​Unpromising weather. We left the marina in Connelly. It was sprinkling, cold and there was a strong northeast wind so we did not unfurl the sail but instead lashed it to the thwarts.  We shoved off into the Rondout around 9:30 paddling directly into the wind.  Steve Trueman, a collector of old tugboats, hailed us from the 1930s tug K. Whittlesey and offered us shelter and coffee but we unwisely declined, being in a hurry to take advantage of the incoming flood tide.

​As we passed a scrap yard, it became clear that the wind was roaring right down the river from the north. The wind continued to rise as we paddled the exposed stretch of the creek toward the lighthouse. The river beyond the lighthouse was dark and disturbed, rolling with the steep and dirty waves that are created when the wind opposes the current. We estimated that the wind was blowing at about 20 mph. The incoming tide was rushing into the Rondout and we had to power the last 100 yards to reach temporary protection in the lee of the lighthouse before bodily forcing the Bear out into the river. We were immediately slammed by three and four foot waves which threatened to dash us on the rocks reinforcing the south breakwater. Try as hard as he might, Steve in the bow could not dig hard enough to bring our bow into the wind. I was equally unable to lever the stern downstream and Joe and Dan in the middle were unable to assist either of us from their position. After half a minute of intense effort, Steve just stopped paddling. I was astounded and speechless. There was no explanation. He simply stopped. We were sure we were about to broach. I figured that when the Bear filled, we would abandon her, swim for the breakwater and wait for help to arrive. Amazingly, however, the bow of the canoe unexpectedly rotated downstream and after a few seconds of hesitation, the three of us spun around in our seats (facing astern) and began paddling upstream with all of our might for shelter in the bay a short distance to our north. We later surmised that the unplanned spin that allowed us to gain control was the result of the bow of our canoe being too light. With two of us in the stern and the heavy chests and waterproof bags well behind the mast, the canoe was much steadier proceeding stern first. We shipped plenty of water smashing through the big waves and progress was excruciatingly slow, but we eventually rounded Kingston Point and entered calmer water. It was clear that we were not going to be able to make much more progress so we aimed the Bear for the beach north and west of the point and landed wet and exhausted. To get out of the relentless wind, we left the canoe on the beach and cowered behind a low plank wall near the beach parking lot. We were completely defeated.

​After a long pause and the resumption of normal heart rates and mental functions, we looked back over the wall toward the beached Bear and the bay beyond. The sky was clearing and the sun was coming out. A large freighter was bearing directly toward us before making the turn east to clear Kingston Point. Moments later, it dawned upon us that the ship’s wake could set the canoe afloat. But by the time we saw the curling wake approach, it was too late. We sprinted toward the canoe as she was lifted up at a crazy angle and then dashed on the beach parallel to the receding wake. A second wave rolled her over, dumping all of our gear into the churning water. The big yellow dry bags floated, but one of our food chests opened up spilling out cook stove and utensils. We ran out into the water, hurled everything we could find far up the beach and then drained the sand and water slurry out of the Bear and carried her far up the beach. We hung our wet gear up in a tree. Joe set up the stove behind the low wall and began boiling water for hot cocoa. We were feeling pretty low about our inauspicious start and we all knew that we were going to have to wait for the wind to moderate before setting off again.

Steve and I set off to visit Steve Trueman and his collection of old tugboats. We had to fight our way around a fence and lots of heavy brush to get to his boats. Steve, who had offered us coffee little more than an hour earlier, was gone. His dog remained and did not mind our poking around among the tugboats and the covered barge. We returned the way we came, drank hot cocoa and ate some bologna sandwiches. Thus fortified, we decided to make a second attempt to paddle north in hopes of making a few miles before the tide set against us. We packed up and adjusted our baggage so that there was more weight in the bow.
 
Launching into the surf with our fully loaded canoe was no mean feat, but we timed our launch perfectly and shipped only a few cold gallons of water when we broke through the first wave. After getting away from the beach, we hugged the west shore along the abandoned Hutton brickworks in order to break as much of the wind as possible. During the stronger gusts, we paddled just to stay in place and not lose ground. We eventually made it to the dock at Ulster Park where we tied up and took a break. There was a grassy lawn and a porta john here and we agreed that this would be an acceptable camping location if we couldn’t get further north. The sun was shining but low in the sky and a cold wind continued from the north, dead against us. We steeled ourselves for more paddling, hoping to get at least as far as the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge, but the tide was waning and we needed to find a landing and campsite before dark.

A little more than half a mile north of the bridge, we found a small cove with a landing and made our decision to stay. After getting the canoe well above the high water mark, we scouted the area to determine if we could camp here without being disturbed. Nearby we found the hulk of an abandoned 1940s transit bus identified by painted letters as “Bob’s Bus.” The bus still retained its decorative chrome but had lost its wheels, engine and seats and was now full of lawn mowers and recreational equipment. A second cove near the bus was filled with the bones of abandoned brick barges. We found a fiberglass runabout filled with rotting leaves and fallen branches. Another boat was riding at a mooring north of our cove. A nineteenth century road with stone retaining walls switched back and forth and ascended a bluff towards several houses overlooking the river.
 
Joe and I were definitely uncomfortable here, but Steve reminded us that it was late and the tide was gone leaving us no options. We unpacked and pitched Joe’s big tent in the gathering dusk. Steve had absolutely no concerns but Joe and I sure hoped no one would find us here before dawn. We prepared macaroni and cheese with hot dogs for dinner served with apple slices and cheddar cheese. After dinner it got cold. The tide went all the way out. We built a driftwood fire on the beach for warmth. A dog began barking on the ridge above us, and we could see the lights of the houses at the top. We crawled into our sleeping bags before 9:00 PM. It was a very cold night. High tide arrived at 2:00 AM and I checked to make sure that the Bear was far enough up the beach. I offered my winter coat to Joe to warm him up.

Don't forget to join us again next Friday for Day 8 of the trip!

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Like many nautical terms, the words “barge” and “scow” are fraught with diverse definitions depending upon timeframes, local usages and individual perspectives and backgrounds. In this way, these words are not unlike “ship,” which in common usage refers to anything big capable of independently making its way across the water. At various times in history, the word ship referred only to sailing vessels with square sails on three masts (as opposed to brigs, barks, barkentines, etc.) while also meaning the collective team of crew and officers of any vessel. Paradoxically, the big steamers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries on the Hudson were never called ships; they were always referred to as boats regardless of size or capability.
 
Historically, the words barge and scow have applied to everything from the flat bottomed sailing barges of the Thames, floating pleasure palaces and funerary boats to the garbage boats of the first half of the twentieth century. Today, these terms generally bring to mind simple floating boxes that carry cargo and are pushed or towed by tugboats. They often suggest craft with flat bottoms and shallow drafts. Let’s take a brief look at what these words have represented here on the Hudson River.

Simple barge-like cargo boats that could be easily built and poled, rowed or sailed appeared in New England and possibly in New York. Some of these, referred to as gundalows, were typically rectangular in plan and featured flat bottoms, inclined ends, retractable masts near the bow and rudders and tillers aft. They were well adapted for carrying lumber and hay and persisted into the late nineteenth century in some rivers.
 
With the inauguration of canals in New York State, specialized boats based on narrow boat prototypes in Europe were introduced. Some of these found their way to the Hudson River. Flat bottomed, horse-drawn packet boats and line boats carried passengers or a mix of passengers and freight. But with a few notable exceptions, they remained in the canals. However, mule-drawn freight barges often plied the Hudson when they were gathered up in the huge steam tows of the nineteenth century and taken with their cargo to New York. These barges and scows featured specialized designs based on intended trades and the building preferences of yards all across New York and the neighboring states. Barges carrying coal were markedly different from those intended to carry perishable cargoes such as grain. They also differ depending upon the dates of policy changes on the canals (squared bows prohibited due to embankment damage) and the dates of canal expansion projects when the dimensions of the canals and the lock chambers were enlarged allowing deeper and wider barges to grow simultaneously. A number of canalboats were fitted with sail rigs for use when these barges reached the open water of large lakes and rivers where animal towing was no longer possible. Hoodledashers, powered canal barges usually towing a second, unpowered barge, became a feature of the greatly expanded NYS Barge Canal of 1915. One, the Frank A. Lowery, was abandoned in the Rondout in 1953 and remains identifiable. Many canal barges have found their way to the bottom of the Hudson and its tributaries, including a rare bifurcated and hinged Morris Canal barge from the nineteenth century.

​Unlike the canals, barges built for use on the Hudson River were less limited in terms of configuration or dimensions. One of the few commonalities among them was the presence of log fenders suspended from the rails along the sides. A large number of box-like barges with living cabins aft were built to carry coal in their holds. Many measured 100 feet in length and 25-30 feet in beam. Some included midship houses for collapsible masts, derrick booms and winches to facilitate loading and unloading. Rectangular scows with inclined ends were built in large numbers to carry deck loads of trap rock, sand, brick and other bulk or non-perishable freight. They often featured deck cabins for their keepers and families and bulkheads fore and aft to contain the material and separate it from the living quarters. Barge hulls were readily used for dredging equipment, pile drivers and derricks used in salvage and construction. Specialized dump scows were built by the New York Sanitation Department with trap bottoms that could release garbage and refuse when outside of New York harbor. The weathered wooden bones of scows and coal barges can be found all along the river as well as in our own Rondout Creek. A prominent derrick barge lies abandoned in Athens.
 
The railroads were major barge builders in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Their ferries, tugs, lighters and barges and car floats (the term used for the long narrow barges that carried rail cars between terminals) were legion and referred to as the “railroad navy.”  All of this floating equipment was necessary to move freight from ships to railroad terminals and to move freight and rail cars between terminals and to customers across a metropolitan region divided by rivers, bays and inlets. Among the specialized barges built by the railroads were the hundreds of covered barges built to transport perishable and high value freight throughout the New York area. These distinctive boats with scow-like hulls and boxy cabins with double barn doors on each side made their way up the Hudson on occasion. A number of them found waterfront retirement homes as shad fishing cabins and marina headquarters when no longer useful to the railroads. The Pennsy 399, built in 1942 for the Pennsylvania Railroad, has been restored and is currently docked in the Rondout.
 
Then there were the early nineteenth century “safety barges” built to transport squeamish passengers afraid of dying in the notorious steamboat explosions or fires that characterized the early years of steam navigation. These were often double decker affairs that looked like steamboats without the paddlewheels or the stacks. A closely related barge type that appears to have grown out of the safety barge model was the hay and produce barge. These craft appear to have proliferated after the Civil War when New York City’s demand for upstate hay became insatiable. Towed in great rafts by paddlewheel towboats and later by tugboats, they were typically double-deckers with shallow draft moulded hulls, tall masts to carry stiffening stays, pilothouses and rudders. In addition to their workaday role carrying hay, livestock and produce, they were popular for inexpensive passenger excursions on Sundays. One example, the Andrew M. Church, built in New Baltimore in 1892, was 139 feet long, carried three decks and was equipped with a rudder and a pilothouse to facilitate tracking and docking. She made her inaugural voyage taking four Sunday School classes to a local picnic ground. Sometimes, these barges were rafted together and towed in pairs or even groups of four. They were still in use carrying hay in the 1930s, and a specialized version, the cattle barge, persisted even longer.

Barges were also built in the nineteenth century for oyster processing and sales, chapels and even municipal bathing pools. Hospital barges appeared in the 1870s initially through the philanthropy of the Starin Line and were towed around New York harbor in good weather to offer fresh air and a change of scenery to invalid patients. Ultimately, the concept evolved into that of a floating clinic set up in disadvantaged communities. The last of these, the 1973 Lila Acheson Wallace is now docked on the Rondout Creek waiting to be repurposed.
 
Specialized lumber barges also made an appearance with moulded hulls based on the hay barge model. They were built with aft cabins and pilothouses and appear to have carried large deckloads of lumber.
 
Another distinctive Hudson River barge is the ice barge. Transporting the blocks of ice cut from the river during the winter months and stored in enormous white warehouses along the river shore to urban centers where refrigeration was essential, these barn like barges with rounded bows and sterns carried distinctive windmills to pump out melt water and derrick masts and booms to facilitate loading and unloading.
 
There is no less variety in the steel barges plying the Hudson River currently. Many are specialized to carry and handle petroleum products, steel recycling, turbines, rock and dry cement. They are typically pushed by diesel tugs but on occasion they are breast towed or towed aft in the nineteenth century manner to facilitate handling and docking. Some are still named for places or members of the respective towing company families and are routinely maintained and painted with pride. Articulated tug and barge combinations (ATBs) represent a relatively recent innovation. They are designed to allow the bow of a tug to precisely fit a notch in the stern of the barge so that when underway, a single unit is created, simplifying handling while avoiding the regulations entailed in designing and operating a comparable motorship.
 
While less visually interesting than their nineteenth century antecedents, today’s barges carry far more tonnage and operate more safely and efficiently.   

Editor’s Note: The following text is a verbatim transcription of an article featuring stories by Captain William O. Benson (1911-1986). Beginning in 1971, Benson, a retired tugboat captain, reminisced about his 40 years on the Hudson River in a regular column for the Kingston (NY) Freeman’s Sunday Tempo magazine. Captain Benson's articles were compiled and transcribed by HRMM volunteer Carl Mayer. See more of Captain Benson’s articles here. This article was originally published May 7, 1972.

Within a few years after the introduction of steamboating on the Hudson River, Rondout Creek soon developed into the leading port between New York and Albany.  This was due principally to the fact that it was the eastern terminus of the D. & H. Canal.  Shipments of Ulster County blue stone. Rosendale cement, lime, the concentration of  brickyards along the river north of Kingston, and the natural ice industry also all played major parts in the growth of Rondout harbor.  As activity along the creek grew, so did the size of the steamboats serving Rondout.

Any steamboat serving Rondout, obviously had to be able to turn around in the creek.  The width of the creek, as a result, had some bearing on the design of the steamboat, particularly its length.  I suppose this factor also had a direct bearing on the location of the steamboat docks as well as the early growth of Rondout itself.  The creek is at its navigable widest just south of where the Freeman Building is now located and this was where the steamboat wharves and docks were located — between the foot of Broadway east to the foot of Hasbrouck Avenue.
 
Steamboats in regular service out of Rondout almost always turned around as soon as they entered the creek, prior to the unloading of passengers and freight.  This fact is borne out by old time photographs of steamers berthed at Rondout.  Of the many photographs have seen, all but one show the steamboats facing downstream.  The sole exception is a photo of the “Mary Powell”, and in this one photograph only she lies head up.  
 
Rondout’s Largest
For years, the largest steamboat sailing out of Rondout Creek was the “Thomas Cornell,” built in 1863 and 310 feet long.  Other larger steamboats out of Rondout were the famous “Mary Powell” at 288 feet, the “James W. Baldwin” at 275, and the “Benjamin B. Odell” at 264.  The longest one of all to sail regularly out of Rondout was the Day Liner “Albany,” 326 feet long, which replaced the “Mary Powell” on the Rondout to New York run during the season of 1914 through 1917.  I, have been told the “Albany,” on occasion, used to use the steam yacht “C. A. Schults” — that once ran between Rondout and Eddyville — to help pull her bow around.  All of the, others turned unassisted. 
 
For many years, Ben Johnston owned a drug store on East Strand.  Johnston told me when the “Benjamin B. Odell” turned around in the creek, at times the vibrations set up by her turning propeller would shake bottles off the shelves in his drug store.  This was due to the fact that all the land along the Strand was filled-in land.
 
It is my understanding that the area all along the Strand was once a dandy beach — and the old sloop and schooner captains would beach, or strand, their vessels on this beach at high tide.  Then, when the tide went out, they would make bottom repairs or caulk under-water leaking seams on their boats exposed by the drop in tide.  When the tide came back in, they would float their sloops and schooners.  I have been told this act of stranding their vessels on this beach is what gave the Strand its name when the area was filled in and the beach was developed into a street.

​An old boatman also once told me about an incident that took place when the “Benjamin B. Odell” was turning around off her Rondout wharf.  Normally, she would come along-side the dock, can her bow out from the dock and put a stern line from the port quarter out to a bollard on the dock.  Then, she would go ahead slow and swing around like a slowly moving giant pendulum.  Captain George Greenwood would be up on the bridge and the mate down on the main deck in charge of the deckhands tending the lines. 
 
On this particular day, just as the “Odell” got broadside in the creek, the stern line snapped.  The mate had a police whistle and blew a series of toots on it to let the captain know the line had snapped.  Before the mate could get another line out, the “Odell” started to move across the creek. 
 
Except for stopping the engine, Captain Greenwood gave no indication anything was wrong.  The mate in the excitement didn’t notice the engine had stopped and continued to blow his police whistle.  After several series of excited toots and getting no response from the captain, the mate bounded up the companionways at the stern of the “Odell” to the top deck.  There, Captain Greenwood stood calmly on the bridge watching the slowly approaching south shore of the creek.
 
Captain Greenwood let the “Odell’s” bow slowly drift right onto the creek’s south shore and the incoming tide carry her stern up stream.  When the angle was right, Captain Greenwood backed down, put the “Odell’s” port quarter close to the Rondout dock, got out a spring line, went slowly ahead and brought his steamer alongside the dock so perfectly he wouldn’t have broken an egg had one been between the steamboat and the dock.
 
The old time captains, like Captain Greenwood, were superb ship handlers.  They knew exactly what their steamboats would do in any combination of wind and tide.  They were true masters of their trade, made the difficult look easy, and rarely got the recognition they deserved.  It seems the only time anyone took notice of them was in the rare event something went wrong.  And, then, it was often due to something over which they had little control, such as a mechanical failure, rarely an error in judgment.

Rondout Creek is a deep water tributary of the Hudson River. As the bird's eye and water level views above show, boats of many varieties have taken advantage of the deep water port for centuries. As the terminus for the Delaware & Hudson Canal (1828 -1898) Rondout Harbor saw lots of activity as canal boats came off the 108 mile long canal (Honesdale to Rondout) with loads of coal. 

Rondout Harbor was also the home of the Cornell Steamboat Company founded in 1847 by Thomas Cornell.  The Cornell fleet grew to 62 tugboats transporting coal and other goods to the New York City markets. Hudson River steamboats, including the Mary Powell,  and Hudson River Day Line carried passengers up and down the Hudson River. Smaller steamers provided transport to communities along Rondout Creek. More information about tugboats and steamers can be found here. 

Will Stratton is an American musician living in Beacon, NY. He studied music composition at Bennington College in Vermont. "Long Live the Hudson River Valley" was released in 2014 as part of the album "Gray Lodge Wisdom," his fifth studio album. You can find out more about Will at willstratton.com. 

"Long Live the Hudson River Valley" Lyrics
I have seen a bit of Amsterdam and a bit of Prague
I've seen a bit of London twice, in between the fog
I've seen the Nantes cathedral and the Barcelona beach
And Dublin and Vienna and a dozen more of each
But long live the Hudson River Valley

I have spent a year in exile in the forests of the deep
The clouds a mile thick overhead, the spirits that they keep
The wonderment of opening your eyes in your old place
The resignation falling with the scales on your face
Oh, long live the Hudson River Valley

I have stopped in California near the place where I was born
I've shed the last remains of my self-pity and self-scorn
I've come across the embers that are left of my old ways
I'll come up to Valatie and I'll set them all ablaze
Oh, long live the Hudson River Valley
​
I have fed off New York City like a fluke inside its host
And still I must return to always hold its heartbeat close
Until I can retire far upstate where I can hear
The silence that my own heart has now come to cherish dear
Oh, long live the Hudson River Valley

​​Thanks to HRMM volunteer Mark Heller for sharing his knowledge of Hudson River music history for this series.

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Editor's Note: These articles are from 1761 to 1818. ​See more Sunday News here.

March 23, 1761 - New York Gazette (Weyman's) 
To Be Sold. By the Widow Egberts, in Albany.
A good sizable Sloop, used in the Trade between that City and New York, together with her Apparel, & c. As also, a likely young Negro Man, fit for Town or Country

January 9, 1809 - New-York Gazette & General Advertiser 
for sale, The fine and staunch sloop EDWARD, 73 tons burthen, built on the model of the patent brig Achilles, and is supposed to be the swiftest sailor on the North River; has been employed as a packet between Poughkeepsie and New-York, and has elegant accommodations for passengers; her rigging and sails (which are new) in prime order.  She may be viewed in Lent's bason, near Whitehall.  Price low and terms of payment liberal.  Apply to JOHN RADCLIFF.

March 21, 1818 - Mercantile Advertiser (New York, N. Y.)
FOR SALE The staunch sloop KNICKERBOCKER, burthen 93 tons, built of the best materials, 18 months old, well calculated for a coaster or the North river trade.  One half or the whole, will be disposed of on liberal terms.  Apply to WM. R. HITCHCOCK & CO. corner Peck-slip and South-st.

​Editor’s note:
Twenty years ago, four friends with an abiding love of the Hudson River and its history stepped away from their families and their work to travel up the river in a homemade strip-planked canoe to experience the river on its most intimate terms. The team set off from Liberty State Park in New Jersey and completed the adventure nine days later just below Albany where one of the paddlers lived. They began with no itinerary and no pre-arranged lodging or shore support. There were no cell phones. The journey deepened their appreciation for the river and its many moods, the people who live and work beside the river and the importance of friendship in sustaining our lives. 

Please join us vicariously on this excellent adventure. We'll be posting every Friday for the next several weeks, so stay tuned! Follow the adventure here.

​We got up and out of our tents at 6:00 AM and fixed some oatmeal for breakfast. We busted out a new oatmeal carton so that we could get to the apple cinnamon packages.  We broke camp and launched the canoe at 7:30. Just as we paddled past the north end of the island, two herons appeared having resumed their duties as island sentries. A flock of cormorants perched on a buoy observed our departure in silence. We waved to two campers on the east bank fishing for breakfast as the smoke from their campfire curled downward toward our canoe. After passing below Mills Mansion, we set our course for the picturesque Esopus Meadows Lighthouse. As we approached the lighthouse, we observed scaffolding and a “Save the Lighthouse” sign. Built in 1871, it was placed near the middle of the river to guide mariners away from shallow water extending all the way toward the west shore. The lighthouse was built above a round stone caisson on wooden pilings. Decades after it was built, it was hit by a ship. The integrity of the caisson was compromised causing a significant tilt and continuing dilemmas for maintenance and preservation. 

​The river makes a significant bend toward the east here. We cut back across the main channel of the river toward Sturgeon Point on the east shore in an attempt to shorten the distance to Kingston. The 1913 lighthouse at the mouth of the Rondout became our new heading and we again crossed the river diagonally to enter the creek. It was high tide as we paddled up the creek and tied up to a dock on the Strand just in front of the sloop Clearwater. After resting, we proceeded to Joe’s marina in Connelly where we tied up for the night. The weather report for tomorrow was ominous.