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 August 14, 1977.

As the “Esopus” moved sedately down Rondout Creek toward the Hudson, all the vessels along the creek with steam on their boilers joined in whistle salutes of goodbye and good luck. At the Central Hudson Line wharf between the foot of Broadway and Hasbrouck Avenue lay the big steamer “Benjamin B. Odell.” The “Odell’s” pilot, Richard Heffernan, was on top of the pilothouse as the “Esopus” passed, pulling on the cable connected to the large commodious whistle and he kept pulling it to the whistle’s full steam capacity. Even the trolley cars along Ferry Street were ringing their bells. 

At that time, Rondout Creek sort of resembled a home for old steamboats. At the foot of Island Dock lay the big sidewheel towboat “Oswego” built in 1848. At the Abbey Dock, east of Hasbrouck Avenue, lay the old Newburgh-to-Albany steamer “M. Martin,” which at one time during the Civil War had served as General Grant’s dispatch boat. Farther down the creek at the Sunflower Dock lay the old queen of the Hudson, the “Mary Powell.” Now, on all three, after over half a century of service on the Hudson, their boilers were cold and their whistles were silent. 

As the "Esopus" neared Ponckhockie, the large whistle on the U.& D. Railroad shops and the whistle of the old gashouse blew long salutes of goodluck and happy sailing.  Finally, as she approached the mouth of the creek, Jim Murdock, the keeper of Rondout lighthouse, rang the big fog bell in a final farewell to the “Esopus." When she reached the Hudson, the “Pocahontas” took the “Esopus” in tow and started the trip to New York. 

Years later I was pilot on the “Pocahontas,” and her chief engineer, William Conklin, told me about the 1918 trip down the river.  Chief Conklin was a great man for detail.  He said that when they got to the Hudson Highlands, between Cornwall and Stony Point, it was the time of evening when the nightly parade of nightboats made its way upriver — the passenger and freight steamers bound for Kingston, Saugerties, Catskill and Hudson, Albany and Troy, as well as tow after tow.  That was when the Hudson River was really busy with waterborne traffic.

Bill went on to tell me the “Esopus” towed like a light scow, following the “Pokey” without any trouble at all.  They arrived in New York in the early morning and a big coastwise tug was waiting for them at Pier 1, North River, to tow the “Esopus” out Long Island Sound.  The orders from the Cornell office were for the “Pocahontas” to stay with the tow up the East River through Hell Gate and then call the Cornell office for further orders.  After passing through the Gate, the "Pocahontas” let go, saluted the "Esopus" three times and returned to the Hudson.
 
After that, I never knew for sure what became of the “Esopus.” It would be nice to be able to say she had a distinguished career in war and a long, profitable one in peace.  Ships like the “Esopus,” however, had been an emergency measure.  World War I was over before she saw much service and apparently they found little use in the years that followed.  It is my understanding the “Esopus” was the only one of the four to be built on Island Dock that was completed.  Her sister, the “Catskill,” was launched but never finished, and construction of the other two was stopped and they were dismantled. 
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In the 1920’s and early 30’s there used to be ships like the “Esopus” in the backwaters of New York harbor lying on flats and abandoned, but I never saw any names on them.  Gradually they rotted away with only a few watersoaked timbers remaining.  If one of these should have been the bones of the “Esopus,” it would have been a sad end for a ship that was cheered by some 15,000 people when she was launched on Rondout Creek nearly 60 years before.

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The shipbuilding industry that flourished in Athens and New Baltimore from the mid-19th century until the time of World War I has been overlooked for too long by historians. The small shipyards of these villages turned out many steamboats, steam lighters and barges, but arguably their lasting contribution to the maritime world was in the sizable fleets of tugs that came from local yards, which included Morton & Edmonds, Van Loon & Magee, Peter Magee, William D. Ford and R. Lenahan & Co. in Athens; and, in New Baltimore, J.R. and H.S. Baldwin, William H. Baldwin and that grandly-named-but-short-lived late-comer, the New Baltimore Shipbuilding and Repair Co.
 
The vessels were built for the area’s two principal markets- Albany and New York City. In Albany, the eastern terminus of the Erie Canal, an impressive fleet of small harbor tugs performed two functions: They shepherded the multitude of canal boats that traversed the Erie Canal after they had reached Albany, and many of these tugs towed barges and canal boats on the canal itself. In New York - then, as now, one of the nation’s major ports - these tugs joined the workforce of commerce of that place, docking and undocking seagoing vessels, shifting barges among the multitude of piers, and performing many other tasks.
 
The tugs built at Athens number over eighty, including the well-known side-wheel towboat Silas O. Pierce, launched by Morton & Edmunds in 1863. She eventually came under the ownership of Rondout-based Cornell Steamboat Company, as did a number of other Athens-built vessels, such as the Thomas Chubb of 1888, H.D. Mould of 1896, P. McCabe, Jr. (renamed W.B. McCulloch) of 1899, and Primrose of 1902.
 
New Baltimore’s output of tugboats was around fifty vessels. This fleet was composed of some interesting vessels, such as the side-wheel towboats Jacob Leonard and George A. Hoyt in 1872 and 1873. Both were in the Cornell fleet. George A. Hoyt was the last side-wheel towboat constructed as such- - most vessels of the type having been converted from elderly passenger steamboats.
 
Over the years, Cornell also acquired a number of New Baltimore propeller tugs, such as Jas. A. Morris of 1894, Wm. H. Baldwin of 1901, R.J. Foster of 1903, Robert A. Scott of 1904, and Walter B. Pollack (later renamed W.A. Kirk) of 1905. R.J. Foster and Robert A. Scott had originally towed ice barges for the Foster-Scott Ice Company.
 
The last tug built at Athens was the diesel-propelled Thomas Minnock, built in 1923 by R. Lenahan for Ulster Davis. She lasted until the early 1960s, although many of her last years were in lay up at the Island Dock at Rondout while owned by the Callanan Road Improvement Company. New Baltimore’s last tug was Gowanus, built for the legendary Gowanus Towing Company by the Baldwin yard in 1921.
 
In recognition of the shipbuilding prowess of the shipbuilders of Athens and New Baltimore, we of the Hudson River Maritime Museum tip our collective hats to the accomplishments of these accomplished artisans and mechanics.
                                                                                                            -by William duBarry Thomas

Newburgh was the shipbuilding center of the mid-Hudson for well over a century and a half. Although the earliest accomplishments of local shipwrights are clouded by the passage of time, sailing vessels were constructed during the colonial days by such men as George Gardner, Jason Rogers, Richard Hill and William Seymour along the village’s waterfront, which extended approximately from the foot of present day Washington Street north to South Street.
 
Strategically well placed at the southernmost point before one entered the Hudson Highlands, Newburgh became the river transportation center, serving the inland towns and villages to the north and west. The Highlands form a magnificent scenic delight in the mid-Hudson region, but in the pre-railroad era they were decidedly unfriendly to the movement of goods and people. In short, the Hudson became a marine highway which connected upstate regions to the Metropolis at its mouth. A significant freighting business therefore developed at Newburgh, and, in addition, the village became one of the region’s bases for the whaling industry. Both of these undertakings required sailing vessels, and with forests of suitable timber nearby, the local shipbuilders were well placed to support the burgeoning commerce on the river.

​Much of this changed with the introduction of the steamboat in the summer of 1807, when Robert Fulton’s North River Steamboat made her first trip to Albany. It was inevitable that steam should be adopted almost universally on America’s waterways. The earliest steamboat built at Newburgh is reputed to have been the side-wheel ferry Gold Hunter, constructed in 1836 for the ferry between Newburgh and Fishkill Landing. We are not certain of the identity of her builder, but her appearance coincided with the start of local shipbuilding by the dynasty which dominated that industry for 110 years - Thomas S. Marvel; his son of the same name; and his grandson, Harry A. Marvel.
 
The shipbuilding activities of these three generations of the Marvel family encompassed the period from 1836 until 1946, when Harry Marvel retired from business. Although their activity was not continuous throughout this period, the reputations of these men as master shipbuilders survived the periodic and all too frequent ups and downs that have always plagued this industry.
 
The senior Thomas Marvel, born in Newport, Rhode Island in 1808, served his apprenticeship as a shipwright with Isaac Webb, a well-known shipbuilder in New York. Around 1836, he moved to Newburgh and commenced building small wooden sailing vessels, sloops, schooners and the occasional brig or half-brig, near the foot of Little Ann Street, later moving to the foot of Kemp Street (no longer in existence). Among the vessels he built was a Hudson River sloop launched in the spring of 1847 for Hiram Travis, of Peekskill. Travis elected to name his vessel Thomas S. Marvel, a name she carried at least until she was converted to a barge in 1890.
 
An unidentified 160-foot steamboat was built at the Marvel yard in 1853. She was described by the local press as a “new and splendid propeller built for parties in New York.” Possibly the first steamboat built by Thomas Marvel, this vessel was important for another reason- she was propelled by a double-cylinder oscillating engine built on the Wolff, or high-and-low pressure principle. Ernest Wolff had patented his design in 1834, utilizing the multiple expansion of steam to improve the efficiency of the engine. The Wolff engine was a rudimentary forerunner of the compound engine, which did not appear for another two decades.
 
The younger Thomas joined his father in 1847, at the age of 13. The young man, who was born in 1834 at New York, was entrusted with building a steamboat hull in 1854. This was a classic case of on-the-job training, for the boat was entirely young Tom’s responsibility. She is believed to have been Mohawk Chief, for service on the eastern end of the Erie Canal. The 85-3/95 ton Mohawk Chief, 86 feet in length, was described in her first enrollment document as a “square-sterner steam propeller, round tuck, no galleries and no figurehead.” The dry, archaic language of vessel documentation was hardly accurate, for her builder’s half model, still in existence, proves that she was a handsomely crafted little ship with a graceful bow and fine lines aft.
 
The elder Thomas Marvel retired from shipbuilding at Newburgh sometime around 1860. He later built some additional vessels elsewhere, including the schooner Amos Briggs at Cornwall. He may have commanded sailing vessels on the river in his later years, for he was referred to from time to time as “Captain Marvel.”
 
By the mid-1850s, the younger Thomas Marvel had become a thoroughly professional shipwright, and undertook the management of the yard’s operation, at first as the sole owner and later in partnership with George F. Riley, a local shipwright. The partnership continued until Marvel volunteered for service in the Union Army almost immediately after the start of the Civil War in April 1861. He served as Captain of Company A of the 56th Regiment until he was mustered out due to illness in August 1862.
 
He returned to Newburgh, but shortly afterwards moved to Port Richmond, Staten Island, where he built sailing vessels and at least one steamboat. A two-year period in the late 1860s saw him constructing sailing craft on the Choptank River at Denton, Maryland, after which he returned to Port Richmond.
 
During the Civil War and for a few years afterwards, George Riley continued a modest shipbuilding business at Newburgh, later with Adam Bulman as a partner. They went their separate ways in the late 1860s, and Bulman teamed with Joel M. Brown in 1871, doing business as Bulman & Brown. For the next eight years, they built ships in a yard south of the foot of Washington Street, where they turned out tugs, schooners and barges. Their output of tugs consisted of James Bigler, Manhattan, A.C. Cheney and George Garlick, and their most prominent sailing vessels were the schooners Peter C. Schultz (332 tons) and Henry P. Havens (300 tons), both launched in 1874.
 
Another source of business was the brick-making industry, which required deck barges to move its products to the New York market. Nearly all of 19th century New York City was built of Hudson River brick, and the brick yards on both shores of Newburgh Bay contributed to this enormous undertaking. In 1872 alone, Bulman & Brown built at least five brick barges for various local manufacturers.
 
Vessel repair went hand in hand with construction. Bulman & Brown built and operated what might have been the first floating dry dock at Newburgh. In 1879, the firm moved to Jersey City, New Jersey, and Newburgh lost a valuable asset. This prompted Homer Ramsdell, the local entrepreneurial steamboat owner, to finance construction of a marine railway located at the foot of South William Street. Ramsdell, whose interests included the ferry to Fishkill Landing and the Newburgh and New York Railroad, as well as his line of steamboats to New York, wanted to be sure that his fleet could be hauled out and repaired locally without the need for a trip to a New York repair yard.
 
The mid-1870s, which marked the end of the wooden ship era at Newburgh and the start of the age of iron and steel, brings us to the close of this portion of the sketch of the area’s shipbuilding. From this time onward, the local scene would change radically. The firm of Ward, Stanton & Company, successors to Stanton & Mallery, a local manufacturer of machinery for sugar mills and other shoreside activities, entered shipbuilding and persuaded Thomas S. Marvel to join the company in 1877 to manage its shipyard. Newburgh, which had been incorporated as a city in 1865, was about to enter the major leagues in ship construction.

Editor's Note: This article was originally written by William duBarry Thomas and  published in the 2000 Pilot Log. Thank you to Hudson River Maritime Museum volunteer Adam Kaplan for transcribing the article.

​The wars of the 20th century called forth boat and ship-building efforts in the Hudson Valley to serve the needs of the country in time of peril. At Kingston, Newburgh, and other river towns, vessels of various types and sizes were built. During World War I the United States Shipping Board was organized to procure vessels to meet the needs of the war effort in this country and, after a certain point, our Allies fighting in Europe and elsewhere. Wooden minesweepers and sub-chasers were built at Hiltebrant’s on the Rondout. At Island Dock the Kingston Shipbuilding Company was set up to build four wooden freighters to carry cargo to our Allies abroad. At Newburgh the Newburgh Shipyards were set up to build a more ambitious group of ten steel freighters.
 
The World War I shipyards began their cargo ship-building efforts in mid-1917 as the United States entered the war. At Newburgh noted engineer Thomas C. Desmond acquired property just south of the city after lining up financial backing from Irving T. Bush, president of Bush Terminal in Brooklyn, and other shipping businessmen. Construction of the shipyard began in the summer of 1917 with the expansion of the property by filling in the river front. Actual building of the buildings did not begin until September 1917. Four ship building berths were constructed to build 9000 ton steel cargo ships. The first keel was not laid until March 1918 due to a severe winter. The first ship, the Newburgh, was launched on Labor Day of 1918 with thousands of people in attendance and former President Theodore Roosevelt on hand to deliver a typical rousing speech. The ship was finished at the Newburgh yard and was delivered to the U.S. Shipping Board at the end of December 1918 (after the war was officially over). Shipbuilding continued with ten ships completed in total. The needs of war-torn Europe for food and other supplies, did not end with the official end of the war, so the ships being built at Newburgh and other similar yards were still needed.

The World War I cargo ships built at Newburgh were named for local towns: Newburgh, New Windsor, Poughkeepsie, Walden, Cold Spring, Firthcliffe, Irvington, Peekskill, and the last two, Half Moon and Storm King with locally inspired but not town names.
 
At its height the Newburgh shipyards employed 4000 workers, probably a record number for the area at any time. The majority of these workers were not originally ship builders and were trained by the Newburgh Shipyards. Given that the shipyard was built from the ground up (including some of the ground,) and that the majority of workers had to be trained, the output of ten 9000 ton, 415 foot length cargo ships in two and a half years is remarkable. Among the U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation shipyards established for World War I the Newburgh Shipyards was one of the more successful. Newburgh Shipyard was a source of great local pride as well as prosperity during its years of operation from September 1917 to 1921.
            
By contrast, the Kingston Shipbuilding Company established during World War I to build wooden cargo ships was less successful, though also a source of pride and jobs for the local community. Four building berths were built for wooden ships at Island Dock on the Rondout Creek. Four ships were begun, but only two were launched, and only one was actually used. The building of wooden cargo ships seems strange at that period, since iron and steel ships had been built since the 1880s. A possible shortage of steel may have been behind the idea of building in wood. The two wooden ships built at Kingston were called Esopus and Catskill, and great rejoicing attended their launchings as they were the largest vessels built in the Rondout.

This article was originally published in the 2006 issue of the Pilot Log. Thank you to Hudson River Maritime Museum volunteer Adam Kaplan for transcribing the article.

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​Located in Cohoes, New York, at the junction of the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers, the Matton Shipyard turned out barges, tugboats and other medium sized craft between 1916 and 1983. The yard is situated on low flat land on the west bank of the Hudson River on Van Schaick Island just below the mouth of the third sprout of the Mohawk River. The yard occupies approximately seven acres and during its operation, it was served by road, navigable waterways and by rail. Drawbridges and bascule bridges between Waterford and Albany posed no practical vertical clearance issues for Matton-built boats during the years in which the yard was active but the Federal Lock in Troy limited the overall size of craft produced or serviced by the yard to the dimensions of the lock chamber.  
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​The Matton family built a canalboat yard on the Champlain Canal in Waterford in 1899. In 1916 as the completion of the New York State Barge Canal neared, John E. Matton seized the opportunity to relocate the yard to the Hudson River where it would be better positioned to build and repair the larger capacity boats that could soon transit the new and greatly enlarged canal. Matton built a dock, and office, a planing mill, carpenter’s shop and floating drydock on the site and named it the John E. Matton Barge Plant. The yard benefitted from an almost immediate demand for tonnage as a result of inland shipping demands during World War I and over the next 10 years built more than 40 wooden canalboats and barges. In addition to these, the yard also built a small ferry in 1922 and a small tugboat in 1929.
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​John Matton’s son Ralph joined the firm after graduating from the Rensselear Polytechnic Institute in 1922 and the name of the yard was changed to John E. Matton & Son, Inc. During the 1930s, additional land was purchased and new storage buildings and shops were added to the facility. The site was prone to seasonal flooding but its buildings and facilities proved largely resilient.
 
In 1938, the Matton yard began the first of many steel tugboats. The 119-ton tug was launched the following year and named for John E. Matton who suffered a debilitating stoke that year. Thereafter, Ralph Matton assumed control of the firm’s operations.  John E. Matton died in 1959.
 
The shipyard expanded its physical plant and workforce during World War II as it accommodated the demand for military contracts. During the war years, the yard produced 12 tugboats, an oil barge and six 110 foot long wooden submarine chasers under government contracts. New facilities were added to the plant including a warehouse and lofting building, a stores building and a watchman’s office, kennel and perimeter fencing for security. Barracks were built for military personnel assigned to the yard.  By the end of the war, the yard employed 340 men.

  
​The Matton yard launched a 210 foot-long oil barge for the Oil Transfer Co. in 1949 on new steel ways that led into the Hudson River. Military contracts for tugs, scows and lighters were let during the Korean Conflict and in 1954, Matton took over a contract to build 15 tugs from American Boiler Works in Erie, Pennsylvania. Commercial tugs continued to be built until Ralph Matton’s death in 1964. The yard was sold to Bart Turecamo of Turecamo Towing shortly thereafter but continued in operation as the Matton Shipyard Co. Turecamo, based in Brooklyn, operated the yard in a manner similar to his predecessors. Oral histories suggest that the manual process of lofting boats and cutting out full scale framing templates continued and that the antiquated belt driven machinery in the planing mill also continued in use. Boats were still launched using a team that drove wedges to transfer the weight of a boat from the building ways to the launching ways. Launches were traditionally scheduled for Friday mornings so that employees could have a catered lunch and then take the afternoon off.
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​Between 1966 and 1983, Turecamo built nine commercial tugs and four launches for the New York City Police Department. The last boat built by the firm, the 106-foot tugboat Mary Turecamo, hull no. 345, was launched in 1982. The yard was subsequently sold to a commercial sandblasting company which operated on the site briefly before selling it to the New York State Office of Parks and Recreation for use as future parkland.
 
The lightly-framed shipyard buildings did not seem to have a future in the context of parkland development and little effort was made to maintain them. Most became ruins as roofs fell and flooding episodes gradually took their toll. Attitudes slowly changed and an appreciation for the site’s significance in regional history grew. A preservation forum was hosted by New York State Parks in 2008 and the shipyard site was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. And in 2016, the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor’s Heritage Fund launched the Matton Shipyard Project. This initiative has brought city, state, federal agencies and local citizens together to develop an approach to the use of the shipyard that preserves and celebrates its history, architecture and archaeology, remediates hazards and establishes public access to recreational opportunities along the Hudson River. Phase I of a three-phase plan is currently underway and addresses the removal and mitigation of hazardous materials and the stabilization of the important surviving buildings. Phases II and III anticipate the establishment of visitor facilities, shoreline stabilization and restoration and interpretation project.

Anchoring and lowering the topmasts in Delaware Bay

We assigned pairs to a series of one-hour anchor watches for the evening to make sure that our anchor held and to quickly identify any other potential emergencies. At midnight, the wind was really howling and the ship heeled over alarmingly several times, bringing a few others including feline crewmember Mrs. Freeboard up on deck. The anchor held, and by 4:00 AM, the wind subsided and the stars came out.
 
After a hearty breakfast, we set about the task of lowering our topmasts and topgallant poles so that we could take the ship into Wilmington later in the day. We underestimated the difficulty of accomplishing this at anchor with inexperienced volunteers. Taking each mast in turn, the plan was to attach a line to the topmast heel, pass it over the grooved mast cap and run it aft to a fife rail where a snatch block was rigged to direct the line to the capstan (a big rotating drum turned by handspikes or bars and used for heavy work). The crew would man the bars, take the strain and lift the topmast an inch so that the fid piece securing it could be knocked out. The crew would then gently walk the capstan backward until the crosstrees were in the tops.
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​It was a sound plan. We began with the foretopmast. As soon as the strain came on the line, the wooden block at the fiferail shattered and the mast jumped down a good distance before the capstan took the shock. A small piece of the block’s wooden shell dropped harmlessly to the deck while the larger chunk whistled off at 100 mph toward New Castle. Fortunately the capstan and the crew held. The mast was lowered the remainder of the way without the block.
 
The maintopmast proved to be a bigger challenge. We used a modern steel block for this episode. When the bars were manned, Mike knocked out the fid block, and we lowered the topmast down several feet where we discovered that it was unable to drop clear of the main yard. We secured the line and rigged tyes (safety lines) to the yard in preparation for lowering. It would not budge. The yard had not been shifted since installation in Albany, and the necklace, securing it to the mast was now thoroughly infused with varnish. I had to harness up, cut some of the seizings, and then jump on the yard to get it to move. After getting Mike on the yard with me and spraying WD 40 on everything, we were able to work the yard down far enough for the topmast to drop into position well below the point where the topmast would drop.
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​The next challenge was recovering our anchor so that we could get underway. We motored up to the anchor, pulling in the heavy cable along the way until we were “up-and-down,” that is the cable was now vertical between the hawse hole in the bow and the anchor down below. We attached a messenger line to the cable and led it back to the capstan. We manned the bars but the anchor was apparently buried deep in the mud. Last night’s high winds were surely a factor in burying the anchor so securely. We had to wait for slack tide before we could successfully bring it up. We were going to be late for the grand arrival.
 
It was dark when we entered the Christiana Creek leading into the Wilmington waterfront and our running lights failed. We sent the first mate out in the dink with a flashlight to find the way to our dock. He returned and led the ship there with his flashlight. We cleared a highway bridge with inches to spare, and had difficulty docking in the dark. The crowd that had planned to greet us was gone and all that remained were a few organizers and some warm beers.
 
Afterword

After a day in Wilmington, the Half Moon continued south to Washington, D.C. I had to get back to work and took the next train home to New York. Returning from Washington, tugboat captain Chip Reynolds came aboard. He took command of the ship during the return voyage and began a long and distinguished association with the ship marked by a much needed emphasis on safety. Countless school children sailed with the Half Moon on educational “voyages of discovery” between New York and Albany, and many of the lessons were filmed live to home classrooms by Skype. Reynolds had a crew of schoolchildren aboard the Half Moon in New York harbor when the planes were flown into the two towers of the World Trade Center in 2001. He kept everyone calm, and brought the children safely up the river where they could be reunited with family.
 
I joined the ship one last time in 2006 at the end of the sailing season to bring the ship to her winter berth in Verplank. We sailed much of that distance before a stiff and cold northwest wind. It was an exhilarating experience as we raced down the river between the Catskills and the Highlands during peak autumn color.
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​In 2015, the voyages of discovery were suspended, Captain Reynolds was discharged and the Half Moon was sent to the Netherlands, arriving in August. She then proceeded to the Westfries Ship Museum in Hoorn where she was exhibited. There has been discussion about returning the ship to the United States in the near future but to date, no specific plan has been announced.
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​​Building and sailing replica ships offers rare insight into worlds which no longer exist. Design details that at first seem frivolous or impractical are often revealed to make perfect sense as construction proceeds or as experience is gained operating the ship. Replicas help us to understand that our ancestors were not only daring and courageous, but equally ingenious and practical. Getting kids involved in these projects offers lessons in discipline, leadership and self-confidence and is a sure way to cultivate a deep appreciation for our maritime heritage. 

A Passage to Delaware Bay

​I joined the ship at Jersey City on the first Tuesday of October. The ship had only four volunteers but had gained a cat named Mrs. Freeboard. The Half Moon had more than enough freeboard, but our cat thought otherwise. She earned her “free” board by keeping the “pier ponies” (rats) off the ship. Our first mate went out looking to sign on a few more volunteers while the captain made chili. By this point in the ship’s career, a convenient galley and four berths had been set up in the ship’s forward hold. Historically, cooking was done on a tile hearth on the main deck within the forecastle. Crew had used this hearth previously for making cowboy coffee and boiling stews, but it was a poor substitute for a range and a refrigerator, especially in bad weather. Our food was substantially better than the dried and salted meats and weevilly biscuits served to the seventeenth century sailors. Since water became rank on long voyages, beer was the beverage of choice in 1609. We did not think it was a good idea to stock beer aboard the replica ship. We had plenty of challenges while sober. 
 
Crew members whipped old lines (finished off fraying ends) in the fo’csle and shared tales about previous trips. We ate dinner in the galley down below and watched the sunset from the mast tops. Our first mate was successful in recruiting two college students as volunteers. It was a cool, damp night so we bunked down in the galley for the evening.
 
Our new recruits came aboard at dawn and we got underway immediately, certainly before they had time to change their minds. Ideally, we should have had a mate and seven crewmembers. We were one short. The students, Mike and Ann, were a couple. Mike was very athletic and proved a quick study aloft. His girlfriend Ann had only come along for the ride, but was cheerful and ready to do her share of the work on board. We passed under the Verrazano Bridge, went by the old Romer Shoal lighthouse along the Ambrose Channel and out into the Atlantic where we paralleled the New Jersey shore. We boiled up a pot of oatmeal for breakfast and cooked chicken for lunch. Seas rose in the afternoon. Mike was the first one to feel ill. He declined our dinner of fried steaks and onions. The smell of the onions probably didn’t help.

​​We divided the crew into two watches (rotating teams) of three members each. Mike was completely out of commission and had rolled himself into a fetal position amongst coils of rope in the forecastle. Ann paid seemingly little attention to him, so from time-to-time, the others would check on him and make sure he was getting a little water.
 
As with the original, the replica Half Moon was steered by a traditional whipstaff instead of a wheel. The whipstaff is a vertical pole sliding in and out of a pivoting drum on deck. The lower end of this staff engages a long tiller which rides over a greased beam and connects to the top of the rudder. The whipstaff is housed within a protective hutch in front of the mizzenmast and well behind the mainmast. There is room in this hutch for the helmsman (the crew member steering the ship) an hourglass used for navigation and dictating the change of the watch and a binnacle, the cabinet containing the compass. Our replica also carried radar. The helmsman is protected from bad weather, yet can still see the set of the sails while watching the compass heading of the ship. However, in close maneuvering, the pilot must con (direct) the ship from the deck above, shouting commands to the helmsman below. 

​It was a stormy night and conditions were deteriorating. Although the helmsman’s hutch was largely enclosed and provided with a modern compass and radar, steering proved to be a very physical challenge. When the stern of the ship lifted up out of the water, the heavy oak rudder wanted to flop one way or the other. That force was transmitted pretty directly by way of the long tiller to the whipstaff. After bruising our chests several times, we rigged up a relieving line whipped around the steering pole that we could use as a shock absorber (maybe this is why it was called a whip-staff). Even so, maintaining a precise compass course was not possible. The best we could do was to keep heading generally south.
 
Several hours before midnight, I noticed a series of blips on the south side of the radar screen in the general path we were taking. Each time the radar swept the screen, these blips would be slightly reconfigured. Over the next several minutes they became closer and better defined. Not knowing what they represented and visibility being poor, I chose to avoid the cluster and turned the ship west. There was plenty of searoom and I was prepared to return to our original course as soon as we cleared this cluster. As we came around, the ship’s motion over the waves changed. The captain, who had been sleeping in the master’s cabin, sensed the change in course, entered the hutch, looked at the compass, and forced the whipstaff over to port while I tried to explain the situation. He either couldn’t hear me or didn’t believe me and kept swearing that I was trying to wreck the ship on the Jersey shore. Within seconds, our forward lookout ran back and screamed that we were headed into a bunch of oil or gas barges. Now the captain understood, but it was almost too late. I pushed the whipstaff hard over to starboard and we came very close to one of the barges. It appeared that the tug had lost control of her tow. We saw a long towing cable come out of the water nearby and snap taut with a thunderous crack.
 
I came off watch right after this incident and tried to catch a nap in the galley, but the recent close call and the jumping, corkscrew motion of the ship made sleep impossible. I also realized that in the event of an accident, getting out of the galley and up onto deck required navigating narrow passages, ladders and hatches. This prospect was not all that reassuring.
 
I went back on watch several hours after midnight. The captain went back to bed. Ann and I shared the steering while the first mate served as lookout. The sky lightened around 6:00 AM. Ann and I came off watch and went below to make a hot breakfast on the galley stove. After putting some coffee on, we started with a large frying pan full of bacon. As that was getting close to being ready, we started making toast and frying eggs in a second pan. At that moment, our generator conked out and we were absolutely blind. The galley was a pretty confined space two decks down in the bow with no natural light. We hit a big roller and the pans skidded off the stove top, revealing the orange glow of the burners. The hot pans and bacon grease were all over the deck, so we jumped up into the bunks to keep from getting burned. Ann felt for a flashlight in one of the bunks and found one on a pillow. Let there be light!  Miraculously, the bacon and eggs remained in their pans sunny-side up. The first mate fixed the generator, the lights, stove and toaster came back to life and we were able to serve a passable breakfast. Seasick Mike was better and was able to eat.

​A couple of exhausted goldfinches joined us as we approached Cape Henlopen and turned to enter Delaware Bay. A sail training schooner entered the bay well ahead of us but sailing before a favorable wind we eventually caught up with her. The wind increased to the point where it became prudent to trice (gather up) and furl the sails and come to anchor for the night. High winds associated with a dying offshore hurricane were forecast. We buttoned everything down. Ann prepared pasta and turkey meatballs for supper.
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Join us again next Friday for the Part 5, the last, of the "Half Moon" adventure!

Film Star
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The Half Moon came to New York several years later in time to participate in a tall ships festival. Her berth was at Liberty State Park in New Jersey and she was open for visitors during some of her stay there. A few of her original volunteer builders were invited to crew during Operation Sail. Thousands of visitors boarded the ship at Jersey City and at Tarrytown during a celebratory cruise up the river. I proved to be a competent seaman but a lousy docent. I was finally taught the important lesson that it is better to introduce a single, memorable story than to try to download a sea of factoids about Hudson, his crew, the ship, seamanship in the seventeenth century and the Dutch influence on the development of America.

A year or so later, I was invited to sail with the Half Moon to Highlands, New Jersey to exhibit the ship and then to board a film crew planning to use the ship in a film involving Hudson’s 1609 sail. Over the course of a weekend, several thousand visitors boarded and I was able to hone my newly acquired interpretive insights to everyone’s relief.

​​On Monday morning, we took showers at a nearby office and the captain bought bags of Burger King for breakfast. The film crew came aboard with re-enactor outfits and we cast off lines at 8:30 AM. As we sailed southeast toward open water, our bearded captain was dressed up as Henry Hudson while the rest of us were given loose fitting linen outfits to wear as we climbed aloft, unfurled the sails and got the ship sailing with a 15-knot west wind. The film crew shot footage of all of us going about the work of bracing the yards, trimming the sails and steering the ship inside the helmsman’s hutch while Hudson looked imperiously on. The sea became blue as we sailed farther offshore and well beyond sight of land. It was exhilarating as the ship’s sails bellied out and the bow breasted growing waves. As we mounted each new wave, sparkling foam was thrown ahead and rainbows would momentarily appear. After a few hours, the film crew was confident that it had captured the footage it needed. The conditions could never have been so ideal.
 
The captain took off his Hudson costume, directed us to launch the “dink,” our small inflatable raft, and took one of the members of the film team out to witness the ship sailing from the rolling sea. After the cameraman got sick, they returned. With the small outboard motor still idling, the captain directed me to get my camera and to take a little trip with him in the “dink.” The captain knew that I was keeping a journal of our sail and believed that I would appreciate this experience more than most. I passed my camera down to the raft on a short line and then climbed down the port main chains before expertly timing my jump into the raft. We motored away from the ship. When we were 500 feet or more out, the captain killed the motor and I took several stunning views of the ship sailing away from us. It was surreal to witness the wooden sailing ship plowing through the ocean from a small boat on the waves. It was easy to imagine a comparable scene in 1609.

​​The ship was quickly putting distance between us when the captain pulled the cord on the outboard. It did not start. He pulled again, and once again there was no response. The ship was getting smaller and the Atlantic was getting a lot bigger. I recall looking around our raft to see what we had on board. My anxiety rose when I realized we had no radio, no water and no extra fuel. The captain’s worried look suggested that he too had taken the same mental inventory. To make matters worse, the remaining crewmembers were not experienced in the complicated tasks needed to return the ship to our location under sail, or even to furl the sails, turn the engine on, and motor the ship back. I don’t even know if anyone was really aware that there was a problem. Within minutes, we weren’t even going to be visible. The captain had reached the same conclusions. He yanked away at the cord until sweat trickled into his eyes. We took the cover off and tried to troubleshoot the problem as the ship became small on the horizon. After replacing the cover, he made one last heroic pull, and the motor came to life. Immediately, we shifted into gear and began bouncing off the waves in a desperate effort to catch up to the ship. We both wondered if we had enough gas to make it.
 
No one noticed our return and no one was at the side of the rolling ship to take our line. We tied up to the chains, uttered some obscenities and got some help with our cameras before climbing back aboard.
 
The captain immediately sent crew to stations. We braced the yards and turned the ship north, but we made too much leeway to make any progress toward Raritan Bay. Giving up, we triced or gathered up the sails, turned the engine on and proceeded northwest under power. A few of us went aloft to furl and gasket the sails, a tricky piece of work without footropes which were unknown in 1609. The motion of the ship as she slows to climb waves and then accelerates as she runs toward each trough is magnified aloft and the yards lurch forward and backward with each phase of the cycle. That was the first and last time I volunteered to furl a sail. 

​The hamlet of New Baltimore is an unincorporated community of less than 200 homes situated on the west bank of the Hudson River approximately 15 miles south of Albany. From the river, New Baltimore is identified by several early nineteenth century houses with verandahs, the steeple of the Dutch Reformed Church and the squared bell tower of a former Methodist church. Driving through the hamlet, one might notice the well-preserved nineteenth century houses, carriage barns and church buildings, as well as the lawns and mature trees which contribute to its attractiveness. The core of the hamlet was entered on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. Appearances, however, can be deceiving. At its height of its prosperity and physical development, New Baltimore was a substantial community with hotels, stores, hundreds of houses, docks and industries. Of the latter, shipbuilding and ice harvesting were dominant. Today’s New Baltimore reflects little of the urban density and industrial character typical of much of its waterfront during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
 
The hamlet was first settled by several Dutch families and New Englanders at the end of the eighteenth century. By 1800, the place had accumulated two dozen houses and the name New Baltimore, often abbreviated as simply “Baltimore.”  New Baltimore was strategically located just below an area of the river choked with islands and bars that often impeded ship navigation to Albany. One of these obstructions, the infamous “overslaugh” bottled up shipping during periods of low water. New Baltimore had the advantage of being below these obstructions and still close to Albany. A promotional map from 1809 encouraging investment in real estate describes the place as “commanding a spacious harbor and intersected by extensive turnpike roads opening a fair prospect for the mercantile and seafaring adventurer.”

​Shipbuilding was clearly underway in New Baltimore by 1793 when the sloop Sea Flower was built by Nathan Dunbar. This was followed by more than a dozen new sloops, schooners and a brig built for the river trade and even trade with the West Indies. These sailing vessels tended to average 60 to 70 feet in length on deck and carried freight and passengers up and down the river while maintaining communications between Hudson River towns, New York City and southern New England. At least one New Baltimore sloop remained in service locally into the 1870s. The town’s yards also thrived repairing and rebuilding sailing vessels. By 1830, a community of shipbuilders, masters, owners and merchants had emerged building docks, warehouses, several shipyards and a series of mostly frame houses on small lots along what are now Main and Washington streets.

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​A drydock was added to New Baltimore’s yard facilities in 1835. Sloops continued to be built and repaired here into the 1850s, when steamboats and barges began to be produced. In 1858, Jedediah R. and Henry S. Baldwin purchased the Goldsmith and Ten Eyck shipyard and began a business that continued almost uninterrupted until 1919. The Baldwins built at least 100 steamboats, canal barges, hay barges, tugboats and a large steam dredge over their 61-year history and repaired many more. A marine railway was built at the company’s Mill Street yard in 1884 which facilitated the launching of new boats and the repair of passenger steamboats of all but the largest sizes. Among the more notable boats built here were the 182-foot sidewheeler Andrew Harder in 1863, 253-foot propeller steamboat Nuhpa in 1865, the sidewheel towboat Jacob Leonard in 1872, the 127-foot sidewheel steamboat G.V.S. Quackenbush in 1878 and the 139-foot hay and excursion barge Andrew M. Church in 1892. Between 1905 and 1906, 13 boats were launched at the Baldwin yard. Photographs of the yard taken in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries show the marine railway in use, new boats being built on the shoulders of the railway slip, an office and loft building, several storage buildings, a steam mill for sawing and planning lumber, a basin adjacent to the river to keep logs from drying and checking, several steam boxes with brick furnaces and teams of workers with caulking mallets in hand. Launches of the larger boats were often celebratory events for the community and recorded in photographs. 

​​Small boats were also produced and serviced in New Baltimore. In the 1880s, Herrick & Powell produced yachts and launches with steam and early internal combustion engines. In 1898, William H. Couser moved his boat shop to Mill Street where he produced and repaired small craft for some years. The Baldwin firm built or repaired at least one small auxiliary schooner at its Mill Street yard and briefly operated a small yard nearby at Matthews Point for building smaller tugs.

​​New Baltimore’s mid and later nineteenth century prosperity was expressed in its fine homes and churches. Stylish homes with verandahs overlooking the river and sometimes distinctive cupolas were built by the town’s leading industrialists and merchants in the latest styles of the day. Steamboats connected New Baltimore to Albany, Hudson and ports in between and a five-story hotel was built on the town square. Large warehouses flanked the public dock and coal pockets were built near the steamboat dock and a short distance south on Mill Street. By the 1890s, the waterfront was flanked by enormous icehouses at its north and south ends and across the river on Hotaling Island.
 
New Baltimore’s decline was gradual. The West Shore Railroad by-passed the hamlet by more than a mile when service began in 1883, limiting the possibilities that direct rail service might have provided. Major fires in 1897, 1905, 1912 and 1929 largely destroyed the business center of the community. The natural ice industry declined during this same period due to public concerns over bacterial contamination from polluted river water and the simultaneous rise of clean manufactured ice.
 
The Baldwin shipyard was purchased by William Wade in 1919 and incorporated as the New Baltimore Shipbuilding and Repair Corporation. It may have built one or more wooden tugs. The last launch in town was the 90-foot wooden steamship Kittaning built in 1922 for the Manhattan State Hospital on Ward’s Island. Thereafter, the yard became a dock for Wade’s adapted sand and dredging company. While ideal for building wooden sloops, barges, tugs, ferries, and small to mid-sized steamboats, New Baltimore did not have enough available flat land along the river or the access to rail shipments necessary to create an efficient yard for building with steel. Steel shipbuilding succeeded elsewhere on the Hudson River where adequate land and infrastructure were available, notably at Kingston, Newburgh, and Cohoes.

With its prime industries lost, New Baltimore lost status, population, and a number of ancillary businesses that once thrived on its booming economy. Images taken by Office of War Information photographer John Collier, Jr. in October 1941 show a town with little apparent activity, dilapidated fences, unpainted porches and a waterfront with rotting barges. Buildings continued to be lost to fire and neglect and trees reclaimed industrial sites and yards. Areas of dense-packed housing were gradually thinned and by the 1970s, the town had lost as much as one-fourth of its historic building stock.
 
The hamlet’s stabilization and recovery, beginning in the 1970s, paralleled a broadened appreciation for the Hudson River and the gradual clean-up of its waters. Today, the hamlet is an attractive bedroom community for families and individuals with employment in adjacent communities and nearby cities. Its maritime heritage is echoed in the houses of the shipbuilders, captains, shipwrights and rivermen, the remains of the earth-filled docks and slips, a lone derrick, several subbing posts along the shoreline and the stone foundations of some of its lost buildings and industrial sites.
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Sources:
Bush, Clesson S. Episodes from a Hudson River Town, New Baltimore, New York. SUNY Albany, 2011.
Gambino, Anthony J. By the Shores of New Baltimore: Its Shipyards and Nautical History. Self-published C.D., 2009.

​Editor’s Note: The replica ship Half Moon was completed in Albany in 1989 and served as a cultural ambassador celebrating the role of the Dutch in naval architecture, exploration, international trade, and colonization. An earlier replica was built in Amsterdam and presented to the United States during the Hudson-Fulton Celebration in 1909. This first replica was not maintained after the celebration and did not survive long as a static exhibit at Bear Mountain and later at Cohoes. The 1989 replica performed well once her characteristics were understood and was exhibited in a number of ports along the Atlantic seaboard. Later, she served as valuable and successful educational platform on the Hudson River through her “Voyages of Discovery” program for school children. The ship is currently in the Netherlands after spending several years as an exhibit in Hoorn.
 
To read more about the technology and terminology of sailing in the seventeenth century and later, John Harland’s Seamanship in the Age of Sail, 1984 (republished by the Naval Institute Press in 1987) is recommended. For an account of Henry Hudson’s four voyages of exploration, including his trip up the Hudson River in 1609, Donald Johnson’s Charting the Sea of Darkness, International Marine, 1993 is recommended. This latter book is dedicated to the shipwright who designed and built the replica, Nick Benton. 

​​Follow Muddy Paddle, Able Seaman aboard the replica ship Half Moon here.
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The Maiden Voyage

​It was mentioned earlier that the 1609 Half Moon carried a standard six-sail rig of the period. This means that she carried a foremast and a mainmast, each spreading two square sails to drive the ship as well as a bowsprit and a mizzen spreading smaller sails that helped supplement the rudder to steer the ship, or more accurately position the ship’s angle relative to the wind direction. The foremast and mainmasts are comprised of three connected spars each; a heavy mast rising 30 to 40 feet above the deck; a lighter topmast 20 to 25 feet in length rising up above the circular tops colloquially called “crows’nests” and topgallant poles rising a little less than 20 feet above crosstrees at the top of each topgallant mast. The combined height of the mainmast assembly was approximately 78 feet above the waterline. The mizzenmast at the stern of the ship was shorter and lighter carrying only one sail and comprised of only one large spar and one short pole above that. The bowsprit overhanging the bow of the ship was shaped from a single spar. The replica Half Moon was fitted with an engine to facilitate movement when wind and tide were not favorable. Adding an engine was also intended to add a margin of safety and reliability to the replica’s operations. 

The unofficial but actual maiden voyage of the replica Half Moon took place just before sunset early in October, 1989. The ship was docked on her port side where she was held off of the bulkhead by a steel camel or pontoon. The work on this side was complete and it was time to turn the ship around so that the starboard side would be more accessible. After the volunteers arrived, lines were cast off. A paid member of the construction crew took command and the ship proceeded south under her own power. At the Port of Albany, our provisional captain ordered the helmsman to make a hard port turn. The helm was slow to answer, owing to the placement of the propeller on the port side of the ship and the relatively small surface area of our rudder. It took most of the width of the river to turn the ship around and to head back north to our dock. After straightening up, our captain gave the engine more throttle and we found that steering improved. We were sailing with the incoming tide and making rapid progress. A west wind picked up and even with sails furled, our ship heeled gently over.

​By now, a few boaters had begun to follow us and snap off photographs of the scene against an atmospheric sunset. We approached our dock and the highway bridge just north of it very quickly. The captain planned to proceed to the bridge, turn, and then dock with the starboard side to the wall. Once again, the ship was very slow to make a port turn. The ship’s momentum and the tide were quickly carrying us to the bridge which had a vertical clearance of less than 70 feet. Our captain shifted to reverse, and revved up the engine, but reverse failed to engage. As our foremast approached the bridge, all of the crew on deck tried to find cover. Some dove into the forecastle or down the main hatch. One dove into the river. The foretopgallant mast struck the bridge, broke off and went into the river. The taller main topmast was next in line to strike the bridge and would have resulted in a lot of falling spars and blocks and cordage. Fortunately, reverse engaged at the last second and the mast was spared. Our captain sheepishly landed at our dock. As a token of humiliation, the broken fore topgallant mast was hooked by one of the boaters and towed to us for presentation while we secured lines. Within hours, a replacement was hastily planed down from a long fir timber and raised into position before the owner of the ship arrived the next day for an inspection.

Sea Trials
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Several days later, plans were made to send the Half Moon down to New York on a shakedown cruise. An experienced pilot was hired. The crew returned with sea bags in hand for a trip down the river. Once the owner came aboard, we cast off lines, started the engine and moved away from the dock. Cannon fire from the Rensselaer shoreline saluted the ship as she moved into the main channel.
 
The trouble began almost immediately. Smoke billowed out of the engine compartment and up and out of the main hatch. While a few folks went below for fire extinguishers, our new pilot quickly reviewed the options and decided to run for the docks at the Port of Rensselear and get everyone off the ship. Several of us gathered up lines to secure the ship as soon as we touched. The pilot killed the engine and we hit the dock with a thud, breaking the rampant lion figurehead. After the smoke cleared we learned that the shaft bearings had overheated. The engine and the shaft were misaligned. The trip was cancelled. We all took our gear and departed. A week or so later, a tugboat named Spuyten Duyvil came up the river, attached a towline to the Half Moon’s forward bitts and unceremoniously towed the ship to New York and then to Bridgeport for drydocking. From there, she was taken to North Carolina. Thus ended the first chapter of Half Moon’s Albany story and her association with most of her original volunteers and would-be sailors.