History Blog
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Today's featured artifact is this little metal figurine of Fala, the beloved Scottie dog of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. A recent acquisition, it was likely sold on one of the Hudson River Day Line steamboats as a souvenir of the Hudson Valley. Fala was perhaps the most famous White House pet. Born in 1940, he was a constant companion of President Roosevelt, residing in the White House and often accompanying the president on his travels. By some accounts, Fala made the news more than FDR's family! He became a much-beloved mascot for the nation during a trying time in American history - World War II. It is this fame that likely resulted in the souvenir figurine that now resides in our collection. During the Election of 1944, the Republic opposition started a rumor that Fala had been left on the Aleutian Islands after a recent visit by the president, and that he had sent a Naval destroyer to retrieve Fala at great cost to taxpayers. Launching his presidential campaign at a dinner with the International Teamsters Union, Roosevelt addressed the charges in a famous speech. You can watch the Fala-related portions of the speech below. The humor with which the president addressed the charges (which were false) may have helped get him reelected to a third term. Sadly, Fala outlived his master. President Roosevelt died in April of 1945. Fala went to live with Eleanor Roosevelt at Val-Kill. In her autobiography, Eleanor wrote of Fala's reaction to the president's death: "It was Fala, my husband's little dog, who never really readjusted. Once, in 1945, when General Eisenhower came to lay a wreath on Franklin's grave, the gates of the regular driveway were opened and his automobile approached the house accompanied by the wailing of the sirens of a police escort. When Fala heard the sirens, his legs straightened out, his ears pricked up and I knew that he expected to see his master coming down the drive as he had come so many times. Later, when we were living in the cottage, Fala always lay near the dining-room door where he could watch both entrances just as he did when his master was there. Franklin would often decide suddenly to go somewhere and Fala had to watch both entrances in order to be ready to spring up and join the party on short notice. Fala accepted me after my husband's death, but I was just someone to put up with until the master should return." Fala died in April of 1952, just shy of his twelfth birthday. He is buried near the Roosevelt grave at Springwood in Hyde Park. He is the only Presidential pet to be memorialized with his master, as pictured below at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C. To learn more about Fala, check out his official biography at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum. 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!
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Originally named, "Eugene," the ice yacht Vixen was built in 1886 in what is now Chelsea and was the first successful lateen-rigged ice boat. The new rigging style allowed for even greater speed. Purchased by John A. Roosevelt (FDR's uncle) and renamed Vixen, she can still be seen plying the Hudson whenever it gets cold enough to freeze.
John A. Roosevelt, who lived at Springwood, just down the river from his sister Sarah Roosevelt's home (now the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site), owned a number of ice boats, including the Icicle, on display at the Hudson River Maritime Museum. John A. Roosevelt founded the Hudson River Ice Yacht Club in 1885, breaking away from the older Poughkeepsie Ice Yacht Club (founded in 1861) over a dispute about race results. John A. Roosevelt served as the club's first Commodore and his nephew Franklin served as Vice-Commodore for a time. ​This brief video of Vixen sailing c. 2010 gives a first-hand look at what sailing the old stern-steerers is like. Hudson River Ice Yachts from fusionlab on Vimeo.
By the 1920s, the Hudson River Ice Yacht Club had fallen into disuse. The old wooden stern-steerers like the Vixen began to be overshadowed in popularity by more modern, streamlined ice boats that looked more like rockets with sails than the old-fashioned kind. Innovations in speed and technology, centered around the Great Lakes in the Midwest, made the old wooden boats obsolete. The knowledge that many of the old stern-steerers, tucked away in garages and barns, were in danger of disappearing. But in 1964, a group led by Cornwall resident and ice boating enthusiast Ray Ruge revived the HRIYC and began rescuing and restoring these old boats.
The Hudson River Ice Yacht Club is still around today, although they get to sail a lot less frequently than they used to, thanks to climate change. You can read more about the formation of the club, and ice yachting on the Hudson River in general, in this article, "Two Centuries of Ice Yachting on the Hudson" by Brian Reid, published in the 2007 issue of the Pilot Log.
You can learn more about ice boating and see John A. Roosevelt's Icicle as well as the smaller ice boat Knickerbocker on display at the Hudson River Maritime Museum. The museum also holds the Ray Ruge Collection, including many photographs, articles, and correspondence related to the Hudson River Ice Yacht Club, its stern-steerers, and its members.
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!​
Ice boating has a long history on the Hudson River, and the Hudson was where ice boating may have started in the United States. Although ice sailing on frozen rivers and canals in Europe dates back to the 17th century, it wasn't until the 1790s that we get our first recorded instance of ice boating on the Hudson River, in Poughkeepsie. A simple wooden box on two runners with a third runner at the back for steering, these sail-rigged boxes with skates were a way for ordinary people to have some wintertime fun, and even occasionally acted as transport vessels for people and small goods. By the mid-19th century, the Hudson River was the center of a huge ice boating (or ice yachting) trend, one that experienced another surge of popularity at the turn of the 20th century. Unlike the early boxes on runners, these new wooden "boats" were simple and elegant - an enormous wooden keel with a wooden cross piece and runners all around. A small platform at the back was for the skipper and any passengers. During races, sometimes the jib man would stand on the cross pieces. This video, filmed in 2014, shows a number of historic "stern steerers" as they are called - because you steer the boat at the stern, or back, with the back ice runner serving as a rudder. Thanks to climate change, the Hudson River doesn't freeze much these days, and when it does it rarely gets thick enough for long enough for ice boating. But that doesn't stop the folks who are keeping the sport alive from trying. You can learn more about the Hudson River Ice Yacht Club by visiting their website. The Hudson River Maritime Museum has a large collection of ice boating materials, including the stern steerers Icicle and Knickerbocker (Jack Frost shown in the video is the sister boat to the Icicle). Icicle was owned by John E. Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt's cousin and Franklin Delano Roosevelt's uncle, and the one who got FDR into ice boating. Both ice boats are on display in the museum's East Gallery. If you'd like to learn more about the history of ice boating on the Hudson and about the formation of some of its groups, check out this great article from Hudson Valley Magazine: Explore the History of Ice Yachting in the Hudson Valley. And this winter, if the weather gets cold enough for long enough, take a trip up to Kingston/Rhinecliff or Hudson, NY and see if you can't see folks ice boating off of Astor Point or Tivoli Bay. 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!
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AuthorThis blog is written by Hudson River Maritime Museum staff, volunteers and guest contributors. Archives
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