Breaking Ice Gorges

Editor's note: This article is from the Albany (NY) Argus December 11, 1910. Thank you to Contributing Scholar Carl Mayer for finding, transcribing and cataloging the article. The language, spelling and grammar of the article reflects the time period when it was written.

Cornell Steamboat Company tugboats "Hercules" and "Rob" in ice. Hudson River Maritime Museum collection.

Breaking the Ice Gorges of the Hudson River
Captain Ulster Davis, Great Gorge Fighter in Command of All the Big Battles Against Ice Flood and Freshet in Recent Winters, Tells the Exciting Story of Perilous Attacks by Ice-Breaking Tugs.

ICE BREAKING in its simplest form is an art in which few men have been educated, in spite of the fact that the Hudson river in front of the city freezes tightly each winter and offers a fine opportunity for any man to serve his apprenticeship in conquering such a task. To be a successful man of ice-breaking knowledge one must know his boat, from bow to stern, and must know how she will behave in attacking with an ice floe or solid field.

In breaking gorges the task becomes a most difficult one. Gorges that have formed along the Hudson for years, especially in the vicinity of Coeymans and New Baltimore, have been often attacked, and sometimes such an attack has not brought forth results. Gorges usually extend for miles and are one concrete mass of ice, solid from the river's bottom to sometimes 10 feet above the surface of the frozen water at high tide. To fight such a gorge, which is in reality a Hudson river iceberg without a tide to move it playfully about in the water, calls for a man who knows the power of his boat or boats, and is acquainted with the details of attack, and to know just how and when to ram the gorge.

Albanians, especially those in the zone usually inundated by the spring freshets, greet the name “river gorge” with a shiver of fear, for the backing up of the waters over the docks and the flooding of the low-lying districts mean hardship, misery and want. The man responsible for the breaking of these gorges, which allows the turbulent spring waters of the Hudson to rush madly to the ocean, is known to every man, woman and child in the sections which suffer from freshets.

A Great Gorge Fighter.
Since 1902 Captain Ulster Davis, of Rensselaer, manager of the Albany Towing company and of the Cornell Steamboat line in this section, has been the man of the hour in ice-breaking attacks and gorge fighting. No man between New York and Albany knows the river better than Captain Davis, and no man is more capable of superintending gorge ‘busting’ than the Rensselaer captain. He has risen from the cabin wheel of a small tugboat to the responsibility of caring for everything that is done in the way of towing in this section, and to the topnotch in his profession.

Captain Davis has had charge of the ice breaking boats and the crews that manned them that attacked the gorges of 1902, 1903, 1907, 1909 and 1910. He has succeeded in accomplishing the task he set out to do each time, and has thus brought happiness to thousands along the Hudson.

Captain Davis reviews the work of his ice-breaking expeditions in a story, covering the work accomplished during the past eight years.

Ice Moved the Bridge.  
“The first work on gorge ice which served to demonstrate the practicability of plunging through the ice field and attacking gorges, was on December 22, 1902,” says Captain Davis.
“The ice moved in front of the city at 4 o'clock in the afternoon and gorged at the Livingston avenue bridge, piling up high, and each rush of the water jammed the crystal into a beach-to-beach gorge. The ice jam displaced the superstructure under the draw span of the Livingston avenue bridge. Edward McGiven, superintendent of the American Ice company, chartered the tug GEORGE C. VAN TUYL to break up the ice around the bridge. Before the tug was steamed up the ice began to move. We refused to leave the Albany basin until the heavy ice had passed down stream. After it had passed we proceeded to the bridge and found the ice jammed to the bottom of the river and piled up 10 feet high. The frame work under the draw span had been pushed south five feet.

“Putting the powerful little tug to a test, we cut the ice from above the draw on the west side and bucked the frame work back under the draw bridge. Dynamite was tried on this work, without success. Six days were taken up in this work, for which the tug was paid $405.

Saved Thousands of Dollars.
“This first successful ice breaking saved the American Bridge company thousands of dollars, as it was under contract to replace the old bridge and guaranteed not to stop traffic on the New York Central.

“The ice moved down the river from in front of the city and Troy to Mull's Bar, and gorged to the bottom of the river, causing the water to rise to an unprecedented height and creating alarm in the southern section of this city and in districts which suffer from a freshet. A cold snap followed and the waters receded although there was not a raise and fall of tide at Albany until March.

"It was, however, not until March, 1903, that the services of the powerful Cornell river tugs were enlisted in fighting and finally breaking up the ice gorges.

Cities Inundated.
“About the first of March, 1903, heavy rain and melting snow, due to the mild weather, caused the river to overflow its bounds and the ice broke up for a second time and passed to the Mull’s Bar gorge formed in December and jammed into a solid mass. The pressure of the water north of the gorge became so great that it lifted the Mull’s Bar gorge that formed in December, and it passed down the river two miles, lodging at Roah’s Hook, causing the water to rise so that the lower part of the city and Rensselaer were inundated.

“The Chamber of Commerce alarmed with the existing conditions took hold of the matter and a fund was raised by subscription, starting in Rensselaer, and $800 was raised from the merchants and manufacturers in the affected districts. In all $1,450 was the amount of the fund and the old side-wheeler NORWICH, in charge of Captain Jake Du Bois, and the W. N. BAVIER, commanded by Captain Herbert Du Mont, of Rensselaer, were engaged to come from Rondout to buck the gorge on the south.

Attacking the Gorge.
“The steamers started from Rondout on Thursday, March 5, and ploughed through the ice from Rondout to Coeymans. I was engaged by the Chamber of Commerce to look after their interests at Coeymans and joined the boats at New Baltimore.

“The ice was cut up in the reach at Stuyvesant and Coxsackie Lights, and the tugs proceeded to Roah Hook and attacked the gorge. The tide was normal on the lower side, but water flooded in the docks in this city. There was no current below the gorge and as the BAVIER—a new steel-hull steamer—would back up 500 feet and ran into the gorge at full speed the ice came up from the bottom in great chunks.

“It remained stationary there being no tide to float it away. After working into the gorge about 500 feet or more and in the deep water off Corwin & McCulloch's brickyard, at Coeymans, we began to get some current from beneath the gorge. The ice floated away faster than it has at any time since he began operations.

“When the BAVIER backed up and rammed the gorge the ice rolled up as solid and blue as it was in December when the original gorge knitted together. The ice was cemented with deposits of mud, logs and timber. Even though the engines of the BAVIER worked at full speed, the craft would not go over 25 to 30 feet into the gorge, with a start of 500 feet. The NORWICH could not accomplish much in fighting the gorge as the ice was so deep that it cut her below the copper sheathing and stove in some of the planking.

Like a Field of Ice.
“The gorge, when we started to cut it out, looked like a smooth field of newly frozen ice, with the exception that here and there a stick of timber would sprout up. The snows and storms had leveled it off smooth.

“Captain Jake Du Bois, of the NORWICH, asked me at this time where the ice gorge was, and I told him it was on Mull's, and that it would not take long to go through this smooth field — which was in reality the December gorge — he then let me know that he had encountered a stiffer gorge than was the first, as we had not made 200 feet in an hour.
“The ice was above the guard of the Norwich as she lay in the cut made through the gorge and the plane of the river bottom showed on the surface as the ice receded from the shores towards the centre of the river in concave shape.

Price to Break the Gorge.
“The steamers were sent from Rondout to attack the gorge by Fred Coykendall, on an agreement that the Chamber of Commerce would pay a minimum price off $2,500. People on the trains seeing the boats coming through made it known at Albany, and the subscriptions were halted with the result that but $1,450 was raised. William B. Van Rensselaer, at that time president of the chamber, phoned me to stop the boats as there was not enough money to pay them. The work was stopped at dusk Friday night after we had gotten to the new or March gorge where the boats jammed through with apparent ease.

“On the following Sunday the ice, weakened through the attacks of the BAVIER and NORWICH, passed out and the water fell, clearing the river for the season. This was the first work on the heavier type of Cornell boats on ice-gorge attacking.

Big Damage to Property.
“This gorge caused thousands and thousands of dollars worth of damage to property along the river banks. Traffic was delayed on the New York Central, ice having pushed the south-bound track on top of the north-bound main, and into the swamp at Poolsburg. No attempt was made to attack the gorge at this time.

“In 1907 the first day of the new year marked the moving out of the ice in front of the city. This ice gorged at Castleton, causing high water here. On Thursday, January 3, the gorge let go and part went down over the dyke into Schodack creek and jammed to the bottom of the channel, completely destroying the prospects of ice harvesting at the two mammoth houses of Ransom, Gardinier & Sons, and the 60,000-ton house of the American Ice company. The ice also jammed in Baker's Creek.

Clearing the Ice Pack of 1907.
“On Saturday, Supt. Thomas Clifford, of the ice company, and I conferred at Castleton and the tug GEORGE C. VAN TUYL was engaged at the rate of $15 per hour to clear the ice pack out of Baker's creek. This work was accomplished on Sunday, January 6, by Captain Edward McCabe and Bert Houghtaling, who were in charge of the tug.

“I went to Castleton with a livery rig on the same morning and the VAN TUYL tied up at the village dock after finishing its work. The Gardiniers and the American Ice company officials desired Schodack creek cleared of its obstruction as it was jammed from Burns’ dock to a short distance above Schodack Landing. The VAN TUYL was sent down the river accompanied by D. J. Driscoll. How the rig got back to Rensselaer can best be told by “Denny’’ — I drove to Schodack.

“Arriving at Burns’ dock I found the ice jammed to a depth of nine or ten feet, two or three feet out of water in the channel and piled high on the flats, mixed with timber, trees and debris from a haystack to a chicken coop.

Prying Logs From Propellor.
“We contracted with Gardinier and the ice company to clean out the channel and complete the work in 22 1-2 running hours. Considerable time was spent in getting a timber out of the propeller, which very often necessitated taking out the coupling bolts and prying the engine on the quarter, then replacing the bolts and turning on steam in the reverse motion from which the engine was turning at the time the log was picked up. It was very necessary at times to use pry bar and steam together to move the obstruction.

“Finally we attacked the gorge and it passed out and lodged at Pine Grove, in the narrow channel. Some damage was done to the boat in doing this work. Two planks were stove in on each side of the stern, and as there was no drydock to haul on at this time of the year, we kept up steam on her night and day to keep her afloat. We later proceeded to New York and had her hauled on the Leitjen & Lang drydock at Hoboken, N. J. It cost $500 to repair the hull and double plank it back from the stern to the widest part of the hull, such damage having been inflicted in a few days.

Tug Hercules Caught in the Ice.
“In the same month Welsh Brothers, ice dealers, of Coxsackie, chartered the giant tug HERCULES to go from Rondout to Grape Vine dock to cut the ice loose that had come down from above and gorged in front of their house. The tug was sent out alone to do this work and passed up through the narrow channel. Coxsackie was made with apparent ease by the powerful boat, but in turning around the ice jammed around her so that she could not be moved in either direction.

“On Thursday, January 10, 1907, Fred Coykendall, manager of the Cornell line, requested me to go to Coxsackie and see what could be done with the HERCULES. I went to Newton Hook by train and crossed the river in a small scow by being pulled through floating ice a half foot thick. I drove from Coxsackie to Pine Grove and found the powerful HERCULES, which was in charge of Captain John Silliman, of Rensselaer, hard and fast on top of an ice pack, and the tide rose and fell on her as though she was on a beach instead of in a channel with 14 feet of water.

The tender ROB, Captain George Gage, and Captain Charles Conklin for cook (and a mighty poor one, at that!) and also the big steamer POCAHONTAS, Captain Irving Hayes, were sent to rescue the HERCULES and to cut her from the pack.

“The POCAHONTAS stove a plank in her bow and had to be beached at Catskill to make repairs. The tender ROB made the distance, however, arriving on Friday at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Captain Gage skirted the ROB alongside the bow of the HERCULES, so that both were fast.

“With both tugs helpless, hooks and bars were secured from an icehouse in order to pry the boats apart. After many hours’ work the ROB was pried loose and she settled down in the river with a splash. The ROB was then forced to cut the powerful HERCULES out of the floe, ploughing the ice below the boat and pulling her away with a stout hawser.

“The POCAHONTAS, after repairs had been made to her on the beach, with the HERCULES and ROB, kept at work fighting the ice and finally worked it past Athens and Catskill and down below Saugerties.

“At this time the diminutive harbor tug, VAN TUYL, was struggling with an ice floe at Four Mile Point and it was necessary to dIspatch the ROB to the assistance of the Albany tug. All four boats made Rondout safely on January 15.

“On Sunday, February 16, the ice broke up again in front of this city and gorged at New Baltimore. This obstruction was allowed to melt away.

Most Powerful Tug on River.
“One of the most recent gorge attacks was made during the winter of 1919, when we were forced to use the most powerful tug on the river, the CORNELL, which was, in fact, the biggest boat ever used in breaking the ice.

“The ice broke up unexpectedly in front of this city at 1:30 in the afternoon, February 27, and gorged at Van Wie’s Point. The water at 9 o'clock that night was over 12 foot above mean low water mark. It continued to rise rapidly and at 9:39 the next morning it was 15.1; 8 o'clock in the evening, 16.1, and two hours later, over 17 feet.

“At 10 o’clock on the night of February 29 the gorge at Van Wie’s Point let go and passed Cedar Hill. This water dropped two feet then.

Emergency Bill in Legislature.
“Continued warm weather and rain brought about alarming conditions on March 2.  At the morning session of the Legislature, Assemblyman B. R. Lansing, who was forced to wade through the water in front of his store in hip boots, made his way to the clerk’s desk and introduced an emergency bill, directing that boats be engaged to attack and break the gorge. The bill was rushed through both houses and was signed by Governor Hughes in the afternoon.

“Deputy Superintendent of Public Works Winslow M. Mead chartered a special train to go to Hudson so that the river could be inspected at that point. Mr. Mead was accompanied by Assistant Superintendent David Lewis and myself. We found the ice solid and teams were crossing the river when we reached Hudson.

“Boats were ordered from Hudson by telephone and we were advised that the CORNELL and ROB would be ready Thursday, March 3, at 10 o'clock in the morning.

Perilous Trip.
“The powerful CORNELL and tender, ROB, left Rondout creek at 11 o'clock on that morning. On board, besides the crew, was H. M. Hulsapple, representing the State. Later in the day the ROB was sent to Rhinecliff to meet a train. Mr. Mead and William B. Elmendorf came aboard the boat.

“We were forced at some points to push through over two feet of solid ice, the river being the same as when it first tightened up. He made about one mile an hour until 7 o'clock at night, when the boats crossed over to Red Hook island, on the east shore of the river. In the next four hours the ice was so thick that but two miles was made.

“While I was at the wheel of the CORNELL at this point, Captain Tim Donovan, the boat's regular commander, told me to save enough of the boat so we could get ashore in safety. The big boat was rocking and plunging and the thick and stubborn ice gave us a fight that he will long remember. It was the same as pushing the boat a brick wall. The ice was over two feet thick, and at 11 o'clock we stopped the fight and laid up for the night.

Ice Bent Steel Plates.
“Promptly at 6:30 the next morning, Friday, the two tugs were sent after the enemy again. After getting in midstream it was discovered that the plates on the steel hull of the CORNELL were bent and the frames twisted. Mr. Hulsapple  and myself were forced to walk to Tivoli and phone New York of the condition of the boat. We were told to break the gorge and relieve the suffering in the valley and to proceed to Albany.

“The boats renewed their attack and for a short distance below Saugerties creek there was open water, but from Saugerties Light to Malden, about two miles, it took four hours to make the distance, the ice being from 22 to 24 inches thick.

“Above Malden the boats were shifted close inshore and the snow water off the hills had weakened the ice in this stretch, so that he went along merrily without a stop until Germantown was in sight. We arrived at Germantown Landing at 7:30 in the evening, having covered but 10 miles in 13 hours, three hours of which was consumed in crossing the river from Alsen to Germantown.

“Assemblyman B. R. Lansing joined us at Germantown, Saturday, March 5, and leaving Germantown at 6 o'clock in the morning, we found hard ice to Linlithgo and open water on the west side of the river to Catskill creek. From Catskill to Athens the ice was 12 inches thick, and in Perry's Reach at Athens 18 inches thick. He reached Athens at 1:30 in the afternoon.

In the Path of the Ice Breaker.
“Here men and boys were out on the ice and it was at this point that the ice planks from Athens to Hudson were cut through. As the CORNELL approached a man with a large hand sled, with a passenger having two suit cases, started from the shore to cross the ice in the path of the ice breaker. He did, but he cleared the bow of the CORNELL only about six feet and was out of sight of the man at the steering wheel in the pilot house. The passenger stuck to the sled as he declared he had paid 50 cents to drive over. No whistles were sounded from the CORNELL as the boat had the right of way and the man with the sled was not going to stand on the cracking ice and dispute this fact.

“We proceeded to oil dock and turned around and came back below Hudson light to cut the heavy ice up in the reach. Then we headed for Newton Hook, reaching there at 7 o'clock at night.

“Sunday, although a day of rest with almost everybody, was one of hustle on the Cornell as the boat left Newton Hook at 6 in the morning. We found unusually heavy ice to Schodack Creek, and from there to Barren Island the ice was but eight inches thick.

Imprisoned in Ice Fields.
“We did not attempt to attack the gorge at this time, skirting back to New Baltimore. We here learned that the ROB was wedged in between two fields of ice at Lamp Island dyke. She was unable to help herself against the field of heavy floating ice and we had to cut her out and give her liberty. Both boats then shifted to Catskill, cutting the field ice as we went, so that it would pass out, and both boats tied up at Athens at 8 o'clock at night after fighting for 14 hours.

“Everybody was anxious to get to the gorge on Monday, March 7, and both boats started on the last lap of their journey. While making from Athens to Stuyvesant light, a government pile-driver was floating down through the field of broken ice. The driver was being pushed and abused by the ice floe, and we picked her up and towed her to a beach. No salvage can he collected from the government so that our hustle to get the driver availed nothing financially.

Ran on a Sand Bar.
“The real hard fight started when we made our first flying attack on the mountainous gorge at 10 o'clock in the morning, opposite the upper Briggs Ice House. The CORNELL here ran on a sand bar. Every effort was made to push the boat over the bar, but without success.

“The boat was turned in its tracks and sent to Barren Island and up through Coeymans channel. At the Coeymans dock Superintendent Kunze, of the Western section of the canal, and a corps of dynamite experts, with Deputy Superintendent Mead was picked up. The water was so high on the decks here that the passengers were forced to walk to the boat in hip booths [sic, boots].

“The ROB was left alone in her struggle against the gorge, but, as she was of light draft, cut up over the bar and found 30 feet of water. The CORNELL cut in the river above the bar, and both tugs worked at the gorge until 1:30 in the afternoon, when a hurrah went up from all on board. The ice was moving down stream.

Pushed by the Moving Gorge.
“The CORNELL was forced to drop back to Roah Hook light, where there is an angle in the dyke, and the giant tug kept her engines working to prevent her from being pushed down the river over the bar, so heavy was the moving gorge.

“The ice moved without a balk for half an hour, when it became unruly again and gorged, stopping the flow of the current. A second attack was made, and it started moving seaward at 3:05 o'clock and an hour later the ice was all passed below Roah Hook and to the ocean.
“The both boats headed towards Albany and we were forced to plough through thousands and thousands of tons of jammed ice. It was suggested to Kunze, the dynamite expert, that he try dynamite to dislodge the   remnants of the gorge, and be replied that the Big CORNELL could cut out more ice in one plunge than he could remove in a day with the explosive. He added that there was enough ice here to put Hades in cold storage for years!

Ovation All the Way Home.
“The announcement that the ice-breaking boats would proceed to Albany was evidently sent all along the river, as we were greeted from every dock, a cannon announcing our arrival here. The heroic boats passed through the Greenbush bridge draw span, and we tied up at the foot of Hamilton street in a snow storm.

“Many amusing and pitiful sights greeted the men in charge of the ice-breaking tugs. In the gorge at Coeymans in one of our attacks there was a chicken coop frozen in the top of the field. We found in the coop a hen setting on eggs and she greeted us with a cackle.

“In March, 1902, with the tug VAN TUYL, I went to Montgomery's Island, just below Albany, on the east side of the river, and found in the house a widow with six barefooted children, The home, in which lay her dead husband, was surrounded by water, and it was impossible to reach it in a row boat because of the floating ice. The woman was almost overcome with joy when the VAN TUYL stuck her nose against the home.

“The day when ice gorges along the Hudson will cause the water to back up and cause hardship and misery to these who have the misfortune to live in the affected district is gone, however, as the superintendent of public works is now authorized in an emergency to employ means at the State's expense to break such obstructions.
​
“The only effective means towards breaking ice gorges is the employment of the giant tug boats. Ice breaking is not profitable to the owners of the boats. The damage done to the craft while thus engaged is almost equal to the compensation.”

---

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!

Donate Now

Join Today