Editor's Note: This account is from the December 1, 1878 St. Louis (Missouri) Globe-Democrat. The tone of the article reflects the time period in which it was written. 

A PAIR OF HEROINES. 
The Ladies Who Guard a Hudson River Lighthouse. 
Deeds That Would Honor Grace Darling or Ida Lewis. 
[From the New York Mercury.] 
‘‘If the world knows little of its heroes, it knows less of its heroines.’’ So declared an old Hudson River pilot, who had for thirty years felt his tortuous way, night after night, along that serpentine stream in the pilot-house of one or another steamboat. And when he looked in that far-off-way, with his eyes turned inward, the writer knew he was thinking of something interesting, and the Mercury reporter said to him: "Come, out with it, Uncle John; tell me what you have reference to.’’ "I mean,’’ said he, with an emphatic knock given with his iron knuckles upon the table, ‘‘that while some chance incident, or the presence of a newspaper reporter at an opportune moment, gave the world the benefit of an adventure of Ida Lewis — which turned out to be merely the escapade of a masculine and hoydenish woman after all — the meritorious efforts of 

TWO REAL HEROINES, 
modest, retiring, made without any idea that the reporters were around — and indeed they were not, for a wonder — are never spoken of." "Who are the two heroines?’’ Well, they live in a lighthouse not over 120 miles from New York, on the Hudson River, keep it themselves, and I tell you they’re like the ten wise virgins in Scripture — their lamp is always trimmed and burning, and on a foggy night when the light is not visible you can hear one of them a mile off blowing a fog horn herself; for the Government has been too mercenary to give them one of the automatic new-fangled kind —and as for saving lives I know they’ve done it many a time. But if you want to know more about them, just you go down to the Government Lighthouse Bureau at Tompkinsville, on Staten Island, and they will tell you all about the heroines of Saugerties Light." The writer, with such promise of good things, could not resist the temptation to go to the Lighthouse Department, and when the object of his visit was made known to Maj. Burke, the chief clerk in the Inspector’s office, the latter said he had no doubt that the old pilot’s statements were true. ‘‘In fact,’’ said he, "there is no one connected with the lighthouses of the government whose general characteristics, daring, bravery and invincibility to fear, but withal natural modesty, would be so apt to include heroic action as 

MISS KATE C. CROWLEY,
the mistress and keeper of Saugerties Lighthouse. While we have had no official report of her achievements, I have heard of them through other sources, and can say to you that she is capable of any daring deed involving danger or self-sacrifice; and it is the most natural thing in the world, as she is so modest that we should never receive official reports which could come only through her. As to the manner in which the lighthouse is kept, it is unexcelled by any other man or woman in the department. Accounts are always kept right, the light is always burning, and Miss Crowley is the very best kind of a keeper. Go and see her. She is a model watcher.’’ With such assurances the reporter could no nothing less than follow the advice, and he took the night boat for Catskill, which would reach Saugerties early in the morning. It was a bright, starlight night, and the writer sat in the pilot-house talking to the Steersman, who guided the steamer safely through the shadows of the frowning peak of the Highlands and answered questions or volunteered information between the rotations of the wheel. As we turned a bend in the river a light which looked like a star of the first magnitude twinkled and shown upon us far away in the distance. "That’s fifteen miles away," said the man at the wheel. ‘‘That’s Saugerties light. We'll lose it again a dozen times in the turns of the river. Do I know who keeps it? Well, no; not to speak to ’em, but know its two gals as has got grit enough, for I’ve seen ’em on the river many a time by daylight pulling away a great heavy row boat that no two river men would care to handle in one of them gales that comes sweepin’ down through the mountains like great flues in a big chimney. It ain’t like a tumultuous sea, hey? Well, that just shows how little you know about these North River storms. Why, when we get some of these hurricane blasts, they sweep down through these gaps from the north, and another current comes up from the south, and 

GOD, HELP ANY VESSEL
that gets caught in the maelstrom when they meet. Well, it was on one of those occasions I was comin’ up the river on the old Columbus after she’d got out carryin’ passengers and took to the towin’ business. Let me see — that was about five years ago. We'd got a little north of Rondout, and I was all alone at the wheel; I heard a rumblin’ behind me, and I looked around, and when I saw a big cloud with thunder heads rushing up from the south I knew we were going to catch a ripper. This was nothing, however, to the heavy clouds that came sweeping down from he north, in an opposite direction; and then I saw that the two storms would meet. I hollered down the trumpet to the engineer to slower the engine, and made up my mind to keep headway and stay in the river, as it would be unsafe to try and make a landing or get fastened to a dock. In a few minutes the two storms struck us. The boat cavorted like a frisky horse, and in the foaming water plunged and reared, and shook in every timber, as if it had the ague. We were then pretty nearly abreast of Tivoli, and Saugerties’ Lighthouse was only about two miles ahead. A sloop loaded with blue-stone, which had just emerged from the mouth of Esopus Creek and was standing down the river, went over when the squall struck her as suddenly as if a great machine under the water had upset her; and soon I saw two men struggling in the water. Hardly a minute elapsed before 

TWO FEMALE FORMS
were fluttering around the small boat by the lighthouse. In another minute it was launched and it bobbed up and down in the seething, foaming waters. The two girls, bareheaded, with a pair of oars apiece, began pulling towards the men in the water. The waves ran so high, the gale blew so madly, the thunder roared so incessantly and the lightning flashed in such blinding sheets, that it seemed impossible for the women ever to reach the men, to keep headway, or to keep from being swamped. But they never missed the opportunity of a rising billow to give them leverage, and they managed by steady pulling to get ahead until they reached the men in the water. The great danger was that the tossing boat would strike the sailors and end their career, but one of the gals leaned forward over the bow of the boat, braced her feet beneath the seat on which she had been sitting, stiffened herself out for a great effort, and as her sister kept the bow of the craft crosswise to the waves, caught one of the men beneath the arm as he struck out on top of a billow, lifted and threw him by main force into the middle of the boat, and then 

PREPARED FOR THE OTHER MAN.
He had got hold of the sloop’s rudder, which had got unshipped and was floating on the water. He let go and swam toward the rowboat, and was hauled in also by the woman and his half-drowned comrade. I tell you,’’ said the pilot, ‘‘those gals are bricks, and no mistake. You couldn’t have got any river boatmen to do what they did.’’ It was just 4 o’ clock when the steamboat landed at the little insular dock which is called Saugerties, but which ought to be called Gideonstown, for there is only one house in it, and that is inhabited by a most estimable family by that name. The sight from the lighthouse, however, full a mile away, shone down upon it like the eye of a great ogre, illuminating the surrounding country, and enabling the writer to take observations. These, however, were more certain in the light of dawn which soon followed. From Mr. Gideon it was learned that the village of Saugerties was two miles away, and that there were many old residents in that place, where the parents of Miss Crowley formerly resided, and along the river front, who were familiar with the exploits of the young ladies. "Do I know them?’’ was his interrogative answer to the reporter’s question. "I should like to know who doesn’t know them hereabouts. They are always in their boat, and the people hereabouts have come to think that they 

REALLY BELONG TO THE WATER 
more than they do to the land, for the only time they are visible is when they are rowing to Saugerties or other places to get provisions for their household. They do that every day, rain or shine.’’ "Do they mind rain?’’ "Not at all, they make visits every day Saugerties or thereabouts. As for rowing, no boatman on the river can equal them. They feather their oars and make regular strokes independent of wind or tide." A trip to the village of Saugerties after much inquiry, led the reporter to a person who had been familiar with the lighthouse and its surroundings for many years. He is an old boatman and fisherman. He catches shad at the season of the year that they abound, and goes out duck shooting in the fall and early winter. He is acquainted with the history of all the inhabitants, and knows all about the occupants of the lighthouse since it was first built. 

THE TALE OF A LIGHTHOUSE. 
He said: ‘‘It is now twenty years since Mr. Crowley was appointed lighthouse keeper. The old light stood on a piece of masonry which was built midway in the river, upon a morass several feet above the surface of the water at high tide, but in a very unsubstantial way. When the early spring freshets brought down the ice, it was feared several times the lighthouse would be carried away, and the necessity of a new foundation and a new lighthouse soon became apparent. The old place, however, was newly supported, and about fifteen years ago he brought over his family from Saugerties to live in the building. His daughter Kate, a little girl then, from first seemed to be amphibious, and she would go out in a little skiff from the lighthouse alone, seeming to take such risks that every one prophesied that she would surely be drowned. Many a time her little craft upset, but

SHE SWAM LIKE A DUCK,
and always succeeded in reaching the lighthouse in safety. Her sister Ellen during these early years lived at her relatives in Saugerties, and did not join her sister until the new lighthouse was built. That was about nine years ago. Then Kate was fifteen years of age and Ellen about seventeen: In that year, Ellen was leaving Saugerties in a boat with her mother, and she saw a boy in swimming, but who had got beyond his depth, struggling for aid. She endeavored to reach him and her mother attempted to assist her, but, the latter being a woman weighing over 200 pounds, upset the boat, and the girl was thrown into the water in such a way that she came under the boat, which had capsized. Her mother was speedily rescued, but the daughter could not release herself from the peculiar position in which she was placed for several minutes and when rescued was found to have taken a considerable amount of water into her lungs. This seriously affected her health for some time afterwards. She has suffered more or less from that immersion, and malarial fever from that time to the present moment, and though she and her sister are said to take care of the lighthouse, and are always together in an emergency, the latter of late years has taken the responsibility of the place herself and runs the whole affair. Do I know of any case where these girls have saved life? Indeed I do. Three years ago last winter, 

A YOUNG MAN AND A LADY
attempted to cross the ice to Tivoli. They had got about 100 yards from the lighthouse when the ice broke and they were precipitated into the water. Kate had rigged her boat with runners, so that, in her regular trips to main land, she was able in winter weather to make her way over the ice, or the latter gave way, through the water. She appears to be always on the lookout, and saw what had occurred, and in an incredible short space of time jumped upon the ice, pulling her boat after her, while her sister pushed it from the stern. They arrived at the scene of danger speedily and rescued the young man, but his companion bad disappeared. Kate saw a fragment of her dress floating on the water, and knew that she was under a cake of ice. It took but a moment for Kate to rush forward, throw herself into the opening and withdraw the woman from her perilous position. The latter was limp and senseless, and it took several minutes to restore her to consciousness. Meanwhile the ice was breaking up all around the boat, the young man was precipitated into the water, and it required the 

UNITED EFFORTS OF THE TWO SISTERS 
to recover him also and place him in the boat. During this time gorges of ice had broken up above, and had carried all of them far below, and it was by the utmost efforts of the sisters that they succeeded in reaching a point two miles below the lighthouse. It is only about two-years since a steamer ran into a sloop nearly abreast of the lighthouse, cutting the latter in two and throwing all on board into the water. The sisters immediately launched their boat and put off to the assistance of the men in the water. Two of the sailors could swim, and in a few moments succeeded in reaching the bar, but two others were struggling for life. One of them had gone down twice and was rescued as he rose the third time. A fourth one was hanging to a piece of the wreck, when he was 

TAKEN INTO THE HEROINES’ BOAT. 
"These circumstances,’’ declared our informant, "have come under my personal observation, but there are many other cases well substantiated, in which these girls have saved life, but the particulars of which I am not informed.’’ 

AT THE LIGHTHOUSE. 
The writer, returning to the long dock, was conveyed to the lighthouse in a row-boat by Mr. Gideon. The place consists of a frame house and an adjoining lighthouse, erected upon a stone foundation built upon the flats. There are no grounds around the house, and consequently no opportunity for raising anything. Stone steps extend in the south side of the masonry to the water, and up these the writer ascended. Several raps at the front door failed to meet with any response, and the reporter walked around the narrow stonework to a side door. A single knock at this brought to the door a young lady, who was evidently surprised at the presence of the visitor. The latter asked for Miss Kate Crowley. The young lady replied that she was the person asked for, and invited the visitor into the front room, which was used as a parlor, and was plainly but neatly furnished. It hardly seemed possible that the modest appearing, 

FAIR-HAIRED, BLUE-EYED YOUNG LADY 
could be the heroine spoken of, but there seemed to be no question of doubt, and the reporter suggested that as he had ascertained she had been instrumental in saving life, he should pleased to get the particulars from her lips. She seemed exceedingly loth to say anything about herself, especially in the way of exploits, and when the reporter mentioned the instances spoken of above, she turned them off as of no account, or not worth elaboration. Considerable of her history was gleaned independent of her life-saving exertions. She said that when she was a little girl her father took the old lighthouse, and she had such a fondness for the water that she used to be on it all the time in a little skiff. She liked also to take charge of the light, see that the oil was in good condition, and attend to all lighthouse matters, so that her father by the time she was fifteen years of age had come to depend entirely upon for the care of the lighthouse. About nine years ago, when the new lighthouse was built -  work which she had watched at every stage of its progress with a great deal of interest - her

FATHER SUDDENLY BECAME BLIND
from cataract of the eyes. Her mother was unable to take charge of the lighthouse, and since that time she been compelled to assume the whole management herself with some assistance from her sister, who has always been in poor health. They row daily to the neighboring village to get their provisions and receive $560 a year as their remuneration. They have to find everything except oil and necessaries for keeping the lamp in order. They have some very severe storms sometimes, and in the spring the ice comes down and threatens their little house; but she is never afraid, and thinks it a pleasure when any one is in danger to do what she and her sister can to relieve them. During the conversation her sister came into the room. Never were two sisters more unlike. 

ELLEN IS A BRUNETTE,
tall, slim, with dark eyes and dark hair. When Kate is animated she is exceedingly pretty. She displays a row of milk-white teeth and shows dimpled checks, and looks at you with a pair of large eyes full in the face. She introduced her sister to the reporter, explaining his visit. The new-comer was quite as indisposed to seek notoriety as the other, and said: ‘‘We are simply two girls trying to do our duty here in this quiet place, taking care as we best can of our blind father aged mother. We are always on the lookout for vessels that may get out of their course and are sure to have our lamp in good order. We have not the opportunity of making ourselves heroines as we have learned another woman, Ida Lewis, has, but we do what we can in our feeble way.’’ The writer insinuated that their romantic spot would be apt to induce visitors to call upon, them, but they declared that theirs was a most solitary life. The inhabitants of Saugerties had come to regard the lighthouse as an old institution, possessing no interest whatever; there was nothing to attract visitors but their plain house, which was certainly unattractive, and the only time they saw any one was when they made their visits to the mainland for provisions. They had an idea, too, that the locality was unhealthy. Every summer for the past nine years they had 
​
SUFFERED FROM MALARIAL FEVER, 
arising from the surrounding lowlands, and only a few months ago they had buried a beloved brother. The only pleasure they had in life was to row in the river, keep the lighthouse in good trim, and do the best they could for any one in trouble on the river. They introduced the reporter to their aged parents, who understood only dimly and vaguely (after repeated efforts on the part of their children to make them comprehend what the object of his visit was), and at parting, the heroic sisters asked that they might not be given too much publicity. The writer promised that he would not say anything concerning them which they did not merit, and, as he was told still more of their humane efforts after he had left their island home, he feels that he has not violated his promise.

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On a bright June morning in 1883, a boat flying the red and yellow Chinese flag left a pier in lower Manhattan and steamed up the Hudson River. Onboard were hundreds of Chinese American men who attended missionary Sunday Schools. Though most of these adult pupils worked for low wages in steam laundries that mechanized the washing of clothes, they had saved their pennies to organize a getaway for the white women who taught them how to speak English and read the Bible. Through telescopes and opera glasses, students and their teachers watched from the deck of the steamer as city turned to mountains, wetlands, forests, and meadows.[1] After a journey of almost fifty miles, the party landed at Iona Island to explore hundreds of acres of woodland, grassy lawn, salt marsh, and an abandoned vineyard.[2] “Frantic with excitement,” the Chinese American students “immediately set off quantities of fireworks” that turned “the atmosphere of the island blue,” according to the New York Times. As smoke and sparks shaped like “dragons, serpents, and birds of different species” filled the air, the smell of gunpowder masked the salty sea breeze.[3] After a day spent listening to music, resting in the shade, flying kites, picnicking, and praying, the party embarked for home in the late afternoon.[4]

 This was one of many steamboat excursions that exposed the city’s working people to the wilder places outside New York in the late nineteenth century. All excursionists shared the desire to see gorgeous scenery, relax and recover from a relentless work schedule, and breathe air that was much fresher than what could be found on the crowded and unsanitary streets of Manhattan. But excursions had extra layers of meaning for Chinese Americans during the era of Chinese Exclusion. 

 The excursion to Iona Island took place in 1883, the year after U.S. legislators passed the first Chinese Exclusion Act in the context of rising anti-Chinese xenophobia. For more than a decade, white workers had been condemning immigrants from China, framing boatloads of hungry newcomers as ruthless competitors whose willingness to labor for low wages would push others out of work. The following horrifically racist cartoon reflects this fear, blaming people of Chinese descent for low pay and job scarcity in the United States. 

Race drew a perceived line between worthy workers and harmful outsiders. Newcomers from Europe arrived in much higher numbers, but those from China faced extra blame and condemnation. Three hundred German American protesters who gathered in New York’s Tompkins Square in 1870 cheered as a labor leader condemned “the lowest and most degraded of the Chinese barbaric race” for taking jobs away from white immigrants.[5] Nativist fearmongering overshadowed the culpability of greedy employers, who drove down wages knowing that there would always be someone desperate enough to accept less pay. What made laborers replaceable, furthermore, was the mechanization of production that eliminated the need for extensive job training. Immigrants of Chinese descent were scapegoats during a complex transition to industrial capitalism. This prejudice became policy in 1882, when the Chinese Exclusion Act banned Chinese laborers from entering the United States.[6]

The excursion to Iona Island that took place the next year pushed back against the Chinese Exclusion Act. The strategic guest list suggests that the getaway was about politics as much as play. Organizer Der Ah Wing invited prominent Chinese Americans to join the Sunday school students and their teachers, like editor of the Chinese American newspaper Wong Chin Foo and Chinese Consul Au Yang Ming. White guests included Postmaster Henry Pearson, who managed the delivery of mail from China, and merchant Vernon Seaman, who spoke Chinese and was an advocate against exclusion.[7] Also onboard was Customs House Collector William Robertson, who enforced the Chinese Exclusion Act as the manager of New York’s port. Robertson shared the deck with a man he had detained: Professor Shin Chin Sun, who arrived without the proper paperwork to prove that he was not a laborer banned from entry to the country.[8] The excursion set the stage for influential men from opposing sides of the nativist law to meet one another and engage in potentially transformative conversations onboard the steamboat and in the leafy grove at Iona Island.

The Sunday School excursion furthermore pushed a story of friendship between people of Chinese and European descent into public view, countering the pervasive narrative of conflict and competition. Newspapers reported that “American ladies and Chinese gentlemen were chatting affably together, Chinese boys were playing with American children, and the language of America and China mingled in conversation.”[9] Harper’s Magazine printed the following image of students and their teachers listening to music and flying kites together at Iona Island. While the white women’s faces are drawn more carefully, the Chinese American men are depicted here with much more respect than in the cartoon above. The friendly relationships that the excursion showcased likely shaped this media coverage that was much less dehumanizing towards people of Chinese descent than was usual for the time.

The excursion taught some onlookers that people of Chinese descent could assimilate into New York’s general population. The Times framed the excursion as proof of “the civilization of American-resident Chinamen,” drawing on the racist framework that cast non-Westerners as uncivilized, but also breaking from stereotypes of Chinese Americans as permanent outsiders.[10] As other newspapers reported on the prayers and religious songs that excursionists sang together, Christian readers learned that they shared more with some of their Chinese American neighbors than they might have assumed. The excursion to Iona Island made similarities and amity between New Yorkers of Chinese and European descent visible at a tense moment when many whites argued that immigrants from China were too different to become Americans. Excursions became an annual tradition for Sunday schools because these getaways offered not just fun and relaxation away from the city, but also opportunities to shift ideas about Chinese Americans.[11]

As journalist Wong Chin Foo covered the Iona Island excursion, he recognized the power of the event. But Wong was not a Christian. In 1888, he joined with fellow members of the Knee Hop Hong mutual aid society to organize what he called a “heathen picnic” for “the anti-Christian element of the Chinese.”[12] This excursion, which landed at Staten Island’s Bay Cliff Grove, also pushed against anti-Chinese nativism—but from another angle. While the Sunday School excursion drew attention to Chinese immigrants who converted to Christianity, members of the Knee Hop Hong were proud “joss worshippers,” according to Wong, who held fast to their beliefs.[13]

The Knee Hop Hong excursion rejected cultural assimilationism too. While Sunday school excursionists drank coffee and ate what the Brooklyn Daily Eagle called “American dishes,” those on the Knee Hop Hong excursion toasted with “sparkling Noi Mai Dul” and ate chow chop suey.[14] Some smoked opium, a drug that was becoming increasingly taboo as prejudice towards Chinese people and culture mounted.[15] Excursionists indulged in Chinese American food, drink, and drugs as they celebrated what Wong called “the Birthday of Chinatown,” or the “founding of the New York colony.”[16] By praising the neighborhood where Chinese culture flourished, members of the Knee Hop Hong insisted that people of Chinese descent belonged in New York whether or not they assimilated.[17]

The Knee Hop Hong excursion displayed the political and economic influence of Chinese American New Yorkers.[18] Decked out in diamonds, the organization’s president Tom Lee was a prospective alderman who reaped riches from Chinatown’s gambling halls and opium dens.[19] Also aboard were the neighborhood’s prominent merchants and Gon Hor, the grand master of the Chinese Free Masons.[20] Only “a small number of tickets,” Wong explained, were given to whites, “who must come well recommended as to character.”[21] While the Sunday school excursion showcased paternalistic relationships between white missionaries and their Chinese students and included an enemy who enforced the nativist law, the Knee Hop Hong made it clear that the only whites welcome aboard were demonstrated friends and collaborators. Chinese Americans had power of their own making, organizers of the excursion seemed to say, and owed no one deference.

Once the party reached its destination in Staten Island, the crowd of at least 400 people listened to what Wong called “patriotic speeches,” given in both English and Chinese, that denounced exclusion.[22] JC Baptize asserted that “Chinese immigration was restricted by the politicians lest the Aldermen lose their jobs and a Chinaman be elected President of the United States.”[23] In his speech, Wong praised “the prosperity of the Chinese merchants, despite the opposition of Americans to them.”[24] The “prejudice of Americans” towards people of Chinese descent harmed the United States, Wong asserted, because “a grand result would be achieved if the moral and political virtues of the Chinese could be added to the enterprise and energy of the Americans.”[25] Insisting that immigrants from China enhanced the nation, speakers countered assumptions that their community was parasitic. Through their words and actions, these excursionists argued that they were worthy Americans because of, rather than despite, their Chinese roots.

Yet newspapers stuck to hateful tropes when they covered the Knee Hop Hong excursion. The Sun reported on “unmarried gentlemen” who smoked opium with their white dates before laying down together to “sleep off its effects.”[26] Hinting at the possible outcomes of these taboo activities, the Evening World mockingly quipped that “a number of the merchants had their white wives and cute half-breed children with them.”[27] The next week, the Philadelphia Inquirer called the engagement of grocer Huet Sing to Florence McGusty a “sequel to the great heathen picnic.”[28] Most Chinese American men who dreamed of marriage and family partnered with white women, as biased enforcement of the 1875 Page Act—which banned immigrants who might pursue “lewd and immoral purposes”—targeted Asian women. These interracial unions triggered a stereotype that cast men of Chinese descent as sexual predators.

This racist myth was what eventually brought about the end of Sunday school excursions. The News described “pretty Sunday school teachers” watching students who played “in their childlike way” on an excursion in 1886, but assumptions that these Chinese American men were naïve and asexual eroded the next decade.[29] In 1895, the Police Illustrated News reported that a white teacher went “in the shrubbery” at Iona Island with her “favorite Sunday School scholar.” Making it clear what the pair were up to, the paper noted that many “slant-eyed children of white women by Chinese fathers” attended the trip too.[30] Then in 1909, the body of Sunday school teacher Elsie Siegel was found in a trunk in Chinatown. As authorities searched for her murderer, the media cast suspicion far beyond her classroom and acquaintances—towards all Chinese Americans.[31] The annual excursion was canceled, as newspapers from as far away as Minnesota reported that “there were many Lotharios among these Chinamen, sleek satiny yellow men, who boasted of their conquests of young pretty teachers.”[32] The annual excursion became a threat, rather than a boon, to the reputations of Chinese Americans.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, New Yorkers of Chinese descent used steamboat excursions to make a case for their belonging. Sunday school students showcased friendly relationships with their teachers along with their religious and cultural assimilation. Members of the Knee Hop Hong proudly practiced traditions from China as they sailed out of New York Harbor, asserting that they could be Chinese and American at the same time. Both encountered suspicion and harmful stereotypes that only grew in the following decades, as the Chinese Exclusion Act was extended multiple times and expanded to cover most of Asia. Excursions aimed to soften views of immigration from China, but there was no escaping xenophobia and racism during the long era of Chinese exclusion—even during a holiday away from daily urban life. 

Endnotes:
[1] “A Celestial Racket,” Truth, June 12, 1883, 1.
[2] Iona Island Application to General Services Administration, May 20, 1965, Bear Mountain Archives at Iona Island, Palisades Interstate Park Commission.
[3] “The First Chinese Picnic,” New York Times, June 12, 1883, 1.
[4] “The First Chinese Picnic,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 17, 1883, 1.
[5] “The Coming Coolie,” New York Times, July 1, 1870, 1. This protest responded to the hiring of 68 Chinese immigrants to work at the Passaic Steam Laundry in Belleville (now Newark), NJ. More people of Chinese descent were settling in East Coast cities, as violence on the West Coast pushed them away. Tyler Anbinder, City of Dreams: The 400-Year Epic History of Immigrant New York (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016), 521.
[6] Erika Lee, America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States (New York: Basic Books, 2019), 73-112.
[7] “Mails from China and Australia,” New York Times, May 20, 1883, 10; “The Baptist Pastors,” New York Times, March 14, 1882, 3.
[8] “The Chinese Excursion,” Evening Telegram, June 9, 1883, 1.
[9] “The First Chinese Picnic,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 17, 1883, 1.
[10] “The First Chinese Picnic,” New York Times, June 12, 1883, 1. For views of Chinese immigrants as incapable of assimilation, see Tyler Anbinder, Five Points: The 19th-Century Neighborhood That Invented Tapdance, Stole Elections, and Became the World’s Most Notorious Slum (New York: The Free Press, 2001), 422; John Kuo Wei Tchen, New York before Chinatown: Orientalism and the Shaping of American Culture 1776-1882 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 266-278.
[11] “Chinamen have a Picnic,” New-York Daily Tribune, June 9, 1885, 5; “Chinamen in New York,” The News, July 23, 1886, 1.
[12] “A Celestial Racket,” Truth, June 12, 1883, 1.
[13] Joss houses are statues that believers in Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, and ancestor worship care for as homes to deities. Older stock New Yorkers were highly suspicious of Chinese religion. Anbinder, Five Points, 417-418.
[14] “The First Chinese Picnic,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 17, 1883, 1.
[15] “Chinamen on a Picnic,” New-York Daily Tribune, July 24, 1888, 5; Anbinder, Five Points, 407, 410, 413.
[16] Wong Chin Foo, “A Heathen Picnic,” The Sun, July 16, 1888, 5.
[17] By the time the neighborhood gained the name “Chinatown” in the 1880s, few Chinese American New Yorkers lived there, instead settling throughout the city and Brooklyn near the laundries where most they worked. But they went to Chinatown to shop and socialize. Daniel Czitrom, New York Exposed: The Gilded Age Police Scandal that Launched the Progressive Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 396-401; Anbinder, Five Points, 405.
[18] While many New Yorkers of Chinese descent were among the city’s lowest paid workers, some had amassed fortunes. Anbinder, Five Points, 403.
[19] “Chinatown’s Mayor Dead,” New York Times, January 11, 1918, 6; Arthur Bonner, Alas! What Brought Thee Hither? The Chinese in New York, 1800-1950 (Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1997), 85; Anbinder, Five Points, 410-413.
[20] “The Chinamen’s Picnic,” New York Times, July 23, 1888, 8.
[21] Wong Chin Foo, “A Heathen Picnic,” The Sun, July 16, 1888, 5.
[22] Wong Chin Foo, “A Heathen Picnic,” The Sun, July 16, 1888, 5.
[23] “Chinamen on a Picnic,” New-York Daily Tribune, July 24, 1888, 5.
[24] “Knee-Hop-Hongs on a Lark,” Evening World, July 23, 1888, 2.
[25] “The Heathen Chinese,” The Sun, July 24, 1888, 2.
[26] “The Heathen Chinese,” The Sun, July 24, 1888, 2.
[27] “Knee-Hop-Hongs on a Lark,” Evening World, July 23, 1888, 2.
[28] “A Heathen Captures a Christian Heart,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 26, 1888, 1.
[29] “Chinamen in New York,” The News, July 23, 1886, 1.
[30] “Ching a Ling’s Picnic,” Illustrated Police News, June 22, 1895, 3.
[31] Mary Ting Yi Lui, The Chinatown Trunk Mystery: Murder, Miscegenation, and other Dangerous Encounters in Turn-of-the-Century New York City (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005); Bonner, Alas!, 120.
[32] “Boasts of the Pagans,” The Duluth Evening Herald, June 25, 1909, 6.

Editor's Note: These articles are from 1825 - 1827. ​

January 8, 1825; New York Evening Post
​The books opened yesterday agreeably to notice at the Tontine Coffee House, for subscription to the stock of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, with a capital of $1,500,000 were filed, as we are informed, at a little past 2 o'clock.

October 11, 1825 Vermont Gazette, Bennington.
To Laborers.
We are authorised, by the Board of Managers of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, to state by information of their agents it is probable, that one thousand men would find immediate employment on that part of the line which is located in Mamakating Hollow, Sullivan county.

February 24, 1826 - New York American​
Three Thousand Men.
Will find employment at good wages, on that part of the Delaware and Hudson Canal, which is now under contract, commencing at the Hudson River, near the village of Kingston, 60 miles below the City of Albany, and about 80 miles above New York, extending through the counties of Ulster, Sullivan, and Orange, in the State of New York, to the Delaware River. A line of 65 miles of Canal, together with all Locks, Aqueducts, Culverts, Bridges, and Fencing is to be completed during the present year. Laborers and Mechanics will find employment on application to contractors on the line, as soon as the spring opens. The country is remarkably healthy; in this respect it offers greater inducements than any other work of the kind in the U. States, to all persons wishing steady employment throughout the season.
(Signed,) Maurice Wurts, Agent, For the Delaware & Hudson Canal Co. Kingston, Feb. 2, 1826.

July 21, 1826 Albany Argus (Albany, New York) 
The work upon the Delaware and Hudson canal, (says the N.Y. Mercantile Advertiser) is progressing rapidly, and a union of the two rivers, (64 miles apart) is confidently expected this season. A continuation of the line upon the Delaware, is now locating, and more masons and laborers are wanted. Three thousand men are at present employed. Masons receive from 1.50 to 2 dollars a day, and laborers from 11 to 13 dollars per month, besides their board.

August 14, 1827 Albany Argus (Albany, New York)
Delaware and Hudson Canal. (From the Ulster Sentinel).
We announce, with peculiar satisfaction, that on Saturday morning last the canal boat Neversink of Wurtsborough arrived in tide water at Eddy-Ville from the summit level at Mammakating, a distance of 40 miles, without having encountered a single accident, or being detained a single moment by obstruction on the route. The canal has an abundance of water, and no difficulty was experienced in passing the locks.
At the aqueduct thrown across the Rondout at the High Falls, the Hon. Nathan Sanford, of the U.S. Senate, accompanied by President Bolton and John Sudan, Esq. witnessed the progress of the boat, and were highly gratified with a short passage on the canal. The bottom and sides of the aqueduct are so impervious to water, that these gentlemen stood under it without being discommoded by any leak.

We may observe, in explanation of the reports heretofore circulated, that the canal has been once or twice filled with water, previous to this experiment, and again drained, for the purpose of saturating the banks and allowing them to settle. They are, in consequence of this precautionary measure, now so compact and firm, that no interruption of the navigation is anticipated through breaches or apertures of any serious magnitude. The lock tenders and other assistants of the company are now taking their places on the line, and by the middle of this month, the whole distance from the Delaware to the Hudson, will be in perfect condition for regular navigation.
Thus do we see a new, and, let us add, a blessed era opening upon the good old county of Ulster and her daughter Sullivan, even to the fulfillment of their highest hopes.

                                                No. 10- Francis Skiddy
Appearing on the river for the first time in June, 1852, the 1,235 ton, 322 foot “Francis Skiddy” created somewhat of a sensation, as she was one of the most up-to-date vessels that had yet sailed into the waters of the Hudson.
              
During the “forties,” steamboats began to appear with saloons on the second deck, with the “Empire,” “Oregon,” “Isaac Newton” and “Hendrick Hudson” among the first to be so constructed. These vessels were used on the night lines, and the dayboats had their dining rooms in the hold aft. They all carried pilot houses on the second deck, but in the year 1852 the “Francis Skiddy” was launched with the saloon on the second deck and the pilot house resting on a third deck. As a further departure from the usual standards, the “Francis Skiddy” sported a long and extensive promenade on her second deck for the use of the passengers. This innovation was formed by a roof extending from just forward of the boilers to a point a short distance aft of the after boilers, and from that point to the stern a light framework was erected on which an awning could be stretched. The design was the creation of George Collyer, of New York city.
              
On June 30, 1852, the “Francis Skiddy” left the foot of Chambers street, New York, and sailed up the river to Hudson in the time of five hours and three minutes, allowing 20 minutes for five landings en route. This is a speed of 23.04 miles per hour and established a record which this vessel held until some time after the Civil War. On her regular run between New York and Albany, the “Francis Skiddy” averaged seven and a half hours and made a round trip every 24 hours for a period in 1853.
              
In 1855, the “Francis Skiddy” was rebuilt into a three-deck night boat, the cabins being placed on the second and third decks. This added weight brought her down lower in the water and caused her speed to be considerably less than before. These state rooms, built into her in much the same manner as those on the “New World” and the “Isaac Newton,” caused her to draw too much to make the trip to Troy, and so an additional hull was built around the old hull, decreasing the draft by two feet and thus making it possible to put into Troy. The larger hull was framed the same as that of a new boat and was fastened around the hull of the “Francis Skiddy” in such a manner that amidships there was a distance of six feet between the inner and outer hulls.
              
On the night of November 21, 1861, the “Francis Skiddy” was proceeding down the river off Blue Point, two miles below Poughkeepsie, and encountered the schooner “W.W. Reynolds.” It was a “pitch dark” night and the schooner had failed to hang out her lights, and before the pilot of the “Francis Skiddy,” Hazzard Morey, realized his proximety of the schooner, there was a crash. Morey veered his vessel to the windward but too late to avoid the collision, and the schooner’s bowsprit entered the galley’s window and penetrated the boiler of the “Francis Skiddy,” causing an explosion in which three of the firemen were killed and four passengers fatally scalded.
              
​The damage was repaired and the “Francis Skiddy” resumed her schedule. Then on the night of November 5, 1864, she ran aground at Van Wie’s Point, four miles below Albany, and was wrecked. Her engine was salvaged and placed in the new steamboat, “Dean Richmond,” in 1865, but her hull was broken up for scrap.

Editor's Note: This article is from the January 1, 1851 issue of  Holden's Magazine​.

                         View on the Hudson River at Anthony’s Nose
The Frontispiece of this Number, is a sketch which cannot fail to interest all – as well from the natural beauty of the scenery, as from the hallowed associations connected with it. It was sketched from nature, expressly for Holden’s, and engraved by J.W. Orr. Every one who has passed the spot, by railroad or on the river, will note the fidelity of the engraving.

The building of the Hudson River Railroad has modified, to say the least, the scenery on the east bank of the Hudson. Monsieur Anthony’s profile, and especially Monsieur Anthony’s nose, has suffered by all the blasting, and excavating, and tunneling for the iron track. And indeed things have very much changed since the days of Dolph Heyliger and Antony Vander Heyden. The number of witches has very much decreased, the “storm-ship” has not been seen for these many years, and the trip from the city of the Manhattoes, to the goodly town of the Van Rensellaers, Gansevoorts, and Rosebooms, will now be reduced from four days to as many hours.
In accordance with the spirit and progress of the age, we are bound to let the spirits of the past sleep in their inaccessible hiding places, and talk of railroads and tunnels.
The Hudson River Road is now in full operation between New York and Poughkeepsie, and will probably be completed to Albany by the end of the present year, 1851. Its total cost from New York to Albany is estimated at nine millions of dollars. This includes the expense of a double track from New York to Poughkeepsie, and of the depots along the road. The cost of grading the road from New York to Poughkeepsie, averaged in round numbers, $42,480 per mile. Much of the road is built in the river on solid stone causeways, and between these two points there are no less than ten tunnels: one of these at New Hamburgh is 830 feet in length. The one represented in the engraving at Anthony’s Nose is between 300 and 400 feet in length. The expense of grading the road from Poughkeepsie to Albany will be much less. It is estimated that it will average $28,985 per mile. We are informed that no tunnel will be required above Poughkeepsie. One of 880 feet in length was contemplated at Judson’s Point, six miles north of Hudson, but upon examination it is proved that this may be dispensed with, and indeed it would not in all probability stand if built, as the rock is a mixture of slate and graywacke, and liable to decompose upon exposure to the atmosphere.

The running time of the express trains between New York and Albany, will not be over four hours – and possibly may be less. This is an average of forty miles an hour. It is proposed to run thus express trains each day both ways, and four way trains. The locomotives on this road are the finest in the country, and ranging in weight from eighteen to twenty-two tons. The passenger cars are surpassed in convenience and elegance by none.

The rates of fare established for passengers have been on the scale of one and one third cents per mile, with the exception of the two months of January and February, when the rate was raised to two cents per mile. These rates are very low, and will command the bulk of travel. They are equivalent to two dollars through to Albany in the summer, and three in winder. Most persons prefer to ride on a rail-road rather than on a steamboat, even if the expense is a little greater, and when the time of making the journey is one half, most of the travelling public will patronize the rail-road, though the fare should be double or treble that of the steamboat.

Thus are the facilities of intercommunication being rapidly and wonderfully increased. Distant points are brought in close proximity, and a vastly enlarged intercourse between the inhabitants of different sections of the country is promoting a sympathy of feeling, and a oneness of interests, which cannot but be promotive of intelligence, liberality and union. 

Editor's Note: The following text is a verbatim transcription of an article written by George W. Murdock, for the Kingston (NY) Daily Freeman newspaper in the 1930s. Murdock, a veteran marine engineer, wrote a regular column. Articles transcribed by HRMM volunteer Adam Kaplan. See more of Murdock's articles in "Steamboat Biographies". 

                                                         No. 100- Homer Ramsdell
Although she left the waters of the Hudson- the river where she was launched- nine years ago, the memory of the steamer “Homer Ramsdell” is still a vivid picture to many of the present generation, and the vessel which once plowed the waters of the Hudson river, is still in service although the name “Homer Ramsdell” no longer appears on her bow.

The steel hull of the “Homer Ramsdell” was built by the T.S. Marvel & Company at Newburgh in 1887, and her engine was the product of William Wright, also of Newburgh. Her dimensions are listed: Length of hull, 225 feet, 8 inches, breadth of hull 32 feet, 6 inches (over guards, 37 feet, 6 inches), depth of hold 11 feet, 9 inches; engine compound fore and aft, diameter of cylinders, high pressure 28 inches, low pressure 52 inches by 36 inch stroke. She had two steel boilers of the lobster-back type which were constructed by W. & A. Fletcher Company at Hoboken, New Jersey. Her gross tonnage was 1181, and her net tonnage 822.

The “Homer Ramsdell” was built for the night line between Newburgh and New York, and was launched on February 24, 1887. She was owned by the Homer Ramsdell Transportation Company of Newburgh, and was a large, speedy, first class propellor steamboat of the most modern design. Her speed was rated at 16 miles per hour and she cost $115,000 when she was completed.

Two fast trips recorded in the history of the “Homer Ramsdell,” one on August 21, 1887, and the other on July 28, 1889, (from New York to Newburgh), give a good indication of the speed of the steamboat, when she completed the trip in three hours and nine minutes, and three hours and seven minutes respectively.

One year before the launching of the “Homer Ramsdell,” the Homer Ramsdell Transportation Company had the propeller steamboat “Newburgh” built at Philadelphia. The “Newburgh” was launched at the Quaker city on April 1, 1886, and the steamer “Homer Ramsdell” was constructed as a consort for the “Newburgh” on the New York line. These two vessels plied this route until 1899 when a new company was formed. This new company, the Central Hudson Steamboat Company, was formed out of the former Poughkeepsie Transportation Company and the Romer & Tremper Line of Rondout.

On Sunday evening, May 21, 1911, after 24 years of service on the Hudson river, the steamer “Homer Ramsdell” burned to the water’s edge at her wharf at Newburgh. Michael Boyle, a deckhand, was drowned when he jumped overboard to escape the flames. The fire was caused by the explosion of a lamp, and four of the crew were on board when the fire started. Three escaped to the dock while Boyle remained behind in an endeavor to start the pumps. The deckhand, believing his escape to the dock to be cut off by the fire, leaped overboard and was drowned. The owners of the “Homer Ramsdell” estimated their loss to be $250,000.

The hull of the burned steamboat was rebuilt- part of the wood for the joiner works coming from the steamboat “Central Hudson.” (formerly the “James W. Baldwin”), which had been abandoned. The rebuilt “Homer Ramsdell” made her first trip on December 2, 1911, and continued in the service of the Central Hudson Steamboat Company until May 1929 when the Hudson River Night Line and the Hudson River Dayline jointly purchased the assets of the Central Hudson Steamboat Company at a receiver’s sale. Five steamboats were included in the transaction. These were the “Jacob H. Tremper,” “Homer Ramsdell,” “Newburgh,” “Benjamin B. Odell,” and the “Poughkeepsie.” The “Jacob H. Tremper” was of little use and was broken up at Newburgh in 1929, but the other four vessels were placed in service on the Hudson river.
              
On November 28, 1929, the Nantasket Beach excursion fleet was burned. The destroyed vessels (all sidewheelers) included the “Old Colony,” “Mary Chilton,” “Rose Standish,” “Betty Alden,” and “Nantasket,” and this event marked what is probably the end of the “Homer Ramsdell’s” service on the Hudson river. In the spring of 1930 the “Homer Ramsdell” and the “Newburgh” were sold to the Nantasket Steamboat Company and were converted into excursion steamboats. May 1, 1930, saw the name “Homer Ramsdell” disappear from the bow of the former Hudson river vessel and the name “Alleston” take its place. The “Newburgh" was renamed the “Nantasket” on the same date, and the two vessels were taken east to run from Boston to Nantasket Beach where they are still in service.

During the summer of 1884, Black veterans of the Civil War gathered on piers in Manhattan and what was then the independent city of Brooklyn. The steamboat John Lenox pulled up, towing a barge, and soldiers who served in a battalion named for abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison climbed aboard along with their families. This flotilla steamed through the New York Harbor and up the Hudson River, landing at a spot on the New Jersey banks that was called Excelsior Grove.[1] The veterans could spend the day swimming, hiking towards the Palisades rock formations that towered above, picking pimpernel flowers and wild strawberries, resting in the shade under oak and tulip trees, and listening to music.[2] Chatting with former comrades in arms and practicing military drills, Black soldiers remembered fighting in the battles that ended slavery.[3]

This was one of many “excursions” to give city people without much spare change the chance to escape for a day from their dense and crowded urban neighborhoods. Getting out of the city was more than a matter of relaxation and recreation during this era, when most believed that bad smells were what made them sick.[4] Urban sanitation systems had not caught up with the rising population and rank odors wafted from overflowing outhouses and piles of uncollected garbage that festered in the streets.[5] On the decks of steamboats and in leafy waterfront groves, city people breathed deeply, hoping that the fresh air would fortify their weary bodies. At least sixty-nine lush excursion destinations with cool breezes, refreshing shade, and gorgeous views opened within a forty-nine mile radius of lower Manhattan between 1865 and 1900.

This map shows the approximate locations of excursion groves that I have found.

Everyone who lived in the densest, most impoverished, and least sanitary parts of the city yearned for a change of air and scenery, but excursions were especially meaningful to Black New Yorkers during the tense Reconstruction Era. While people of African descent were working to transform emancipation into an opportunity to finally secure full political and social equality, white neighbors adapted white supremacy for a nation without slavery. In New York, Black people faced harassment by the police, severe economic discrimination, and violence at the polls.[6] Intimidation and threats met them in the city’s parks, where they tried to claim their equal right to public space.[7] “Sable soldiers” were “drilling (in the dark) in one of our public squares,” reported the New York Herald in 1867. It was not safe to display Black “martial glory” in the parks except under the protective cover of nightfall because many white men considered military service to be their exclusive honor.[8] But outside the city in places like Excelsior Grove, soldiers like those who served in the William Lloyd Garrison Post No. 107 could wear their uniforms with pride, in safety. On chartered steamboats and in privately rented groves, Black New Yorkers could enjoy blooming landscapes together, away from the judgmental eyes and clenched white fists that greeted them whenever they went outdoors in the city. Excursions offered Black people the chance to breathe—and not just the fresh air that was scarce in Manhattan.

New Yorkers of African descent were able to access these getaways starting in the 1870s because at least some white owners of steamboats and groves would accommodate any party with money to spend. These entrepreneurs got rich as excursionists bought cheap refreshments and pooled their pennies to rent the leafy grounds and the flotillas that carried them there. Orville Dudley was one of the businessmen whose eagerness for profit outweighed his racism when he decided whether or not to rent his grove in Hastings-on-Hudson to city people of African descent. A Black social club called the Green Horns visited Dudley’s Grove in August of 1870 and the Bethel African Church arrived the following summer. Dudley used the worst racist slur to describe these excursionists in his recordkeeping book. He called one party “a mean lot” and wrote of the other, “rough don't want them again.”[9] But Dudley loved money and Black people from the city had it, so he continued renting the grove to their excursion parties.[10] By the 1880s, Black churches, militia companies, and mutual aid associations visited destinations owned by other entrepreneurs too, like Excelsior and Riverside Groves and Iona Island.[11]

Excursions opened a previously closed window for Black New Yorkers eager to get out of doors and out of the city. During the early nineteenth century, people of African descent were not welcome to join white patrons who gazed at flowers, ate ice cream, and sipped alcohol in the shade at commercial “pleasure gardens” in what was then the outskirts of New York.[12] Black entrepreneurs tried to open their own gardens in the 1820s, but faced racism on top of the usual business risks of bad weather and fire. The police ordered the closure of one of the gardens, while three others lasted for just one summer.[13] Near mid-century, beer gardens began opening in forested spots of upper Manhattan, but German American proprietors kept people of African descent out, decorated the grounds with racist imagery, and hosted offensive minstrel shows, where white actors with darkened skin performed gross stereotypes. By excluding and ridiculing people of African descent, these immigrant entrepreneurs—who themselves faced bias and prejudice in a nativist society—shored up their own access to white privilege.[14] After the turn of the century, amusement parks like Coney Island often had segregated facilities and were full of racist games like “African Dodger” and “Kill the Coon,” which beckoned visitors to throw balls at the heads of employees who were either Black or wearing blackface.[15] But between the eras of commercial gardens and amusement parks, steamboat excursions offered Black New Yorkers a rare chance to escape from the city with safety and dignity.

In green refuges along the Hudson, Black residents of the metropolitan area strengthened social and political ties. New York’s Black community was growing at a rate more than double that of the white population in the 1870s, fueled in part by migrants fleeing white terrorism in the South.[16] But white supremacy shaped northern cities too, so Black New Yorkers who could not count on equal access to goods and services created their own institutions to care for one another, fundraising for these efforts by holding excursions. The Good Samaritan Home Association, for example, financed mutual aid work by selling fifty-cent tickets for an excursion to Dudley’s Grove. Funds raised at this grove also supported the Progressive American, an autonomous Black newspaper that offered a counter voice to the white supremacist media of the time.[17] Excursions for churches, militia companies, and social clubs stopped in New York and Brooklyn, uniting newcomers with longtime residents of both cities to build a metropolitan Black community.[18] Excursions forged connections between people of African descent at an important political turning point. Municipal leaders had rarely considered people of African descent as constituents before the Fourteenth Amendment made Black Americans citizens in 1868 and then the 1870 ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment promised all male citizens the right to vote.[19] Excursions helped consolidate the Black community as unprecedented access to the ballot box presented new opportunities to shape urban politics.

Excursions were further politicized because Black leisure was controversial in a society rooted in slavery. Myths that people of African descent were devious, sneaky, and born to work circulated widely to justify an institution that relied on surveillance, control, and forced labor. During the Reconstruction Era, Black Americans who seized chances to leisure resisted the ideology that had rationalized slavery. By going on excursions, Black residents of New York, Boston, Wilmington, and Washington, D.C. insisted that they were deserving of pleasure, relaxation, comfort, and ease.[20] Whites responded by doubling down on the trope that people of African descent were dangerous when left to their own devices.[21] Along with racist images, stories, and performances, newspaper coverage of excursions made the case against Black leisure.

Black excursions rarely made the news unless something went wrong.[22] Plenty of excursions passed peacefully, but white readers eagerly consumed sensationalized news of violence. The New York Times cast an 1887 Good Samaritan Home excursion as a scene of chaos, where “the razor went flashing through the air, the beer mug rose on high, a cane whirred overhead, and then the blood flowed.”[23] A score of other papers published their own accounts of the damage wrought by these “Implements of War” as the steamboat chugged away from Dudley’s Grove, back towards the city.[24] But this “riot lasted” for only ten minutes, admitted the Times, while the Tribune called the event “almost a riot,” rather than a full blown rebellion.[25] Newspapers exaggerated scuffles on excursions for white readers ready to believe that people of African descent had violent tendencies.[26] As Black excursionists left urban hardships behind, racist ideology followed in their wake.

Despite biased coverage, excursions offered Black residents of the metropolitan area some respite from the intense racism that they experienced in daily life. Boarding steamboats with members of their growing community, excursionists traded provocations by white neighbors and harassment by the police on dusty and filthy urban streets for verdant views, salty breezes, and the dignity of autonomous Black spaces. Excursions posed a stark contrast to Manhattan, both in terms of environment and atmosphere. For Black people navigating white supremacy in a dense, polluted, and divided city, the Hudson River was a pathway towards relief that was all too brief.

Editor's Note: These articles are from 1801 and 1824. 

 November 16, 1801 -  Daily Advertiser (New York, New York),
 On Saturday night last, about 11 o'clock, Mr. Robert Richardson, a gentleman we understand from New Ark [sic], was leaning over the railing of the Battery, and fell into the North River.  About two hours after, he was taken up off the White-hall dock by the people on board the sloop Mink from Albany -- who accidentally heard his cries, and who preserved him, when exhausted and powerless, he was beginning to sink amidst the pitiless waves.

 June 4, 1824 -  Spectator (New York, New York)
                                             WONDERFUL PRESERVATION.
On Friday last, a lad, son of Mr. Frederick Hazen, of West Springfield, Mass. while on a passage from New-York to Albany, was accidentally knocked overboard by the jib while beating.  The wind blowing heavy and the waves running high, it was thought by all on board that all attempts to save him would be fruitless, as well as extremely hazardous.  The small boat being at the time hoisted under the stern of the sloop, a young man by the name of Richard Schuyler, son of Capt. Samuel Schuyler, of the sloop, sprang into the boat at the risk of his life, was lowered down, and alone and single handed, gallantly dashed through the waves, and to the astonishment of the amazed spectators rescued the lad from a watery tomb, just as he was about sinking to rise no more.  Such an act as this reflects the highest honor on the noble minded young man who periled his own life to save that of a fellow being, and a stranger.

Editor's Note: These articles are from 1749 to 1817. ​See more Sunday News here.

August 14, 1749 -  New York Evening Post
New York. Last Tuesday evening a young man of about 19 years of age, apprentice to a baker in this city, went to bed in an upper room, being intoxicated, got up in the night, opened a door which was in the second story and fell down into a gang-way, where he lay till four o’clock in the morning, at which time the people of the house arose to work, and finding him there, took him up; but he died a few minuets after.

Last week, one Mr. Knox, Master of a small sloop send up the North-River, and coming near the Highlands, two men came on board him in a canoe and asked Mr. Knox for a dram, which he readily gave them; and after taking a turn or two upon deck, each of them drew forth a postol, which they had conceal’d, and coming up to Mr. Knox demanded his money, he told them that he had none, whereupon they forc’d him down into the fore-castle, one of them went into the cabbin, broke open his chest but finding no money took a bottle of rum and so went off leaving Mr. Knox barr’d down in the fore-castle, where he remained till his Negro, whom they had confin’d upon deck, released him.
 
We also hear that a sloop belonging to Capt. Bayard, was robb’d at or near the same place of nine pound in money which was all they had on board.
 
We hear that a person was lately robbed on the road near Whippany, of about twenty sillings, by two fellows who search’d the linings of his cloaths, hat and even shoes to see if he had none conceal’d.

August 22, 1797 Albany Centinel
 On Tuesday night last, about 12 o'clock, was detected at Corporation dock a
gang of villains, belonging to the sloop Fanny, of Crow harbour, last from
Albany, in the very act of stealing from the brig Farmer, Captain Whittemore,
four boxes of Sugar, together with a boat belonging to the said brig.  There was
found on board the sloop in the morning a quantity of hats, &c. stolen from Mr.
Mayell on the night of the fourteenth instant; a quantity of cordage stolen
about three weeks since from Mr. Elderkin's store, and a number of books and
papers which by their contents belong to Mr. Foote of Newburgh.  Four of
the above gang are now in custody, one of whom has been only two days out of
goal, after confinement of six months.  The captain, Alpheus Vincent, alias
Wilson, is not yet taken. [Vincent is safely lodged in jail in Albany.]

October 1, 1817 - National Advocate (New York, New York)
NOTICE. -- The sloop YOUNG FOX, belonging to the subscriber, was taken in a clandestine manner by persons unknown, from Delafield's wharf Whitehall, on the night of the 21st instant.  Said sloop was burthen 73 tons, yellow sides, no figure head, &c.  Whoever will return said sloop, or give information so that she can be recovered, shall be suitably rewarded, on application to GEO. COGGESHALL, at Irving, Smith & Holly's, 133 Pearl-st.

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Belledoni’s Latest Fad. New York Girls Now Make Trips In Canoes and Become Heroines.
Special Correspondence of The Post.
New York, June 3. – The canoe threatens to become femininely  fashionable. A woman and a canoe – the two ought to go well together, for ever since there were women and canoes they have both had the reputation of being cranky.

“The fact of the matter is, the canoe has been slandered,” said a belle, in talking about canoing for women, “until it has got the reputation of being unsafe. That is what makes it popular among the more dashing of our girls.” She and her brother have made the trip up the Hudson to Albany and back, camping out on the way, and otherwise taking advantage of all the opportunities for roughing it.

“What did you wear? And what did you do with your clothes?” I asked. “You surely didn’t take  Sunday bonnet along.”

“I wore a blue flannel dress made all in one piece, with a blouse waist, no drapery, the skirt reaching to the tops of a pair of extra high boots. It weighed a pound and a half. I wore a sailor hat and carried a light jacket, to be ready for changes of weather. Our canoe is rather small to be used as a tandem – it measures fourteen feet by thirty inches – so that one could not have taken much luggage if we had wished. All that we carried weighed only about thirty pounds, and of this our photographic materials, plates, camera, etc., weighed between fifteen and twenty pounds.”

“What did you do at night, sleep on the ground and cover with your canoe, or go to a hotel?”

“We started with the intention of camping out every night, but camping places between here and Albany are not numerous and we sometimes had to stop at a hotel. But we did camp out about two-thirds of the time. We carried a small tent – made of sheeting, so that it would be of less weight than one of canvas – a blanket apiece and a rubber blanket to spread on the ground. We had a tin pail apiece, and a tin cup, tin plate and a knife each, and a few other primitive and strictly necessary articles. Then we carried a few canned meats, but not much in that line, as we expected to be able to buy most of what we would want at our camping places. In that we were sometimes badly disappointed. One evening we camped near Esopus, tired and hungry after paddling all day, and walked over the hill to the country store to find something to eat. But all that was to be had was a loaf of baker’s bread and a bundle of wilted beets. On another occasion all that we could get was some bread and milk and green plums. But usually we fared reasonably well. Then the numerous ice houses along the Hudson and the ice barges constantly going up and down made it easy to keep a tin pail full of ice chips, which seemed quite a luxury.”

“You did not feel afraid tossing about in all that wind and water in such a tiny shell of a boat?”

“Not in the least. I knew the canoe, and I felt just as safe there as I would on dry land. If the persons in a canoe know how to handle it and are reasonably prudent in their actions there is absolutely no danger. If they only sit still in the bottom of the boat they can’t overturn it if they try. One day we went aboard a brick barge, and the astonishment the men who ran the big, clumsy thing showed over our tiny craft was quite amusing. They considered us miracles, of course, because we were willing to go on the water in such a cockle shell and were absolutely sure that we would be upset in less than half an hour. And as for me, they could hardly believe the evidence of their eyes that I had been aboard the canoe, and nothing could have convinced them that there was another woman on the face of the earth who would dare venture in on the water.”
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So the belle in a canoe is something of a proud heroine. – Clara Belle