HENDRICK HUDSON TO MAKE INAUGURAL TRIP MONDAY. FLOATING PALACE WITH ROOM FOR 5,000 PERSONS. SHE IS THE FINEST RIVER BOAT IN THE WORLD.
On August 20 the new steamer Hendrick Hudson will make her inaugural run up the Hudson river to Albany.
           
It was on August 17, 1807, that Robert Fulton began the memorable trip to Albany in his little steamboat Clermont, and now, ninety nine years later, almost to a day. the most wondrous of river steamers built since that time will begin trips over the same route. The Clermont went up the river on the l7th and returned on the 21st of August.  The Hendrick Hudson will not make her maiden run to Albany until August 20, but she will return on the ninety-ninth anniversary of the completion of the Clermont's voyage.
           
The Hendrick Hudson is the property of the Hudson River Day Line, and has been built to ply on the route between New York and Albany.  The designer of the new boat was Frank E. Kirby, the most celebrated naval architect in America to-day, assisted by J. W. Millard, designer of the new Staten Island ferryboats and other successful modern craft.  The interior plans such as grand stairways, decorations of the various rooms, etc. , are the work of Louis O. Kiel of Detroit.  The general contractors for the building of the vessel were the W. & A. Fletcher company, Hoboken. N. J., and the builders of the machinery stand at the head of their profession in America, having been identified with all the more important passenger steamers built in this port during the past half century.  This firm entrusted the construction of the hull to the T. S. Marvel Ship Building company of Newburgh. N. Y., and the boilers were built by the New York Ship Building company of Camden, N. J., warship builders, etc.  The joinery and fine cabinet work was done by John Englis & Son, Greenpoint; the carpets throughout the vessel especially made by John Wanamaker, and the electric light fixtures, entirely original, as well as the great stained glass dome on the hurricane deck, executed by the Tiffany studios, New York city.  In round numbers, the Hendrick Hudson represents an outlay of nearly $1,000,000.
            
There is ample room aboard this modern pleasure craft for 5.000 persons, and all may be sheltered from sun or rain without crowding or discomfort.
           
The Hendrick Hudson is 400 feet long, 82 feet broad over the widest part, and 14 feet 4 inches depth of hold.  The draft of water is 7 minutes 6 second feet. [sic]  There are no less than six decks, beginning at the lower deck, and every part is stiffened and held together by a rigid framework of steel, making her the staunchest craft of her character ever built With a wonderful system of hydrants and fire hose, she comes as near being fireproof as a vessel well could be.
           
The main deck, usually given ever to freight on other passenger steamers, is white and smooth like that of a yacht, with runners of the softest carpets laid in all directions, and the walls from end to end of beautifully polished hardwoods.  The ponderous machinery — its like never before seen on a Hudson river steamboat — is open to view, a row of plate glass windows giving the spectator a clear and comprehensive idea of its working.
           
The hold of the Hendrick Hudson is lighted throughout by many large port holes, an original feature being the placing of port holes of extra width — of a size which will enable a person to climb through in case of an emergency — at frequent intervals from bow to stem. One of the unique apartments of the vessel is the lunch room, located in the hold forward, reached by wide stairs from the main deck, the stairs being placed directly under the band stand. This room, which extends the width of the ship, is thoroughly modern in style and finish.
           
The barber shop is located on the lower deck, and attached to it is a public bath, a new feature for steamboats operating on day routes.
           
A photographer's dark room is a novel idea to be found only on this boat.
           
The emergency hospital, with doctor in attendance, is located on the main deck.
           
Aft, across the bulkhead that faces the entrance to the main dining room, is a beautiful mural painting, showing the great capitol building at Albany.  The paddlewheel shafts are placed below the deck, so there is no occasion to stoop when passing this particular point, a disagreeable feature of most paddle steamers. The wheels arc of the feathering type, and send the mammoth craft along at the highest rate of speed with the minimum amount of vibration.
           
The dining room is one of the pleasantest and most inviting apartments on the boat, as it well should be.  The deck is nine feet high, and the room is surrounded almost entirely by plate glass, the narrow pilasters between each window, merely as a dividing line, making the room appear like a glass enclosed veranda.
           
​The great kitchen is a unique establishment and would be the wonder and admiration of a New England house wife.  The steel ranges extend from one side of the craft to the other.  Two enormous refrigerators hold the perishable stuff, such as meats, dairy products, fruit, etc., and a special box is provided for fish and one for lobsters. ​

"Crazy Uncle Gail's" Idea and What Came of lt. - Northern Star (Lismore, New South Wales, Australia), June 10, 1893. 
           
About forty years ago Gail Borden, a civil engineer of New England ancestry, conceived the idea that milk could be boiled down in a vacuum till from the liquid condition it became substantially solid, and in that state, preserved by means of another Yankee invention -- the sealed tin can -- it could be kept for any length of time.  Mr. Borden had lived much in the south, particularly in Texas, and he had seen the great need of such an article as his invention would produce if his idea was practicable.  He began experimenting on this and other ideas that teemed in his overflowing brain.
           
Eighteen years he experimented with the milk condensing.  He made a success of the condensation, but he could not make it a financial success.  He spent all the money he got on his new ideas, for there were so many of them.  People who knew him, especially the neighbors, made merry over the milk condensing notion.  They would have believed a.man conld take wings and fly to heaven bodily as easily as he could condense milk and ship it all over the world.  The man who would think of such a thing was nothing less than off his head. So they called him "crazy Uncle Gail," these kind neighbors.
           
But Uncle Gail had a son, John G.  No man except perhaps Edison is at once inventor and financier.  Gail Borden had to wait till his son John was grown before the milk condensing became a financial success.  Gail was an inventor, and Providence kindly sent him a son who was a financier, the only trouble being that Uncle Gail had to wait eighteen years till the son was old enough to take hold of the financial end of the business. Then it became one of the greatest successes on record.
           
The elder Borden waited patiently and hopefully. At last, when it began to look as if the enterprise would be a go, Uncle Gail said one day, "If I thought the condensery would ever consume as much as 5,000 quarts of milk a day, I should be satisfied and happy."
           
Well, there are now six great Borden milk condensing plants in various parts
of the country.  Two of them are in Illinois.  Not long since 1 visited one of the New York factories.  It was not one of the largest, yet it alone consumes 33,000 quarts of milk a day, manufacturing daily 10,000 pounds of the finished product. What the whole six factories consume may be calculated from this.  The condensed milk goes all over the earth.  Peary took it to the north pole with him.  Explorers flavor their coffee with it under the equator in Africa.  Best of all, "Crazy Uncle Gail" lived to see the enterprise he had set his heart on assume almost its present colossal proportions: then he rested from his labors with the sweet consciousness that he had helped mankind.
           
Visitors are allowed in every part of the Borden condenseries.  The tall and good looking superintendent of the one I visited in Wallkill valley, Mr. Smith, himself conducted me through the departments of the factory and gave me every facility for obtaining information.  The milk, with granulated sugar stirred into it, is boiled down in vacuum in great shining copper tanks.  I am proud that the invention belongs to America.
           
The first thought of one visiting the condensery is that no one need ever be afraid to use condensed milk.  The factory is absolutely the cleanest place I ever saw. The floor of the machine shop where the cans are made is scrubbed every Saturday; ditto the engine room.  Gail Bordon, of blessed memory, had a sort of craze for cleanliness, a beneficent craze which his son held after him.  The firm make their own tin cans at the factory, and you will be surprised to know that girl machinists do the work.  They are cleaner and more deft with their fingers than boys would be, and making the little cans requires neatness and precision. They make excellent wages, I was told.
           
At various conspicuous places this sign in big letters meets your eye: "No Smoking. Spitting on Floor Is Prohibited.  Read the Other Side."  When you turn
it over the other side says exactly the same thing. lt requires nearly five pounds of milk in the natural state to make one pound of the condensed product.
           
The condensery has its own set of milk farmers, who deliver the year round.  They must obey strictly certain rules laid down by the firm.  One of these is that no ensilage shall be used.  They say they cannot use ensilage milk for making the condensed product.  They declare further that feeding cows on ensilage through the season is much the same as feeding people on sauerkraut all the year.  The superintendent of the factory said he had put his hand into some of what was called prime ensilage.  He found it hot and fermenting.  If his statement will add any new fury to the ensilage war 1 shall be glad.  I have no cows and no opinion, and am not in the fight.
           
The farmers furnish their own cans.  The exquisite cleanliness that pervades the factory must extend also to the farms that supply milk to it.  The farmers are expected to keep the outside of the cans clean, but the inside is cleansed at the factory itself.  That is a task the condensers require to be performed under their own eyes.  The milk is strained a second time after it comes to the factory, and is likewise passed through an aerating machine.  

Every can of milk that comes in is inspected separately.  The inspector from the condensery visits constantly the cow stables on the farms to see that they are kept free from filth and odors.  The farmers average about twenty-five cows apiece.  No stagnant water, no dead animals must be allowed on the place.  The barnyards must be kept clean.
Written by Eliza Archard Conner, June 10, 1893

From the Queanbeyan Observer (New South Wales, Australia) December 1, 1896.
           
Not less than 100,000 gallons of milk daily are consumed in New York city, Brooklyn and the smaller cities that all together come under the head of what we call greater New York.  From Newburg, sixty miles up the Hudson, a milk boat carries 10,000 gallons daily to the city. Much of New York's milk supply comes from Orange, Sullivan, Ulster and Dutchess counties.

The book American Husbandry. Containing an ACCOUNT of the SOIL, CLIMATE, PRODUCTION, and AGRICULTURE, of the BRITISH COLONIES in NORTH AMERICA and the WEST-INDIES; with Observations on the Advantages and Disadvantages of settling in them, compared with GREAT BRITAIN and IRELAND was published in Britain in 1775, and written, anonymously, "by an American." It is a fascinating little piece - an attempt to convince Britons of the superiority of American soil, beauty, and even the Hudson River, to that of England.  

The chapter begins with a discussion of climate and the various types of soils suitable (or not) for agriculture, often comparing New York to New England, which perhaps was more familiar to Britons at the time.

But of course, the thing that caught our eye the most, was the description of the Hudson River: 

"They sow their wheat in autumn, with better success than in spring: this custom they pursue even about Albany, in the northern parts of the province, where the winters are very severe. The ice there in the river Hudson is commonly three or four feet thick. When professor Kalm [Peter or Pehr Kalm, who visited in 1747] was here, the inhabitants of Albany crossed it the third of April with six pair of horses. The ice commonly dissolves at that place about the end of March, or the beginning of April. On the 16th of November the yachts are put up, and about the beginning or middle of April they are in motion again." 

The chapter ends with a discussion of New York's agriculture, which grains were commonly planted where, the role of beer and hard "cyder" in everyday life, and all the possible agricultural goods and raw materials that could be exported. ​

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Editor's Note: This article from the July 20, 1767 issue of the New York Mercury newspaper gives an indication of what it was like to stock up on supplies when sloops sailed on the Hudson River in the 1760s. See more Sunday News here.

The Subscriber, a Boatman, who trades from Westchester to New-York, once or Twice a Week, having for some time past been employ’d by severals, to buy and sell country produce, has it in his power to supply, and bring to New-York, for all such as shall employ him, (on a short notice, for shipping or home use, any sort of country produce, according to the season of the year, as sheep, hogs, all kinds of poultry, butter, cheese, gammons, apples, cyder, flaxseed, & c. he intending to follow the business: All persons who shall favour him with their commands, may depend on being served according to bargain made, with integrity and dispatch: He may be spoke with at Adolph Waldron’s, near the ferry stairs, or at Captain Giles’s, near the North-River, or on a line being left at either places, he will attend them where they shall direct for him to call upon them who please to employ him. Moses Watman.