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 volunteers Carl and Joan Mayer. See more of Captain Benson’s articles here. This article was originally published April 23, 1972.

In the early spring of 1934, I was on the tugboat Lion of the Cornell Steamboat Company. We were going up through Haverstraw Bay with a large up river tow. The tug Edwin Terry was our helper.
 
It was about 9 a.m. and I was off watch and fast asleep in my bunk, when Dan Reilly, the deckhand, came to my room and called me, saying “Hey, Bill, I thought you would want to get up and see your old pal coming down the river.
 
I jumped up as quickly as I could and there just below Stony Point, I could see the old Day Liner Albany paddling her way down river for the last time. She had been sold and was leaving the Hudson forever. The Albany was the first steamboat I had ever worked on, beginning as a deckhand during the seasons of 1928 and 1929.  
 
An April Day
It was the kind of spring day that made one glad he was alive. There was a light breeze from the south with the bright April sun shimmering on the water. How wide the Albany looked as she approached us with her broad overhanging guards! I could see her paddle wheels turning under the guards, and the buckets dipping slowly in the water as she reduced speed to pass our tow and reduce the size of the waves.
 
As she neared us with her large silver walking beam rhythmically going up and down, up and down, up and down as if reaching out ahead all the time, and her big white paddle wheels turning slowly, she was indeed a sight to behold.
 
But little did the old girl know she was leaving her beloved Hudson River for the last time to sail on another river to the south under another name.
 
When she was almost next to us, I gave the Albany the one long, one short whistle signal – a pilot’s way of saying hello. She answered with one long and two short blasts on her whistle. Joe Eigo of Port Ewen, the captain of the Terry, did the same – and the Albany also answered him.
 
The Last Goodbye
I hollered over to Joe Eigo, the Terry being abreast of us on a head line and also pulling on the tow, “Give her the goodbye, will you Joe, because I want to give her the last goodbye.” Joe answered, “Sure, Bill,” and really pulled down hard on the Terry’s steam whistle with three long blasts, which the Albany answered.
 
By this time, the Albany was down abreast of the tow. Then with the Lion’s heavy bass horn, I blew three very long whistles to say farewell. The Albany answered with three equally long blasts on the whistle. I can still see the white steam from her whistle ascending skyward in the bright sunlight of that April morning. I knew this would be the last time I would ever hear that old familiar whistle.
 
I watched her as she went further and further down river, around Rockland Lake, and finally out of sight. At the time, I was sure I would never see her again… and I never did.
 
There is something that reaches far into a man who once worked on a steamboat of the past, particularly when he comes into contact with the first boat on which he worked.
 
From the Shore
If, for example, he should decide to take a job ashore – and if one of the early boats he worked should happen to go by, he will always watch her with fond nostalgia until she disappears from view. And many memories and thoughts pass through his mind.
 
That’s the way it was with me that day I saw the Albany go by for the last time. I thought of all the old crew members, all the passengers I had seen on board her – sometimes as many as 3,000, all the landings we had made up and down the river for the last time, leaving behind forever her old winter berth at Sleightsburgh, her recent lay up dock at Athens, and the landings she knew so well for so long.
 
Henry Briggs of Kingston had been the Albany’s last captain. On her last trip down the Hudson, however, Captain Briggs was in Florida, so Captain Alonzo Sickles of the Hendrick Hudson, also of Kingston, took her to New York. Alexander Hickey was pilot, Charles Maines of Kingston was mate and Charles Requa was chief engineer on her final trip.
 
The Albany had originally been built in 1880 and, until the coming of the Hendrick Hudson in 1906, ran regularly on the New York to Albany run. From 1907 until the Washington Irving came out in 1913, the Albany was used almost exclusively on the New York to Poughkeepsie route. Then, she replaced the Mary Powell on the Rondout to New York run and covered this service until it was ended in September 1917. During the 1920’s, except on weekends, the Albany was used almost entirely for charters or as an extra boat.
 
Last Year on Hudson
The season of 1930 was to be the last regular season in service for the Albany on the Hudson River. At that time she had been an active member of the Day Line fleet for 51 seasons, a record that was not to be exceeded by any other Day Line. In September, she went into winter lay up as usual at the Sunflower Dock at Sleightsburgh. However, with the deepening of the Great Depression, it was decided not to put her in operation in 1931, and – in May of that year – the tugboat S. L. Crosby of the Cornell Steamboat Company towed her from Sleightsburgh to Athens to a more permanent lay up berth. I was a deckhand on the Crosby when we towed her on her last up river trip. 
 
In 1933 the Hudson River Day Line went into receivership – and on March 6, 1934 – the Albany was sold at public auction. She was purchased by B. B. Wills of Baltimore for only $25,000 and he planned to place her in service on the Potomac River running out of Washington, D.C. When I saw her on that April day in 1934, the Albany was on her way to her new life in the south. She was renamed Potomac and continued in operation out of Washington until the end of the season of 1948. She was then dismantled and her hull converted into a barge named Ware River.
 
The old Albany was always a fast steamboat and, even in her last years on the Hudson River, she could still show her speed to much newer steamboats. As the Potomac in her new service in the south, she still took smoke from no other steamboat.

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. See more of Murdock's articles in "Steamboat Biographies". See more Sunday News here.

                                             No. 25- Albany - 1820s 
The first steamboat on the Hudson river named the “Albany” was built in 1826 at Philadelphia by J. Vaughan for James A. Stevens to run on the New York and Albany route in line with the “New Philadelphia”. She arrived at New York from Philadelphia on April 8, 1827, and began her regular schedule on April 11.
              
However the first trip did not bring her to Albany as she broke several of her paddles after proceeding a few miles up the Hudson and was compelled to return to New York. Repairs were made, and Sunday, April 15, she set sail on her first regular trip under the command of J.G. Jenkins.
              
The owners of the “Albany”, the Messrs. Stevens of Hoboken, had spared no expense in an endeavor to make the new craft one of the finest on the river, even to having the panels in the cabins decorated with pictures by some of the finest artists in the country. But with all their preparations, the “Albany” did not turn out to be the fast vessel that had been expected.
              
Alterations were made to the “Albany” in an endeavor to make her into a better running vessel. Her original 147-foot hull was lengthened to 207 feet by the addition of another bow and stern. These changes had the desired effect and the “Albany” could then hold her own with the more up-to-date steamboats then appearing on the river. In 1839 the “Albany” was again lengthened to 287 feet and was widened two feet. With a sharper bow and finer lines aft, she made better time between New York and Albany. On September 25, 1840, she made the run in eight hours and 33 minutes as compared with her first record in 1827 of over 12 hours.  The “Albany” served for a few more years, sailing up and down the Hudson river, and was finally worn out and broken up.

​                                              No. 28- Albany - 1880 to 1930s
The “Albany” was built for the Hudson River Dayline in 1880 and was the first iron steamboat constructed for the Hudson river travel since the building of the “Iron Witch” in 1846, later called the “Erie.” The new craft supplanted the “Daniel Drew” and made her first regular trip from New York to Albany on July 2, 1880. The 300 foot vessel was much admired for her graceful proportions, and when she is moving through the water at her regular speed, she causes but little commotion, and shows great stability when heavily loaded with passengers.
              
For the first time in the history of river steamboats, three boilers and three smokestacks were placed side by side instead of one behind the other, a deviation which gave the boat a very different appearance from the usual style. Other alterations were made from time to time until the present boat is a far cry from the original built in 1880.

The “Albany” made a fast trip on October 22, 1884, leaving New York and arriving at Poughkeepsie in three hours and 20 minutes. For 25 years the “Albany” ran on the schedule of the Dayline with her consorts the “Chauncey Vibbard” and “New York.” In 1906 the “Hendrick Hudson” joined the fleet and the “Albany” was made into a special boat plying between New York and Poughkeepsie on one round trip per day. She continued on this run until 1913 when the Washington Irving made her first appearance on the waters of the Hudson. At this time the “Robert Fulton”, which had also been running to Albany with the “Hendrick Hudson”, was placed on the Poughkeepsie route.

At this time the famous “Mary Powell” was beginning to show signs of wear and so the “Albany” was put on the Rondout-New York route, making her first trip from Rondout on Monday, July 7, 1913, and continuing on this route until 1917. In 1918 she was chartered out for excursions and also made a special trip to Albany each Saturday.  The Albany was sold in 1935 and now [in the 1930s] plies the Potomac river as an excursion boat running out of the nation’s capitol.

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