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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 June 18, 1972.  1926 Poughkeepsie Regatta, 4 mile race, varsity, won by Columbia. Hudson River Maritime Museum Collection. When the intercollegiate crew races used to be held at Poughkeepsie every year during the latter part of June, the Cornell Steamboat Company would indirectly be involved. Both Frederick and Edward Coykendall were graduates of Columbia University and always had a great interest in the crews of their alma mater. During the 1930’s and 1940's, Frederick Coykendall was also chairman of Columbia Board of Trustees. As a result of their interest in Columbia and rowing, the Coykendalls would use one of their tugboats to transport Columbia's shells to Poughkeepsie; on occasion would have an invited party of guests at the boat races on one of their tugs; and would maintain an old canal barge that on boat race day was used as the "finish boat.” Transporting Shells The crews of the various colleges used to train for the races on the river at Poughkeepsie for a week or two prior to the regatta. For years, one of the Cornell helper tugs used to take the Columbia shells from their boat house on the Harlem River in New York up the Hudson to the Columbia boat house, which was located north of Highland on the west shore just below Krum Elbow. Then a day or two after the regatta, a tug would take the shells back to New York. On boat race day, particularly before the Depression, the river at Poughkeepsie used to be filled with all types of spectator steamboats, yachts and sometimes Navy destroyers with midshipmen aboard to watch the regatta. Generally, there used to be two Day Liners, at least one boat of the Central Hudson Line, and others. One year, when Judge Alton B. Parker was still alive and maintained his estate "Rosemont" at Esopus, the Coykendalls had the large Cornell tugboat "George W. Washburn” ready to take their families and friends to Poughkeepsie to see the boat races. On the way down river from Kingston, Edward Coykendall said to Al Hamilton, captain of the "Washburn," "Captain, stop at the Esopus landing and pick up Judge Parker and his family. We are going to take them along with us.”  The tugboat "George W. Washburn" off of New York City. Donald C. Ringwald Collection, Hudson River Maritime Museum. Water Worries Captain Hamilton said, "Mr. Coykendall, there’s not enough water at that dock for this boat. We might break our wheel.” Coykendall replied, “Get in there any way you can. I want to pick them up as they will be waiting for us.” So, Captain Hamilton put the “Washburn” into the dock at Esopus, and when he went to back down, clip went the wheel on a rock and bent two of the propeller's flukes: However, when the “Washburn” left Esopus for Poughkeepsie — instead of shaking all over as normally would be the case with a bent propeller — she went as well, if not better, than when the propeller was in good condition. Everybody thought the flukes must have been broken off, but when she was put on drydock, the flukes weren’t broken but only bent. I heard Coykendall relate this story himself one day in 1939 in the pilot house of the "Jumbo." Also, for years, the Coykendalls would furnish the “finish boat,” an old D. & H. canal boat they maintained just for this purpose. The little barge would be anchored fore and aft with two anchors at the finish line of the races. A large board would be mounted on the deck of the barge and, after a race, would give the order of finish and the official times. The information on the board would be visible to the people on shore and those on the observation train that used to move along the West Shore railroad tracks as the crews moved down river from the starting line to the finish line.  The tugboat "Rob," flags flying, under way on the Hudson River. Tracy I. Brooks Collection, Hudson River Maritime Museum. The Rob's Job The Barge would be painted at the Cornell shops and at dawn on boat race day, the tug “Rob" would tow the “finish boat" from Rondout to Poughkeepsie and anchor it at the proper place. After the last race, the anchors would be pulled up and the “Rob” would tow the canal boat back to Kingston for other year. John Lynn of Port Ewen, captain of the "Rob," used to invite friends of his and their families to watch the regatta. These people would go out to Kingston Point and take the down Day Liner to Poughkeepsie.After the Day Liner left, the "Rob" would come chuffing into the finish line where she would stand by the "finish boat." These people probably had the best view of the end of the races of anyone at the regatta. After the last race, all the boats at the regatta would get underway at once and almost all of them headed for New York. Almost all except the “Rob,” which with the "finish boat" alongside would head for Rondout Creek where she would arrive at about 11 p.m. AuthorCaptain William Odell Benson was a life-long resident of Sleightsburgh, N.Y., where he was born on March 17, 1911, the son of the late Albert and Ida Olson Benson. He served as captain of Callanan Company tugs including Peter Callanan, and Callanan No. 1 and was an early member of the Hudson River Maritime Museum. He retained, and shared, lifelong memories of incidents and anecdotes along the Hudson River.
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 In 1934, Metro Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) released the film "Manhattan Melodrama." Made in the pre-code era, the film follows the story of two young boys - Blackie Gallagher (Played by Clark Gable as an adult and Mickey Rooney as a child) and Jim Wade (played by William Powell) - who are orphaned by the sinking of the General Slocum in 1904. Their paths diverge over the years. Blackie becomes a gambler and a crook who runs an illegal casino. Jim becomes a lawyer. They both fall in love with the same woman (played by Myrna Loy) and struggle to maintain their friendship as Blackie slides deeper into the crime world and Jim runs for attorney general and then governor of New York. In the end, honor wins out, even though not everyone survives the movie. You can rent the film on Amazon Prime, or read the full plot synopsis on Wikipedia. Watch the original film trailer below: Today, we're sharing the opening scene of the film - a dramatization of the sinking of the General Slocum, one of the worst maritime disasters in American history. Warning to sensitive viewers that this clip contains depictions of crowd panic, fire, and drownings. "Manhattan Melodrama" gained notoriety in the press not only for its fine acting, but also because famous gangster and bank robber John Dillinger attended the Chicago premiere and as he was leaving the theater was approached by federal agents, ran, and was shot and killed. The General Slocum disaster was one of the worst in American maritime history. Filled mostly with German-Americans from the Lower East Side of Manhattan on a church outing, the ship caught fire and its poor safety standards - rotted fire hoses, wired on lifeboats, untrained crew, etc. - combined with the fact that most of the passengers could not swim and the swift currents near Hell Gate in New York Harbor (where the fire had broken out) meant that the vast majority of the passengers were drowned or killed by the fire. Of particular horror were the fact that the crumbling cork lifejackets had been filled with iron bars to bring them up to standard weight. Children hastily bundled into lifejackets and tossed overboard by parents drowned instantly. Bodies washed up on shore for days afterward.  The General Slocum disaster clearly left an imprint on American and New York minds, judging by its feature in "Manhattan Melodrama" and other films and books, including James Joyce's Ulysses. The disaster had the highest civilian deaths in American history (over 1,200) until September 11, 2001. If you'd like to learn more about the General Slocum disaster, join us this Wednesday, June 8, 2022 at 7:00 PM EST for a virtual lecture by Edward T. O'Donnell, author of the book Ship Ablaze: The Tragedy of the Steamboat General Slocum. You can also learn more from the New York Public Library's article, "The General Slocum Disaster of June 15, 1904." If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!
Welcome to Sail Freighter Fridays! This article is part of a series linked to our new exhibit: "A New Age Of Sail: The History And Future Of Sail Freight In The Hudson Valley," and tells the stories of sailing cargo ships both modern and historical, on the Hudson River and around the world. Anyone interested in how to support Sail Freight should also check out the Conference in November, and the International Windship Association's Decade of Wind Propulsion. EDITOR'S NOTE: Today's Sail Freighter Friday biography is a guest post from Plimoth Patuxet Museums in Plymouth, MA. Since we have just finished out the Northeast Grain Race by talking about important ships involved in the original grain races around Cape Horn from Australia to England with grain, we're going to look at how those races, and the sailors involved in them, helped preserve the skills of working sail and wooden shipbuilding. Those skills are becoming important once again as the revival of Sail Freight gathers way.  "Mayflower II" under sail after refit, 2020. Courtesy of Plimoth Patuxet Museums. In 1620, the original Mayflower carried 102 English passengers across the Atlantic Ocean in search for a better life. The Pilgrims, as they would come to be known, braved 66 days in the stormy, cold North Atlantic aboard the merchant ship. For some, this was their first ocean voyage. They established Plymouth Colony at the Wampanoag site of Patuxet and forever changed the course of history. Each year their story is told in classrooms across the Nation and particularly remembered during the Thanksgiving holiday. Mayflower was an approximately 200 ton square rigged cargo vessel, armed for defense with light artillery, and primarily engaged in the cross channel and Canaries trade, before being chartered to cross the Atlantic in 1620. While her date of construction is unknown, average ship service lives were about 25 years at the time, and she was broken up in about 1624, meaning she was likely built between 1598-1600. The ability to carry freight was a major concern in the ship's design, and the rudiments of a Barque or Bark rig are evident in her Carrack rig: Three masts, two of which are square rigged and the aftermost (mizzen) mast rigged with a Lateen Sail, an early type of Fore-&-Aft sail.  William Avery Baker (Mayflower II designer), Stuart Upham (shipbuilder), and Alan Villiers aboard Mayflower II. Courtesy of Plimoth Patuxet Museums. While she did carry over 100 passengers on her transatlantic voyage, cargo was just as important, as the new settlers would require sufficient supplies to establish themselves. As passengers were principally considered a type of cargo in the 17th century, and hammocks were only just being adopted in Navies at the time. Passenger accommodations were extremely simple because moving people was less common than moving goods, and there were a very limited number of ships available. After her famous voyage in 1620, Mayflower seems to have returned to her previous occupation for a short time before being broken up. Mayflower II, Plimoth Patuxet’s full-scale reproduction of the tall ship that brought the Pilgrims to Plymouth in 1620. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Mayflower II is where visitors learn about the journey that started a nation. Mayflower II was built between 1955 and 1957 in Brixham, Devon, England. The ship was always part of Harry Hornblower’s vision for Plimoth Patuxet Museums (formerly Plimoth Plantation). In 1951, Plimoth Patuxet contracted naval architect William A. Baker to research and design plans for a ship the size and type of the original Mayflower. Building on the work of previous scholars who tried to answer the question of what the Pilgrims’ Mayflower looked like, Baker scoured museums across Europe for period records that hinted at a design. As his research progressed, he published much of his work in a series of magazine articles. At nearly the same time, unbeknownst to Plimoth Patuxet, a similar project was developing in England. Warwick Charlton founded Project Mayflower Ltd. to honor the alliance of friendship forged between the United States and England during World War II. Inspired by William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation, he decided to build a reproduction Mayflower as a memorial to the alliance between the nations and sail it to America. While researching, Charlton’s team came across one of Baker’s articles. Shocked that a different organization had the same idea and already had plans, Charlton called the Plimoth Patuxet office. The partnership was born. Plimoth would provide Baker’s research and plans while Project Mayflower would build and sail the ship to Massachusetts. The shipwrights under Stuart Upham at J.W. & A. Upham Shipyard built Mayflower II using traditional methods and tools familiar to 17th-century shipwrights. The adze, ax, and chisel shaped the ship from the keel up. When pressed to speed up production, Upham maintained that other than the occasional use of power tools, Mayflower II had to be built by hand. The construction of Mayflower II helped preserve nearly-lost wooden ship building skills. Older generations of shipwrights familiar with the craft shared their knowledge with the new generation working alongside them in the yard.  Villers shaking hands with Plimoth Patuxet Museums' founder Harry Hornblower. Courtesy of Plimoth Patuxet Museums. Mayflower II set sail from Plymouth, England on April 20, 1957 with a crew of thirty-three men under the command of acclaimed square-rigged ship captain Alan Villiers. As they neared Massachusetts’ shores, Mayflower II ran into a violent squall. No one aboard had experience handling a 17th-century vessel in inclement weather. However, Villiers remembered that Bradford described how Master Christopher Jones steered the original ship to safety during the 1620 voyage by lying ahull. Villiers and the crew executed the same maneuvers and calmly rode out the storm. On June 13, 1957 Mayflower II arrived in her new home port of Plymouth, Massachusetts. A crowd of 25,000 enthusiastic spectators witnessed the historic moment. As with the construction of Mayflower II, the skills of square-rigged working sail (as opposed to leisure sailing) were also passed down through these projects by the last people in the Atlantic World to have moved cargo on similar ships. Villiers was a veteran of the Australia-UK Grain Races aboard both Herzogin Cecilie and Parma, having made many other sailing voyages in addition. These veterans were able to make possible a revival of working sail today, many decades after their deaths, as well as illuminating passages of historical documents which make little sense to those who have never worked with sail before. This story highlights the importance of maintaining Mayflower II as a sailing vessel and illustrates the broadening understanding of preservation. At Plimoth Patuxet Museums we learn by doing. We learn how a 17th-century ship sails by sailing her. Like Villiers, we learn more about the Pilgrims’ experience aboard ship in 1620 when we sail Mayflower II. Through this work we preserve the historic crafts and skills required in square-rigged sailing. Join Plimoth Patuxet Museums from June 11-13 to celebrate the 65th anniversary of Mayflower II’s transatlantic voyage. From games and crafts for the young ones to the Seaside Soiree for lifelong learners, there is something for the whole family. A special ceremony will be held on June 13 to honor the crew of the 1957 voyage. Learn more at www.plimoth.org. AuthorTom Begley is the Director of Collections and Special Projects at Plimoth Patuxet Museums. If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!
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 June 11, 1972.  Steamboat "General Slocum". Tracey I. Brooks Collection, Hudson River Maritime Museum. On June 15, 1904 occurred one of the worst steamboat disasters of all time. On that sunny June morning, he New York harbor excursion steamer “General Slocum” caught fire and burned in the East River with a resulting loss of life of 1,021 people. The “General Slocum” was built in 1891 at Brooklyn to run between New York City and Rockaway Beach. She later ran as an excursion steamer on the Hudson River and Long Island sound, and — at the time — was the largest excursion steamboat out of New York. From time to time, she was chartered by local Ulster County groups and carried excursions out of Rondout Creek. On the day of the disaster, the “General Slocum” had been chartered by the Sunday School and members of the congregation of St. Mark’s German Lutheran Church of New York for an excursion to Locust Grove on Long Island. The vessel left a pier at the foot of East Third Street, Manhattan, shortly before 10 a.m. and proceeded up the East River. A Cabin Ablaze Off 97th Street, some of the deckhands on the lower deck observed wisps of smoke coming from the forward part of the vessel. Instead of notifying the captain, they tried to find the cause, apparently thinking they could put out the fire if there was one. They went below and found a cabin ablaze. Coming back on deck, they got the mate who immediately sent word to the captain and started to fight the fire. By this time the fire was beginning to gain momentum and spread. The East River, at the point where the fire was discovered, is deep and filled with treacherous tidal currents. The captain, William H. Van Schaick, thought his best course would be to reach shallow water and ordered the pilot to head at full speed for North Brother Island, approximately a mile ahead. The fire, unfortunately, spread rapidly, fanned by a breeze blowing from the north and the steamer’s speed through the water. Many passengers became panic stricken as everyone tried to crowd to the rear of the vessel away from the burning forward part of the steamboat. To add to the dire chain of events surrounding the tragedy, the steamer — on reaching North Brother Island — grounded forward. Her stern, however, where all the passengers were crowded, was still in water 30 feet deep. Many passengers, thinking the entire steamer was in shallow water, jumped overboard and were drowned. Due to the huge loss of life, the disaster naturally caused a great public furor and led to several investigations. There was strong criticism of the adequacy of the life saving and fire fighting equipment aboard the steamboat. As a result of the investigations, Captain Van Schaick was sentenced to prison. Almost all boatmen felt the captain was unjustly made a scapegoat for the resulting tragedy, instead of the owners of the steamer or the effectiveness of the life saving and fire fighting equipment then required — and the inspections of it by government inspectors.  Steamboat "General Slocum" burned and sunk off Hunt's Point, East River, 1904. Tracey I. Brooks Collection, Hudson River Maritime Museum. Suffered Injuries Captain Van Schaick was severely burned as a result of the fire and his eyesight was permanently damaged by the intense heat of the flames as he vainly sought to direct efforts to combat the holocaust. When he was sentenced to prison, he was sent to Sing Sing at Ossining. At that time, the State was building what is now Bear Mountain Park operated by the Palisades Interstate Park Commission. Some of the inmates of Sing Sing were used for cutting down trees, and other work. Al Walker, who later was a captain of Cornell tugboats, was then captain of a little steamboat used to carry prisoners back and forth between Sing Sing and the new park. Captain Van Schaick was one of the prisoners who was sent to the park to do what he could. Al told me he would always take Captain Van Schaick into the pilot house and let him steer or do whatever he wanted to do as, like all other steamboatmen of that day, he felt Captain Van should never have gone to prison. Captain Van Schaick eventually was pardoned by President Taft and later died at the Masonic Home at Utica in 1924. Several members of his family were also steamboatmen. A brother was a captain of steamboats of the Iron Steamboat Company, the steamboat line that ran from New York to Coney Island until 1932. Captain Arthur Van Schaick, who I believe was a nephew of the “General Slocum’s" captain, was a pilot and later captain of the "Chauncey M. Depew’’ of the Hudson River Day Line. On the ‘Sirius’ Before Captain Van Schaick became captain of the "General Slocum," he had been captain of the steamer “Sirius” of the Iron Steamboat Company. Jack Dearstyne, Sr., who was later captain of a number of Hudson River steamboats, was at that time first mate of the ‘‘Sirius." Captain Dearstyne later told me that Captain Van Schaick always used to say his one wish was to be captain of New York’s largest excursion steamer. Well, he got his wish and, as it turned out, to his great regret. AuthorCaptain William Odell Benson was a life-long resident of Sleightsburgh, N.Y., where he was born on March 17, 1911, the son of the late Albert and Ida Olson Benson. He served as captain of Callanan Company tugs including Peter Callanan, and Callanan No. 1 and was an early member of the Hudson River Maritime Museum. He retained, and shared, lifelong memories of incidents and anecdotes along the Hudson River. Learn more at the June 8, 2022 lecture by author Edward T. O'Donnell "The 1904 General Slocum Disaster: New York's Deadliest Day before 9/11" If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!
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