During the heyday of Hudson River Valley commerce and industry, the Town of Saugerties, at the mouth of Esopus Creek, was a leading harbor and shipping facility. For most of the 19th and into the 20th centuries, Saugerties attracted freight vessels and passenger boats, going to and from New York City, 90 miles to the south, and Albany, 40 miles to the north.
           
One of the most important waterfront facilities in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the Bigelow Dock at the hamlet of Malden, two miles above the village of Saugerties and now part of the town. Eighteenth-century settlers built grist mills and lumber mills along the creeks and riverfront, and much of the timber being cut in the surrounding Catskill Mountains, as well as the hides being tanned, was brought to Saugerties for shipment to market. In 1808, commerce in timber and hides appealed to Connecticut-born Asa Bigelow, who developed the riverfront at Malden. A builder of fast sailing sloops, Bigelow was enterprising and industrious,, and he succeeded in winning considerable freight that otherwise would have gone to the Saugerties or Catskill docks.
           
In 1810, Bigelow built a two-story brick store at the river’s edge, which still stands today, and is a private residence. His Malden wharf- known as the Bigelow Dock- and his warehouses thrived, with blue stone becoming a major product. Saugerties and Ulster County historian Karlyn Knaust Elia describes the commercial vitality of Saugerties and the surrounding region in an online history of the town: “Before the Civil War the iron works processed pig iron and scrap, and employed three hundred people working round-the-clock shifts. Manufacture of paper, calico prints, white lead and paint, and shipment of hides helped support the community and created a business district. Typical nineteenth century tradesmen lined the streets above the docks and mills. When the early industries failed after mid-century, paper, brick making, gunpowder, farm goods, river ice, and especially blue stone from area quarries, replaced them.
           
Two thousand men were employed at one time in quarrying, dressing and shipping about one and a half million dollars’ worth of blue stone annually from Glasco, Malden, and Saugerties. The blue stone was used for curbing and paving, crosswalks, doorsills and windowsills and much of it found its way to New York City. The Ulster White Lead Company at Glenerie produced nine hundred tons of lead each year…. Later in the nineteenth century Saugerties became a popular landing and hostelry for tourists going to boarding houses in the Catskill Mountain foothills.
           
Its location on the Hudson made Saugerties ideal for harvesting ice from the river. The ice industry thrived during the 1880’s to the 1900’s. Ice houses were located in Glasco and Malden. Ice was also harvested on the Upper Esopus and on the Sawyerkill.

The brick industry grew in the 1880’s when Washburn Brothers and Empire State Brick Company opened their brickyards. Later the Staples and Hutton Brickyards were established.

As did many regional entrepreneurs, Asa Bigelow also developed roads, invested in railroads, and established manufacturing facilities, including brickyards.
           
By 1890, the shipment of Portland cement became the Bigelow Dock’s most important commercial product. Thereafter, new brickyards were established and many thrived until the mid-20th century. Brick maker Terry Staples eventually bought out the Bigelow family’s interest in the Malden waterfront operation and ran one of the most successful brickyards on the river.
           
​Malden’s fortunes are now closely linked to the Town of Saugerties, but its heritage as an enterprising Hudson River center of commerce is rich and enduring, mainly thanks to Asa Bigelow and the Bigelow Dock.

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Editor’s Note: The following text is a verbatim transcription of an article featuring stories by Captain William O. Benson (1911-1986). Beginning in 1971, Benson, a retired tugboat captain, reminisced about his 40 years on the Hudson River in a regular column for the Kingston (NY) Freeman’s Sunday Tempo magazine. Captain Benson's articles were compiled and transcribed by HRMM volunteer Carl Mayer. See more of Captain Benson’s articles here. This article was originally published in Tempo on June 25, 1972.

During the early 1920's, when I was a boy growing up in Sleightsburgh, church services used to be held every Sunday afternoon at the little Sleightsburgh chapel on First Street.
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The Rev. Mr. Anthony of Rondout would conduct the service and be assisted by Mr. Arthur S. Flemming, who later became the president of Ohio Wesleyan University and Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare in President Dwight Eisenhower’s cabinet.  Mr. Flemming at that time had graduated from Kingston High School, but he had graduated so young that his father, Judge Harry Flemming, thought he should wait a year before going on to college.  During that period, he used to assist Rev. Anthony almost every Sunday, being very active in church work.  

On a quiet Sunday afternoon, the bell in the belfry of the chapel would toll shortly before the service was to begin at 3 p.m.  My mother would take my sisters and me with her to the service. ​

Three Long Blasts
At 3:25 p.m., the steamer “Poughkeepsie” of the Central Hudson Line would blow three long blasts on her whistle, announcing her impending departure at 3:30 p.m. from Rondout for New York.  Almost always, Rev. Anthony would be giving his sermon at that time.  When the "Poughkeepsie" would blow her whistle, Rev. Anthony's sermon would come to a dead stop. 

How that whistle would echo through the hills surrounding the Creek!  Especially on one of these hot, lazy summer Sunday afternoons when the windows would be open.  The "Poughkeepsie” would blow … and I'm afraid I would lose all interest in the sermon.  At that time, how I wished I were the lookout on the “Poughkeepsie” and could be aboard her as she started out the creek. 

It is my understanding that much the same thing used to take place at Malden during the late 1930's and 1940's.  At that time, Ellsworth Sniffen of Malden was a pilot on the “Alexander Hamilton’’ of the Hudson River Day Line.  As was the custom on steamboats, most captains and pilots would blow a three blast salute on the whistle to their families as their steamer passed their home ... a steamboatman’s way of saying “hello.”

During the 1930's and ‘40’s, the “Alexander Hamilton” almost always was the up boat to Albany on Saturdays.  This, of course, would mean she would be the down boat on Sunday.  The schedule at that time called for the down boat to leave Catskill at 11:40 a.m. and Kingston Point at 1 p.m.  This would put her past Malden at about 12:15 noon. 

A Momentary Halt.
As the “Hamilton” would come down along the west shore of the River off Malden, Pilot Sniffen would blow the customary three blast salute on the whistle.  Services would be in progress in the church of the hill.  As the “Alexander Hamilton" blew lustily, there would be a momentary halt while the pleasant whistle echoed through the valley. 

Now the steamboat whistles are all gone.  So are many of the churches, such as the little chapel at Sleightsburgh. 

Progress is wonderful, but in its fast-paced course forward so many things of yesteryear are lost in the wake — like the sound of a steamboat whistle on a summer Sunday afternoon.

 
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