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.   

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 May 7, 1972.

Within a few years after the introduction of steamboating on the Hudson River, Rondout Creek soon developed into the leading port between New York and Albany.  This was due principally to the fact that it was the eastern terminus of the D. & H. Canal.  Shipments of Ulster County blue stone. Rosendale cement, lime, the concentration of  brickyards along the river north of Kingston, and the natural ice industry also all played major parts in the growth of Rondout harbor.  As activity along the creek grew, so did the size of the steamboats serving Rondout.

Any steamboat serving Rondout, obviously had to be able to turn around in the creek.  The width of the creek, as a result, had some bearing on the design of the steamboat, particularly its length.  I suppose this factor also had a direct bearing on the location of the steamboat docks as well as the early growth of Rondout itself.  The creek is at its navigable widest just south of where the Freeman Building is now located and this was where the steamboat wharves and docks were located — between the foot of Broadway east to the foot of Hasbrouck Avenue.
 
Steamboats in regular service out of Rondout almost always turned around as soon as they entered the creek, prior to the unloading of passengers and freight.  This fact is borne out by old time photographs of steamers berthed at Rondout.  Of the many photographs have seen, all but one show the steamboats facing downstream.  The sole exception is a photo of the “Mary Powell”, and in this one photograph only she lies head up.  
 
Rondout’s Largest
For years, the largest steamboat sailing out of Rondout Creek was the “Thomas Cornell,” built in 1863 and 310 feet long.  Other larger steamboats out of Rondout were the famous “Mary Powell” at 288 feet, the “James W. Baldwin” at 275, and the “Benjamin B. Odell” at 264.  The longest one of all to sail regularly out of Rondout was the Day Liner “Albany,” 326 feet long, which replaced the “Mary Powell” on the Rondout to New York run during the season of 1914 through 1917.  I, have been told the “Albany,” on occasion, used to use the steam yacht “C. A. Schults” — that once ran between Rondout and Eddyville — to help pull her bow around.  All of the, others turned unassisted. 
 
For many years, Ben Johnston owned a drug store on East Strand.  Johnston told me when the “Benjamin B. Odell” turned around in the creek, at times the vibrations set up by her turning propeller would shake bottles off the shelves in his drug store.  This was due to the fact that all the land along the Strand was filled-in land.
 
It is my understanding that the area all along the Strand was once a dandy beach — and the old sloop and schooner captains would beach, or strand, their vessels on this beach at high tide.  Then, when the tide went out, they would make bottom repairs or caulk under-water leaking seams on their boats exposed by the drop in tide.  When the tide came back in, they would float their sloops and schooners.  I have been told this act of stranding their vessels on this beach is what gave the Strand its name when the area was filled in and the beach was developed into a street.

​An old boatman also once told me about an incident that took place when the “Benjamin B. Odell” was turning around off her Rondout wharf.  Normally, she would come along-side the dock, can her bow out from the dock and put a stern line from the port quarter out to a bollard on the dock.  Then, she would go ahead slow and swing around like a slowly moving giant pendulum.  Captain George Greenwood would be up on the bridge and the mate down on the main deck in charge of the deckhands tending the lines. 
 
On this particular day, just as the “Odell” got broadside in the creek, the stern line snapped.  The mate had a police whistle and blew a series of toots on it to let the captain know the line had snapped.  Before the mate could get another line out, the “Odell” started to move across the creek. 
 
Except for stopping the engine, Captain Greenwood gave no indication anything was wrong.  The mate in the excitement didn’t notice the engine had stopped and continued to blow his police whistle.  After several series of excited toots and getting no response from the captain, the mate bounded up the companionways at the stern of the “Odell” to the top deck.  There, Captain Greenwood stood calmly on the bridge watching the slowly approaching south shore of the creek.
 
Captain Greenwood let the “Odell’s” bow slowly drift right onto the creek’s south shore and the incoming tide carry her stern up stream.  When the angle was right, Captain Greenwood backed down, put the “Odell’s” port quarter close to the Rondout dock, got out a spring line, went slowly ahead and brought his steamer alongside the dock so perfectly he wouldn’t have broken an egg had one been between the steamboat and the dock.
 
The old time captains, like Captain Greenwood, were superb ship handlers.  They knew exactly what their steamboats would do in any combination of wind and tide.  They were true masters of their trade, made the difficult look easy, and rarely got the recognition they deserved.  It seems the only time anyone took notice of them was in the rare event something went wrong.  And, then, it was often due to something over which they had little control, such as a mechanical failure, rarely an error in judgment.

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 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. For more of Captain Benson’s articles, see the “Captain Benson Articles” category.  This article was originally published April 22, 1973.

One evening back in the early spring of 1925, the Cornell tugboat ‘‘S. L. Crosby’’ was in Rondout Creek getting ice at the old ice house the Cornell Steamboat Company used to maintain along the creek.  The ice house was located just west of where the Freeman Building now stands.  At the time, another Cornell tugboat, the “Thomas Dickson" was layed up adjacent to the ice house at the rear of the Cornell office building.  

While taking on ice, Captain Aaron Relyea of the ‘‘Crosby” went over on the “Dickson.” Looking around in the “Dickson's” pilot house he came upon an old order dated June 1914.  It read “Captain John Sheehan, tug 'Thomas Dickson’.  You will pick up barge ‘Henelopen’ at the Beaver sand dock, Staatsburgh."  The Beaver sand dock used to be where Norrie Point Inn is now located along the east shore of the Hudson River off the north end of Esopus Island.  Even then, it hadn't been used in years.  
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Captain Aaron thought he would have some fun.  At that time, the ‘‘Crosby’’ was the helper tug on a tow going down river in charge of the tugboat “Osceola.”  John Sheehan, captain of the “Thomas Dickson" in 1915, was now the captain of the "Osceola.” 

Darkness Falling 
When the ‘‘Crosby’’ came up alongside of the ‘‘Osceola’’ out in the river, darkness was falling.  Captain Aaron called out to Sheehan, “John, here's an order for you" —  and sent the deckhand over to “Osceola” with it. 

Captain Sheehan, not looking too closely at the order, got all excited and began to fume and sputter.  He shouted back to Aaron, “We can't go in there for that barge; this boat draws too much water.  Why, when we used to get them out with the "Dickson," we had to pull them out on a head line."

"Well," Aaron replied, “they are the orders.  We are to hold the tow for you.” 

With that, Captain Sheehan put the light on in the pilot house and read the order more carefully.  It was then he finally noticed the 1914 date and the name of the tug as "Thomas Dickson" instead of ‘‘Osceola."  Captain Sheehan was always a good sport.  He thought it was a great joke Captain Relyea had played on him and laughed about it for days afterward.  

Odd Greeting 
Captain Sheehan also always used a rather odd form of greeting.  Whenever he would be passing another boat close aboard, he would lean out of his pilot house — no matter what boat he was on — and holler over, "What do ya say, say say?’’ One would hear his booming greeting no matter what hour of the day or night.  

In later years, Captain Sheehan was captain of the freighter “Green Island’’ of the Hudson River Night Line running between Troy and New York.  In 1934, when the Depression had tied up a lot of steamboats at their docks, he was captain of a dredging company tug by the name of "Kate Jones."  One day off Van Wies Point, on her way to Albany, Captain Sheehan slumped at the wheel in her pilot house.  He had suffered a heart attack and died before the tug could reach a dock.  
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I always liked Captain Sheehan a great deal.  He was an excellent boatman, one who seemed to truly enjoy his chosen profession.  In a sense, it was fitting his time should come at the pilot wheel of a tugboat while underway on his beloved Hudson River.

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 8, 1973.

The month of March has frequently been known for its capricious pranks of weather.  On two occasions in particular —March 13, 1893 and March 12, 1936 — madcap March weather brought considerable excitement locally.  On both dates, freshet conditions in Rondout Creek caused the ice covering the creek’s surface to go out with a rush, carrying everything in its path out towards the Hudson.  

On both occasions, the conditions were similar.  The preceding winter months had been severe with heavy ice.  During early March the weather turned warm causing runoffs from melting snow into the Wallkill River and upper Rondout Creek.  Water and broken ice cascading over the dam at Eddyville backed up behind the solid creek ice creating considerable pressure.  Finally, the solid ice below Eddyville began to crumble.  Once the ice started to move, its movement accelerated rapidly, rushing down the creek with great force and speed.  Anything in its path was swept along downstream.  In both instances, this was mostly the fleet of the Cornell Steamboat Company.   

Those who witnessed the moving ice described it as an awesome sight.  Mooring lines were snapped like strings.  Vessels in the path of the grinding ice moved like ghosts down the creek and out into the Hudson River where they came to a stop in a jumbled mass against the solid ice of the river.  In both instances, despite damage to the vessels involved, surprising there was only one reported personnel injury in 1893 and none in 1936.  

More Spectacular 
The freshet of 1893 was probably the more spectacular since more vessels were involved, including at least eight big side-wheel towboats.  All told, approximately 50 vessels were swept out of the creek.  In addition to the big side-wheel towboats, these included at least 15 Cornell tugboats and two dozen canal boats and barges.  
In 1893 melee of ice and boats set adrift occurred in the late afternoon on Monday, March 13.  At about 4 p.m. a huge ice jam above Wilbur let go and the uncontrolled movement down Rondout Creek commenced.  

A Freeman reporter described the scene as follows: “It was a scene that will never be forgotten by those who witnessed the outgoing vessels, as they jammed against one another and against the docks, the noise of parting lines and cracking timbers being plainly heard a block or more away.  The shouts of the men on the boats who like maniacs hauling in the lines, endeavoring to make the boats fast, and the cries of warning from people on the docks to the boatmen added to the excitement and the scene was one that words cannot picture.” 
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At the time, the ferryboat ‘‘Transport’’ was coming across the river from Rhinecliff and was just inside the dikes of the creek when she was met by the outgoing ice and army of drifting vessels.  She was enveloped by the advancing fleet and swept back into the river.  Some of the ferry’s passengers were reported to have been panic stricken and to have leaped across floating blocks of ice to the solid ice of the Hudson.  Apparently, they all successfully made it.  

Captain Injured 
The only reported injury was to Captain Charles Post of the Cornell tugboat “H. T. Caswell."  His right foot was broken when caught between a mooring line and a cleat.  A Dr. Smith and a Dr. Stern made their way across the ice in the river to the tugboat where they treated the injured boatman.  He was later carried in a blanket across the ice to shore.  ​

In 1936 freshet was probably the more damaging since the Cornell tugs “Rob,” "Coe F. Young” and “William E. Cleary” were sunk and eight others fetched up along the south side of the creek opposite Ponckhockie, whereas in 1893 virtually all of the boats involved had floated out into the Hudson.  

The 1936 marine spectacular started at about 7:30 a.m. on Thursday, March 12.  At that time, the ice started to move out of the creek below Eddyville and rapidly built up force and momentum as it moved toward the Hudson.  As the ice surged past the C. Hiltebrant Shipyard at Connelly, it took along with it a small passenger steamboat, two tugboats, a derrick boat, and three or four barges and lighters that had been in winter quarters at the yard.  Two scows tied up at Island Dock were swept away by the grinding ice and joined the growing armada of vessels moving downstream.  

The tug “Rob” had been tied up west of the Rhinecliff ferry slip on Ferry Street.  A drifting barge caromed off the side of the “Rob,” heeled her over and sent her to the bottom of the creek.  Eleven Cornell Tugboats that had been moored at Sleightsburgh all were set adrift by the advancing ice and started on their way down by the Rondout Creek.  

The Foggy Mark 
At the Cornell shops at Rondout, eleven out of twelve tugs tied up there were swept away.  Snapping mooring lines sounded like guns going off.  A heavy fog enveloped the area: and added to the ghostly appearance of the scene.  At that point, some 30 tugs, barges and other vessels were moving down the creek and disappearing from sight into the foggy murk enveloping the creek and river. 

At the Sunflower dock at Sleightsburgh — further down creek — lay nine more Cornell tugboats and a steam derrick.  The ice and moving vessels swept by these tugs and miraculously they remained in place.  The outboard tug at the head of this group, however, the “Coe F. Young,” was holed and sunk and possibly this saved the remaining tugs from also moving along with the others.  Two days later, the tug “William E. Cleary’’ — tied up with this group — rolled over and sank.  

When the fog lifted shortly before noon on March 12, eight of the tugboats that had been swept along from the neighboring Baisden shipyards at Sleightsburgh were strewn grounded along the south shore of the creek opposite the old Central Hudson gas house.  All of the others were jumbled together out in the Hudson River off the Rondout lighthouse against the solid river ice.  

By a quirk of fate, the Cornell tugboat ‘‘J. C. Hartt” was the “hero” of both the 1893 and the 1936 freshets.  In 1893 she was swept out into the Hudson and was one of the first tugs to get steam up and return the others to their berths.  In 1936, after being set adrift, she moved down the creek stern first close along the Rondout docks.  At Gill’s dock in Ponckhockie she hit a brick scow moored there. 

Ended Voyage 
The scow captain jumped aboard the “Hartt,’’ ran forward and was able to get a line ashore and end her unscheduled voyage at that point.  
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Fortunately, at the time the “Hartt” was being made ready for the coming season.  In short order, steam was raised on the tug and she soon was able to get underway and start the task of corralling the run-away fleet.  By March 15, virtually all of the run-aways were back at their berths.  The sunken “Rob” and “William E. Cleary” were subsequently raised.  The sunken “Coe F. Young,” however, never was — and to this day what is left of the old tug is still on the bottom of Rondout Creek off the old Sunflower Dock where she met her end in the freshet of March 12, 1936.

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 26, 1972.

Back in the days when the Cornell Steamboat Company was towing large tows of barges and scows up and down the river, the company developed a series of whistle signals so that the helper tug could communicate with each other.

Generally, the tows would be large. The big towing tug would be up ahead with the tow strung out astern. Frequently, the helper tug would be back at the tow adding to or taking off barges from the tow for local delivery. The two tugs had to be in communication with each other and, before the age of electronics and short wave radios, whistle signals were the method used.

For example, five long and three short blasts was the signal for “the tow is all made up, hood up and go on,” three short blasts was “go slow,” four short blasts was “stop,” three long and three short was “go ahead,” two long and two short to a passing steamer meant “your signal lights are out,” etc. If one tug originated the signal, the other tug would answer with the same signal to indicate that the signal was understood.

It so happened the whistle signal of one long and two short was the Cornell signal for “The steamer having the tow wants her hawsers cast off.” It was also the same signal under the Nautical Rules of the Road for a tow underway in a fog.

One night back in 1937, the big Cornell tug “Perseverance” was coming up river on a flood tide with a very large tow. John Hickey, captain of the “Perseverance,” had on board as a crew member a young, green deckhand. The decky had heard at different time, the “Perseverance” and the helper tug exchange the one long and two short whistle signals, and then helped to haul the towing hawsers in.

On this particular night, when the tow was off Hyde Park, it set in very foggy. The helper tug had already left the tow and had gone on up ahead to Kingston. Captain Hickey started to run slow and to blow the fog signal of one long and two short whistle blasts as required by the Rules of the Road. After the second or third fog signal on the whistle, the “Perseverance” seemed to be moving ahead very fast.

At the same time, the deckhand came up to the pilot house and said, “All right Cap, all gone.”

Captain Hickey replied, “What do you mean?”

The decky said, “I threw the hawsers off. You blew two, didn’t you?”

Boy, oh boy, did Captain Hickey ever blow his top when he heard that! Of course, he had to turn the “Perseverance” around and try and find the tow in the fog. And what a job after they found the tow to get the hawsers up on the “Percy” again. The forward momentum of the tow, when the hawsers were cast off, caused to the tow to run over the hawsers.

When they finally did get everything squared away again, they had the new problem of trying to figure out where they were. All that maneuvering and time lost in the fog caused them to lose completely and exact idea of their position.

By inching ahead, Captain Hickey finally rounded up and bucked the tide until morning when the fog cleared up. 

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 October 31, 1971.

                                 A Riverman’s Log’ New Tempo Feature

TEMPO begins Sunday publication with several new features.  And, proud as we are of all of them, the one that promises to become our own personal favorite is a regular column by Captain William O. Benson.
 
You’ll find the first offering by Capt. Benson taking up a full page spread in this week's issue, complete with nostalgic photos of the tugboat Lion and the steamboat M. Martin, and appearing under the banner headline “Whistles Salute Two Presidents.”
 
Captain William Odell Benson is a life-long resident of Sleightsburgh, where he was born on March 17, 1911, the son of the late Albert and Ida Olson Benson.  As captain of the tugboat Peter Callanan, he retains memories of incidents and anecdotes along the Hudson River; has long known the waterway’s steamboats and the men who manned them.  The perfect choice then to author about steamboating on the Hudson in years past.
 
40 Years on River
Bill Benson's reminiscences on Hudson River life and lore now join this magazine as a regular feature; will be culled from his 40 years of working, will appear weekly for a long time to come.
 
A river boatman his entire working life, he was closely associated with the Hudson and its steamboats long before he took to the tides himself.  His father was ship's carpenter of the famous in-legend Mary Powell; held the same position for the Central Hudson Steamboat Company and the Cornell Steamboat Company. His older brother, Algot J. Benson, before his death in 1923, served as chief mate and pilot of the steamboat Onteora, had been a deckhand and quartermaster on the Mary Powell, and a quartermaster of the Long Island Sound steamers Plymouth, Concord and Naugatuck.
 
TEMPO’s new contributor can lay claim, as well, to having been named after a Hudson River steamboat.  His middle name, “Odell,” derives from the steamboat Benjamin B. Odell, the largest steamer of the old Central Hudson Line, which entered service on the river the year Capt. Benson was born.
 
The wealth of anecdotes at your columnist’s recall date back to his school days at the old District No. 13 School, Port Ewen.  Education completed, he left school in 1927 to work for the Hudson River Day Line at Kingston Point.  The years of 1928 and 1929 saw him serving as a deckhand on the old Day Line steamer Albany.  Then came a long period (1930 to 1946) as a deckhand, pilot and captain on the tugboats of the Cornell Steamboat Company.
 
Served on Many Tugs
Those Depression to post-World War II years saw him serving on the Cornell tugs S. L. Crosby, Lion, Jumbo, Bear, Pocahontas, Perseverance, George W. Washburn, R. G. Townsend, Edwin Terry, J. G. Rose, Cornell, Cornell No. 20, Cornell No. 21, Cornell No. 41, John D. Schoonmaker, Rob, and William S. Earl.
 
During 1946 he captained the tugboat maintained at Poughkeepsie to assist tows to pass safely through that city’s bridges.  Since 1947 he’s been pilot and captain on the Callanan Road Improvement Company's tugboats Callanan No. 1 and Peter Callanan, and other tugs that from time to time have been chartered by the Callanan Company.
 
The steamboat columns we've received in advance read like a riverman’s log of humor and heritage.  Suffice it to say that we're looking forward to each new Benson column with as much enthusiasm as any other TEMPO reader.  We welcome the captain aboard with a salute of three whistles; look forward to pleasurable hours of reading about the men and the boats of the Hudson's past in the months ahead.

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