After the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, the Hudson River-Erie Canal corridor immediately became one of the leading access routes to the mid-west. In addition to the movement of people, the transportation of freight and agricultural products in substantial quantities took places in both directions. It was a new and relatively easy method for the products of the west to reach the east coast of the relatively young country.
           
At first the early steamboats provided the principal means of transportation on the river for both people and freight. However, as the variety and quantity of the freight products increased, barges began to be used. At times they were lashed alongside of the steamboat or towed singly astern. This method obviously slowed the passage of the steamer and barges in tows behind a towing vessel became the general practice.
           
Early Albany entrepreneurs who recognized the monetary returns to be gained from towing were “Commodore” Alfred Van Santvoord, Samuel Schuyler with his Albany and Canal Towing Line, and Jerry Austin. All three used older side wheel steamboats that had lost their appeal to the traveling public but still possessed serviceable engines and boilers. These were converted to towing vessels by the removal of most of their superstructure and the installation of towing bitts and winches. The barge tows of the Albany trio traversed the entire length of the river and the competition was spirited.
           
It would appear that Alfred Van Santvoord was perhaps the most foresighted of the Albany towing operators. In any event, in 1848 he undertook the construction of a side-wheel steamboat designed solely for use as a towboat. She was named “Oswego” and was the first of seven such vessels to be built for the towing of large barge tows on the Hudson River. In 1849, Van Santvoord followed with “Cayuga”, Samuel Schuyler in 1852 followed with “America”, and in 1853 Jerry Austin added “Austin”. All were 200’ to 213’ in length. “Anna”, the smallest of the seven, was built in 1854 for Van Santvoord, and “Syracuse” in 1857, at 218’ the largest, for Austin. To complete the septet, the “Geo A. Hoyt” was built in 1873 for Thomas Cornell.
                       
​During the latter half of the 19th century, the steamboat operators traded vessels, somewhat like major league baseball teams trade players today. For example, in 1868 Van Santvoord traded the towboats “Oswego”, “Cayuga” and “New York” to Thomas Cornell for the passenger steamboat “Mary Powell”.

During the decade preceding the Van Santvoord-Cornell trade of vessels, Van Santvoord had become more and more involved in the operation of passenger steamboats. With the completion of the trade, Van Santvoord got out of the business of towing entirely and devoted his efforts solely to that of passenger steamers, which in time became the famous Hudson River Day Line. Thomas Cornell, whose towing operations had been centered on the lower river south of Rondout, gained access to the upper river and the operation of towing over the river’s entire length.
           
Thomas Cornell and his son-in-law, S.D. Coykendall were extremely aggressive competitors. By the last decade of the 19th century, their Cornell Steamboat Company had fashioned a virtual monopoly of towing on the Hudson River and their fleet of towing vessels was the largest in the nation.
           
Steamboats, like people, during their life time achieve minor claims to fame. “Oswego”, the first of the seven built, lasted the longest and out lived all of her successors. She made her last trip in September 1918, 70 years after her launching. “Syracuse”, the largest of the group, was generally considered by boatmen to be the best looking of all the towboats that saw service on the river. “America”, perhaps because of her name, was the subject of more paintings by the famed maritime artist James Bard than any other vessel.
           
The towboats were big and probably had generous accommodations for their crew. However, they were also cumbersome and in time were succeeded by the smaller, but more efficient and maneuverable screw-propelled tugboats. By the early years of the 20th century the towboats were history. They were, however, an important part of the maritime saga of the Hudson River and deserve to be remembered for the role they played in it. 

This article was originally published in the 2002 Pilot Log. Thank you to Hudson River Maritime Museum volunteer Adam Kaplan for transcribing the article.

​Towing on the Hudson River undoubtedly began in earnest with the earliest steamboats once the Erie Canal began at the time of its grand opening on 26 October 1825.1 After that date, canal boats loaded with eastbound grain cargoes needed a way to deliver their cargoes to New York City. Nearly all of the towboats of that age were primarily side-wheel steamers which normally carried passengers.
 
Little is known of how the concept of the dedicated towboat developed. As the traffic on the Canal increased, it was undoubtedly found that there was more traffic than could be handled by the passenger boats. It is surmised that this occurred sometime during the mid-to-late 1830s. It should be noted that the marine propeller did not exist at this time, so that all of this earliest towing was carried out by side-wheel steamboats.
 
The side-wheel steamboats- whether engaged in towing or otherwise employed- were propelled by engines of two designs. One was the walking-beam engine, in which the connecting rod from a vertically-mounted cylinder was attached to one end of a diamond shaped cast iron beam. From the other end of the beam, a rod led to a crank in the transverse shaft that led to the paddle wheels. In this way, the paddle wheels turned as a result of the up-and-down movement of the engine’s piston.
 
The other type of engine used on the side-wheelers was the crosshead engine, similarly configured to the beam engine except that instead of the walking beam, a crosshead moved vertically in guides at each side. The connecting rod movement from the cylinder caused the crosshead to move vertically and a second connecting rod rotated the crank on the transverse shaft in the same manner as that of the beam engine. The crosshead engine, common in the early days of the steamboat, virtually disappeared from production during the late 1850s.
 
Most of the side-wheel towboats in use on the river were former passenger steamers which had been converted to towboats, mainly by the removal of the passenger quarters. During the entire history of the side-wheel steamboat, there were only seven such vessels built for towing purposes between 1848 and 1873. These vessels were Oswego (1848; Cayuga (1849); America (1852); Austin (1853); Anna (1854); Syracuse (1857) and George A. Hoyt (1873). All were built for well-known towboat operators- A. Van Santvoord, Samuel Schuyler, Jerry Austin and Thomas Cornell. The last named vessel was somewhat of an anachronism, built at the beginning of the propeller era.

​The last side-wheel towboat in operation on the Hudson was Norwich, built in 1936 beginning in 1848, she was a member of the fleet of Thomas Cornell (and later the Cornell Steamboat Company).  A star performer in the 1909 Hudson-Fulton Celebration, she last operated commercially in 1917 and was dismantled in 1923. She was also the last vessel afloat powered by a crosshead engine.
 
Small propeller tugs appear to have made their first appearance on the river at about the time of the Civil War. One of these pioneering craft, Wm. S. Earl, was around the river until the later 1940s. She had been built at Philadelphia for Albany owners in 1859. The appearance of these vessels at Albany was to provide a fleet of tugs was for two principal reasons: (1)to handle the towing of barges locally, and (2)to make up the increasingly more frequent and larger New York tows composed primarily of grain traffic through the Erie Canal.
 
During the post-war period and beyond, the burgeoning City of New York required increasingly large amounts of materials to construct the buildings that made up the city. In those days, the principal materials of construction were bricks and mortar, both of which were manufactured along the river. A multitude of brickyards on the upper and lower portions of the river provided nearly all of the brick required for this undertaking, being carried to New York on 100-foot long wooden barges, nearly all of which were built in shipyards along the river.
 
Another commodity that was significant in the pre-refrigerator days was ice, and before the era of manufactured ice, the Hudson River provided a very large percentage of New York’s ice needs for many years. Ice was harvested from the river during the river and stored in riverside ice houses. The ice was shipped to New York by barge, to be used during the warmer part of the year. As a result, ice became an important factor- alongside of brick- for many years in the river’s towing industry.
 
There was still another commodity which required transportation to New York from the middle region of the river. This was coal- the only fuel available during the 19th century. Anthracite coal was brought from the Pennsylvania fields by the Delaware & Hudson Canal to Rondout Creek, where the Island Dock (especially built by the canal company for the purpose) became the entrepôt between canal boats and river barges or sailing vessels. Similarly, rail terminals at Newburgh and Cornwall provided the means for transfer of Pennsylvania coal to barges and seagoing vessels.
 
From the 1870s onwards, the size of the propeller tugboat- and its power- increased continuously, and this was not lost on the Hudson River operators. Most, if not all, of the
operators utilized side-wheelers, but only a single owner was able to foresee the day in which this type of motive power would be obsolete- and eventually non-existent. This was Thomas Cornell, an owner who had come to the river in the late 1830s operating passenger steamers. His towing business grew continually, and by 1872, he had taken delivery of two propeller tugs of then large size- Thomas Dickson and Coe F. Young, each powered by a single cylinder condensing engine of about 240 horsepower. This, it turned out, was a major step towards the future.

​​

During the 1880s, Cornell expanded his propeller fleet with a modest fleet, primarily built in Philadelphia, the largest being J.C. Hartt, which boasted a 750-horsepower compound
engine. Still more technical accomplishments followed, beginning with the iron-hulled Geo. W. Washburn, built at the T.S. Marvel yard in Newburgh in 1890 (with a near sister, Edwin H. Mead, following two years later). Perhaps the only wrong decision of the era was Cornell’s construction of a then-enormous vessel, a 1400-horsepower behemoth named Cornell, at a Staten Island shipyard in 1902. She proved to have a draft too deep for service on the upper river and was sold to a New Orleans operator who kept her in service until the end of World War II.
 
A handful of other operators built and operated modern vessels during this period, but they were no match for the Cornell fleet and their business method. Many abandoned their river operations, some selling their vessels to the Cornell organization, at this time headed by Samuel D. Coykendall, a son-in-law of Thomas Cornell. Some of the long-time workhorses of the Cornell fleet came from these absorbed businesses, such as Ronan’s Osceola and Pocahantas, built in 1883 at Newburgh and still in the Cornell fleet in the early 1930s. Another operator who failed in his tilt with Cornell was C.W. Morse, whose Knickerbocker Ice Company gave up river towing under the fierce Cornell attack.
 
It was during this period of increasing barge traffic that the latter day concept of the river tow came into being. The main towing- either side-wheel or propeller driven- was in charge of the tow. As the New York-Albany tow progressed up or down the river, it was necessary to drop off or pick up barges at intermediate points along the route, such as at the brickyards, stone quarries or other industries that required barges. It was inconvenient, and in most cases, impossible for the towing steamer to accomplish this task, and in this way the concept of the “helper” tug came into being. This small tugboat would shift individual barges from the main tow to a shoreside destination without affecting the movement of the main tow. Similarly, barges were moved to the tow in the same way. In between these shuttle trips, the helper tug would provide its power to assist in moving the main tow, and under certain circumstances, such as rounding the potentially dangerous course change needed when rounding West Point, she would help in altering the course of the flotilla of barges.
 
The sheer size of these tows during the peak period of barge towing on the river was astonishing. Some of the larger tows were made up of as many as 125 barges. Assuming that the average length and beam of individual barges was 100 feet by 25 feet, the area of the entire flotilla might amount to as much as seven acres!
 
The diesel tug made its initial appearance on the Hudson shortly after the end of World War One. The Cornell Steamboat Company purchased two 100-foot tugs that had been
cancelled members of the Shipping Board’s 100-vessel harbor tug fleet. These two- Jumbo and Lion- acquired in 1924 and 1925 respectively, were propelled by 600-horsepower Nelseco engines. These two line-haul tugs were joined during this period by four “helper” tugs- Cornell, Cornell No. 20, Cornell No. 21, and Cornell No. 41- all of which were converted steam tugs.
 
One operational breakthrough in the Cornell company’s latter days was the construction and operation of the diesel-powered Rockland County, a pusher tug in the style of the western river-based towing fleets. Rockland County was built in 1960 by Dravo Corporation at its Wilmington, Delaware yard, and was used primarily to move crushed stone-laden barges (another longtime important cargo on the river) of the New York Trap Rock Company from its quarries on the lower river.
 
The latest towboats seen on the river are powerful pusher tugs which move the oil barges to the upper river. These tugs, owned by K-Sea, Moran, McAllister and others, are typically of around 4000 or more horsepower, with elevated pilot houses to provide adequate
visibility when moving an empty barge. Although these tugs are of a type that could never be imagined in the days of the side-wheel towboat, they are also a remarkable development that might have been unforeseen twenty-five years ago.
 
Today, towing on the Hudson is but a shadow of its former self. Cornell went in the 1980s, when it sold out to New York Trap Rock (although the Cornell shop buildings are still standing in Rondout Creek). Ice, coal and brick disappeared as cargoes many years ago. Still with us are petroleum, crushed stone and cement, and a small quantity of container cargo is brought from New York’s container terminals to the Albany area by barge. One must remember, however, that Hudson River towboats and barges were of great importance in the development of the City of New York and the lower Hudson River virtually from the beginning of the powered vessel.
 
Endnotes:
1. Adams, Samuel Hopkins, “The Erie Canal”, published in New York in 1953 by Random House, Inc. 

As the 19th century gave way to the 20th century, the Cornell Steamboat Company of Rondout was the largest and most progressive marine towing organization in the country.  In 1902 they had built what was to be their largest and most powerful tugboat.  When completed, it appropriately bore the name “Cornell.”

By whatever standard of measurement, the “Cornell” was a most impressive tugboat.  At a few inches less than 150 feet in length, she was 25 feet longer than any of Cornell’s other big tugboats.  Her 1,400 h.p. engine exceeded by over 500 the horsepower of other units of the fleet. 

Boatmen used to refer to her as the "Big Cornell" and her two big boilers had a ravenous appetite for coal to make enough steam for her powerful engine.  As a result, she had the reputation of being a very hard boat to fire.  Many boatmen from Hudson River towns one would talk to in the early 1920’s would almost always say how at one time or another they had fired on the “Big Cornell.”  Some would stay only a few hours, some a few days and rarely would she end the season with a fireman who had started out on her in the spring. 

On Lower River
Because of her size and deep draft, she was used almost exclusively on the lower river.  During her service on the Hudson, the channel north of Athens had not been dredged for deep draft vessels like it is today.  During her career, the “Cornell” made only one trip to Albany and this trip was her most notable exploit while carrying the colors of the Cornell Steamboat Company.  It took place in early March, 1910. 

The winter of 1910 had been an old fashioned winter with plenty of ice in the river.  During late February and early March the weather turned unseasonably warm, causing high water at Albany as the result of the melting of the winter’s snow and ice in the Mohawk River.  A huge ice jam formed in the river below Albany which caused the water to back up and flood the waterfront areas of Albany and Rensselaer.  Fears were also expressed that the ice crowding the Albany railroad bridges might move them off their abutments. 

In order to relieve the ice and flood crisis at Albany, the federal government was asked to take action.  The government's plan was to use dynamite on the ice jam to break it up and to charter the most powerful vessel they could find to go up river to break up the river ice so the broken ice could move down river.  The “Big Cornell” was chosen for the job. 
​
The “Cornell" left Rondout Creek on March 3, 1910 with the tug “Rob" to follow and assist in any way possible.  I have been told the whole operation was in charge of Captain Ulster Davis, Cornell’s agent at Rensselaer, and the regular crew of the “Cornell” whose captain was Tim Donovan and pilot Irving Hayes.  Although the upper Hudson was at flood stage, the “Cornell” carried minimum amounts of coal and water in order to keep her draft at a minimum so she would have clearance over the shallow spots north of Athens.  

Very Heavy Ice
The “Cornell” encountered very heavy ice from Kingston to Athens, sometimes as much as two feet in thickness. 

The ice was so heavy, the “Cornell’s” steel hull plating was scalloped inward between her frames at the water line forward caused by her smash into the rock-like ice. 
At Athens, the "Cornell” went up the wider Athens channel rather than the deeper Hudson channel along the east shore, since men going ahead on foot had determined the ice in the west channel wasn’t quite as thick.  She passed Athens through 15 inches of ice on March 5.  All along the river, men and boys would come out on the ice to watch the “Cornell” go by. 

The “Cornell” arrived at Rensselaer on March 6, the river opened and the ice jam broken.  Once the ice jam was broken, I have been told one could literally see the water begin to drop at Albany.  Although the crisis to Albany was over, a new problem arose for the “Cornell.”  The Company was afraid the water might drop so fast, they would not be able to get their big tug back down river in time to clear the up river sand bars and ledges. 

An Early Start
The “Cornell” took on coal, fresh water and grub at Rensselaer as fast as she could.  Due to the strong current in the river, when they started to turn the "Cornell” around for her return trip, the tug “Rob” had to push wide open against her stern in order to get the “Cornell” headed down stream.  At first, they were going to wait for daylight all the way, but because of the falling water decided to start down as soon as possible.

When they started back for Rondout, I have been told it was a clear, cold March night.  The water in the river was running down stream so fast, they ran the “Cornell's” engine dead slow — just enough to keep steerage way.  They were reluctant to run her any faster as they did not want to scrape or hit bottom and possibly smash her rudder shoe or break her propeller. 

They had had such good luck so far, they didn't want to tempt fate any more than necessary. 

Everything went fine until the two tugs came to Dover Platte Island off Coxsackie.  Captain Donovan of the ‘'Cornell’’ knew there had always been a sand bar there and figured the freshet in all probability might have built up the bar higher than usual.  When they reached that point, they stopped the “Cornell's” engine and just let her drift.  Sure enough she fetched up on the bar, stopped and rolled over very slightly to port.  To be sure there was only sand, they sounded all around with pike poles.
 
Over the Bar
Once they were certain there were no rocks on the bottom, they decided to have the “Rob” go up ahead and put a hawser on the “Cornell's” bow — and then to open up both tugs full throttle and to try and “bull” the ‘‘Cornell’’ over the bar.  When all was in readiness, the “Cornell” gave the signal for full speed ahead and for the “Rob” to start pulling.  I can readily imagine on that cold March night the load “chow chow” of the “Rob's” high pressure engine. 

They tell me when the “Cornell’’ hooked up, she lay down on her port side, her propeller part out of the water for a few moments.  Some of her crew thought her towering smoke stacks would topple over, the starboard guy lines being incredibly taut and the port ones having about two feet of slack.  However, in but a few minutes the ‘‘Cornell’’ had inched her way over the bar. 

Once she cleared the sand bar, though, the ‘‘Cornell’’ leaped ahead so fast before they could stop her engine she almost ran over the “Rob’’ pulling on her bow. 
​
Quick action by a deckhand on the “Rob” saved the day.  By wielding a fast, sharp axe he cut the connecting hawser.  From that point back to Rondout Creek they encountered no more difficulties.  From Athens south, the river ice still held, but by following the channel they had previously made going northward the going was relatively easy.  

Renamed Her
The difficulty in keeping firemen on the “Cornell” continued to plague her and led to the end of her career on the Hudson River.  Shortly before World War I she was sold to the Standard Oil Company of Louisiana.  Her new owners renamed her “Istrouma,” converted her to an oil burner, and operated her on the Mississippi River out of Baton Rouge where she remained in service until the late 1940's. 

I have been told the Cornell Steamboat Company always maintained it was not feasible to convert the “Cornell” to an oil burner, since it wouldn't be possible to install sufficient oil storage capacity aboard her.  It is my understanding before purchasing her, the Standard Oil people, unknown to Cornell, sent some men to Cornell who hired out on her as firemen.  The masquerading firemen thoroughly examined the “Cornell” and apparently concluded she could successfully be converted to oil firing.  In any event, she was — and remained in service for another 30 years. 

Many years later, during World War II, my friend Roger Mabie was the commanding officer of a submarine chaser in the U.S. Navy.  One day his ship was in a shipyard at Algiers, Louisiana, across the river from New Orleans.  There, in an adjacent dry dock was the “Istrouma,” the old “Cornell.”  He went aboard. 

Her shell plating forward was still scalloped between frames from her bout with Hudson River ice in 1910.  Her brass capstan caps were still inscribed “Cornell.”  In her engine room, her steam and vacuum gauge faces still were etched ‘‘Cornell,” Cornell Steamboat Company, Rondout, N.Y. 
​
A few days later, Roger told me his ship was leaving New Orleans to go back to sea.  Out in the river, the old ‘‘Cornell” was going upstream.  He blew her a whistle salute, which the former “Cornell” answered with her old deep steam whistle.  I thought it was a nice gesture, both a greeting to an old work horse from the Hudson River and a sort of salute to the maritime greatness that was once Rondout’s.

The tug/fireboat "Istrouma" was scrapped in 1949. If you've seen a large red tugboat named "Cornell" on the Hudson River or New York Harbor, it's not the same as this "Cornell," but nearly as big! She was built the same year the "Istrouma" was scrapped. Learn more.

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In February of 1946, tugboat crews in New York Harbor had had it. They had been trying since October, 1945 to negotiate an end to the wartime freeze on wages, to reduce hours from 48 per week to 40, to receive two weeks paid vacation per year, and perhaps most importantly, to end the practice of stranding workers in far-away ports and forcing them to pay their own way home, without success. Although the war was over, the federal government was still regulating the price of freight, which meant that shipping companies didn't want to raise wages. Frustrated, the tugboat workers struck. Starting February 4, 1946, tugboats did not move coal or fuel in the nation's busiest port. 

Manhattan is an island, and maritime freight played a huge role in supplying the city with fuel, food, and other supplies, as well as removing garbage by water. At the time of the strike, officials estimated the city has just a few days of reserve coal. 

​The strike was covered in several newsreels at the time. ​British Pathe put together this short report on the strike:

​Universal put together this newsreel, sadly presented here without any sound:

Newly-elected mayor William O'Dwyer did not react well to the strike. Facing a fuel shortage for one of the nation's most populous cities in midwinter was no laughing matter, but O'Dwyer implemented measures that many later deemed an overreaction to the strike. He essentially rationed fuel for the entire city, prioritizing housing for the sick and aged, but enforcing a 60 degree maximum temperature for all other building interiors, turning off heat in the subway and limiting service, shutting down all public schools on February 8, and by February 11 shutting down entirely restaurants, stores, Broadway theaters, and other recreational venues. The bright lights of Times Square and elsewhere were also turned off to conserve electricity, as illustrated in this second newsreel from British Pathe: 

After 18 hours of shutdown, the shipping companies and the tugboat unions agreed to end the strike and enter into third party arbitration for their contract. Tugboats started moving fuel again, and the lights turned back on. And that's the end of the story - or is it? 

On February 14, 1946, the New York Times published an article entitled "Lessons of the Tug Strike," whereby they largely blamed O'Dwyer for the costly shutdown. "New York tugboat workers and management have sent their dispute to arbitration after a ten-day strike that endangered life and property, cost business millions of dollars and paralyzed the whole city for a day. We may well breathe a sigh of relief and at the same time examine some aspects of this incident that offer guidance for the future," the Times wrote, and went on to ask that O'Dwyer never do that again "unless the need is clearly established." 

​As for the tugboat workers, it would take nearly another year for the threat of a strike to fade completely. Negotiations continued throughout 1946, with little movement, until the threat of another strike emerged in December of 1946. It was avoided by additional arbitration with Mayor O'Dwyer's emergency labor board. Finally, the arbitrators won concessions from both sides, and on January 5, 1947, the New York Times reported that a settlement had been reached. The tugboat workers got their 40 hour workweek, but not the same wages as 48 hours of work. They did get an 11 cent per hour wage increase along with a minimum wage for deck hands, a five day workweek, and time and a half for Saturdays and Sundays. However, the contract was only for 12 months, and in December of 1947, another strike was on the table as workers struggled for another wage increase. The strike was averted with more concessions from the companies, including a ten cent raise, food allowances, and more. But in the fall of 1948, the contract was up again, and the specter of the February, 1946 shutdown arose as a strike was once again on the table as part of the negotiations.

Strikes were common in the years following the Second World War, in nearly every aspect of American society. In particular, the Strike Wave of 1945-46 impacted as many as five million American workers across all sectors. The strikes, although sometimes effective in improving worker wages and conditions, were largely unpopular with the general public. In 1947, Congress overrode President Truman's veto of the Taft-Hartley Act, which limited the power of labor unions and ushered in an era of "right to work" laws. Learn more about the strike wave in this podcast from the National WWII Museum. 

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During the early years of the 1900’s, there was a stone quarry at Rockland Lake, a few miles south of Haverstraw.  The Cornell Steamboat Company towed the stone from the quarry on scows to the metropolitan New York market.
 
The winter of 1912 was very severe with heavy ice in the lower river.  Cornell tugs, however, continued their efforts to break the ice so the stone could be towed to New York for use by the construction industry.
 
One one particular day that winter, the Cornell tugboats "S. L. Crosby” and "Hercules" were in the river off the quarry breaking ice — trying to get into the dock to break out the loaded scows that were frozen in.  First, one tug would slam into the ice, which at the time was seven to eight inches thick, until she was stopped cold by the solid ice.  Then that tug would back off and the other tug would slam into the track until she was stopped dead.  Gradually, the two tugs were working their way towards the dock.

Two Good Tries
 On one try the “Crosby” went ahead a short distance and stopped.  On this try, however, she made a good crack in the ice.  Next, the “Hercules" came up astern, hit the crack the “Crosby” had made, and plowed her way right up to the dock.
 
The general manager of the Cornell Steamboat Company was standing on the dock at the time.  And, admiringly, he said, “What a great ice breaker we have in the “Hercules”!”  Quite obviously, he had not noticed the crack in the ice made by the “Crosby.”
 
When spring came, Cornell had the "Hercules" sent to the Cornell repair shops at Rondout and ordered extra stout oak planking and steel straps put all around her bow.  From that point on, the “Hercules" was thought to be the greatest ice breaker of them all.  For years after, whenever ice was to be broken, the “Hercules” was sent out to do the job.
 
At the time of the ice breaking at Rockland Lake, Aaron Relyea of Bloomington was the captain of the "Crosby” and Mel Hamilton of Port Ewen was captain of the "Hercules.”  Nearly 20 years later, I worked for Captain Relyea as a deckhand on the "Crosby" and he was the one who related this incident to me.  Captain Aaron A l w a y s maintained the “Crosby” was the better tug of the two in breaking ice.
 
In later years, I also talked to Captain Hamilton about that day at Rockland Lake.  Captain Mel said, "Aaron was right.  Between the two tugs, the “Crosby” was the best in the ice.  But,” he added with a wink, "never argue with the boss.”

Today's Media Monday features this 10-minute tour of lower Manhattan from 1937!

Produced by the Van Beuren Corporation as a travelogue, part of the "World on Parade" series, "Manhattan Waterfront" was distributed by RKO Pictures in 1937. Watch the full movie below!

We see tugboats and sailing schooners, barge families, Fulton Fish Market, We also see the lives of the super-rich contrasted with the lives of the poor, living in waterfront shacks, or in neat houses built on top of abandoned barges. Interestingly, despite the fact that 1937 was the height of the Great Depression, the narrator blames the indigent for not taking advantage of the "land of opportunity." We also see most of Manhattan's bridges, including the 6 year old George Washington Bridge with only one deck. ​

How much of lower Manhattan can you still recognize today? 

If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!​

Editor’s Note: The following text is a verbatim transcription of an article featuring stories by Captain William O. Benson (1911-1986). Beginning in 1971, Benson, a retired tugboat captain, reminisced about his 40 years on the Hudson River in a regular column for the Kingston (NY) Freeman’s Sunday Tempo magazine. Captain Benson's articles were compiled and transcribed by HRMM volunteer Carl Mayer. See more of Captain Benson’s articles here. This article was originally published May 6, 1973.

For many decades in years past, one of the true harbingers of spring locally was the annual run of shad in the Hudson River. The shad fishermen would lay their nets and, to many residents, the first shad was a happy event.

Generally, the relations between boatmen and the shad fishermen were amicable. The shad nets wound frequently drift across the channel and the boatmen would do their best to avoid them. On occasion, however, due to conditions of tide and wind - the boatmen would have no recourse but to run over the nets. Then, the relationship would be somewhat strained. At times the results were not without a touch of humor and, at other times, a bit bizarre. 

One time back in the, 1920's the tug "Victoria" of the Cornell Steamboat Company was going down river with several loaded scows for New York. She was bucking a flood tide off Highland and shaping the tow up for the cantilever span of the railroad bridge. 

The pilot on watch was getting close to the [b]ridge when he noticed he was going to run over a shad net. On looking over to the Highland side of the river, he saw a row boat coming out with an outboard motor and two men in it. Obviously they were the shad fishermen. 

He quickly blew one short blast on the whistle for the deckhand to come to the pilot house. When the deckhand came up, the pilot said, "Here, watch her, I’ve got to go below for a minute." 

Going down to the main deck, he went to the galley and put on the cook’s apron and hat and stood in the galley door as the shad fishermen came alongside. 

When they were within shouting distance, one of the fishermen hollered over, "What the devil are you running over my nets for?” and added a few more choice words of admonition. Of course, the deckhand in the pilot house didn’t know what to say since he was a new man and green at the game. 

The pilot, dressed like the cook, stood in the galley and laughed at the poor deckhand taking the bawling out. Then, to add insult to injury, he looked at [t]he fishermen, shaking his head and pointing up at the pilot house — as if he was in sympathy with the fishermen and perhaps not thinking much of the “pilot” steering the tugboat. 

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