in the firm. The combination of Thomas Cornell and S.D. Coykendall soon would create the most powerful towing operation on the Hudson River. At its peak in the late 1800s, the Cornell Steamboat Company ran more than sixty towing vessels and was the largest maritime organization of its kind in the nation.
           
Early in 1890, Thomas Cornell died at home at the age of 77. In son-in-law S.D. Coykendall, Cornell had a worthy successor.
           
During a career of more than fifty years, Thomas Cornell built a mighty business empire and became a leading figure in New York and the nation. In addition to running the Cornell Steamboat Company and the Kingston-Rhinecliff ferry, he built and operated railroads on both sides of the Hudson, helped establish two banks, was a principal in a large Catskill Mountain hotel, and served two terms in Congress.
           
By 1900, the Cornell Steamboat Company had given up the passenger business and turned completely to towing. There were more than sixty steam-powered towing vessels and tugboats in the Cornell fleet. Their boilers were fired by burning coal. Cornell vessels were well-known on the river, with their familiar black and yellow smokestacks clearly recognizable from the northern canals to New York harbor.
           
As the years passed, S.D. Coykendall gave his six sons positions of authority and management in the Cornell business empire. “S.D.,” as he was known, was the leading citizen of Ulster County, heading up banks, developing railroads, operating 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, brickyards, and quarrying operations.
           
The diverse Cornell-Coykendall business empire faced rapid changes, including the coming of the automobile and the increased use of oil instead of coal as fuel. Further, new construction methods in the cities no longer required the bricks, stone, and cement of the Hudson River valley. So, there was less cargo on the river, and less work for Cornell tugboats.
           
In January 1913, S.D. Coykendall died suddenly at his home in Kingston at the age of seventy-six.
           
Frederick Coykendall, who was forty years of age, succeeded his father as president of the Cornell Steamboat Company. Frederick lived in New York and was active in alumni and trustee affairs at Columbia University. He would become chairman of the university’s board of trustees and president of the  university press.
           
Frederick Coykendall and the Cornell Steamboat Company faced adverse economic conditions that in many ways were beyond their control. Around 1930, the Hudson River was deepened to allow ocean-going ships to reach Albany and this ended the towing of grain barges. Railroads and trucks could transport most cargoes faster and more effectively than shipping them by boat. Also, electric refrigeration ended the demand for natural ice, once a major commodity towed by Cornell- as had been the Hudson Valley brick, cement, and bluestone no longer used in construction.
           
Assisting Frederick Coykendall was company vice president C.W. “Bill” Spangenberger, who had been through the ranks since joining Cornell in 1933. When Frederick passed away in 1954, Spangenberger became president. Although company executives worked hard and with considerable success to rebuild Cornell, they were forced to sell out in 1958 when their largest customer, New York Trap Rock Corporation -a producer of crushed stone — offered to buy the company. Trap Rock retained Spanberger as president of Cornell.
           
In 1960, the Cornell Steamboat Company built Rockland County, an innovative, push-type towboat—the first of its kind in permanent service on the Hudson River. With Rockland County, a new age of towing began on the Hudson, but there would be no future for Cornell. Trap Rock was soon acquired by a larger corporation, and the towing company was no longer needed.
           
In 1964, the Cornell Steamboat Company finally closed its doors, after making Hudson River maritime history for an unprecedented one hundred and thirty-seven years. 

                    Muffled Drums for Albany-Potomac by Thomas A. Larremore
"Washington, May 16 [1949] – (AP) – The Potomac River Line announced today its 69-year-old excursion steamer, The POTOMAC, is headed for the scrap heap. The ship, built in Wilmington, Del., and originally known as the S.S. ALBANY, served until 1933 on the New York-to-Albany Hudson River Day run. The POTOMAC, with a passenger capacity of 2,400, will be scrapped at Baltimore. It will be towed there sometime next week, officials of the line said."

Another oldster is gone, suddenly and unexpectedly. This time is it MARY POWELL's side-kicking ex-side-kick of happy years ago on the Hudson River, the ex-Day Liner ALBANY, since 1934 running excursions out of Washington, D.C., for the Potomac River Line, as POTOMAC.

Almost 69 years ago, on July 3, 1880 ALBANY made her first regular trip from New York up-stream to her namesake city. Save for a few years "on reserve" for the Day Line, she performed regularly, earning her living quietly, dependably, surely, safely – recalling, in this respect, PRISCILLA, COMMONWEALTH and the rest of the Fall River liners. Only last summer, at 68 plus, the POTOMAC completed another annual tour of duty and was ready to resume this coming season. Just when the decision to end her career was made is unknown. Only as recently as Feb. 3 [1949] Her Captain, SSHSA member Harry E. Slye, told the writer that had been no suggestion that she was about to be replaced by BEAR MOUNTAIN a WILLIAM G. PAYNE b BRIDGEPORT c HIGHLANDER, despite the transfer last fall of the latter to Washington.
           
Fearing something of the sort was in the air the writer devoted several hours of a business trip to the capital to photographing POTOMAC tied up alongside BEAR MOUNTAIN. Now he is happy indeed to have done so, although the need for rewriting this essay, begun in a different vein, makes his present task sorrowful. Perhaps his feelings can best be gauged by the fact that he had been trying to organizing an excursion anniversary trip on POTOMAC this coming July 3, [1949].
       
 Instead she is off to the wreckers, to join METEOR a CHESTER W. CHAPIN (SB 29;18) and to go the way of those other Hudson River titans: NORWICH (87 when taken off her run) and MARY POWELL, who lived to be 63. Note that ALBANY-POTOMAC’s near-69 years rank her ahead of the famous MARY in the longevity tables. Let there be hats off and muffled drums. A great steamer has passed, and the writer feels as if he has lost a close relative, overnight, for reasons that will presently appear.
           
According to A.V.S. Olcott, president of the Old Day Line, ALBANY’s hull was built in 1879-1880 by Harlan and Hollingsworth, Wilmington, Del., and her machinery and joiner work were put into her iron hull (first of its kind for the line) in 1880. At that time her length was over 295’, her beam (moulded) 40’, and depth 11’6”. Launched in Jan. 1880, she was christened buy Mr. Olcott’s uncle, Charles. T. Van Santvoord. Her paddle boxes, then, were ungainly and semi-circular. In 1892-1893 she was rebuilt and lengthened to 325’6”, with the same beam (accounting for her lanky look), and her gross tonnage became 1,415.42, with net of 815.03. Feathering paddle wheels were added at the time, and her paddle boxes assumed the oblong, streamlined shape that set the fashion.
           
In 1916 she had new boilers, replacing the “3 lobster back boilers” of the early days. Her passenger capacity became 2000. Her original cost, according to Book 23 of the Day Line Journals now at the N.Y. Historical Society, was $187,318.58, including fittings, dry dock fees, cost of towing and customs charges.
           
When HENDRICK HUDSON appeared in 1906, ALBANY was transferred to the Poughkeepsie run as a special boat and when WASHINGTON IRVING came out in 1913, ALBANY replaced MARY POWELL on the run to Rondout. ALBANY was laid up at Athens in 1931 and was sold at public auction on March 6, 1934 at the new County Court House, N.Y. City, to B.B. Wills. On April 19 she left West 42nd Street Pier at 2:50 p.m. for Washington, D.C.
           
After taking ALBANY to Washington Mr. Wills changed her name to POTOMAC, registered her there, put a dance floor on main deck from the forward gangway to the lower deck housing, and installed a band stand. Later a second dance floor was added, on the saloon deck, and the band stand was raised to enable the music to suffice for both floors at once. POTOMAC was converted to oil burning and so remained save for one year during World War II when the oil shortage compelled temporary reconversion to coal. Captain Slye said her registry had recently been transferred to Baltimore, as is evidenced by the current leg ending on the stern. So much for the strictly statistical indispensables.
           
Let us turn to more personal traits. In physical appearance ALBANY, the older and rebuilt CHAUNCEY VIBBARD and the later NEW YORK set a contemporary “new look” for Hudson River boats. The most conspicuous features of this were the three tall funnels set transversely; the ungainly, high, top-heavy-looking, semi-circular paddle boxes; and the general color scheme, perhaps borrowed from the famous “White Squadron” of pre-Spanish War days, i.e., overall whiteness, relieved principally by yellow or buff, most notable on the later-period smoke pipes. ALBANY and VIBBARD looked very much alike, with smokestacks abaft both walking beam and paddle boxes, while in NEW YORK these relative positions were reversed.
           
ALBANY, always a quiet, efficient, dependable, unsensational performer, got away to an appropriately inconspicuous start. After a trial trip to Yonkers on July 2, 1880, to test her machinery, she opened her regular career the next day replacing DANIEL DREW and paddled upstream to her namesake city. New York newspapers paid little attention, being preoccupied with five ocean liners starting trans-Atlantic voyages the same day and commenting on the possibility that they might encounter summer icebergs. Some journals didn’t mention the new river steamer, and only one, the New York World, paid reasonable attention. Perhaps the big city had already become sophisticated enough to take such trivia as the inauguration of another Day Liner too completely in stride to bother about.
           
But there well may have been another reason. In June and July 1880, passenger steamers around New York had suddenly become non grata, recalling very pointedly the earlier days around 1825 when frequent boiler explosions had forced definite recourse to trailer passenger barges. An incredible series of mishaps had taken place. On June 11, 1880, NARRAGANSETT, bound east up L.I. Sound, had collided off Cornfield Point with STONINGTON and burned with the loss of 30 lives. On June 17, two girls had drowned when their rowboat was struck by ELIZA HOWARD, and ugly rumors persisted that adequate efforts to rescue them had not been made. On June 19 GRAND REPUBLIC had engaged in a spectacular collision with ADELAIDE, and an acrimonious investigation of the crash was starting. On June 28 had come the most frightful catastrophe of all. SEAWANHAKA, steamboat for Glen Cove’s commuters, had caught fire passing through Hell Gate and, although skillfully beached broadside to, not five minutes later on Sunken Meadows at Randall’s Island, had notched a toll of 44 or 45 fatalities. On June 29 the stage had been set for a ghastly foreshadowing of the holocaust of the GENERAL SLOCUM (1904) when LONG BRANCH with some 700 passengers, mostly Sunday school children on a picnic, had her bows (openly alleged in the newspapers to be quite rotten) crushed by the oil barge HOP - fortunately, however, without the loss of life. On July 2, 1880, the very day ALBANY made her trial run, the New York Daily Tribune, reporting another accident the day before, had struck the current keynote by writing: “The daily steamboat accident shifted its longitude, yesterday. The boiler of a pleasure boat on one of the Minnesota lakes exploded, killing three persons outright, wounding one fatally and several others seriously.”
           
On the same day the New York Herald announced, as the tragicomic climax to all this: “A barrel of beer exploded on the steamboat STONINGTON, fracturing the leg, arm and collar bone of a sailor named John McCarthy.” Perhaps because of such episodes the Day Line owners preferred to soft-pedal advance publicity about their new boat until they could see how she behaved on the job.
           
At any rate, off she steamed out on the mild blue yonder, as planned, July 3, and that afternoon made a happy landing at Albany, sans fire, sans collision, sans explosion, without even a beer barrel bursting in the air. The New York World gave her this passing mention, July 4. “The new steamer ALBANY, of the Albany day line, made her first regular trip up the Hudson yesterday. She took about one thousand five hundred passengers….She was due at Albany at 6:10 p.m. and was received with fifty guns and a display of bunting. There was a crowd at the wharf to greet her…”
           
Apparently they ordered such things better upstate, for, according to John H. Flandreau, Assistant Archivist, New York State, a clipping from an unidentified newspaper in the Hallenbeck material at Albany reads in part as follows:
           
"On Saturday the ALBANY left her landing in New York nine minutes late, with over 2,000 passengers aboard and against a strong head wind and ebb tide, made West Point and Newburgh on time. Ny the time the boat reached Rhinebeck (then the port of call of Rondout, reached by ferry, and the Southern Catskills), she was about an half hour late, caused by some slight difficulty with her new machinery. By this time the crowd of people had swelled to immense proportions and at this landing fully 500 disembarked, and when Catskill was reached. Fully as many more got off there. From Catskill to this city tows and other hindrances caused the vessel to lose time, and she did not reach here until half-past seven o’clock. All along the river, residents had their houses decorated, and with cannon and other explosives welcomed the advent of the ALBANY.
           
“At Hudson, the dock and hills were crowded with people despite the fact that quite a rain prevailed at the time. When she hove in sight of the city, the greatest excitement prevailed, and, amid the booming of cannon, the screeching of steamboat whistles, the ringing of bells, the playing of Austin’s band, and the shouts of a thousand people assembled on the docks and piers, the ALBANY steamed into port and touched her dock.

Description accompanying print: The original painting, by noted artist, John Gould, might well be called an inspired masterpiece. It was developed with help for accuracy from the well known expert, retired captain William O. Benson of Sleightsburgh, N.Y. He is an authority on the Hudson River History, its boats and shipping. Learn more about John Gould (1906-1996) here: https://johngouldart.com/about/

The maiden voyage of the "Alexander Hamilton" was placed by the artist for this painting, passing Rondout Creek, Kingston, N.Y. The area with the two Kingston Lighthouses makes an important historical background for this great documentary painting.

The maiden voyage suggests a wedding procession with the gleaming white boat, the accompanying flotilla and the sparkling reflection of the sun on the water, resembling wedding confetti.

[Editor's note: 2023 season lighthouse tours and Solaris solar powered boat rides are offered by HRMM here: https://www.hrmm.org/all-boat-tours.html]

                                   The ALEXANDER HAMILTON'S First Trip 
The following is a brief description of the event by Captain William O. Benson: On the 29th of May, 1924, the Hudson River Day Line steamer ALEXANDER HAMILTON made her first voyage on the great Hudson River from New York City to the State Capital at Albany.

I was a student in the old District No. 13 School at Port Ewen, and we had been told the HAMILTON was making her first trip up river. I was wishing she would be late, so I could rush out at 3:30 p.m. and run to the sand bank at Sleightsburgh and watch her come up. I will admit all day in school my mind was on the new HAMILTON and sure enough when school was dismissed I guess I was the first out and on my way to the sand bank.

I could see the new flyer coming up off Schleede's brick yard south of Port Ewen. She was about an hour late due to some problem with her new engine, I guess due to the fact she was new.

As she was passing the Rondout Lighthouse, the steamer JACOB H. TREMPER was just coming out of Rondout Creek. When the HAMILTON blew her landing whistle for Kingston Point of one long, one short and one long, how the sea gulls and egrets rose high in the air. The Lighthouse keeper rang the fog bell three times and the ferry TRANSPORT, just inside of the Lighthouse, blew three whistles in salute which the HAMILTON answered. Also on the starboard side of the HAMILTON, out in the river, was Cornell Steamboat Company tug HARRY blowing her chime whistle. It sure was great to stand and watch a new sidewheeler being greeted by other much older steamboats from another age.

She was all decorated out with American flags and signal colors for her first trip up the river.

She was faithful to the old Hudson for 47 long years, carrying many happy people up and down and to the pleasure parks along the beautiful Hudson River.

                                         More about Port Ewen brickyards:
At the end of his school day in Port Ewen, William O. Benson ran to the Sleightsburg shore and spotted the ALEXANDER HAMILTON coming up off Schleede's brickyard south of Port Ewen. The tall brick stack in the painting might have been remnants of one of the Port Ewen Brickyards, Turner or Jacob Kline/Bishop. The chute was probably used to load bricks or ice blocks onto barges for transport to New York City.

In 1852, Jacob Kline, became cashier for the Pennsylvania Coal Co., and John Ewen (namesake of Port Ewen) became President. From then until 1865, Port Ewen thrived as a terminal for Honesdale, PA coal which came on Delaware & Hudson canal boats and was transferred to barges going to New York City on the Hudson River.

However, after litigation between the D&H and Pennsylvania Coal companies, the latter moved to Newburgh in 1865 leaving many Irish canal workers who lived on that Port Ewen hill unemployed. Jacob Kline built a brickyard which employed these workers and saved Port Ewen from economic collapse. Tugs were named after Kline's daughters.

John D. Schoonmaker of Kingston had a large 23,000 ton ice house erected, helping employment in the winter when the river was frozen. Ice was harvested from Turner's pond on the Port Ewen hill and stored in the icehouse.