The Hudson Highway

"The Hudson Highway" by Will and Elizabeth Plank. Published August 14, 1969 in Perspective section of "Southern Ulster Pioneer" newspaper.

Steamboat "St. John" Tracey I. Brooks Collection, Hudson River Maritime Museum.

The Hudson River was a main highway for a many years for all of Ulster County, including the Wallkill Valley. The Milton Turnpike was built to connect the western part of southern Ulster with the Hudson River and the Milton Dock, where first sloops, and then steamers, came for cargo.

Many wagon loads of produce were hauled by oxen or horses along this route to reach the vessels that would take their merchandise to New York, Albany, and points along the way. There was also much trading between towns, in the Turnpike and on the river, but for river trade, of course, docks were necessary.

Alonzo Wood, the earliest Milton settler of a name still (1969) well known in the Town of Marlborough, was the builder of the "Quaker Packet," owned by a company of Friends. This was about 1800. Shortly afterward the "Stranger" made regular trips, though not very often; and after 1812 the "Eclipse" traveled to the city once a week, which was then unheard of. These were sailing sloops.

Many steamboats ran to the city with stops along the way, after steam became practiced, most of them starting at Wilbur or Rondout, both adjacent to Kingston.

In 1836-37 with Captain Tremper in charge the "Fanny" ran between Marlborough and New York.

The Central Hudson Steamboat line carried both passengers and fruit and other produce for many years – a few passengers only but the writers of these lines have traveled to the city that way on night runs in the early 1920s, perched on fruit crates on deck in the moonlight!

Ralph Young was long the agent for this line, and when trucking finally took over the fruit carrying business, about 1925 or 6 – Ralph was certain it was "only temporary," for trucks would shake the fruit to pieces.

And so they did until roads were improved, which increased truck traffic itself soon brought about.

The steamer "St. John", whose Captain was Romer Hadley of Milton, was a favorite carrier, but was burned to the water's edge in November, 1865, when her boiler exploded, opposite Elysian Fields, New York City. Thirteen lives were lost and many people injured

Furnishings on the "St. John" were removed to the home of Captain Hadley in Milton and stored there awaiting the building of another vessel. The second "St. John" was not built until the 1880s when the simple "early American" style of the first vessel's rooms was "out" and fancy late Victorian adornments were "in". The many items from the first vessel remained in the Hadley house at Milton until the last member of the family died leaving her estate to All Saints Episcopal Church. The auction held to settle the estate lasted several days, and many interesting items landed in local as well as distant homes.
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Other members of the Hadley family worked in various capacities on the new "St. John", one as purser.

Older people in the 1920s told many true tales of the small ferries that crossed the Hudson before the Mid-Hudson Bridge was built between Highland and Poughkeepsie. One ran from Milton; another from Marlborough to New Hamburg and Wappingers Creek.

​In the winter when the ice was thick enough, merchandise was carried back and forth on bobsleds pulled by horses. There are many sad accounts of the ice breaking through, with horses and cargo lost.

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