Editor's Note: Article text is from a former museum exhibit at Hudson River Maritime Museum.

The Launching of Hendrick Hudson March 31, 1906 was a festive day in Newburgh. That morning, that shipbuilding city would witness the launching of the magnificent steamer Hendrick Hudson for the Hudson River Day Line. At the T.S. Marvel Shipbuilding Company's yard, the new flagship of the Day Line would make her initial plunge into the waters of the Hudson at eleven o'clock.

She was the line's flagship for only seven years, relinquishing it in 1913 to the slightly larger Washington Irving, but she regained her title and her former position of eminence in 1926 after the unfortunate sinking of Washington Irving in New York harbor.

Little Katharine Olcott, the daughter of the line's owner, performed the duties of the sponsor admirably when she smashed a bottle of Catskill Mountain water on the stem as she said, "I christen thee Hendrick Hudson."

White carrier pigeons were released from the vessel's deck as she moved down the ways. At that moment, the sun broke through the cloudy skies, the whistles of the vessels assembled at Newburgh that day were blown in a cacophonous chorus, and a cannon on the deck of the Day Liner New York was fired in salute.

A few moments later, the massive hull was afloat and in the charge of Cornell's  tug Hercules. It was indeed a day that Newburgh would long remember.

T. S. Marvel said, "I always use champagne…"

When Hendrick Hudson was built, the Hudson River Day Line did not serve alcohol aboard the vessels. The family of Eben E. Olcott, the line's owner, was strictly teetotal – particularly Mrs. Olcott. He proposed to christen his new steamer with water from the Catskill Mountains, and a bottle of this clear, shimmering liquid, gaily decorated with ribbons in the usual style, was handed to the sponsor, little Katherine Olcott, with her father looking on admiringly.

Thomas S. Marvel, the builder, absolutely refused to launch a vessel without the traditional champagne christening. He complied with Olcott's wishes – or so it seemed from the launching platform – but sent one of the shipyard men up to a saloon on South Water Street for a bottle of bubbly. The man soon returned from his mission.

With bottle in hand and well out of sight of Olcott, Thomas Marvel stationed himself near the aft end of the vessel, and when she began to move (and Katherine had christened her with the Catskill water), he smashed the bottle of champagne on her hull plates and quickly moved to safer ground.

​Hendrick Hudson was well and truly christened. The Olcotts never knew.

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. ​

“Here is a home-boat that more of the local residents will remember, and I think that she was one of the finest boats ever to appear on the Hudson river,” said Mr. Murdock, commenting on the “Thomas Cornell,” which sailed regularly out of the Rondout creek.
           
The “Thomas Cornell” was a wooden hull steamboat built in 1863 by E.S. Whitlock at Brooklyn. Her engine was constructed by the Morgan Iron Works at New York in 1852 and came from the lake steamboat “Southern Michigan.” She was 310 feet long, breadth of beam 34 feet, depth of hold 10 feet, gross tonnage 1,256, and powered with a vertical beam engine with a cylinder diameter of 72 inches and a 12 foot stroke.
           
She was built for Thomas Cornell of Rondout to take the place of the steamboat “Manhattan,” and as a companion vessel for the “James W. Baldwin,” running on the Rondout-New York night line. The “Thomas Cornell” was a steamboat of superior construction and was a fitting monument to the man whose name she bore. In addition to being strengthened by heavy hog-frames, the “Thomas Cornell” was a model of real beauty, complete in all of her fittings, luxurious in her passenger accommodations, plenty of room for carrying large freight cargoes, and possessing great speed. Her fastest trip was made in the summer of 1870, when she left New York at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, made her regular landings, and arrived at her berth in the Rondout creek at 8:50 p.m.
           
The “Thomas Cornell” went into service in the summer of 1863 and continued on the Rondout-New York route until 1882, when she was wrecked.
           
On March 27, 1882, she left Rondout on her regular schedule to New York, pulling away from the dock at 6 o’clock heavily loaded with freight and passengers. The weather was hazy and a drizzling rain was falling. At 8 o’clock when the “Thomas Cornell” was 10 miles below Poughkeepsie, a heavy fog settled over the river. Pilot Henry Briggs was at the wheel when suddenly, while proceeding at half speed, the great hull of the magnificent vessel crashed upon the rocks at Danskammer Point, about opposite New Hamburgh, where there was 30 to 40 feet of water at the stern. She immediately sank at the stern with her bow lodged high and dry on the rocks. The passengers climbed over the bow of the boat to the shore, where in the midst of a swamp, they built fires and huddled about them until the Poughkeepsie steamer “John L. Hasbrouck” came to their relief and took them off. No lives were lost, but the “Thomas Cornell’s” hog-frame was broken and she was so badly strained that she was abandoned.
           
​The wrecked hull was finally released and taken to Rondout, where her boilers and engine were removed. The hull was then sold, cut in two parts, and converted into two coal barges for Long Island Sound traffic. The engine was transported to Port Ewen, where a shanty was built over it, but it was never used and was finally scrapped.

THE VAMOOSE DISABLED. Her intermediate Valve Post Bridges Broken in Six Pieces.
The Vamoose left her pier in New London at 11:15 o'clock yesterday morning and backed slowly out into the stream. As she turned and began to get under way, she was saluted by all of the steam and sailing craft in the harbor. The new Gardiner schooner Alcæa which arrived in the harbor on Sunday saluted with her cannon and the boys on the school ship Constellation cheered her as she passed by. In a few moments she passed the New London light and started down the Sound at a sixteen-mile an hour gait under 125 pounds of steam.

Papers were thrown on the Bartlett Reef lightship from the Vamoose as she passed, and then every one settled down expecting to reach New York at 5 o'clock. In this they were disappointed, for about 4 o'clock, when off Eaton's Neck light, on the Long Island shore, there was a heavy jar, and the engines suddenly stopped. At first it was thought her propeller had struck a sunken log, but it was soon apparent that the trouble was in the engine room.

Investigation showed that the bridges of her intermediate valve post were broken in six pieces and that it would take nearly three hours to disconnect it from the other cylinders. Several sharp blasts were sounded on the whistle for assistance, and soon the steam oyster boat I. M. Mersereau of New York came alongside and offered to tow her in to Wilson's Point, near the Norwalk Islands.

The towing process proved very slow work, and it was nearly 6:30 o'clock when the Vamoose was finally brought up alongside of the Long Island and Housatonic Railroad Companies' dock at Wilson Point. The Captain of the Mersereau declined to take pay for his services, and said that he might be in trouble some time himself.

The accident to the Vamoose may necessitate a new cylinder, if so, it will be a long and expensive job, at any rate it is certain that she will do no racing for some time to come.

MR. MUNRO INDIGNANT AND THE VAMOOSE PEOPLE DISGUSTED.
Norman L. Munro, owner of the steam yacht Norwood, was a very much disgusted man yesterday. He was also considerably incensed and indignant. The cause of his irritation was threefold. He was surprised and displeased at the action of Capt. Hall, Secretary of the American Yacht Club, in declaring the race between the Norwood and the Vamoose off; he was disgusted at what he considers the determination of the Vamoose people to stand him off or shake him off and avoid a race with the Norwood, and he was indignant at the treatment the Norwood has received throughout the whole business of trying to got a tilt with the Vamoose.

He declared early yesterday morning that the Norwood would start at noon and go over the course alone if the Vamoose was not on hand to make a race. The agreement being to have the race the next day if the first attempt failed. But he was informed that the water was too rough even for the Vamoose to venture out, and so he was compelled to abandon this intention. What made him particularly indignant was that Capt. Hall should declare the race between the rivals off without giving any reason for so doing, because Mr. Munro believed there was very excellent reason, and that was that the Vamoose was not in condition to race and was on her way yesterday afternoon for New York for repairs.

On Sunday morning Mr. Munro received the following letter from his representative on the Norwood, which he thinks throws a great deal of much needed light on the matter:

NEW LONDON, Saturday, June 18, 1892. Mr. N. L. Munro,
Dear Sir: The Vamoose met with two accidents Friday evening. See clippings from Saturday's New London Telegraph.

They now have two pieces of timber about four feet long. 3 by 6, one piece on each side of the guard or gunnel at the bow of the boat, secured on with a clamp that lays over the deck, and another fastened halfway down from there to the water line.

Her stern was completely spit down to the water line after she struck the Stonington dock.
People here look on it with suspicion, and say as much as if it was intentionally done. It certainly looks strange that they should run into both docks. Yours truly, GEO. JOHNSTON.

The two accidents to the Vamoose mentioned the letter are told in detail as follows: It was on her return from a trip in the Sound on Friday afternoon that the accidents occurred. In an endeavor to lay up at the new railroad wharf, the Vamoose went head on against one of the spiles and split the spile clear to the water as cleanly as if done with a wedge. The stern of the Vamoose was seemingly uninjured by the collision, and she backed into the river and was headed for the Stonington wharf.

In endeavoring to make that wharf, there was another miscalculation, and her nose was run clean into the wharf with such force as to tear the screws out and break the iron head-piece that held the flagstaff, and split her stern down to the water line in two places. It was said by onlookers that the people aboard the Vamoose took the matter very coolly, just as though such collisions were an ordinary occurrence.

“This accident to the Vamoose," said Mr. Munro, “apparently explains the reason for the telegram of Capt. Hall declaring the Norwood-Vamoose race off. The accident seems to have been overlooked."

Mr. Munro intimated that he would have been surprised if the Vamoose had been able to race Saturday after the damage she received, and, being in the patched condition described by his agent, Mr. Johnston. She was able to get outside, but it would have been a remarkable thing if she could have made racing speed after she got there. But it was altogether too rough for the Norwood, an open launch, to go outside, and one of the stipulations of the race was that it was to be in fair weather and smooth water. 

“It is strange,” continued Mr. Munro, “that Capt. Hall should declare the race off without giving any reason for doing so. Such action I think very unsportsmanlike. There has been trouble before about cups offered by the American Yacht Club. There was trouble about the cup offered by the club for a race between the Atlanta and the Stiletto, and also about the race between Jay Gould’s launch, the Surprise, and my launch, the Henrietta."

“The Norwood is the fastest boat in the world, and is ready to prove it at any time under proper conditions. We will race the Vamoose at any place where we can get smooth water. Why couldn't they change the course at New London, as was suggested, to points that would ensure smooth water? A course could be laid out at New London where we could get smooth water five days out of seven, but at Race Rock it would be hard to find water one day in seven in which the open launch Norwood could live. We want to race the Vamoose, but it would seem that the Vamoose is very anxious not to race us. The Norwood will race any steamboat in America, of any kind or description, from one mile to eighty knots [sic], through smooth water. We will race for five cents or $20,000, and if the Norwood is beaten, the victors are welcome to take her. I don't think the Norwood is getting a square deal, and I want to say that when she does, she can beat anything afloat.”

The Norwood will give an exhibition of what she can do on a spurt on the day of the Yale-Harvard race. She is also going to beat the record of the Spanish torpedo boat, the Arrow, which now holds the record of having made the fastest time of anything afloat.

“If this is an attempt to shake me off and avoid a trial with the Norwood, and that is the way it looks to me, it will be a failure.” concluded Mr. Munro.

To say that the Vamoose people are angry and indignant would be putting it mildly, as a more disgusted lot of men could not have been found in New London when they received Mr. Hall's very brief telegram announcing that the race was off for the present. Engineer Heilbrun, who has charge of the yacht in Mr. Hearst's absence, said:

"We were ready and willing to race. I supposed that the race was to take place on the next clear day, or when we could get smooth water. Instead of that, the only representative of the American Yacht Club at New London left on the 1 o'clock train, when, if he had waited, he could have started the boats at 2 o'clock when there was smooth water. Or else he could have telegraphed the American Yacht Club and have asked authority to alter the course to this side of Race Rock, where the water was smooth. Mr. Munro's representative said that he was willing to have the course altered, and so was I, though it conceded an advantage to the Norwood. I did this so as to get a race at all hazards, and have it over, as I was sick and tired of waiting. I received no word from the American Yacht Club until 8:30 P. M. on Sunday evening, or over thirty hours after Mr. Wilkie left. I telegraphed to Mr. Hearst's representative in New York and he said, ‘Go Home' and for home I've started. In conclusion, there is one thing I would like to say, and that is that the public know that the Vamoose has been on hand every time, and it is not her fault that there was no race."
​
Capt. George W. Hall, Chairman of the Regatta Committee of the American Yacht Club, said it was proposed to have the race decided on July 2. The tide that day would be favorable to the yachts and help them on their journey. It would not do, he said, to race against a head tide, and the chances of having smooth water in July would be very good. Then the start will be made west of Race Rock, instead of four miles east of the rock. This will make the course about seventy-five miles instead of eighty, but the yachts will start in smooth water.

GOOD PROSPECT FOR A RACE STEAM PLEASURE BOATS LIKELY TO COMPETE NEXT SATURDAY. THE AMERICAN YACHT CLUB’S OFFER OF A PRIZE HAS AWAKENED GREAT INTEREST — FACTS ABOUT SOME OF THE POSSIBLE CONTESTANTS.

By this time next week, it will in all probability be settled which is the faster boat — the Norwood or the Vamoose. If the proposition of the American Yacht Club to get up a race of two or more very fast steam pleasure boats is accepted, and it really looks now as if it will be, the trial of speed will take place on the Sound next Saturday, unless a later day is agreed on by all the parties in interest. It seems doubtful at this writing if the Government boats Cushing and Stiletto will be allowed to compete, and if they are not in it, the race will unquestionably lose some of the interest it would otherwise awaken. But, although Acting Secretary Ramsay of the navy has already given an apparently positive denial, there is yet a possibility that Secretary Tracy will exercise his unquestionable prerogative and allow the boats to participate.

Anyhow, even without the Government boats, the race will be an exceedingly interesting event. Besides the Vamoose and Norwood, there is a certainty that the Yankee Doodle, formerly the Buzz, will be a starter, and a possibility that the Now Then and the Javelin will also be on hand. The Yankee Doodle has a record of a mile in 2:34, and it is claimed that she has since been improved. Whatever this claim may be worth, it is evident that her owners think that she has a very good chance to win or they would not have entered her.

Of the Javelin nothing is known concerning her speed, except to her owner and builders. Owing, possibly, to the fact that she has had no public trial, an impression has gone abroad that she is not a success, but that may be unwarranted, and it should be borne in mind that she is an even later production of the Herreshoffs than the Vamoose, for, although sent away from the yards sooner, she was not begun or launched until later than the other. The Now Then, it will be remembered, beat all of the Sandy Hook boats with ease in the Summer of 1887. It is not generally known, however, that under actual tests she made 23.002 statute miles per hour.

Notwithstanding the improbability that the Government boats will be allowed to race, a word should be said about them in this connection. The Cushing is not only larger, but more powerful, than any of the boats to which the race is open. She is also the only one of the boats that has twin screws. She is 137 feet long and 15 feet beam. Her machinery consists of two quadruple expansion engines of 800 horse power each. On a Government test at Bristol, R. I., made March 24, 1890, she ran 22.52 knots per hour [sic] for three consecutive hours. Since her acceptance by the Government she has developed a speed of 24.10 knots, something more than 28 statute miles hour, in short distance trials. This is a little more than three miles per hour less than the best torpedo boat record on the other side of the Atlantic.

The Stiletto is a much smaller boat than the Cushing, being only about 100 feet long and of much less displacement. Taking these circumstances into consideration, she is proportionally much faster, though her absolute speed is less. Her best performance was a short distance run at the rate of 23.195 knots, or 26.709 statute miles per hour. In the three-hour trial under Government tests she made 59 nautical miles, or an average of 19 3/4 knots — 22.646 statute miles per hour. As she is only a single screw boat, with estimated horse power of 380, she compares very favorably with the Cushing.

If any accurate test of what the Vamoose can do has ever been made, the figures have not been given out. Her performance with the Mary Powell does not go for very much, for the Stiletto did practically the same six years ago, and yet it has been shown the best she can do is something under 27 miles per hour. From what is given below concerning the speed of the Norwood, it will be seen that the Vamoose must be able to do much better than 27 miles in order to win the coming race. That is, of course, on the presumption that the Norwood figures are accurate.

In a trial on the Merrimac[k] River, July 8, 1890, the Norwood made 30 miles per hour for two consecutive hours, and one mile in 1:58. C. D. Mosher, her builder, has a certificate to the accuracy of these figures from several competent  engineers and machinists. If she can develop that speed in the coming race and maintain it throughout, she will in all probability win.

But, to say the least, it is doubtful if she can. There are several things that may interfere, but the chief difficulty in a boat of her size is to carry coal enough for so long a run as 80 knots. Mr. Mosher, however, says that she make the race with a ton and half of coal, if the right kind be selected, and she carry that much, although it will load her down considerably and thus hamper her at the start. As she gets rid of the superfluous weight, however, he thinks she will make a revelation for her adversaries.

The Norwood is in reality a little bit of a thing. Those who remember the Henrietta, the steam launch built for Mr. Munro by the Herreshoffs in 1886, which was really the pioneer of the type, will have a very good idea of Norwood's appearance if they picture finer and less beam in proportion to length. The Norwood is only 60 feet on the water line and 63 feet 2 inches overall. Her greatest beam is 7 feet 2 inches and her greatest draught 22 inches. She has one triple-expansion engine, with three cylinders of 9, 14 1/2, and 22 inches diameter, respectively, and 9 inches stroke. This engine, which is of Mr. Mosher’s own design, is a marvel of strength and beauty, and is capable of giving the wheel 500 revolutions per minute. The boiler, which is also of his own construction, is capable of developing 550 horse power.

The Vamoose is 108 feet long on the waterline and 112 feet 6 inches over all. Her beam is 12 feet 4 inches and her draught is 4 feet 11 inches. She has a Thornycroft boiler of the Herreshoff make, capable of giving 800 horse power. The engine is a Herreshoff quadruple expansion, and a counterpart of those in the Cushing. It has five cylinders, one of 11-14 [sic, 11 1/4?], one of 16, and two of 22 1/2  inches in diameter, with 15 inches stroke. It can turn the wheel at rate of 410 revolutions to the minute. The Vamoose will be docked at Tebo’s basin on Tuesday to receive her new Zeise [sic] wheel. Her colors in the coming race will be old gold and black. 

A COMING RACE. THE YACHTS NORWOOD AND VAMOOSE LIKELY TO MEET.
In a very few days, arrangements will be completed for a test of speed between Norman L Munro’s steam yacht Norwood and Mr. Hearst’s Vamoose. Since the Vamoose crossed the bow of the Monmouth on Saturday last in a race down the upper bay with the Sandy Hook steamer, Mr. Munro has been anxious for a match between the two yachts, as the Norwood has outsteamed the Monmouth, too.

It is Mr. Munro’s desire to have both yachts start with the steamer Mary Powell from her dock at the foot of West Twenty-second Street and steam up the Hudson fifty miles from the starting point and return, making a hundred-mile trip. Mr. Hearst has given Mr. Heilbron, the chief engineer of the Vamoose, permission to make a satisfactory agreement with Mr. Munro, and Mr. Heilbron will meet Mr. Munro within a few days.

The Vamoose was alongside Tebo’s Wharf, foot of Twenty-third Street, Brooklyn, yesterday to receive a fresh coat of white paint and get her brass polished. Engineer Heilbron and Capt. Stanwood had gone on a picnic, but the assistant engineer was on the boat. He said that Mr. Hearst was anxious for the Vamoose to meet the Norwood in a fair race, but that he wouldn't consent to a race on the Hudson River, for the Vamoose could only race in very deep water. The assistant engineer said that the Vamoose had already made a trip on the Hudson as far up as West Point, and during moderately high speed had “felt the bottom” a number of times, necessitating a slowing down of the engine.

The only course, he said, that would suit Mr. Hearst would be in Long Island Sound, either over one of the American Yacht Club's courses or straight away from Execution Rock to New-London.

Thomas L. Scoville of the American Yacht Club wrote to Mr. Munro on Tuesday, extending the use of the club grounds and landing float of the club in case a race was arranged between the Norwood and the Vamoose. The assistant engineer of the Vamoose said yesterday: "The Norwood could gain a mile an hour over the Vamoose in a race on the Hudson by following the eddy of the tide, while the Vamoose would have to keep in deep water. It makes a great difference in a race whether a boat draws eighteen inches or ten feet. If the Norwood outraced the Vamoose, I believe that Mr. Hearst would give her away."
Mr. Munro was in Long Branch yesterday, but it was stated at his office, 26 Vandewater Street, that he would not rest until he had brought the race about.

The Norwood is at present at Branchport, N. J.

NORWOOD AND VAMOOSE. THE VAMOOSE HAS ALREADY RACED THE MARY POWELL ON THE SLY.
She gained half a mile in a run of fifty miles, but had to cut across lots to do it. - Mr. Munro's proposition for a record race between the Norwood and the [Mary] Powell discussed by the Powell's Captain. - Will Mr. Hearst respond?

Norman L. Munro's proposition to race his little wonder, the Norwood, against the Mary Powell fifty miles up the Hudson and back, is likely to bring about one or more river contests of more than common interest. As Mr. Munro's letter in yesterday's SUN sets forth, his object in proposing the race is to make a record for the Norwood, which he hopes W. R. Hearst will feel compelled to try and beat with his new fast Herreshoff boat, the Vamoose. Mr. Hearst does not think the Vamoose is ready for a contest with the Norwood just yet, because he has not yet found a screw exactly suited to her. The Norwood, however, is all ready for a brush, and, in her owner's language, is “becoming restless and uncontrollable.” Fearing that when the Vamoose is finally ready, a race may in some way fail to come off. Mr. Munro asked THE SUN to assist in arranging a race against time for the Norwood, to come off within two weeks. He has probably selected the Mary Powell to race against because she is beyond question the fastest boat in New York waters and makes regular daily trips up the river.

Mr. Munro says:
“Permit me to suggest, with all due respect to Mr. Hearst and the Herreshoffs, that if the Vamoose starts for the Pacific coast neglecting to make a trial run over the course above mentioned[,] she will have to go with a record of about 19 60-100 [sic, 60/100?] nautical miles per hour, and that for a short distance, too. There will be no excuse of rough weather on the Hudson, as was the case when Mr. Hearst had a brush with the Monmouth. After crossing the Monmouth’s bow opposite Fort Hamilton, she returned to the city on account of the rough weather. I desire to give the Vamoose a fair chance; hence the selection of the Hudson."

Another reason for selecting the Hudson is that Mr. Hearst objected to a race of ten or twenty miles, saying that 100 miles was necessary properly to compare the speed of the two boats. Mr. Munro proposes to accompany the Mary Powell fifty miles up the river, and then return, the record to be made on the trip.

Additional interest will be lent to the contest with the Mary Powell by the fact that it was in a race with her that the famous Stiletto won her spurs on June 11, 1885. She was the first of the Herreshoff fast boats. The model was a novelty then, and the contest aroused widespread interest on account of the diminutive size of the new contestant for the big Powell’s laurels. The little Stiletto made the twenty-eight miles to Sing Sing in an hour and seventeen minutes, beating the steamboat seven minutes. There have been vast improvements since then in boats of the cigar model, however, and the Stiletto, which is now a torpedo boat in Uncle Sam's service, would probably not be in a race with some of the newest wonders. It has long been Mr. Munro’s hope to own the fastest steamboat in the world, and the Norwood is only the last of a series of astonishingly fast boats which he has had built. He believes her to be the fastest in the world, and hence his desire not to allow the much-heralded Vamoose to leave these waters without a contest which will definitely settle the issue between them.

Mr. Munro is probably not aware that the Vamoose has already had a brush with the Mary Powell, and that, too, over the same course which he now proposes. The contest was unannounced. Even the steamboat people received no warning until they perceived that the race was actually on. If the Vamoose had beaten her big rival, the story doubtless would have been told before this. But she only succeeded in holding her own by making cross cuts over shallows which the Powell had to avoid, thus covering less distance than the Powell.

It happened a week ago, last Monday. The Powell left West Twenty-second street a little after 3 1/2 o'clock on her regular trip. She carried 450 passengers and a great deal of baggage. Above Forty-second street she met the Vamoose steaming slowly down stream. Immediately after, the Vamoose turned sharply and followed hot in the Powell's wake. She was then about half a mile astern. From Forty-second street to Cranston’s, which is the Powell's first stop, is counted fifty miles by steam-boat men.

The Powell's passengers did not need to be told that a race was on. There were those aboard who knew the Vamoose by sight and who pointed her out to the others when the two boats met. Hundreds of curious eyes were still upon her when she turned sharply into the steamboat’s wake, and when she at once began to part the water into foamy jets on either side of her sharp nose and to shoot black clouds from her smokestack, there was excitement aboard the steam boat. The passengers crowded eagerly aft to watch the daring little craft's attempt to beat the fastest steamer on the Hudson. The Vamoose kept dead astern, a policy which was favorable to her big rival, for it kept the passengers aft and the steamboat trim. Had the Vamoose followed a course much to either side of that of the Powell, the Powell's passengers would have crowded to that side and given their boat a list which would have hindered her.

The race soon become uninteresting, however, for there was no readily apparent change in the relative position of the boats until Sing Sing was insight. The Vamoose was getting smaller and smaller, and it was evident that the big steamboat was running away from her. Opposite Nyack it was estimated that she was a mile astern.

At Sing Sing the river broadens and swerves to the west. Croton Point juts far out from the east bank, having Haverstraw Bay to the north and Croton Bay to the south. There is shoal water on the ebb tide along the west shore of the river here, and the direction of the ship channel made it necessary for the Powell to hug the eastern shore until nearly into Croton Bay, and then round Croton Point in a long, sweeping curve. Instead of following the Powell over this course, the Vamoose took advantage of her lighter draught and hugged the west shore. Thus she steered a nearly straight course into Haverstraw Bay and lined up behind the Steamer again only half a mile astern. This was a clear gain of half a mile.

The Vamoose made another gain in the same way opposite Peekskill. There is a sharp westward bend of the river here around Jones's Point. Directly off the point a schooner was met. To get around her, the Powell had describe a sweeping curve to the east. The Vamoose, however, took a crosscut through the shoal water between the schooner and the west shore. A short distance north of that the Vamoose made another gain by hugging the shore off Anthony's Nose, while the Powell was compelled to describe a wide curve in rounding the point. It was a nearly straight away course from there to the Powell's first landing at Cranston's. As she put about to go into dock, the Vamoose abandoned the chase, and returned home. She was then close astern of the Powell. She had nearly destroyed the Powell's lead of half a mile at the start, but, as against this, it was estimated that she had stolen over a mile by cutting across shoals. In other words, she had gained a half mile on the Powell, but the Powell had covered over a mile more.

So, if Mr. Munro succeeds in inducing Mr. Hearst to engage the Vamoose in no more satisfactory contest, he can get some satisfaction by racing the Norwood against the Powell from Forty-second street to Cranston’s. He can imitate the cross cuts of the Vamoose, if he chooses, and thus follow a practically identical course, or, if he feels sufficient confidence in his boat, he can take the longer course of the Powell, and, if he beats her, win still greater glory.

But will a Hudson River course afford a fair test of speed between two boats which steam over it at different times? Capt. A. E. Anderson of the Mary Powell says not. This is the way he talked yesterday just before he started on his afternoon trip:

“Unless the Norwood and the Vamoose go up the Hudson together, no fair test can possibly be made. For instance, suppose the Norwood goes up alongside the Powell on an ebb tide, and the Vamoose chooses a day when we start on a flood tide. The Vamoose would have a tremendous advantage. The ebb currents in the Hudson are often particularly swift. But the matter of steaming against a current or with one is not the only difference which differing tide conditions would make. It is well known that a steamer makes better headway with plenty of water under her than with little. The tide falls from the bottom first, and when you travel over shallow, being nearer the bottom, your boat is sucked considerably deeper in the water than when making over water of some depth. Of course, this makes a vast difference in the speed you get from a given steam pressure. There are many shallows in the Hudson after you get up a few miles ~ the bays, for instance. In Haverstraw Bay the Powell requires about 35 pounds pressure to make the same speed at low water that at high water she could get out of 25 pounds. You can thus get some idea of how unfair a test it would be if the two boats were to race the Powell with different tide conditions.

"But," said the reporter, “the Norwood could choose a day to go up with you when the tide conditions were the same as existed on the day when the Vamoose made the race."

"That is true enough,” said Capt. Anderson, but you don’t make allowance for the wind. If the two boats, both of which present very little surface to the wind, were to race strictly against time, without reference to the Powell, the actual wind trust would not make so much difference. But suppose when the Norwood made her race there was a good south wind to help the Powell along, and when tie Vamoose made her race a north wind held the Powell back. It makes good deal of difference, I assure you.

“But the greatest effect of the wind in such a test as this lies in its effect upon the tides. The wind retards or helps the force of the tide in the Hudson River amazingly. A west wind will practically kill a flood tide so far as its effect upon a steamboat is concerned. I have no doubt that, given two days when the start is made on identical tides, a difference in the wind effect on the tides might make a difference of fifteen minutes in time between Forty-second street and Cranstons.

“So there you have it. The Norwood may wait two weeks and start with us on a tide identical with that of the day of the Vamoose race, but how are you going to unite such conditions with identical wind conditions also? I think myself that the only way to have a fair contest between the two boats on the Hudson is to bring them out together.

The Norwood race with the Mary Powell will, however, be exceedingly interesting, in view of the Powell's previous races with the Stiletto and the Vamoose. Capt. Anderson handled the Powell on both occasions. He will be able to recall the tide and wind conditions of each race, and calculations can made of sufficient closeness to make an interesting and more or less instructive comparison possible.

The Mary Powell has a record of twenty-five miles in 1 hour and 1 minute, made in 1882, soon after she was rebuilt. She was built in 1862 for A. L. Anderson, the father of her present Captain, and in 1867 carried 450 passengers to Rondout, a distance of 100 miles, in 4 hours and 23 minutes. When she was rebuilt, the greatest care was taken to retain her lines exactly. Capt. Anderson said yesterday:

"It is, of course, flattering for the Powell to be singled out for these tests, but I would much rather not have them. The Powell is a business and family boat. We have never run her up to her limit of pressure which is 45. We never exceed 35 or 38. Consequently we can never be charged with racing her. A race is always sure to demoralize the passengers, and besides it is never a fair test of speed, because the passengers always crowd to the side on which the other boat lies and make us list in a fashion which interferes with our speed. In the race with the Stiletto there was a very large crowd aboard, and when the little boat got abreast of us, we listed, so that I ordered the engineer to slow up until she got well ahead. Then the passengers crowded forward, the boat righted, and we went ahead again. In other words, it is a contest between a fine racing machine in racing trim and a passenger boat with a business equipment. You might as well match a horse in a silky against another hitched to a light express wagon."

Part 7. The Exodus to Grand River (1783)

In 1783, the Treaty of Paris was signed, effectively ending the American Revolution. Many Esopus Indian families were still living in what was now called the Loyal Village outside of Fort Niagara, with an equal number of families living along Buffalo Creek to the south. The news of Britain’s defeat was devastating for the loyal Native allies of Great Britain, who had been burned out out of their ancestral homelands and who had made huge sacrifices in allying with the British Crown in their attempt to prevent the loss of their land. Rumors soon spread that a huge American army was assembling to invade Indian Country and commit total genocide on the Native allies of the British. Although the rumors were mostly unfounded, the Esopus Indians and their leadership took them seriously. They were the first to leave after hearing the “horrid report.”[1] They paddled across a short stretch of Lake Erie and made their way up the Grand River into what is now Ontario. They had found their new home.

The Grand River, a tributary of Lake Erie, runs through a fertile country that was once a patchwork of lush deciduous forests and wide prairies rich in game animals. The same limestone ridge that crosses through their Ulster County homeland also passes through the Grand River country, supporting many of the same plant medicines. Every spring, huge numbers of fish – especially walleye – ascended the Grand River from Lake Erie, allowing for the reestablishment of traditional spring fishing camps. The Esopus Indians had found a new country for their people. It was a country that, in many respects, was similar to their ancestral Ulster County home, only lacking in dramatic topography. Censuses taken over the 1780s and 1790s reveal a population of close to two hundred individuals, a number which also included a number of related Munsees and Unamis who had intermarried with them. They were soon joined along the Grand River by most of the other loyal contingents of the Six Nations Confederacy. Towns were established for each ethnic group, sometimes several miles apart; the village of loyal Mohicans from Onaquaga/Unadilla, also displaced from the Hudson Valley, would locate about ten miles upstream on the Grand River.

The settlements on Grand River would have government support. As compensation for wartime losses, the British government secured 550,000 acres of land along the river for their loyal Native allies through the Haldimand Proclamation of 1784. The Grand River Reserve, though much diminished, is still the largest reserve in Canada today. From their new home base, and with the war over, small groups of Esopus Indians would attempt to return to the Catskills Region and Ulster County for visits over the following decades. Records reveal that at least one Esopus family that had formerly lived in Otsiningo on the Susquehanna River temporarily moved back for two or three years. Other individuals trickled into the Catskill Mountains region to visit old settler friends and places of importance. Among them was notorious Esopus Indian war captain Benjamin Shanks, whose visits are remembered in a number of local histories.[2] Tragically, sometimes these visits resulted in murders committed by vengeful settlers against any Indians that reappeared in the region. In one account, Benjamin Shanks was almost killed in an ambush. His friend or relative, Canope, was not so lucky, and was shot and killed right next to him while fishing in the Delaware River in 1784. Ben Shanks was then purportedly killed by white settlers while picking apples in an old Indian orchard at Chenango (Otsiningo) Point three years later.[3]

As the war began to fade into a distant memory, it became safer for Esopus Indian families to visit their homeland from the Grand River in Canada. A number of records reveal their summertime visits over the course of the early 19th century. While living at Grand River, they were joined by many families of closely-related refugee peoples, including Munsees and Unamis who had formerly lived in the Delaware Valley and Mohicans from the upper Hudson Valley. Along with the Nanticokes (originally from Chesapeake Bay), these five groups became collectively known as the Delawares of Grand River. The Delawares of the Grand River – including at least one definitively Esopus chief – were instrumental in defending Canada from the American Invasion in the War of 1812. As late as 1820, an eyewitness noted that the Esopus Indians’ government continued to function on the Grand River. There, they would continue to practice their traditional religion through the mid 19th century. Amazingly, the Esopus Indians’ system of hereditary chieftainship – which can be traced back to their first encounters with the Dutch in the 17th century – persisted until the 1930s. Today, the Delawares of the Grand River Reserve number several hundred enrolled individuals.
 
Citations:
[1] Historical Collections, Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society, Volume 20. 117-121
[2] Benjamin Shanks (aka Ben, son of Shanks), whose Esopus name was remembered as Huycon (possibly meaning ‘Big Knife’) was the son of a namesake who was also known in the records as Wesomainso (meaning ‘Black Oak’). Father Wesomainso/Jacob Shanks was involved in the sale of various parts of the Catskills in the Hardenbergh Patent. In the years immediately after the American Revolution, son Ben Shanks may have temporarily joined the Munsee community living with the Senecas at Cattaraugus and fathered one or more children; in the early 19th century, Seneca individuals at Cattaraugus appear with the surname Shanks.
[3] Munsell, W.W. The History of Delaware County, Town of Hancock.

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Editor's Note: This article is from the Hudson River Maritime Museum archives. Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper August 21, 1886.

A Day in the "American Trosachs"

The appellation of the "American Trosachs" has been bestowed upon that lromantic region of river, mountain and lake lying west of the Lower Hudson River, in the States of New York and New Jersey, on account of the resemblance of its natural features to those of the famous Trosachs of Scotland, where are laid the scenes of Scott's "Lady of the Lake." The convenient and charming "round trip" which has been arranged by Mr. John N. Abbott, General Passenger Agent of the Erie Railway, will serve to make the beauties of this region accessible to a large portion of the public who have hitherto known it only by reputation.

Leaving New York city by the day steamer, at nine o'clock in the morning, the tourist enjoys a sail of sixty miles up the Hudson River, passing its chief points of historic and scenic interest – the old forts of the Revolution, the Palisades, Tappan Zee, Stony Point, West Point and the Highlands, with Storm King Mountain, 1,529 feet high, standing at their northern gate.

At Newburgh, which is reached at noon, time is allowed for a brief visit to Washington's Headquarters, before the departure of the on-o'clock train on the Erie Railway for Greycourt. From here the route is continued to Warwick over the Lehigh and Hudson Railroad. This railroad ride, occupying altogether an hour and twenty minutes, unfolds a superb panorama of the Shawangunk and Schunemunk Mountains.

From Warwick there is a stage ride of nearly two hours, over the Bellevale Mountain to Point Peter, at the head of Greenwood Lake. This lovely sheet of water is the Loch Katrine of the American Trosachs. It presents equal attractions to the artist and sportsman, and its bass-fishing is celebrated.

After an hour's stop here, the tourist takes the lake steamer to the point where the lake is intersected midway by the State boundary line between New York and New Jersey.

At this point railroad travel is resumed, the train of the New York and Greenwood Lake Railroad leaving the lake at 5:45 p.m., and arriving in New York at 7:40 in the evening.

​Thus the entire trip is made inside of twelve hours; or, reversing it, one can leave the city at 4 p.m., stop overnight at Greenwood Lake, and, reaching Newburgh in time to connect with the day-line steamer at 2:15 p.m., arrive in New York at half-past five. The fare for the round trip, in either direction, is only $3; and it may be questioned if there is in all the world another day's excursion which can rival this one, either in price or in the pleasure afforded.

FLIERS OF THE OLD DAYS: FAMOUS RACES ON THE HUDSON RIVER COURSE.
HOW THE SWALLOW BEAT THE ROCHESTER — COMMODORE VANDERBILT'S COSTLY BLUNDER — LIQUOR, OIL, AND FURNITURE USED AS FUEL.
With what emotions of interest some of the old steamboat Captains of the Hudson River would come out of their graves to observe the forthcoming race between those modern marvels of speed, the steam yachts Vamoose and Norwood, can easily be guessed. In the old days, when the Hudson River was practically the only highway between New-York and Canada and the West, it was the scene of many a race as exciting as any that ever occurred on the Mississippi. While the Mississippi Captain would boldly venture to take a short cut across the grass if there had been a heavy dew that morning, the Hudson River Captain would not hesitate to flash through rocky channels, and no risk was too great with victory at stake. 

The first of the great races of bygone days on the Hudson was that between the Swallow and the Rochester. The former was designed by Anthony N. Hoffman, and was the type of all modern boats of her class — that is to say, of all boats that are sharp both fore and aft. She was built in 1836 at the yard of Copes & Burtis, on Wallabout Bay, Williamsburg.

There were at this time two great rival New-York and Albany steamboat organizations on the Hudson, the one known as the Hudson River Steamboat Association, controlled by Mr. Hoffman, and the other, known then as now as the People’s Line, controlled by Daniel Drew. The Hudson River Steamboat Association was composed of several steamboat owners whose interests were combined for mutual profit. The steamers which belonged to the association in the order in which they were built, down to the time of the creation of the famous Swallow, were as follows:
The North America, which had a double engine and one walking-beam on either aide. She was under the command of Capt. Lathrop and was controlled by Robert L. Stevens.

The Albany, also owned by Robert L. Stevens, and commanded by Capt. Joseph E. Jenkins.

The De Witt Clinton, owned by Robert Dunlap of Albany.

The Empire, owned and controlled by Le Grand B. Cannon the elder, Richard P. Hart, and others.

The Troy, owned by the same persons.

The Swallow, designed and owned by Anthony N. Hoffman, and launched in July, 1836. She made a trial trip to Albany, but was found to be a trifle too short. The boat did not “stand up well" in the water, and Copes & Burtis added twenty-five feet to her length.

The Swallow was the first clipper steamboat ever built. When her model was first exhibited at the office of Mr. Hoffman, it aroused no small degree of ridicule, and the general prophecy was to the effect that such a shape would never produce a high rate of speed under any circumstances, no matter what the engine power might be. After the Swallow had been lengthened, it was put on the regular route between New-York and Albany, and was thereafter, and until the appearance of the Rochester, the undisputed crack of the river, and was the wonder of the age, its speed being regarded as phenomenal.

Anthony N. Hoffman, designer of the Swallow, then had his office at 71 Dey Street, corner of Washington Street, this city. Mr. Hoffman was born in 1780, at Upper Red Hook Landing, Tivoli-on-the Hudson, and became connected with Robert Fulton through his association with Edward P. Livingston of Clermont, the neighboring town. Fulton had married Livingston’s daughter, and it was through her that he obtained the money that enabled him to pursue his experiments in applying steam to navigation that finally led him to success and enduring fame. Hoffman became Fulton’s secretary at the request of the latter, and was closely connected with him during his association with the Hudson River Steamboat Association, and assumed the business after his death, which occurred in 1815. Besides the Swallow, Hoffman controlled the Independence, the Constitution, the Constellation, and the Ohio. The Independence was afterward withdrawn from the Hudson, and was run from New-York to Amboy, N. J. It was sunk at Jersey City in 1822. All of these boats had cross-head engines, and the Ohio boasted of two smoke-stacks.

Daniel Drew did not relish the idea of holding second place in Hudson River steamboat navigation. He wanted to own the fastest boat on the river and enjoy the prestige and patronage incident thereto. Wallabout Bay was lined with private shipyards in those days, and thither Drew repaired in search of a firm that could build a faster boat than the Swallow. The old man had plenty of money, and he promised a liberal share of it for a boat that could beat the Swallow. Smith & Dimon undertook the task, and in 1837 the Rochester, built on the Swallow’s lines, was launched and added to the People’s Line, the boats of which started from the foot of Liberty Street. The Captain of the Swallow was Alexander McLean and that of the Rochester was A. P. St. John.

From the appearance of the Rochester, the hot rivalry between it and the Swallow began, and was constantly kept up. They raced regularity. The Swallow always enjoyed a slight advantage by reason of the fact that its pier was one block above that of the Rochester, thus enabling it to get out into the current first. Both boats started for Albany every other day at 5 o'clock P. M. This was before the introduction of coal as fuel, and wood alone was burned. The water front was not so valuable or as thickly settled then as now, and for twenty to thirty blocks along West Street the docks were piled high with cord wood, which was carried on board the steamers without being sawed or split and there piled on deck. The Swallow carried the United States mails, and, as this privilege went to the fastest boat, it furnished another incentive for racing.

The first race, between the Swallow and the Rochester, excited much interest. There was a great crowd at the docks. The pilots of the boats watched each other with the eyes of a hawk to discover the first signal given to the engineers to start, and there were men on deck to yell to the engineers at the least move of the walking beams, so that it was impossible for the Rochester to get out ahead of the Swallow and thus make an advantageous start. The boats started together, amid cheers from the crowd on shore. The regular stops on the way to Albany for both boats were Cornwall, West Point, Newburg, Poughkeepsie, Rhinebeck, Hudson, Coxsackie, and Kinderhook. Up the river went the Swallow and the Rochester side by side, the people running along the shore in a vain effort to keep up, and as soon as the boats got fairly under way, gangs of men appeared on deck and began to saw and cut wood.

But cut as fast as they could, the gang on the Rochester could not feed the furnace enough to send their boat ahead of the Swallow, and they went side by side to Caldwell’s Landing, a distance of forty miles, and at that bend in the river the Swallow slowly took the lead. Then was there excitement on the Rochester, and barrels of sperm oil were rolled out and the oil drawn out into five-gallon cans, which were thrown into the furnace. On board the Swallow the same thing was done, and one five gallon package after another was converted into speed, with the result of voluminous clouds of dense smoke from the funnels, which obscured everything in the wake of the racers.

The Swallow gradually increased her lead, and was two miles in advance at Newburg, having covered the distance, sixty-four miles, in 3 hours and 5 minutes. This was at the rate of over twenty miles per hour, and that time has never been much improved on, even at the end of half a century of progress in fast steam navigation.

A favorite point for observing the races between the Swallow and the Rochester was what was then Burnham’s Mansion House, on the Hudson, near the foot of the present Seventy-fifth Street. There it was no uncommon thing for thousands to congregate. At every landing on the river, also, there were crowds, and often cannon[s] were fired, bells rung, and colored lights sent up. Each boat carried hundreds of passengers on every trip, and many were the distinguished citizens of that generation who thus participated in those exciting races. The steamers were shoved out from the docks in New-York and from every landing with long poles, and as soon as the Swallow got ahead of the Rochester, the crew of the former would wrap the ends of the poles in hemp, soak the hemp in sperm oil, set the oil and hemp on fire, and push the flaming poles out through the windows of the engine room on each side of the boat to “light the way” for the Rochester. Although Daniel Drew was often on the Rochester, Hoffman never went up or down the river on the Swallow, but always patronized the day boat from Upper Red Hook.

His standing orders to the Captain of the Swallow were to keep ahead of the Rochester if he got to Albany with nothing left on board but the boiler and the hull, and to go past the landings if necessary. Frequently the mails were not landed at one or another town along the way until the down trip, but the Government fine of $50 for each failure to land mails was usually remitted. The Rochester never beat the Swallow, which was sold to Daniel Drew in 1844, who withdrew her from the Albany Line. On April 7, 1845, at 8 P. M., while running at full speed, in a blinding snowstorm, the Swallow ran on a rock near Athens. Although the boat sank only to the after gangway, 23 passengers out of 200 lost their lives by jumping into the water. The boat was raised and subsequently turned into a barge, and may still be in existence. The engines were taken to Troy, where they can now be seen dally, operating the machinery of the Burden Iron Works, apparently as good as ever.

On the sale of the Swallow, Mr. Hoffman withdrew from the New-York and Albany service. From that time to this, the People’s Line has run the following steamboats between New York and Albany, naming them in their order: The Westchester, the Emerald, the Rochester, the Utica, the (new) North America, the South America, the Knickerbocker, the Hendrick Hudson, the Isaac Newton, the Dean Richmond, the St. John, and the Drew. Of these, only the Dean Richmond and the Drew are now [1891] in active service.

The next great race on the Hudson was between Le Grand B. Cannon's Empire of the Hudson River Steamboat Association and the South America of Drew's People’s Line, after the introduction of coal for fuel. This occurred in July, 1847. The boats started from their perspective piers at 6:40 A. M., having no passengers on board, nor anything that would add weight to the boats and hamper their speed.

On the signal, both boats moved off together, to the cheers of a vast crowd, and ran side by side twenty-five miles, when the Empire forged ahead, and at Kinderhook, eighty miles above New-York, was nine minutes in advance. As the Empire neared Hudson, Engineer Lighthall approached Capt. Stephen R. Roe and said that it would be necessary to put in there to get coal, the supply having almost run out. Now Roe’s orders were to beat the South America or to burn the inside of the boat up, and to put in at Hudson for coal meant sure defeat, so he told the engineer to go ahead. "We are now in shallow water," he said, "the South America can't pass us, and all we've got to do is to keep the old thing going.”

They kept the old thing going. When the last pound of coal was in the furnace, they threw the fenders in after it, and then they burned the chairs and the tables, then they stripped the boat of all the light woodwork and burned that, too. A search was instituted, and a lot of demijohns and champagne baskets was found and sacrificed, and when the Empire reached the Lydius Street wharf in Albany there was literally nothing of her left, but the hull and solid woodwork. The race was so close that, as the Empire turned into her pier, the South America was abreast of the bulkhead. One of those on board the Empire visited the South America and found not a pound of coal in the bunkers or a chair or settee in the cabin. The Captain of the South America was L. W. Brainerd.

The third and last of the great ante-bellum races was that between the C. Vanderbilt and the Oregon, in July, 1860. The C. Vanderbilt was owned by Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt and the Oregon by George Law, father of the present Sixth and Eighth Avenue surface railroad magnate. The stake was $10,000. The start was from a stakeboat off the Battery, and the course was to and around a stakeboat off Sing Sing and return. No passengers or guests were allowed on either boat. The umpire on board the C. Vanderbilt was George Law and the umpire on the Oregon was Capt. Jacob H. Vanderbilt of Staten Island, brother of the Commodore. The Commodore was in the pilot house of the C. Vanderbilt from start to finish, and thus lost his $10,000, as the sequel will tell.

The start was made at 10 A. M., and the C. Vanderbilt got the lead at the outset, and kept it until the stakeboat off Sing Sing was reached. In turning the stakeboat the Commodore, in a fit of excitement and fancying that the boat was not swinging around fast enough, pulled what he thought was the signal for the engineer to increase speed. But he pulled the wrong bell, and, to his horror and to the rage of the pilot, the boat stopped, and the Oregon gracefully swung around and into the lead. The Commodore could swear fluently on all occasions, but the volubility of his profanity on that occasion beat his record.

The C. Vanderbilt was built in 1859 by Sneden at the foot of Tenth Street, East River. The Oregon afterward ran on the Stonington Line through Long Island Sound, and was impaled on a rook at Hell Gate at 2:30 o’clock one morning. [editor's note: around 3:30 and 3:45 a.m., April 18, 1846.] No lives were lost. The boat was got off the rock, but so many heavy keelsons were required in strengthening the frame that the boat never afterward developed great speed.

An appalling casualty marked one of the old-time races on the Hudson. This was the race between the Henry Clay and the Armenia, both boats of the smaller class, in 1850. The Armenia belonged to the People's Line, but is now one of the fleet of the Day Line, which consists of the New-York, the Albany, the C. Vibbard, and the Armenia. Of these, only the New-York and the Albany are in active service. The Henry Clay and the Armenia were racing from Albany, with a full complement of passengers and freight, and the Henry Clay was several miles in advance, when it took fire near the boiler. The boat was headed for the east shore of the river and was beached two miles below Sing Sing at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. The passengers congregated aft, but many of them were driven into the water by the flames, which were swept backward by the wind, and about fifty persons were either burned to death or drowned. Among the lost was Stephen Allen, a prominent citizen of New-York and one of the Croton Aqueduct Commissioners. The Armenia was too far in the rear to render assistance.

The opening of the New-York Central and Hudson River Railroad in 1851 completed the demoralization of the steamboat traffic on the Hudson, begun by the sale of the Swallow and the retirement of Mr. Hoffman. The decline of this branch of travel and transportation is shown by the great decrease in the number of Albany steam boats.

The Dean Richmond sank off Rondout in 1868. Several months and elaborate efforts were required to raise the boat, and this and the repairs cost over $100,000. The St. John was burned at the foot of Canal Street several years ago.

Of the modern Hudson River steamboats, the fastest are said to be the Mary Powell and the New-York. There are many who consider the New-York to be faster than the Mary Powell, but the two boats have never raced. Indeed, although the Mary Powell has long held the name of being the swiftest steamboat afloat — has enjoyed the reputation, indeed, since 1862 — it is asserted by steamboat men that she has never been in an actual race with another steamboat in her long career. In connection with some of the tales of high speed by the Mary Powell and other boats, it should not be forgotten that the tide in the Hudson, in places, runs at the rate of nine miles an hour.

The Utica, one of the old-time racers of the People’s Line, figured incidentally in 1840 in one of the biggest thefts on record. At that time there was no Adams Express, and the business of that kind was controlled by Pomeroy & Co., which firm had its head offices in Wall Street. The firm used black trunks for the transportation of its valuables, and the black trunk was the well-known sign of the business. Models of it were nailed to the tops of wooden posts all over town and all over the country. Most of the money passing between the bank of New-York and those of the West was forwarded by Pomeroy & Co.

In the year in question the Utica reached her pier from Albany at 4:30 o'clock one Monday with a black trunk for Pomeroy & Co., containing $600,000 in gold and notes. On the arrival of the steamer at the dock, a man went on board with a push cart and calmly walked off with the black trunk, which was in front of the Captain's office. When the agent for Pomeroy & Co. went for the trunk at 7 A. M., it was gone, and the whole city was in a hubbub in a few hours. There was no trace of the thief, as no one had paid any attention to him.

A man named Banks, proprietor of Rathbun's Hotel, Buffalo, and Philo N. Rust, proprietor of the Syracuse House, Syracuse, N. Y., and several others, all friends, came to town on the Utica, and the party bought a two-thousand-five-hundred-dollar team of horses, and spent money freely for champagne, and literally ‘‘painted things red.” James Watson Webb, then editor of the New-York Courier and Enquirer, received information that Banks and his friends had stolen the trunk, and he published a long story accusing them of the crime. The information was furnished by a clairvoyant, a woman who knew Rust. They were put under police surveillance for a long time, but were not arrested.

One day a man took a five-hundred-dollar note of the old Merchants’ Bank into that bank for payment, and Teller Felter at once recognized the note by a private mark as one of those in the missing black trunk. The man was detained, and he confessed to getting the note from a man in Baxter Street. This person, who proved to have been the man with the push cart, was arrested forthwith, on the very eve of his departure for the West, and the trunk was recovered, together with all of the $600,000, except $1,500, which had been invested by the thief in Western land warrants at $1.25 per acre. He was convicted and sent to prison. The thief did not know what was in the trunk when he took it.

Editor's Note: This series of blog posts recounts the dramatic story of the Esopus Indian Nation’s Revolutionary War exodus. The original inhabitants of Ulster County, the Esopus Indians successfully maintained their sovereignty and traditional way of life in the face of overwhelming odds for over a century. These blog posts are summaries of a much fuller story that will be published in 2027.

Part 6. Revenge: 1780-1781

Over the course of 1779, the Esopus Indian Nation had become refugees for the fourth time in as many years. With their women, children, and elders now safe on Buffalo Creek, a river that flows into Lake Erie, the warriors of the Esopus Indian Nation continued to return to their ancestral homeland in Ulster County on war expeditions. Due to the devastation of their towns and those of the rest of Indian Country in 1778 and 1779 from the Butler and Sullivan Expeditions, respectively, thousands of warriors were ready for retribution. Early in May of 1780, a small Esopus Indian warparty appeared near Saugerties with the aim of capturing Rebel officials. Led by Benjamin Shanks and John Runnupe, the small mixed expedition of Esopus and Catskill Indian warriors captured Captain Jeremiah Snyder and his son Elias.[1] Capt. Snyder was a militia leader who had recently commanded the fort at Shandaken. The two were busy working in a farmfield when they were taken. They would spend the rest of the war as prisoners in Canada. In July, John Runnupe returned on a second raid with six other Esopus and Catskill Indians, this time to Shawangunk. He intended to capture Colonel Johannes Jansen, but only succedded in taking seven of Jansen’s African slaves. Runnupe never made it back to Fort Niagara: at an unknown location, deep in the wilderness of the Catskill Mountains, the captured slaves waited for an opportune moment and killed Runnupe and three others before returning home to enslavement.[2]

According to British Indian Department records, over the spring and summer of 1780 around twenty five Esopus Indian warriors were involved in at least five expeditions to their ancestral homeland, with targets including the Saugerties area, Shawangunk and the Delaware River around Cochecton.[3] As noted earlier, they seem to have been frequently accompanied by the few Catskill Indian warriors that remained. For many generations, the Catskill Indians had been their close friends and neighbors to the north in what is now Greene County. Later in the summer, thirty four Esopus and Catskill Indians were noted as serving directly under Joseph Brant, likely in a raid against the Mohawk Valley.[4] In the meantime, their wives, children, and other non-combattants survived as best they could on Buffalo Creek, growing corn and other crops, hunting and fishing. In September, Benjamin Shanks returned to Ulster County with three other Esopus warriors to try again and recapture Colonel Johannes Jansen; upon arrival, they were joined by an old friend with Loyalist sympathies, prominent settler Samuel Gonsalus.[5] They failed to capture Col. Jansen, and in their haste to get back to Fort Niagara (in all likelihood, they urgently needed to return to support their families with hunting before winter), they had to kill all the civilian prisoners they had taken, including two of Jansen’s slaves, who may have been among the captives that had killed John Runnupe the year previous.[6]

Winter did not bring a break to the retaliatory raids: with so many thousands of refugees now living in Seneca Country, game animals quickly disappeared, and many of the refugees were on the brink of starvation. Expeditions to their distant Delaware and Hudson Valley homeland removed some mouths to feed while supporting the strategy of weakening Rebel forces by capturing commanders and burning farmland. As often as not, cattle, horses and other livestock captured in the raids were quickly consumed by the starving warriors. In February of 1781, an expedition of fourteen Esopus and Catskill warriors headed towards Ulster and Greene Counties, led by their chief sachem, Philip Houghtaling; they may have been part of the party that captured prominent local Rebel militia captain David Abeel in nearby Coxsackie.[7] According to British Indian Department accounts, in May of 1781 the total number of Esopus Indians living on Buffalo Creek included sixty five men, women and children who, but three years before, had been living in the shadow of the Catskill Mountains. Another 188 men, women and children on the census, who had lived on the Susquehanna River near the town of Chughnut, were also primarily Esopus Indians.[8] Along with Munsees from Chemung and their former Nanticoke and Shawnee neighbors of the Susquehanna, they were organized under Indian Department Lieutenant Henry William Nelles, a former resident of the Mohawk Valley.

In early August of 1781, an expedition of nearly four hundred warriors and Loyalist rangers raided the Rondout Valley. They burned dozens of houses around the settlements of Napanoch and Wawarsing and as far east as Mombaccus – areas that, mere decades earlier, formed the heart of Esopus Indian Country.[9] Although most of the warriors were Seneca, they were piloted by Esopus Indian scouts, who were intimately familiar with the settled parts of Ulster County. The Esopus Indian pilots, which included war captain Ben Shanks, abandoned the expedition as soon as it entered the Rondout Valley. According to one account, the Esopus pilots had been drying some damp black powder by the fire when it accidentally set abalaze, badly burning them.[10] The force of now-mostly Seneca warriors was soon completely lost, but “behaved beyond expectation while in the settlement[s] and on the road, having lost and got their people wounded.”[11] It’s possible that that the Esopus Indian pilots also decided to abandon the Seneca raid into their own homeland because of the failure of the Senecas to distinguish between Loyalists and Rebels, civilians and non-combatants in raids and battles elsewhere. From the early days of the war, the Esopus Indians’ leadership had always shown reluctance to cause unnecessary harm to their former Ulster County settler neighbors, many of whom they had once counted as close friends.
                                                                     To Be Continued…

Citations:
[1] The Catskill Indians were a Mohican-speaking band whose traditional homeland included all of Greene County and parts of Schoharie and Albany Counties to the north of the Esopus Indians. For at least two centuries, the Catskill Indians were the Esopus Indian Nation’s primary allies and the people with whom they shared the Catskill Mountains.
[2] “The Captivity of Jeremiah Snyder… During the Revolutionary War”  in The Ulster Sentinel, Kingston, NY on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 1827; transcribed by Archivist Lisa Bruck.
[3] Haldimand Papers, Reel h1448.1305. National Archives of Canada.
[4] Ibid., Reel h1448.1090.
[5] Quinlan, James Eldridge. History of Sullivan County. GM Beebe & WT Morgans, Liberty, NY: 1878. 395-396.
[6] Gray, John A. The Indians: Or Narratives of Massacres and Depredations on the Frontier in Wawasink and Its Vicinity During the American Revolution. Rondout, NY: 1846. 42.
[7] “Return of the Indian War Parties” in Haldimand Papers 21767 Pt 4. National Archives of Canada.
[8] Haldimand Papers, Reel h1449.55. National Archives of Canada.
[9] Public Papers of George Clinton, Vol VII. Albany, NY: 1900. 198-199.
[10] Gray, John A. The Indians: Or Narratives of Massacres and Depredations on the Frontier in Wawasink and Its Vicinity During the American Revolution. Rondout, NY: 1846. 45.
[11] Smy, William A. The Butler Papers, Part III (1780-1782). Brock University Collections, 1994.