Description accompanying print: The original painting, by noted artist, John Gould, might well be called an inspired masterpiece. It was developed with help for accuracy from the well known expert, retired captain William O. Benson of Sleightsburgh, N.Y. He is an authority on the Hudson River History, its boats and shipping. Learn more about John Gould (1906-1996) here: https://johngouldart.com/about/

The maiden voyage of the "Alexander Hamilton" was placed by the artist for this painting, passing Rondout Creek, Kingston, N.Y. The area with the two Kingston Lighthouses makes an important historical background for this great documentary painting.

The maiden voyage suggests a wedding procession with the gleaming white boat, the accompanying flotilla and the sparkling reflection of the sun on the water, resembling wedding confetti.

[Editor's note: 2023 season lighthouse tours and Solaris solar powered boat rides are offered by HRMM here: https://www.hrmm.org/all-boat-tours.html]

                                   The ALEXANDER HAMILTON'S First Trip 
The following is a brief description of the event by Captain William O. Benson: On the 29th of May, 1924, the Hudson River Day Line steamer ALEXANDER HAMILTON made her first voyage on the great Hudson River from New York City to the State Capital at Albany.

I was a student in the old District No. 13 School at Port Ewen, and we had been told the HAMILTON was making her first trip up river. I was wishing she would be late, so I could rush out at 3:30 p.m. and run to the sand bank at Sleightsburgh and watch her come up. I will admit all day in school my mind was on the new HAMILTON and sure enough when school was dismissed I guess I was the first out and on my way to the sand bank.

I could see the new flyer coming up off Schleede's brick yard south of Port Ewen. She was about an hour late due to some problem with her new engine, I guess due to the fact she was new.

As she was passing the Rondout Lighthouse, the steamer JACOB H. TREMPER was just coming out of Rondout Creek. When the HAMILTON blew her landing whistle for Kingston Point of one long, one short and one long, how the sea gulls and egrets rose high in the air. The Lighthouse keeper rang the fog bell three times and the ferry TRANSPORT, just inside of the Lighthouse, blew three whistles in salute which the HAMILTON answered. Also on the starboard side of the HAMILTON, out in the river, was Cornell Steamboat Company tug HARRY blowing her chime whistle. It sure was great to stand and watch a new sidewheeler being greeted by other much older steamboats from another age.

She was all decorated out with American flags and signal colors for her first trip up the river.

She was faithful to the old Hudson for 47 long years, carrying many happy people up and down and to the pleasure parks along the beautiful Hudson River.

                                         More about Port Ewen brickyards:
At the end of his school day in Port Ewen, William O. Benson ran to the Sleightsburg shore and spotted the ALEXANDER HAMILTON coming up off Schleede's brickyard south of Port Ewen. The tall brick stack in the painting might have been remnants of one of the Port Ewen Brickyards, Turner or Jacob Kline/Bishop. The chute was probably used to load bricks or ice blocks onto barges for transport to New York City.

In 1852, Jacob Kline, became cashier for the Pennsylvania Coal Co., and John Ewen (namesake of Port Ewen) became President. From then until 1865, Port Ewen thrived as a terminal for Honesdale, PA coal which came on Delaware & Hudson canal boats and was transferred to barges going to New York City on the Hudson River.

However, after litigation between the D&H and Pennsylvania Coal companies, the latter moved to Newburgh in 1865 leaving many Irish canal workers who lived on that Port Ewen hill unemployed. Jacob Kline built a brickyard which employed these workers and saved Port Ewen from economic collapse. Tugs were named after Kline's daughters.

John D. Schoonmaker of Kingston had a large 23,000 ton ice house erected, helping employment in the winter when the river was frozen. Ice was harvested from Turner's pond on the Port Ewen hill and stored in the icehouse.

A different mural this time! This mural featuring an image of the steamboat "Mary Powell"  is one of Hudson River Maritime Museum's early artifacts. It measures 12 feet by 5 feet 4 inches and was donated in 1984, shortly after the museum's move to the present location at 50 Rondout Landing. The museum's donor file tells us that this section of the mural was painted in the 1920s and hung in a branch of the Bowery Savings Bank opposite Penn Station in New York City. 

Recently sections of a mural featuring the steamboats "Clermont", "Mary Powell" and "Norwich" as well as a lighthouse and a tower for a ferry fog bell were found in the Hudson River Maritime Museum Archives.  The sections measure 30 feet when put together. If you know what building this mural came from, contact the museum at collections@hrmm.org.

The newest collection of Hudson River Maritime Museum material on the New York Heritage website is the Tracey Irving Brooks photograph collection. See all of the Hudson River Maritime Museum collections here:

Tracey Irving Brooks was a professional quality photographer based in the Capitol Region of New York State's Hudson River Valley. Born in 1888 Mr. Brooks photographed Hudson River steamboats during the first half of the 1900s. The collection covers an extensive variety of steamboats on the upper portion of the Hudson River.

The collection includes photographs, postcard images and glass plate negatives of steamboats, tugboats, and ferries from the Tracey I. Brooks collection. In addition, museum volunteers Carl and Joan Mayer have compiled a list of publications with background information about many of the boats.

Hudson River Maritime Museum is able to contribute to New York Heritage thanks to the work of the Southeastern Regional Library Council. New York Heritage enables the museum to share a sample of the thousands of Hudson River images in the museum's collection with viewers around the world.

About New York Heritage:
New York Heritage Digital Collections features a broad range of materials that present a glimpse into our state’s history and culture.  Over 350 libraries, museums, archives, and other cultural institutions make their collections available in our repository.  These primary source materials span the range of New York State’s history, from the colonial era to present.  Our stories are told through photographs, letters, diaries, directories, maps, books, and more.

New York Heritage is a collaborative project of eight of the nine Empire State Library Network library councils: Capital District Library Council, Central New York Library Resources Council, Long Island Library Resources Council, Northern New York Library Network, Rochester Regional Library Council, Southeastern New York Library Resources Council, South Central Regional Library Council, and Western New York Library Resources Council.

​Take a historical tour of New York State here.

​On Friday 25th Jan. last, about 3 o’Clock Mr. Brookman of this town, one Thomas Slack, and a Negro of Mr. Remden’s, went off in a boat in order to shoot some water fowl, which during this hard weather have come in great numbers into the open places in the harbour, and having wounded some, pursued them till they got entangled in the ice, so that they were not able to get to land.  

​Their distress being seen from the shore here, a boat with several hands put off to their assistance, but night coming on lost sight of them, and returned. – Mean while the people in the ice drove with the tide as far as Red-Hook, and fired several guns as signals of distress.  The guns were heard on shore, but no assistance could be given them.  And as the weather was extreamly cold, it was thought they would all have perished, -- which they themselves also expected.  

​In this extremity they had recourse to every expedient in their power: There happened to be an iron pot and an ax on board – they cut off a piece of the boat roap and pick’d it to oakum, and putting it in the pan of a gun with some powder, catched it on fire, which with some thin pieces cut from the mast, they kindled in the pot, and then cut up their mast, seats, &c. for fewel, and making a tent of their sail, wrapt themselves as well as they could; when they found themselves nearly overcome with the cold, notwithstanding their fire, they exercised themselves with wresting, which proved a very happy expedient, restored their natural warmth, and no doubt greatly contributed to their preservation.

In this manner they passed the whole night, in which they suffered much cold, but happily escaped with life, and without being frost bitten: Next morning, by firing guns, they were discovered in the ice by Mr. Seabring on Long Island, who, by laying planks on the ice for near a quarter of a mile, which otherwise was not strong enough to bear a man’s weight, they all got safe on shore, without the least hurt, and returned the same day to York.

Most steam and many diesel tugs were what were known as "bell boats".  This means that the Captain in the wheelhouse - in charge of steering -  had no direct control over the machinery in the engine room. The Captain communicated his orders to the Engineer - in charge of the speed -  by using a code of sounds run on two bells which the captain rang with controls in the wheelhouse. Many companies had their own distinct bell codes. In general, the "gong" called for a change in engine direction and the "jingle" called for a change in engine speed. The engine room was very noisy so the bells had to be loud to be heard.

​Simplified Bell Signals:
When the boat was stopped: 1 gong - work ahead; 2 gongs - go astern
When working ahead or backing: 1 gong - stop

"Artifact donor Thomas Gerber was born and raised in downtown Kingston on Meadow Street.  Tom’s interests were many but he was particularly interested in ships and tugs and spent a great deal of time, as a young boy, at the shipyards on the Rondout Creek.  He said it was always so exciting to see a ship finally launched into the creek, ready for duty, after months and months in the making.  His Uncle, Dan Murphy, who helped raise him, was an engineer on the tugs. Many summers, his Uncle Dan would take him along on the tug, the "James F Dwyer", and they would go up through the locks.  Tom loved going on this two week (sometimes more) journey as he learned so much and got to spend time with his Uncle.  Tom’s dad died when Tom was just 5 years old so his Uncle was more like his dad.  

​When they were going to scrap the "James F. Dwyer", Tom wanted something to remember the tug by and was able to salvage the communication system between the pilot house and the engineer room which includes the bell, the large bell, which looks similar to a gong, and the pulls.  He had them restored to their original luster by a great craftsman, William C. Washburn.  Tom wanted this piece of history to be seen by many so donated them to the Hudson River Maritime Museum."  Thank you for Melodey Daley for this history.
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Because of the growth of New York City into a major port and population center as immigrants poured into the city in the 19th century, the need for food and building materials soared.  The Hudson Valley produced many of the products needed, and shipped them by sailing vessels called sloops and schooners for at least two hundred years from the beginning of settlement in the 1600s.  Steamboats came on the scene gradually after 1807 carrying mostly passengers for many decades. Eventually steam towboats pulling multiple barges and canal boats took over the freight traffic on the Hudson. Though not speedy, these long tows were the cheapest way to ship bulk cargoes. Older passenger steamboats such as the Norwich were used at first as towboats.  Sidewheel steamboats such as the Oswego were built as towboats starting around 1850.  Propeller driven tugboats in the familiar shape that we know today began to be seen in the 1860s.

​If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!​

The Hudson River's last day passenger steamboat was "Bay Belle". Built in 1910 the "Bay Belle" operated under different names and for different companies for decades. During her time on the Hudson River "Bay Belle" carried charters from New York City to day resorts at Bear Mountain, Rye, and from Yonkers to Rockaway Beaches.. Author Richard V. Elliott writes of "Bay Belle" in his manuscript "The Boats of Summer" : "Never intended to be biggest, fastest, or most luxurious, this hard working, medium-sized steamer was a survivor that transported and entertained millions." 

Passenger steamboats sold souvenirs onboard such as the pennant, pin and postcard shown here. 

Tickets were also kept as memorabilia of "Bay Belle" summer excursions.

Today's Featured Artifact is a once-shiny metal jewelry box - a memento of a trip on the Hudson River Day Line steamboat "Peter Stuyvesant." The steamboats had shops onboard where passengers could purchase souvenirs of their voyage on the Hudson River.

​The last steamer built for the Day Line was the Peter Stuyvesant in 1927.  She was the only propeller steamer built for the line.  The Stuyvesant was built for charters and for service mostly on the lower river. Moonlight dance cruises were a popular part of her service. She was a well-known and popular vessel in her day and ran through 1962. After the Stuyvesant retired from the Hudson she was bought by a restauranteur in Boston to become a cocktail lounge moored at Anthony’s Pier 4 Restaurant. Unfortunately, a bad winter storm sank her in early 1978, and she was left underwater for many years.  Her wreck was only recently removed from her resting place in Boston harbor.

This 6 inch diameter commemorative tile was created years after the DeWitt Clinton was no longer plying the waters of the Hudson River. This artifact was donated to Hudson River Maritime Museum in 2000.
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​The Dewitt Clinton was a Hudson River Day Line steamboat which was originally a nightboat called the Manhattan built in 1913 to run to Providence, R.I. with another steamer, the Narragansett, as a night boat.  The new company did not start up, and the boats lay idle until they were called to serve in World War I in 1917 when the Manhattan became a naval transport called Nopatin, and crossed the Atlantic to serve on the English Channel.  After the war, back in America she became a Day Line boat and was rechristened DeWitt Clinton.  She began service on the Hudson in May of 1921. The DeWitt Clinton, after rechristening again, also served as transport vessel to Europe during World War II, and later as a refugee and immigrant ship in the Mediterranean. 

To learn more about the Hudson River Day Line visit the online exhibit by clicking the button below.​