Featured Artifact: Souvenir Jewelry Box from Steamboat "Peter Stuyvesant"

Souvenir jewelry box from Hudson River Day Line steamboat "Peter Stuyvesant" donated in 2002 by Dorothy Hatton. The box originally belonged to her mother Dorothy Fischer Gilmour, Staten Island, NY.

Today's Featured Artifact is a once-shiny metal jewelry box - a memento of a trip on the Hudson River Day Line steamboat "Peter Stuyvesant." The steamboats had shops onboard where passengers could purchase souvenirs of their voyage on the Hudson River.

Emblem of the "Peter Stuyvesant" at the top of the jewelry box.

View of the inside of the jewelry box.

​The last steamer built for the Day Line was the Peter Stuyvesant in 1927.  She was the only propeller steamer built for the line.  The Stuyvesant was built for charters and for service mostly on the lower river. Moonlight dance cruises were a popular part of her service. She was a well-known and popular vessel in her day and ran through 1962. After the Stuyvesant retired from the Hudson she was bought by a restauranteur in Boston to become a cocktail lounge moored at Anthony’s Pier 4 Restaurant. Unfortunately, a bad winter storm sank her in early 1978, and she was left underwater for many years.  Her wreck was only recently removed from her resting place in Boston harbor.

Postcard of the steamboat "Peter Stuyvesant". Hunter Haines Collection, Hudson River Maritime Museum.

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