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 March 19, 1973.

To a boatman, particularly a steamboatman, there was always something special about getting ready to go into commission in the spring of each year.
​
In the days of long ago, all steamboats and most tugboats would be layed up for the winter season as the river froze over in December.  In spring, when the days got longer and the ice broke up, the boats would get ready to go back into operation.  Then, it was a new season — you knew spring had really arrived.
 
On a tugboat, the crew would report aboard in the early morning.  All the new lines, supplies for the galley, mattresses, blankets and sheets and other supplies for the new season were brought aboard.  The cook would be rushing around getting the galley ready and cooking the first meal, which usually had to be prepared quickly.  Generally, he would go over to Planthaber’s on the Strand in Rondout and order his supplies for the first few days.  When these came down to the dock, they always looked as if they would last a month.

​Coaling Up
 
Then the tug would go down to the coal pocket and coal up.  The smell of dryed [sic] new paint in the fireroom and on top of the boilers, the soft hiss of the steam, and the pleasant aroma of the soft coal smoke made one so hungry, he could eat almost anything that was put before him.
 
Outside, the freshly painted cabins and coamings, the big shiny black smokestack with its yellow base, the glistening nameboards, and the new pennant on the jackstaff gently waving in the clean spring air suddenly made everything right with the world. 
 
Then when the tug started away from the dock for the first time, to feel and hear her softly throbbing engine, and the gentle wake of the water around her bow and stern were all sounds a boatman never forgets.
 
Down off Port Ewen, the tug would generally blow a series of salutes on the whistle.  It seemed there was always someone in the crew from Port Ewen.  Often you could see someone on shore or from the upper window of a house waving back with a towel or maybe even a bed sheet.  How clear and pleasant the whistle would sound in the early spring evening.  It was great to be back in commission!

That First Meal
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And the first big meal— generally steak.  The table would be set with a fresh red and white checked table cloth and the cook would be wearing a big white apron—probably the cleanest it would be all year! The meal never tasted better.
 
And then to go to sleep on the first night in a comfortable bunk with nice, clean fresh sheets and blankets in a newly painted cabin was indeed pleasant.  Of course, after a hard day of getting lines and equipment all aboard, I am sure one could have slept soundly on a bed of hard rock!
 
It was much the same on the steamboats.  All the clean white paint, the fire and boat drills, old friendships renewed among returning crew members, the freshness of it all.  Somehow on that first day she went into commission — for that one day at least — if you were a deckhand you would completely forget all the white paint you would have to scrub, all the brass you would have to polish, all the decks you would have to wash down, all the lines at all the landings you would have to handle, and the thousands of deck chairs you would have to fold up and stow before the new season would come to its end in the fall.

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On March 16, 1893 the Saugerties Weekly Post​ recounted a freshet on Rondout Creek. Freshets are spring flash floods caused by quick melting of snowpack in the mountains. Usually, the quick thaw comes while there is still ice on the larger creeks and rivers, causing ice dams. The meltwater builds up behind the ice, until the ice finally breaks, and a wall of water with huge chunks of ice rushes down the creek.

Rondout Creek has an enormous watershed, draining most of the eastern Catskill mountains. Lower Rondout Creek also contains the entire watershed of the Wallkill River, which flows north from northern New Jersey, through Orange County up into Ulster County. Because of this, lower Rondout Creek was frequently plagued by floods.

Freshets were common in the 19th century, and caused much damage. In the 20th century, many tributaries and creeks were dammed for hydroelectric power. The upper ends of Rondout Creek are curtailed by the Rondout Reservoir, part of the Catskills Aqueduct system, as well as smaller dams left over from industrial mills, such as the Eddyville Dam near Lock 1 of the D&H Canal.

Two dams located near the confluence of the Wallkill River and the Rondout Creek greatly curtail the amount of water that flows naturally into the Rondout. Sturgeon Pool hydroelectric dam sits at the confluence of the two bodies of water. Just northwest of Sturgeon Pool, the Dashville Hydroelectric station was installed at the naturally-occurring Dashville Falls. Both hydroelectric stations are some of the earliest in the region, completed in the 1920s.

Combined with climate change, which has limited the buildup of snowpack in the Catskills, these dams have helped mitigate catastrophic flooding in the modern era. 

The Freshet of 1893 was a doozy, like other freshets in 1878 and more famously in 1936. Captain William O. Benson also recalled both the 1893 and 1936 freshets in his 1978 article. Catherine Murdock also recalled the Flood of 1878. 

Today's Featured Artifact is a fan favorite - it's the biggest artifact in our collection, and one of the few housed outdoors. It's the 1898 steam tugboat Mathilda! 

And yes, she really is an artifact! She even has her own accession number - 1983.34.1, donated by the McAllister Towing Company. Accession numbers are how museums keep track of their collections. Each number is unique to an object and the number itself tells part of the story. For Mathilda​, she was the 34th donation received in 1983, and the first item in the collection.

The 1898 steam tugboat Mathilda was built in Sorel, Quebec, and for many years worked on the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes. Originally, coal fueled her steam boilers. Later her engine was changed to an oil-fired, two-cylinder reciprocating unit.

​McAllister Towing bought the Mathilda and brought her to New York Harbor after using her in Montreal berthing ships. 1969 was her last year of active service. In 1970 McAllister donated Mathilda to South Street Seaport in lower Manhattan.

​In 1983 McAllister Towing donated the Mathilda to the Hudson River Maritime Museum, and sent her to her new home on the Rondout on the deck of the Century crane barge which placed her in the yard of the Museum.

In recent years the Mathilda has been permanently stabilized and her appearance restored with authentic McAllister paints supplied by the company. Her deck lighting has been restored and enhanced. Her interior has been cleaned out, and a window opened for viewing her engines, which are lit at night.

As one of the last tugs in existence with her original steam engine, the Mathilda is a proud survivor of the type of tugs which served on the Hudson and elsewhere for nearly 100 years.

You can visit Mathilda​ any time at the Hudson River Maritime Museum. Stop by and say hello! 

​Fog, snow and ice were always tremendous hazards to the steamboatmen who plied the Hudson shortly after the turn of the century. Before the days of radar and other electronic aids to navigation, boatmen had little to rely on but their own acquired knowledge of the river – and the tricks played by wind and tide.
 
With the always heavy river traffic and narrow channels, accidents were bound to occur, especially in fogs and snow storms. One of the more spectacular groundings took place in 1903, when the big tugboat Osceola of the Cornell Steamboat Company ran up on the old dock at Piermont.

In the winter of 1903, the Cornell tugboats Osceola and John H. Cordts were both bound up river with separate tows, both of them very large. The Cordts was about a mile ahead of the Osceola. Off Yonkers, a heavy snow storm set in with a raging northeast gale.
 
Was It Irvington?
When the Osceola was off what the crew believed to be Irvington, the captain said to the pilot, “I think we had better round up and head into the tide.”
 
The pilot suggested, “Let’s go on, the Cordts did.” But the captain still thought differently and rounded up. However, by going around to the west, they lost the echo of the whistle on the east shore and could not pick it up again.
 
Feeling their way along, they felt a slight jolt and a slight list to port.
 
But it was snowing so hard they couldn’t see anything, or could they pick up any echoes at all of the whistle. And, attempt after attempt to back off from whatever they had hit proved fruitless.
 
By Morning’s Light
When morning came, they understood why. The Osceola was perched right on top of the old dock at Piermont!
 
The Piermont dock had originally been built by the Erie Railroad back in the 19th century when the State of New Jersey refused the Erie permission to run trains in that state. As an alternative, the railroad proceeded to build a long pier out into the river at the southern most point in New York State on the west shore. The trains would be run out on the pier and passengers were taken from there to New York City by steamboat.
 
By 1903 the pier was no longer used and the end of the dock had fallen into ruin. At the time of the grounding, the tide was much higher than usual because of the winter storm, and the Osceola went right up on top of the old dock.
 
And there she remained, with her bow all the way out of the water, for some two weeks before workmen were successful in getting her off. Still, she came through her misadventure surprisingly well and continued towing on the Hudson River until October 1929.
 
A Zipped Lip
At the time of her "climb the round up and head into the dock caper," it was rumored that the chief engineer and the captain were not speaking to each other. The chief is supposed to have said later that he saw the spiles that were known to be about 500 feet north of the dock through the engine room door as the boat passed them. But he said nothing. Let the captain see them, he thought. That’s his job.
 
The captain, of course, did not see them and, consequently, the Osceola rode up on the dock in an inevitable accident.
 
And when the news about the unreported sighting of the spiles eventually worked its way into the Cornell office, that was the end of the chief engineer’s tenure of employment with the Cornell Steamboat Company.

On a tugboat, the one member of the crew that seems to have more than its share of "characters" is the cook.  Cooks come in all shapes, sizes and degrees of ability.  When they are good, they’re worth their weight in gold.  When they are not, about the only thing you can say is they cook food. 

One time when I was pilot of the tugboat Lion of the Cornell Steamboat Company, we had a cook who was what is known among boatmen as a “sea lawyer.’’ He was the world’s greatest expert on any subject.  He was forever holding forth on one topic or another and always in an exceptionally loud voice. 

My room on the Lion at that time was just ahead of the galley with a very thin partition between.  If anyone spoke in a loud voice in the galley it would seem it was right in the same room with you. 

One morning the cook was arguing with someone about something and, as usual, at the top of his voice.  It was about 8 a.m. and I had been in my bunk for less than an hour, as I had been up from midnight until 6 a.m. steering my watch.  I told him to pipe down.  But the next morning it was the same thing.  This time I didn’t say anything, but thought there must be some way to muffle this man’s voice. 

A morning or two later we had a tow on the upper river and about 2 a.m. I blew to the deckhand to come up in the pilot house to steer while I had a cup of coffee.  After I had the coffee, I went to the cook’s room and, disguising my voice, called him.  The cook in a sleepy voice said, “O.K. O.K.” Apparently, as I thought would be the case, he never bothered to look at the clock. 

I went back up to the pilot house and kept the deckhand engaged in conversation there.  About 45 minutes later, the deckhand said, "I smell bacon frying." I said, “So do I." When the deckhand went into the galley, there was the cook making oatmeal, french toast, coffee and frying bacon. 

The deckhand said, ‘‘What in the devil are you doing up? Its only 3 a.m."  The cook replied, “You called me didn’t you?”  Then, for the first time looking at the clock, he said, "I know, that so and so Benson did that because I woke him up the past couple of mornings.” 

After that, if anyone talked loud in the galley, the cook would practically whisper, “Talk low.  Benson will blame me for waking him up and then he’ll get me up about 2 or 3 a.m. again.”
​ 
At least, for several weeks afterward, I was able to get my sleep undisturbed.  In all honesty, I have to also admit that the pleasant aroma of frying bacon and brewing coffee wafting up through the open windows of the pilot house in the stillness of the early morning wasn’t bad either.

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

South Street Seaport’s tugboat W.O. Decker has made herself at home on our docks for several months on her way to the Scarano Shipyard in Albany.  Built in 1930 for Frederick and John Russell’s Newtown Creek Towing Co. as the Russell 1, she was small as tugboats go and intended for use in the confined and narrow Newtown Creek, separating Queens and Brooklyn.  As such, she was referred to as a “creek” tug.  Built of wood and powered by steam, she measured 52 ft. in length overall and 15 ft. in beam with a depth of 5 ft. 6 in.  Her steam engine was replaced by the first of several diesel engines in 1946.  With the exception of a shorter stack, her outward appearance has not materially changed.
 
Creek tugs such as the W.O. Decker were typically used to tow barges in and out of the navigable creeks which branched off of New York Harbor.  They served as stern tugs assisting larger tugboats towing strings of barges and they helped berth coastal schooners at docks on the creeks where lumber and coal were off-loaded.  They were also used in shifting barges and car floats.  It was not uncommon for creek tugs to tow three to four barges at a time, requiring expert handling in narrow and twisting waterways full of berthed ships, bridges, barges and moving tows.
 
The Russell 1 was sold to Mary Decker in Staten Island in 1946.  She renamed the tug for her father-in-law William Oscar Decker and repowered the boat with the first diesel engine.  The W.O. Decker worked for many years in the Arthur Kill and towed construction barges up narrow passages for the building of bridges on the New Jersey Turnpike.  The Decker family sold the tug in 1967 to the George Rogers Construction Co. of Mariners Harbor.  That company sold her the following year to the Youghiogheny and Ohio Coal Company where she was renamed Susan Dayton.  For much of the following decade she towed coal barges.
 
In 1978, the tugboat was purchased by George Matteson.  Matteson, captain, author and advocate for the preservation of historic ships, brought her to South Street Seaport where in exchange for berthing privileges, she was used for shifting the Seaport’s growing collection of historic ships.  Matteson donated the tug to the Seaport in 1986.  She was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.  Built at a time when New York Harbor was the busiest port in the world, she is one of only a few wooden tugboats that remain operational.
 
The W.O. Decker is photogenic and we hope you will take the opportunity to visit her while she is on our dock.  The tugboat will not be open for boarding, but you are welcome to observe her and take a boatload of pictures!
          
Source:  Norman Brouwer, (former Ship Historian, South Street Seaport Museum), National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, 1996.

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 March 14, 1972.

Up until the time the Cornell Steamboat Company acquired the diesel tugboats “Lion’’ and “Jumbo” in 1924, all of their tugboats were steam propelled.  As steamers, all the tugs burned coal and taking on coal - or coaling up - was a regular event of day to day operations.
 
For many decades, Cornell maintained a coal pocket at the easterly end of its property on East Strand.  Coal would be transferred by conveyor from railroad cars on an adjacent siding into large bins in the coal pocket.  The coal pocket itself was located right next to the dock and the tugboats would berth at the coal pocket and take on coal from large shutes direct from the bins.
 
When I was a boy growing up along Rondout Creek, it was quite a sight watching the big Cornell tugs taking on coal at the coal pocket.  As the tug would come in the creek, she would tie up at the coal pocket and first take coal on the starboard side.  As the coal went aboard, the tug would lay over on her side and it seemed the large smokestacks would be only a few feet from the upper part of the coal pocket.  Then seeing the tugs turn around with their starboard guards and main deck rail part under water, one would think they were going to turn over on their sides and sink.
 
Always Wondered
 There I used to watch the “Pocahontas,” “Osceola,” “George W. Washburn,” “Edwin H. Mead,” “Perseverance” and the smaller helper tugs take on coal and wonder what kept them from rolling over.
 
Always I would watch, thinking in my young mind I was going to see something happen that no one had seen before.  But, they always got around, took coal on their port side, came back to an even keel, and went back out to the river.
 
As the years rolled on, the day came when I was to do the same thing with many of the same tugboats at the same coal pocket that the men of my youth had done.  Now, however, the steam tugs are all gone as is the coal pocket.
 
Once, in May 1935, one tug did sink at the coal pocket and as far as I can recall this is the only time it happened.  The small tug ‘‘Empire’’ was coaling up.  Her starboard guard caught on a broken spile [sic] under water which held her up.  The men in the engine room and the pilot house thought she could take a little more coal and put some more aboard.
 
Then, when they went to turn her around, she slipped off the spile and really lay over on her side.  They wound her around and when the port side hit the dock, she went over just enough more for the water to pour in her deck scuttles — and down she went.  In a few days a Merritt, Chapman and Scott derrick was brought up from New York and raised her.

Always A Hazard
 Since coal burns, fire was always a hazard to a coal pocket.  The Cornell Steamboat Company lost two of theirs by burning, the first time in 1907 and the second time in 1936.
 
The fire in 1907 — on November 3, a Sunday — totally destroyed the coal pocket, several hundred tons of coal, and almost destroyed the big tugboat “John H. Cordts.”  The “Cordts’’ was tied up at the dock adjacent to the coal pocket.  The fire broke out in the coal pocket and got a good start before it was discovered.
 
The fire spread rapidly and soon the forward part of the “Cordts” was also aflame.  The burning coal in the coal pocket made an incredibly hot fire.  Although the coal pocket and most of its contents were total losses, the Kingston Fire Department was able to save the “Cordts” — not however before the forward half of the tugboat had been burned away and the tug had been purposely sunk at the dock.  The “Cordts” was subsequently raised, rebuilt and continued in service for nearly another 20 years.
 
After the 1907 fire, Cornell built a new coal pocket at the same site, somewhat smaller in size.  Once during the mid 1920’s, the big tugboat “George W. Washburn” came into the Cornell shops and tied up at the coal pocket dock.  During the night a fire broke out on the tugboat and spread to the coal pocket.  Prompt action by the Kingston Fire Department, however saved both the “Washburn” and the coal pocket.
 
Thanksgiving Disaster
 Finally, at 2 a.m, on Thanksgiving morning 1936, this coal pocket again caught fire and this time the fire got such a start it was impossible to save it.  The fire which was a two alarmer, completely destroyed the coal pocket and about 50 tons of coal.
 
The 1936 fire marked the end of steamboat coal pockets on Rondout Creek.  By this time, the Cornell fleet was considerably reduced in size due to a decline in towing on the Hudson River and diesel tugboats were taking the place of steam tugs.  And so another era — the age of coal — came to a close along the banks of the Rondout.

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 14, 1974.

​​Back in the 1930’s when I was a deckhand and pilot on tugboats of the Cornell Steamboat Company, Cornell had a helper tug captain by the name of Edward N. Van Woert from Athens.  Captain Ed worked for Cornell for 55 years, most of that time as captain of the tugboat “G. C. Adams.”

Captain Van Woert was a good source of stories of old time steamboating on the Hudson.  He once told me of his father’s experience as a little boy at Athens following the wreck of the steamboat “Swallow.” The event had taken place way back in 1845 on the night of April 7, now nearly 130 years ago. 

When Captain Ed told me his “Swallow” incident in the 1930’s, he was nearing the end of his boating career.  He related how his father in turn had told him how he had been awakened by his mother with the news that there had been a steamboat wreck the night before.  As a small boy his father went down to the shore at Athens and remembered seeing the bodies of those who had lost their lives in the disaster lying on the shore and being placed in wagons for removal. 

The wreck of the “Swallow” was one of the more spectacular disasters of the era and created a vivid impression all along the river.  Occurring as it did before the age of photography, several artists scurried to the scene and soon their impressions of the wreck were immortalized for posterity in lithographs that quickly appeared on the market for sale. 

The “Swallow” wreck took place some six years before the railroad was to reach Albany from New York.  In the absence of a railroad, virtually all passengers, freight and mail moving between New York and Albany did so by steamboat.  It was an era of fierce and unfettered competition.  Steamboat racing was a frequent occurrence, the idea being that the first steamer to reach a landing would be the one to get the waiting passengers. 

Old time records describe the season of 1845 as a particularly lively one.  A total of 18 steamboats were engaged in service between New York and Albany, although not all at the same time due to engine breakdowns, accidents and other mishaps.  Frequently, however, there were as many as six departures daily in each direction. 

Due to the highly competitive nature of the service, fares for passage would vary widely depending on he extent of the competition.  During 1845, the fee for one way passage is said to have ranged from a high of $1.50 to a low of 12 1/2 cents.  Presumably, what was lost in passage fares was made up by what was charged for a berth and meals once the passengers were safely aboard and the steamer had left the dock. 

On the night of April 7, 1845, the night the ‘‘Swallow” was to meet her end, she was one of three steamboats scheduled to leave Albany at 6 p.m.  Later accounts stated the “Swallow” had been racing with the steamboats ‘‘Rochester” and “Express."  In any event, as the steamers neared Athens at about 8 p.m., the “Swallow” was in the lead. 

The night was dark and overcast.  Just above Athens a heavy early spring snow squall set in, obliterating the nearby shorelines.  What then took place varies somewhat in the retelling.  One account has it that the first pilot, a Mr. Burnett, had been down to supper and coming from the brightly lighted dining area into the darkened pilot house, his eyes had not yet become adjusted to the darkness of the night.  Another account has it the first pilot came into the pilot house and immediately said to the second pilot, "Sir, you are off course.”

What no one questions, however, is the fact that shortly thereafter the “Swallow,” proceeding at full speed, piled up on a rock outcropping a short way off the Athens shore — then known variously as Dopers Island and Noah’s Brig.  From that moment, onward — and to this very day — the point of impact has been known as Swallow Rocks. 

The steamboat was driven some 30 feet upon the rocks and her wooden hull nearly broke in two at the forward gangway.  The force of the impact caused the ‘‘Swallow’’ to catch fire and the after part of the steamer immediately began to sink. The “Swallow's” stern section sank rather quickly — which fortunately extinguished the flames — but unfortunately trapped a number of passengers in the berthing section. 
​
The following steamboats “Rochester” and “Express” soon happened upon the scene and were able to rescue about 200 of the"Swallow’s” approximately 300 passengers who were aboard the night of the disaster.  One of the rescued was a Robert Thompson of Kingston. 

The residents of Athens and Hudson across the river were said to be alerted to the accident by the tolling of church bells ... and a large number of people of both communities soon gathered along the river banks and started large bonfires. 

A number of small boats put out from both Athens and Hudson and rescued other survivors who were swimming in the chill[y] waters of the river, clinging to floating debris, or who had climbed over the steamer’s bow onto the rocks the “Swallow” had hit.  A number of both passengers and crew were not so fortunate and lost their lives in the disaster.  The exact number of those who lost their lives varied in accounts of the time from a low of 15 to a high of 40. 

The impact of the wreck of the “Swallow” made an impression in the Hudson Valley that lasted for generations and is one that is always mentioned in any recounting of old time steamboat accidents on the Hudson River.  In addition to achieving a lasting fame of sorts in the naming of Swallow Rocks at Athens, the steamer’s name was perpetuated in a dwelling at Valatie, a few miles inland and north of Hudson.  The wreck was dismantled and timbers and lumber from the steamer were used to build a two-story house at Valatie which became known locally as the Swallow House.  As far as I know it is still standing.

Like many nautical terms, the words “barge” and “scow” are fraught with diverse definitions depending upon timeframes, local usages and individual perspectives and backgrounds. In this way, these words are not unlike “ship,” which in common usage refers to anything big capable of independently making its way across the water. At various times in history, the word ship referred only to sailing vessels with square sails on three masts (as opposed to brigs, barks, barkentines, etc.) while also meaning the collective team of crew and officers of any vessel. Paradoxically, the big steamers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries on the Hudson were never called ships; they were always referred to as boats regardless of size or capability.
 
Historically, the words barge and scow have applied to everything from the flat bottomed sailing barges of the Thames, floating pleasure palaces and funerary boats to the garbage boats of the first half of the twentieth century. Today, these terms generally bring to mind simple floating boxes that carry cargo and are pushed or towed by tugboats. They often suggest craft with flat bottoms and shallow drafts. Let’s take a brief look at what these words have represented here on the Hudson River.

Simple barge-like cargo boats that could be easily built and poled, rowed or sailed appeared in New England and possibly in New York. Some of these, referred to as gundalows, were typically rectangular in plan and featured flat bottoms, inclined ends, retractable masts near the bow and rudders and tillers aft. They were well adapted for carrying lumber and hay and persisted into the late nineteenth century in some rivers.
 
With the inauguration of canals in New York State, specialized boats based on narrow boat prototypes in Europe were introduced. Some of these found their way to the Hudson River. Flat bottomed, horse-drawn packet boats and line boats carried passengers or a mix of passengers and freight. But with a few notable exceptions, they remained in the canals. However, mule-drawn freight barges often plied the Hudson when they were gathered up in the huge steam tows of the nineteenth century and taken with their cargo to New York. These barges and scows featured specialized designs based on intended trades and the building preferences of yards all across New York and the neighboring states. Barges carrying coal were markedly different from those intended to carry perishable cargoes such as grain. They also differ depending upon the dates of policy changes on the canals (squared bows prohibited due to embankment damage) and the dates of canal expansion projects when the dimensions of the canals and the lock chambers were enlarged allowing deeper and wider barges to grow simultaneously. A number of canalboats were fitted with sail rigs for use when these barges reached the open water of large lakes and rivers where animal towing was no longer possible. Hoodledashers, powered canal barges usually towing a second, unpowered barge, became a feature of the greatly expanded NYS Barge Canal of 1915. One, the Frank A. Lowery, was abandoned in the Rondout in 1953 and remains identifiable. Many canal barges have found their way to the bottom of the Hudson and its tributaries, including a rare bifurcated and hinged Morris Canal barge from the nineteenth century.

​Unlike the canals, barges built for use on the Hudson River were less limited in terms of configuration or dimensions. One of the few commonalities among them was the presence of log fenders suspended from the rails along the sides. A large number of box-like barges with living cabins aft were built to carry coal in their holds. Many measured 100 feet in length and 25-30 feet in beam. Some included midship houses for collapsible masts, derrick booms and winches to facilitate loading and unloading. Rectangular scows with inclined ends were built in large numbers to carry deck loads of trap rock, sand, brick and other bulk or non-perishable freight. They often featured deck cabins for their keepers and families and bulkheads fore and aft to contain the material and separate it from the living quarters. Barge hulls were readily used for dredging equipment, pile drivers and derricks used in salvage and construction. Specialized dump scows were built by the New York Sanitation Department with trap bottoms that could release garbage and refuse when outside of New York harbor. The weathered wooden bones of scows and coal barges can be found all along the river as well as in our own Rondout Creek. A prominent derrick barge lies abandoned in Athens.
 
The railroads were major barge builders in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Their ferries, tugs, lighters and barges and car floats (the term used for the long narrow barges that carried rail cars between terminals) were legion and referred to as the “railroad navy.”  All of this floating equipment was necessary to move freight from ships to railroad terminals and to move freight and rail cars between terminals and to customers across a metropolitan region divided by rivers, bays and inlets. Among the specialized barges built by the railroads were the hundreds of covered barges built to transport perishable and high value freight throughout the New York area. These distinctive boats with scow-like hulls and boxy cabins with double barn doors on each side made their way up the Hudson on occasion. A number of them found waterfront retirement homes as shad fishing cabins and marina headquarters when no longer useful to the railroads. The Pennsy 399, built in 1942 for the Pennsylvania Railroad, has been restored and is currently docked in the Rondout.
 
Then there were the early nineteenth century “safety barges” built to transport squeamish passengers afraid of dying in the notorious steamboat explosions or fires that characterized the early years of steam navigation. These were often double decker affairs that looked like steamboats without the paddlewheels or the stacks. A closely related barge type that appears to have grown out of the safety barge model was the hay and produce barge. These craft appear to have proliferated after the Civil War when New York City’s demand for upstate hay became insatiable. Towed in great rafts by paddlewheel towboats and later by tugboats, they were typically double-deckers with shallow draft moulded hulls, tall masts to carry stiffening stays, pilothouses and rudders. In addition to their workaday role carrying hay, livestock and produce, they were popular for inexpensive passenger excursions on Sundays. One example, the Andrew M. Church, built in New Baltimore in 1892, was 139 feet long, carried three decks and was equipped with a rudder and a pilothouse to facilitate tracking and docking. She made her inaugural voyage taking four Sunday School classes to a local picnic ground. Sometimes, these barges were rafted together and towed in pairs or even groups of four. They were still in use carrying hay in the 1930s, and a specialized version, the cattle barge, persisted even longer.

Barges were also built in the nineteenth century for oyster processing and sales, chapels and even municipal bathing pools. Hospital barges appeared in the 1870s initially through the philanthropy of the Starin Line and were towed around New York harbor in good weather to offer fresh air and a change of scenery to invalid patients. Ultimately, the concept evolved into that of a floating clinic set up in disadvantaged communities. The last of these, the 1973 Lila Acheson Wallace is now docked on the Rondout Creek waiting to be repurposed.
 
Specialized lumber barges also made an appearance with moulded hulls based on the hay barge model. They were built with aft cabins and pilothouses and appear to have carried large deckloads of lumber.
 
Another distinctive Hudson River barge is the ice barge. Transporting the blocks of ice cut from the river during the winter months and stored in enormous white warehouses along the river shore to urban centers where refrigeration was essential, these barn like barges with rounded bows and sterns carried distinctive windmills to pump out melt water and derrick masts and booms to facilitate loading and unloading.
 
There is no less variety in the steel barges plying the Hudson River currently. Many are specialized to carry and handle petroleum products, steel recycling, turbines, rock and dry cement. They are typically pushed by diesel tugs but on occasion they are breast towed or towed aft in the nineteenth century manner to facilitate handling and docking. Some are still named for places or members of the respective towing company families and are routinely maintained and painted with pride. Articulated tug and barge combinations (ATBs) represent a relatively recent innovation. They are designed to allow the bow of a tug to precisely fit a notch in the stern of the barge so that when underway, a single unit is created, simplifying handling while avoiding the regulations entailed in designing and operating a comparable motorship.
 
While less visually interesting than their nineteenth century antecedents, today’s barges carry far more tonnage and operate more safely and efficiently.