iiiiiiiiiiiitlllSliii iil IM ill ilifjiiiliiili wM KM 11 >.'. 1 ! i ■ Oli ve-Percival - UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES THE GRAFTON HISTORICAL SERIES Edited by HENRY R. STILES, A.M., M.D I'lu- (iralloii Historical Scries Edited by Henry R. Stiles, A.M., M.D. 12ino. Cloth, gilt top In Oldc Connecticut By Charles Burr Todd Frontispiece, $1.25 net (postage 10c.) Historic Hadlcy By .Mice Morehouse Walker Illustrated, $1.00 net (postage 10c.) King Philip's War By George W. Ellis and John E. Morris Illustrated, $2.00 net (postage 15c.) In Oldc Massachusetts By Charles Burr Todd Illustrated, $1.50 net (postage 10c.) Mattapoisett and Old Rochester, INIassachusetts Prepared under the direction of aCommittee of the Town of Mattapoisett Illustrated, $2.00 net (postage 15c.) Old Steamboat Days on the Hudson River By David Lear Buckman Illustrated $1.25 net (postage 10c.) In Olde New York State By Charles Burr Todd Illustrated, $1.50 net (postage 10c.) The Cherokee Indians By Thomas Valentine Parker, Ph.D. Illustrated, $1.25 net (postage 10c.) In Press The Diary of Reverend Enos Hitchcock A Chaplain in The Revolution Historic Graveyards of Maryland and their Inscriptions By Helen W. Ridgely THE GRAFTON PRESS 70 Fifth Avenue 6 Beacon Street New York Boston Tin; IIisTOHir III nsox Ri\ kh Lookiiij^ iiortliwiinl I'roiii Wcsf Point OLD STEAMBOAT DAYS ON THE HUDSON RIVER TALES AND REMINISCENCES OF THE STIRRING TIMES THAT FOLLOWED THE INTRODUCTION OF STEAM NAVIGATION BY DAVID LEAR BUCKMAN ^% i THE GRAFTON PRESS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK Copyright. 1907 By the GRAFTON PRESS HE FOREWORD • THE approaching dual celebration of the Ter- centennial of Henry Hudson's discovery of the great river bearing his name, and the Centennial of Robert Fulton's successful application of steam to navigation on that same stream, would seem to warrant the appearance of this little volume. Aside from this fact, the subject is one that calls up many interesting reminiscences on topics that have not heretofore been grouped along the lines the author has endeavored to follow. Most of the old river men best calculated to furnish both information and advice in the preparation of a book such as this, have gone on their last long trip, while those who remain are comparatively few and widely scattered. There are possibly still many old steamboat men who have, stored away in ancient scrap- books and records, highly interesting data that should be brought together in some permanent form — and which the writer would be pleased to incorporate in some future edition — for the benefit of those who may seek to learn something more of the unfolding of one of the most glorious and important periods in the country's development. To those who have helped the 485304 LIBRARY vi l'\)ro\vonl ;uitlu)r in any wny — and there have been many — grateful acknowledgment is hereby given. Many books have aided in I'urnishing the data that will be found in the following })ages, among the number being "Reigart's lJiogra})hy," J. II. Morrison's "History of American Steam Navigation " and " Munsell's Annals." Special thanks are due Mr. Samuel Ward Stanton, editor of the " Nautical Gazette," for his permission to use the in- teresting table of old boats, prepared by him, and sev- eral illustrations that have appeared in that publication. The fact that the author's father followed the river for many years, handling the wheel of the old North America on her sprints to cut down the time, and his great-uncle commanded the good sloop Robert Burns long before that, carrying both freight and passengers, has added no small degree of interest to the labor involved in the preparation of "Old Steamboat Days on the Hudson." To the memory of his father in particular, the author would inscribe whatever of interest and value may be found in this tribute to the men of the early days, who made possible the important chapter of the country's history that deals with steam navigation on the Hud- son River. D. L. B. September 30, 1907. CONTENTS I Robert Fulton 1 II The First Steamboat . . . .10 III Some Old-timers 18 IV Rival Lines on the River . . .30 V How the Great River Monopoly was Broken 37 VI Steamboat Evolution . . . - 53 VII Old River Captains . . . .59 VIII Fast Time on the River . . .65 IX Disasters of River Travel . . .75 X Floating Towns 84 XI Barge Travel on the River . . 93 XII The Steamboats of To-day . . . 100 XIII Hudson-Fulton Memorials . . . 108 XIV Henry Hudson's River . . . .114 Appendix 125 Index 137 ILLUSTRATIONS The Historic Hudson River Frontispiece FACING PAGE John Fitch's Experiment 2 Robert Fulton; from West's Portrait 8 The Clermont 12 The Fanny 20 The Norwich 24 The Armenia 28 The New World 34 The Air Line 42 The Riverside 48 The De Witt Clinton; the Champlain 56 The North America 60 The Rip Van Winkle 62 The Mary Powell 66 The Wreck of the Swallow 78 A Packet Boat on the Erie Canal 86 A Hudson River Tow 90 The Hendrick Hudson 102 The Princeton 106 Robert Fulton; from a Statue 112 Hendrick Hudson on the Half Moon; from a panel in the Astor Memorial Doors of Trinity Church 118 Table of Prominent Hudson River Steamboats, 1807-1907 . 136 OLD STEAMBOAT DAYS ON THE HUDSON RIVER OLD STEAMBOAT DAYS CHAPTER I ROBERT FULTON ROBERT FULTON will always be known as the inventor of the steamboat. It was a great day in the world's work, when, after years of study, experiment and disappointment, he traveled from New York to Albany on his little steamboat the Clermont. That was in August, 1807, just one hundred years ago. A new distinction was added to the noble Hudson, that of being the first river on which a successful demonstration of steam navigation had been made. There had been previous efforts made both in this country and abroad to apply the steam engine, yet in the infancy of its development, to the navigation of boats, but without practical results. Fulton himself had made a trial on the Seine, France, in 1803, and failed. The boat was too frail to stand the weight of the engine and boilers and they had broken through the bottom of the craft during an overnight storm and sunk in the river. Others had tried before him. James Rumsey in 1784 on the Potomac sought 2 Old Steamboat Days to propel a boat by forcing a jet of water from the stern with piiiiips worked by steam. Some of his experi- meiils with tlie boat were witnessed by General Wash- ington and other officers of the Army, but they were failures. John Fitch had tried his boats on the Dela- ware at Philadelphia (1790), and on the Collect Pond, N. Y. (1796), and failed. Elijah Ormsbee, with his "goosefoot" paddles, had attempted the same thing at Pawtucket, R. I. (1792), and John Stevens crossed the river from Hoboken to New York (1804) in a boat fitted with a steam engine of his own construc- tion, but all of these efforts were barren of practical results. It remained for Fulton to inaugurate on the Hudson the system of navigation that was to revolutionize the carrying trade of the world. Robert Fulton was born on a farm in Little Britain, Pa., November 14th, 1765. His father was an Irish- man, of Scotch ancestry, however, named Robert Ful- ton, who settled in Philadelphia and there married Mary Smith, a native of that city. Most of his early education was received in a school at Lancaster, Pa., where the family had removed, presided over by a dig- nified Quaker. Fulton was not an apt pupil. When not busy with his books, for he was not a lazy scholar, he haunted the shops of the town, as he early manifested an interest in all mechanical matters. A gunsmith's shop in the village seemed to possess an especial at- H i »«■ -T- tW 9- ^w ' ■"' h^ -= \'rht £ a s a oj.s £ be 5 >? z 3" t- c >< * C y «S y. "c ^ ' ■f. ? P .2^ -*' ^■^ t- r y. X > — %'^ M "^ U 0) ■5] is t g1 Robert Fulton 3 traction for him and some of his suggestions were even adopted by the workmen. While a boy Fulton made sky rockets for his own amusement, and experiments with mercury and bullets gave him the name of " Quick- silver Bob" among his companions. He early developed an aptitude for making sketches, and at the age of seventeen, having determined to be- come an artist, left for Philadelphia to study. His father had been dead several years, but he had been an intimate friend of the father of Benjamin West, who had then become a celebrated painter. It is more than hkely that this fact fired young Fulton's ambition to become an artist. Afterward Fulton met West, the artist, in England and they became fast friends. In Philadelphia young Fulton painted portraits and landscapes, made drawings of houses and machinery and busied himself so industriously during the four years of his stay in the city, he not only supported liim- self, but was able to contribute something to his widowed mother at home. He must have made considerable money, for in 1785 he bought a farm at Hopewell, Washington County, Pa., paying eighty pounds sterhng for it, and in this homestead he installed his mother and the family. Fulton, while in Pliiladelpliia, met Benjamin Frank- lin and many who had become prominent during the Revolution, then just brought to a close. It is quite likely that some of these may have suggested the idea, 4 Old Steamboat Days wliich lie put into effect as soon as he was twenty-one, of nuiking a trip to Europe. This was a great under- taking in those days and especially for one so young. He carried several letters to Americans abroad from his friends in Philadclpliia, and he had already made the acquaintance of Benjamin West by correspondence. West was so pleased with his young countryman, he took liim into his own family, where he remained several years. This introduction to the English people by West, then at the height of his fame as an artist, did much for Fulton. He industriously painted portraits and landscapes, which gave him a means for support, but he was constantly making mechanical experi- ments. He published a pamphlet on canals, patented a dredging machine and several other inventions, some of which were of great utiUty. Fulton went to Paris in 1797, having acquired more fame as an inventor than a painter. There he secured accommodations in a hotel occupied by Joel Barlow, an American citizen, also somewhat of a projector and a man of considerable literary ability. Barlow produced among other works " The Columbiad," a national epic, which he dedicated "to his friend Robert Fulton." In Paris, Fulton studied French, German, mathematics and chemistry. The practical result of the application of the two latter studies was that his active mind turned to the production of tor- Robert Fulton 5 pedoes, and of submarine boats from which to fire them, at the hulls of an enemy's warships. He achieved some success with both. He gave an exhibition of his plunging boat in the harbor of Brest before commissioners of the French Admiralty, in 1801, using air stored in a copper globe, condensed to 200 atmospheres, from which he took supplies of fresh air as required. He stayed under water over four hours and was highly pleased with the result of his effort, but he failed to secure any aid from the French Govern- ment to develop the invention. The English Government, always alert to what the French were doing in those days, invited Fulton to come to England with his torpedoes and diving boats. It was, of course, as it had to be, a very circuitous, round- about sort of invitation, and there were many vexatious delays. When Fulton finally reached London in May, 1805, he found the men who had invited him there, retired from office. Finally, through Pitt's influence, which had been secured, he blew up an old brig, Dorothea, provided by the Government. The boat had been anchored in Walmer Roads near Deal. Walmer Castle, hard by, was the residence of Pitt, the Prime Minister, and he and a large number of officers in the navy witnessed the torpedo experiment, which was in a way a success, for the old brig was blown to splinters and sank. A Royal Commission, after considering the matter for 6 C)1<1 Steamboat Days a lon»'''' "■^^Vaiisai^^li v ^t K^Hmr'kTi ^1 "^5' . y^^jc? ll^mHSSfl^^^^^^^^BIl ' .^^^M^K'iiU' ' ^^^^^cBB<^^^''"'''^^^^^B^^H''ffl[ llS'r j^^^i^mny^ How the Great River Monopoly was Broken 49 against the constitutionahty of the State laws. There was no allegation of a patent or a claim of anything entitled to be protected by the patent laws, the use and enjoyment of which had been interfered with by the exclusive grant. If the last steamboat laws, enacted since the North River boats were in operation, had, instead of using a general phraseology forbid any person to use on the waters of the State, steamboats constructed or made in the same manner as those made by Fulton and Livingston, or in any manner before known or used or in any manner invented by a non- resident alien, would there be anything for the patent laws or power of Congress to operate on in collision thereto ? If not, then the State laws were so far good. The power to prohibit the use of patented things, either generally or locally, must reside somewhere. Could Congress prohibit the use of locally injurious, but patented things in the waters or the cities or the popu- lous towns of New York.'' If not, because it had no power of regulation or prohibition, where did that power reside .'' If it resided as it must exclusively in the State Legislatures or subordinate authorities, who but their constitutents could inquire into the motives or propriety or their exercise of that power or the extent to which it should be carried } A patent could be se- cured for anything; if it once issued from the patent office as full of evils as Pandora's box, if they were as new as those that issued from thence, it was above the 50 Old Steamboat Days restraint and control of the State Legislature and the Legislature of the United States and of every human authority. The State of New York by a patient and forbearing patronage of ten years to Livingston and Fulton . . . by the tempting inducement of its proffered reward and by the subsequent liberality of its contract had called into existence the noblest and most useful improvement of the present day . . . she had brought into noonday splendor an invaluable improvement to the intercourse and consequent happi- ness of man which without her aid would perhaps have scarcely dawned upon our grandchildren. She had not only rendered this service to her own citizens, but the benefits of her policy have spread themselves over the whole Union . . . and the happy and reflecting inhabitants of the States . . . might well ask them- selves whether next to the Constitutions under which they lived there was a single blessing they enjoyed^ from the art and labor of man greater than that they had derived from the patronage of the State of New York to Robert Fulton. Finally came WiUiam Wirt of Virginia, the famous Attorney-General of the United States, amid the array of counsel, with the argument in support of Mr. Web- ster's, that the State law was in conflict with powers vested in Congress and, even if concurrent, as claimed, it was in conflict and, therefore, void. He asked the court to "interpose its friendly hand and extirpate the How the Great River Monopoly was Broken 51 seeds of anarchy which New York had sown. The war of legislation which had already commenced will, ac- cording to its usual course, become a war of blows. Your country will be shaken with civic strife. Your republican institutions will perish in the conflict, your Constitution will fall and the last hope of the nations will be gone." Mr. Chief Justice John Marshall was quite equal to the important decision he was called upon to render in the steamboat case. In doing so, he added one more to the important opinions he rendered in fixing fast and sure the legal foundation the young nation required to make its new and untested Constitution a workable, respected organic law. In an opinion fully reviewing the important case before him, and even apologizing for its great length, he held that Congress in being given the power to regulate commerce, was given the power to regulate navigation. It was as expressly granted, as if the term navigation had been added to the word, commerce already in the Constitution. "But," said he, "the power to regulate commerce does not look to the principle by which boats were moved. That power was left to individual discretion. . . . The act demonstrates the opinion of Congress that steamboats may be enrolled and licensed in common with vessels using sails. They are, of course, entitled to the same privileges and can no more be restrained from navigating waters and entering ports, which are 52 Old Steamboat Days free to such vessels, than if they were wafted on their voyage by the winds instead of being propelled by the agency of fire. The one clement may be as legitimately used as the other, for every commercial purpose au- thorized by the laws of the river, and the act of a State inhibiting the use of either to any vessel, having a license under the act of Congress, comes, we think, in direct collision with that act." This opinion of the Chief Justice, supported as it was by a concurring opinion on some additional grounds by Mr. Justice Johnson, rang a death-knell to the Fulton- Livingston monopoly on the Hudson River and New York Bay. The decree which the United States Su- preme Court issued declared "the several laws of the State of New York wliich prohibit vessels licensed ac- cording to the laws of the United States, from navigat- ing the waters of the State of New York, by means of fire or steam, repugnant to the Constitution and void." It was certainly a great victory. The battle had been fought for years. Fulton had been dead nine years and it was only the Livingston contingent that witnessed the overthrow of the monopoly that had been enjoyed for so long a period. We have already noted how promptly capital became interested in steamboat en- terprises and how the rivers became crowded with navigation which continued for a quarter of a century, until the steam railroads began to dispute with the river craft for both the passenger and freight trade. CHAPTER VI STEAMBOAT EVOLUTION A RAPID evolution in steamboat construction fol- lowed the breaking of the great river monopoly. The boat builders, freed from the domination of the Fulton-Livingston interests, were quick to develop new ideas that before had no encouragement from capital, which had been debarred from entering that particular field of enterprise. The shipyards of New York and Greenpoint and along the Hudson were more than busy with the large number of boats vmder construction, and the activity in this line continued for many years. Some of the builders of the larger boats were Henry Eckford, Brown & Bell, Blossom, Smith & Dimon, George CoUyer, William H. Brown of New York, C. Bergh, Devine & Burtis, John Enghs, William Capes, Lawrence & Sneden, E. S. Whitlock of Brook- lyn, M. S. Allison of Jersey City, William Brown of Hyde Park, Mr. Kenyon of Albany, Morton & Ed- ;)4 Old Steamboat Days moiuLs aiui Van Loan & Magee of Athens and Marvel & Company of Newburgh. Robert McQueen and James P. Allaire built nearly all the engines for the river boats constructed before IS.'JO, but those for the Sivalloir, Rochester and other famous boats of that period were from the West Point Foundry, a plant noted for its output of machinery. James Cunningham, Hogg & Delamater, Fletcher, Harrison & Company, T. F. Secor & Company and the Neptune Iron Works were the most active producers of steamboat engines during the forties and fifties. Following the example set by Fulton in the con- struction of the boiler for the Clermont, the boilers of all the best boats were built of copper as iron was found to be so liable to burst, and this fact made the construction of new boats very costly. The Clermont's boiler weighed 4,399 pounds and at 2s. 2d. a pound cost £476. lis. 2d. as is carefully noted by Mr. Fulton in his cash account covering the expenses of building this first steamboat. The boiler of the Chancellor Liv- ingston weighed 44,000 pounds and that of the James Kent 60,000 pounds, which at recent rates would have made the copper in the boiler alone worth nearly $15,000. As it was, the Kent's boilers were worth nearly one-third of the cost of the boat. It was not until 1830 that tubular boilers were in- troduced on the boats, the Novelty being the first to have that distinction, and it was some ten years later Steamboat Evolution 55 that the burning of anthracite coal under the boilers was successfully introduced by Isaac Newton on the North and South America and the expense of fuel was cut down one-half. The large wood-burning boilers had required a prodigal expenditure of cordwood, which also demanded a large amount of deck room for stowage, and the introduction of hard coal fuel was considered one of the greatest advancements made in steamboat building. Another of Isaac Newton's successful experiments was a small boat, the Balloon, built in 1839. She was one hundred and sixty feet in length and eighteen feet beam, but was very fast, having extra large paddle wheels for her size. He also designed the Isaac Newton in 1846 and the New World in 1847 and they ran for several years as day boats. In 1855, however, both were converted into night boats, the latter being lengthened some sixty feet and a double tier of staterooms added. When these two boats appeared after their alterations, New Yorkers opened their eyes, and they were called float- ing palaces. Newton had introduced the grand saloon extending through two decks and surrounded with galleries. The New World was fitted up with Corin- thian columns and trim and the Newton in Gothic. The saloons were lighted with gas, the cabin furnish- ings were elaborate and in many respects nothing approaching in elegance the two new night boats had ever before been seen afloat. The many new accom- 56 Old Steamboat Days inoilalions that these boats alforded travelers not only made a distinctive type for river boats which has since been closely followed, but did nuuh to establish the popularity of the line with which they were identified and which has since been largely retained. The Neiv World continued in the service until her mishap in 1861 and the Newton until she burned in December, 1863. As early as 1844 there was an iron hull steamer on the river named the Iron Witch. She was subsequently rebuilt and named the Erie. The hull and engines were both constructed by Hogg & Delamater of New York. She was two hundred and twenty-five feet long and twenty-seven feet beam. She ran from New York to Albany. It was not until within a comparatively short time that any further attempts were made to introduce iron or steel into the hull construction of the river boats. All the recent additions to the river fleet have, however, steel hulls and water-tight bulkheads. The boats of the Fulton type were built with their boilers well down in the hull of the boat, but in 1826, the New Philadelphia appeared with her boilers built on her guards, a form of construction that prevailed for many years. Many still regard the old boats, such as the Mary Powell and Dean Richmond, more picturesque, afi'ord- ing glimpses of the stokers tossing the fuel into the fiery furnaces, than the newer boats which have re- The De Witt Clixtox Which ran with a sister boat, the Victory, IjetweeTi New York and Albany. From a dra-ning l>y S. W. Stanton VLagdsi,, ^=---" The Champi^vin KnowTi as a "Four Piper." She liad four boilers, two engines and two walking beams. Reproduced by permission from "American Steam Vessels" Steamboat Evolution 57 verted to the type of boats with the boilers down in the hold of the vessel. It is not at all likely, however, that any more steamers will be built of that variety, as the modern boats afford much more deck room than those of the other construction. The propeller type of steamboat has never attained much popularity on the Hudson River, though there have been several excellent specimens of that class in service and some smart boats of that description of comparatively recent construction are now running on regular lines. They are apparently too narrow in beam to afford an opportunity for lofty construction, grand saloons and imposing cabin vistas, which the public seem to desire in traveling on the river. All of the old boats were stiffened and hulls made to carry the enormous load of engines and boilers by resorting to a "hog frame." This was a framework of heavy timbers, built up truss fashion to which lifting rods were attached. These heavy "hog frames" are no longer resorted to in modern built boats and the trusses are entirely out of sight, giving the newer ves- sels a much neater and smarter appearance. With the advance in mechanical appliances came the steam steering devices, rendering it unnecessary to have four stalwart quartermasters to handle the big double steering wheels in the pilot houses of the larger steamers; electric dynamos for lights supplanted the cumbersome gas machines that were in turn an 58 Old Steamboat Days advaiu'o on the kerosene eabin lights, and feathering wheels have made it possible to so reduce the diameter of the paddles, that it is now possible to walk the length of the lower deck without climbing over the crank shaft or " ducking " to go under it. The evolution of the steamboat from the primitive Clermont, on which Fulton sailed up the Hudson one hundred years ago, to the boats that now daily ply the river, affording every convenience to the passen- gers to be found in a first-class hotel on land, is truly wonderful. CHAPTER VII OLD RIVER CAPTAINS THE captain of a river steamer in the old days and to-day is by far the most important man on the boat. He must be a trusty, experienced man and should be at all times agreeable to the passengers. Those on the Hudson have been for the most part men of this character and many became popular with the traveling public. Before the days of a la carte restaurants on the boats, the captain had his table in the dining saloon, and the dinner hour aboard the steamboat was one of the features of the trip. Under the present regulations the captains, though always on duty and men of character and ability, are not as much in evidence to the average passenger as in the old days. Capt. Samuel Jenkins commanded the Clermont after she was renamed the North River, in 1808, the Car of Neptune was in command of Captain Roorback in 1810 and the Paragon, in 1813, was in charge of Captain Wiswall. These men were, accordingly, the 60 Old Steamboat Days pioneer steainhoat captains of the river. They have been followed by many worthy successors, in whose char<];e millions of passcnjj;ers have traveled in safety anil comfort. Some of the captains on the steamers in the thirties and forties were H. Moore of the Olive Branch, Fountain of the Niagara and C. Benton of the William Penn, on the Union Line; Captain Cochran of the Chancellor Livingston, T. Wiswall of the James Kent, S. Wiswall of the Richmond and Benton of the Saratoga, on the North River Line; Captain Bartholomew of the Hudson, on the Connecticut Line; R. G. Cruttenden of the Constellation and Wiswall of the Constitution, on the North River Association Line. Capt. D. Peck sailed the Swift Sure and Captain Seymour the Com- merce, of the Steam Navigation Company ; Captain Peck the Henry Eckford and Captain Drake the Srm, of the O. & D. Line; while Captain Sherman had the Chief Justice Marshall and Captain Fitch the New London, of the Troy Line. Captain Cruttenden was one of the last survivors of this class and when in command of the old Constella- tion he used to boast he never lost a trip or a life, had made one thousand one hundred and sixty-two trips with the old boat and carried over 172,000 passengers. Most of the early river captains reached a hearty old age. Captain Bunker, who ran the Fulton up the Hudson during the war of 1812, lived until he was PS rt Old River Captains 61 seventy-five years of age, dying in 1847, and must have rejoiced to note the great development in an industry in which he was a pioneer. Another veteran of the river, Capt. Samuel Wiswall, lived to be sixty-three years old and died in New York in 1836. He is buried in Hudson. Among the river captains of 1847 were Capt. A. Gorham, commanding the Troy; Capt. H. J. Kellogg, the Niagara; Capt. W. W. Tupper, the Columbia; Capt. R. B. Macy, the Empire; Capt. W. H. Peck, the Isaac Newton ; Capt. R. G. Cruttenden, the Hendrik Hudson; Capt. R. H. Furey, the North America; Capt. Thomas N. Hulse, the South America; Capt. G. O. Tupper, the Alida; Capt. A. DeGroot, the Roger Williams; Capt. J. S. Odell, the Columbus; Capt. Samuel Johnson, the Thomas Powell; Capt. Charles Halstead, the Superior and Capt. John Samuels, the Emerald. Many odd characters were to be found among the old captains. Of one it is told he used to boast he paid one hundred dollars to bury his wife and it was worth every cent of it! He, however, was an exception to the generally good humored river captains and never came to the dignity of commanding a passenger boat. He was a mighty good navigator, however, and had the reputation of putting things through in spite of wind or weather. Captain Houghton of the old Rochester was one of the 62 Old Steamboat Days greatest charaeters among tlie old captains. He was familiarly known as "I'ug" Houghton, his nose sug- gested the cognomen, and he was a great story-teller. He was a stage driver in Vermont when a younger man and some of liis tales of the road were hair-raisers. He used to tell of frightening off some robbers at a wayside tavern with a brass candlestick which he held up as a pistol, and, as if to convince all doubters, he used to say, in the morning the heels of two boots were found on the doorsill, torn off the bold marauders footwear as the captain had jammed the door to upon them. "Pug" Houghton always had a knot of passengers about him on the river boats as he recounted his ex- periences on the high seas, though there were those who claimed he never sailed beyond Sandy Hook in all his life. " Uncle " Daniel Drew, who had two steamboats, and a theological seminary in New Jersey named after him, was an able financier and a good business manager in general. He was greatly surprised on a certain occasion to find one of his captains taking a drink at the bar while the boat was running. The captain was equally surprised at being found at the bar by " Uncle " Daniel. Capt. was, however, a good bluff and held his ground, talking business as he drank his whiskey and in the presence of the owner of the line planked down a quarter on the bar for the drink. "What," said Mr. Drew to the captain, in sur- 1 fl^^^SfT' 1^1 ^H ''^^1 ^^V ' :rl^^^H ^^^Hi > ^^^^^^^^1 J ^^H 1 ^ ^^^^^^^^^^^H ■ : ^^^^^^^^H ^^^^^^^^^^^^^B «& 1 ^^^^^^^^^H '^ ^^^^^■x-' X ' .f^^^^l ^EBL ^1 ^^^^^^^^v fl^^^^^^^^^^^H 9A HH ~^''^ '^^^^H '"V ^^£'.. I ^^^^H "fl ^^^Hi "-^ *' j^^^^^^^^^^H M ^^^^^^H M ^^^HiEz iL; ^^H 1 ^^^^^^^^^^^1 M^^Ki 1 Old River Captains 63 prise, "do you have to pay for your drinks on this boat?" "Always," replied the captain, without the quiver of an eyelash. "Fact is," said he, "Mr. Drew, I find it the best means of interposing a most desirable re- straint on natural tendencies." "Uncle" Daniel left the captain quite satisfied he was a very moderate drinker, if he had to pay steam- boat prices for drinks, but had the bartender not sought out the captain and restored the quarter of a dollar before the end of that particular trip, the chances are ten to one he would have lost his job. One of the best known river captains was Capt. A. L. Anderson who had the Mary Powell built for him and commanded her for years. She was not only the smartest boat on the river in her day, but has always been a "lucky" boat, never having met with a serious accident. She lost one of her smokestacks in a big blow in the Highlands on one of her trips, many years ago, but is said to have finished her trip on time. She was owned for years by the Anderson family, but was recently purchased by the Day Line. There is still a Captain Anderson on board of her, however. He is A. E. Anderson, a son of the original captain, and as he has been running the Powell for over tliirty years him- self, is in the veteran class. Capt. S. J. Roe, who has commanded the Rip Van Winkle, Drew, Dean Richmond and Adirondack in his 64 Old Steaiiihoat Days day. is still livinj;, hale and lioarty, over eighty years of aj^o, in Albany, N. Y. His memory goes back to the days of the Swallow in 184.'), and he took a party of excursionists down the river in the liclle to view the wreck of the old boat. Captain Post, who ran the St. John, has been dead for a number of years and so has Capt. "Dave" Hitchcock who put the Chauncey Vibhard through by daylight and retained his popu- larity as a captain as long as he ran upon the river. The captains alone should not be remembered of the great steamboat days of the thirties, forties and fifties. The times developed many engineers, men of resource and ingenuity, who made their boats jump through the water under the impulse of every pound of steam that could be crowded on the boilers, in the great efforts to make records for speed. Many of the older men, on the decline of steam navigation, follow- ing the opening of the railroads, took to the deep water business and became chief engineers on ocean steam- ships and it would be interesting, indeed, if one were able, to follow the old-timers of the starting bar in their wanderings from their river habitat. CHAPTER VIII FAST TIME ON THE RIVER NO sooner had the Clermont made it possible to re- duce the time of the journey to Albany to thirty- two hours, than the steamboat builders began to at- tempt to make a further reduction. Each succeeding steamer cut down the time of the passage. In 1817 it had been reduced to eighteen hours and in 1826 the Constellation and Constitution had made the trip to Albany in fifteen hours. By 1836 a new boat, the North America, had cut it down to ten hours and the improvement went steadily on until the Chauncey Vibhard, in 1864, made it in an even seven hours, beginning and finishing the trip in daylight, which had long been the ambition of the steamboat captains. Now the new Hendrick Hudson of the Day Line leaves New York at 8.30 a. m., makes nine land- ings, arrives at Albany at 5.30 with the regularity of a railroad time table and could, if pushed, do a great deal better. The improvement in time will be readily appreciated 66 Old Steamboat Days hours minutes M — 18 — 15 — 10 — 7 45 7 43 7 30 7 42 6 50 6 42 l)v tho appended statement of the performances of the old-tinu'rs on tho run to Albany: 1807 Clermont 1817 Chancellor Livingston 1826 Constellation 1836 North America 1849 Alida . 1851 New World . 1852 Francis Skiddy 1860 Armenia 1862 Daniel Drew 1864 Chauncey Vibbard The Mary Powell, built in 1861, many times recon- structed and improved and still running, was for years conceded to be the queen of the river steamers in point of speed. She averages twenty miles an hour at all times, and has been pushed to twenty-six miles. In 1884, the steam yacht Stilletto, built entirely for speed and fresh from the hands of her builders, the Herreshoffs of Bristol, R. I., tried to wrest the laurels from the old boat and succeeded bv a narrow margin. On June 10th in a race of thirty miles she beat the Powell by two miles, covering the distance in one hour and fifteen minutes. It was not a bad showing, how- ever, for the old river queen and her owners have always claimed she could have done much better had she been put into first class condition for the race. 6' Fast Time on the River 67 Similar claims were made for the Stilletto, her builders claiming twenty-seven miles an hour for their boat. The Stilletto set low in the water so as to present as httle surface for wind resistance as possible. She was somewhat of the same type as the Vamoose, another boat built for speed in later years. Both were the fore- runners in a degree of the motor boats now so popular. This special form of construction had been at- tempted, however, many years before. Burden built a cigar-shaped boat which he called Helen. Though it was expected she would be very speedy, she turned out a failure and was soon abandoned. In the attempt to turn out fast boats and cut down the time of the river, some boats with four smoke- stacks and as many boilers, with two engines and two walldng beams were built. The Erie and Champlaiji were "four pipers," but they did not realize the ex- pectations of their builders. Even at this late date the Albany and New York of the Day Line only boast of three smokestacks. The improvement in speed has been secured with more perfectly constructed ma- chinery and feathering paddle wheels, than anything else. The old captains were frequently given to speeding their boats, and many tales are told in the pilot houses and engine rooms to this day of the old craft that made sprints in order to hold the record of the smartest boat on the river. 68 Old Steamhoaf Days When Hudson River captains raced their boats they did it for all they were worth. Trips that could be made with eighteen cords of wood and twenty-five pounds of steam, would call for twenty-five cords of wood and sixty pounds of steam, if the other boat was a good one and the race was at all close. The steam gauges were plugged and the safety valves were weighted down so that the boiler pressure frequently became threefold what it should be. In the fall of 1836, the Swallow and the Roch- ester had a memorable race, starting from Jersey City at 4 p. M., November 8th, and it was a hot one. The boats were within a short distance from each other all the way up the river, with the tide against them. The Swallow^s engine became disabled near Hudson and she slowed down for a few moments and then dashed ahead again, but the Rochester reached the Overslaugh Bar, five miles below Albany, first, in eight hours and fifty-seven minutes, and the Swallow in nine hours and two minutes, just five minutes behind her rival. Though the race was the Rochester's it was generally admitted that the Swallow was the better boat. The North America and the Champlain were always in for a race whenever their sailing hours permitted of it, and each boat had its enthusiastic backers, for the passengers generally became as much interested in these river contests, as the captains themselves. The Columbia, a new boat, made her appearance in Fast Time on the River 69 1849 and immediately demonstrated to the older craft on the river, she was to be reckoned veith. Her spurts with the North America were among the exciting brushes of the period and she crowded the older boat to the rear, making the run to Hudson, where she be- longed, in eight hours and a quarter. The Kosciusko and Telegraph were always pushing one another for the record. Many times they tried conclusions and when a race between the two was on, it mattered not if a score or more passengers were waiting at one of the announced landings, the boats rushed by, leaving the hapless people on the dock, so great was the rivalry between the two captains. The Telegraph eventually proved the better boat and kept the record until a newer vessel sent the old speeder to the rear. The rivalry for the speed record became so great between two of the boats, the Oregon, owned by George Law, and the Cornelius Vanderbilt, owned by " Com- modore ' ' Vanderbilt, then running on Long Island Sound, that a race for $1,000 a side was arranged be- tween them, which took place on the Hudson River on June 1, 1847. The Vanderbilt was a new boat. The race started at the Battery and both boats got away at eleven o'clock, a great throng of people being on hand to witness the contest. For thirty miles up the river the boats kept side by side, but the Oregon passed the Vanderbilt as she approached the stake 70 Old Steamboat Days boat ofT Ossining and was half a length ahead at that point. In passing the Vanderhili, the Oregon was bumped by her rival and damaged her wheelhouse considerably. On the way down the river the Oregon s coal gave out, but the captain and crew resorted to tactics that had been followed before, in the days of exciting steamboat racing. The woodwork of the berths, chairs, benches, furniture of staterooms and everything else that would burn was put under the boilers to keep up steam. She finished the race at the Battery about twelve hundred feet ahead of the Van- derhili, having covered the seventy miles in three hours and fifteen minutes with the tide against her going north and with her on the return. The owners of the Oregon got the $1,000 stake and possibly expended more than that restoring the joiner work on their boat. The Alida and the Hendrik Hudson had a great race from New York to Albany in 1849. The first named reached Albany at ^.55 p. m., having left New York at 7.00 a. m., made one landing and beat the Hudson by fifteen minutes, both boats having an ebb tide all the way up the river. Captain DeGroot of the Reindeer would never admit there was a boat on the river that could pass him and he was frequently called upon to prove it, which he did to the discomfiture of his rivals. The Henry Clay was designed to beat her, but never did. The New World, with her enormous piston stroke of fifteen feet Fast Time on the River 71 which has never been equaled, though fourteen feet strokes were not uncommon, was thought to be a match for the Reindeer, and she proved to be, though Captain DeGroot would never admit it, always claiming something went wrong with the machinery when he found the other boat was pulling away from him. The St. John wrested the laurels from the Vanderbilt in 1863 and in the same year the new day boat Chauncey Vibbard made Albany in seven and a half hours, which she cut down the year following to six hours and forty- two minutes. Steamboat racing on the Hudson virtually came to an end in 1852, when the Steamboat Inspection Bill, passed by Congress, became a law. It was well racing was made unlawful, for it had developed recklessness and a disregard for the safety and convenience of pas- sengers. Then, too, bursting boilers were of too fre- quent occurrence and there was good reason, though we are apt to smile at their fears with our experience in new and improved mechanical devices — for sensible people to prefer traveling on " safety barges " hav- ing the benefit of steam propulsion without sleeping above an overtaxed boiler. The fear of bursting boilers was the one uppermost in the minds of the early steamboat travelers. An incident will illustrate the promptness with which the boat owners met all objections: The steamboat New London was advertised to leave 72 Old Steamboat Days that part of the jm( i- opposite the Eagle Tavern, Albany, for New York, one afternoon at 4 o'elock. A prejudice existed at the time against iron boilers, which were thought to be unsafe. It was, therefore, advertised that the N eiv London had a copper boiler, an overnight transformation said to have been accomplished by a liberal application of copper colored paint. The steamboats in their day tried to do what the telegraph does for the newspapers to-day. In 1829 we read that the President's Message which was sent to Congress on Tuesday, December 8th, reached New York fifteen and one-half hours afterward and was rushed up the river on the steamer Albany and arrived at that city in time to be published on Thursday morn- ing, which was an event considered to have been one of "unprecedented dispatch." It will certainly pay you the next time you journey up the river to take note of the long low embankment extending out in the water, nearly a mile from the shore, at the point where the Palisades suddenly terminate as if cut down by some mighty hand. The narrow strip of land looks more like a breakwater than any- thing else, and close observation will show it is sadly in need of repair. It is now more of an obstruction to navigation than anything else, and should have been removed long ago. The place is Piermont and it is the "pier" that extends such a great distance out in the river. The Fast Time on the River 73 "mont" or "mount" is at the shore end of the pier and if you have a pair of marine glasses with you, on looking well up on the hillside you will find a large yellow building that was once a hotel. Both the pier and the hotel are the silent witnesses of the busy, husthng times that once marked the place, but now long since gone. Piermont was the eastern terminal in those days, of the Erie Railway and was the nearest possible point the road could get to New York City. The New Jersey State line reaches down to the Hudson about two miles south of Piermont. About the last place you can note in New York State below Piermont is Snedens Land- ing, a point of interest, however, for General Corn- wallis landed there with six thousand British troops in 1776 and marched on Fort Lee further down on the Palisades. When the Erie Railroad was built under a New York charter, New Jersey put up the bars against the new railway entering that State. It was the talk those days that the old Camden and Amboy road controlled the entire railroad situation in New Jersey. It was certainly a powerful combina- tion, which has since become incorporated in the Penn- sylvania Railroad system. At any rate, it was powerful enough to make the Erie get to New York by way of Piermont. This was the reason the long pier was built; tracks laid upon it and the passenger trains run 74 Old Steamboat Days out to a stoainht)at fony landing. From tliis point all the pas.senij;ers wore carried to New York City by steamboats and the railroad attempted to overcome the serious handicap, by making the trips between Piermont and the city in the shortest time possible. The freight was lightered down the river. It can readily be imagined what a sc-enc of busy activity the old pier must have been in times past, though one will look in vain for any signs of life there now, with the exception of a few manufactories that have located at the shore end of the pier. The Piermont branch of the Erie is still in existence, and freight cars are brought down the steep grades to the river level at that point for the benefit of local shippers. The old hotel on the hillside has been a school, a conservatory of music and a boarding-house since the busy days when it was a popular hostelry at which fashionable New Yorkers bound west stopped over night, so as to take the first morning trains, without being forced to leave the city at an inconveniently early hour on the Erie's fast steamboat express ferry from the foot of Duane Street. CHAPTER IX DISASTERS OF RIVER TRAVEL ACCIDENTS have attended the navigation of the river. Since the introduction of steam, boats have sunk, burned and been in colhsion on many occasions. Frequently there was an attendant loss of life. Never, however, has there been such a disaster as that of the burning of the General Slocum, on the East River in broad daylight, June 15, 1904, when nine hundred and fifty-eight lives were lost and one hundred and seventy- five injured, or the more recent catastrophe of the Joy Liner Larchmont, on the Sound off Block Island, February 11, 1907. Then nearly two hundred souls perished in the icy waters, as the result of the collision between the steamer and the schooner Henry Knowl- ton. Possibly the nearness of the shores on either side of the river, the more careful supervision of the boats by the operating lines, the watchfulness of the captains or indeed sailor's luck may account for the com- paratively small loss that has attended the navigation 76 Old Steamboat Days i)f tho Hudson. From whatever cause the fact arises, it certainly is a matter of satisfaction to note the toll of the dead is comparatively small, when the years and number of passengers transported are taken into con- sideration. Still the Hudson is a treacherous river to navigate in a fog and at all times there are shoals and rocks for the pilots to avoid. It requires an expert at the wheel to take a boat through the apparently land- locked turns and reaches at the Highlands. Much has been accomplished in later years by the Federal and State Governments erecting range marks on the shores, building lighthouses on the most dangerous points and deepening the channel by dykes above New Baltimore. Many a boat has gone aground on the bar below Albany and remained a prisoner there for hours, an experience to which the river traveler of to-day is seldom subjected. The Clermont alone of the three earlier boats on the river, was continued long enough in the service as the North River to receive an honorable discharge by being " broken up." Both the Car of Neptune and the Para- gon sank, the latter in 1825. The General Jackson on a trip from Peekskill to New York exploded her boilers near Grassy Point and several passengers were killed. " Commodore " Van- derbilt's brother Jacob was her captain at the time. The North America became a wreck when moored Disasters of River Travel 77 to her dock in Albany in the spring of 1839. She was carried down by the breaking up of the ice in the Island Creek. No lives were lost. The steamboat Sivalloiv, one of the most popular and speedy boats of her time, on her way down the river, in a snow squall, from Albany, on Monday evening, April 7, 1845, met with disaster. She was under command of Captain Squires and was known as a night boat. She left Albany in the evening and reached New York the next morning. When near Athens, which is nearly opposite from the city of Hudson, she struck a rock, took fire, broke in two and rapidly sank. There is little doubt but that she was racing with the Express and Rochester. The reporter of the Hudson Rural Repository who, with characteristic enterprise, was on the spot, in his account of the disaster says : "On Monday evening, April 7th, the steamboat Swallow, Captain A. H. Squires, was on her passage from Albany to New York, and when opposite this city, in the Athens channel, ran upon a little, rocky island, broke in two, and in a few minutes sank. The alarm was immediately spread in Athens, and a large number of citizens soon rallied to the scene of disaster, and happily succeeded in rescuing many lives. Soon after the steamboats Express and Rochester came down and promptly rendered what assistance was in their power, taking many passengers with them to New 78 Old Steamboat Days York. The Swallow had on board a large number of passengers, but the exact loss of life is at present un- known [the number lost proved to be about fifteen]. The night was exceedingly dark, with a heav^ gale, snow and rain, and very cold. Our citizens are yet busy about the wreck." The rocks on which the Swallow was wrecked made a little island formerly known as Noah's Brig, es- pecially among the lumbermen, who ran rafts of logs and lumber down the river. It derived that name, according to the "History of Columbia County," from the following incident : " One night a large number of rafts were coming down the west channel, one of them being under the command of a man who was known among his comrades by his Christian name, 'Noah.' As the rafts neared this point Noah espied in the dim light a dark object riding upon the waters, which he at once decided to be a brig under sail, and as soon as he had approached near enough he hailed it, ' Brig ahoy ! ' No response. Again, in stentorian tone, his hail rang out upon the night air, but still no attention was paid, and the mysterious craft kept unswervingly to its course. This exasperated Noah, and his third hail was 'Brig ahoy! answer, or I'll run you down!' and, as no reply was given, true to his word he did run down the island ; two trees standing widely apart having deceived him as to its character. Probably neither Noah's brig nor his raft sustained serious injury, but Disasters of River Travel 79 the poor Swallow met a more cruel fate. A large por- tion of the island has been taken away, and the rock material was used in constructing the embankments of the canal through the middle ground." The place since the eventful wreck has always been called the Swallow Rocks. The author's father, Ira Buckman, purchased the old wreck of the Sivallow, hauled the material seven miles inland and from it built a fine two-story house at Valatia, N. Y. It is on the old Albany Post Road, is yet standing in a good state of preservation and is still known as the " Swallow House." The Victory sank in 1845. She had always belied her name and was a hoodoo from the first: she was built in 1828 and owned largely in Albany. Her en- gines were too powerful and she was always meeting with accidents. This same company built and put on their line the DeWitt Clinton which finally became a tow barge, but the enterprise was never a success and many Albanians lost all they put into the scheme. The Empire was run into by the schooner Noah Brown in Newburgh Bay, May 18, 1849, and twenty- four lives were lost. The loss of the Henry Clay on July 28, 1852, was one of the notable and fatal disasters of the river. She had almost reached New York on her way from Albany when she was discovered to be on fire. Her captain headed her for the shore at Riverdale and ran her hard 80 Old Steamboat Days a<;rouiul, hut unt'ortunately most of the passengers wore at the stern, which was in deep water and im- prisoned by the flames. There was a wihl panic, the terror stricken men and women fighting for possession of the hfe preservers and struggHng with one another even after hmding in the water. Sixty hves were lost, including a number of well-known New Yorkers, among the number being Miss Hawthorne, a sister of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the calamity cast a gloom over the entire city. The shore of the river at the place of the accident was crowded for days with people seek- ing to recover the bodies of the dead. The Reindeer, one of the larger and popular boats, wliich bore Jenny Lind in triumph to Albany when making her successful trip through the country, met with disaster September 4, 1852. The boilers of the boat burst near Bristol, forty miles below Albany. Six persons were killed and twenty-five others died afterwards of their injuries. These two accidents, following so closely one after the other, resulted in a public agitation that secured the enactment of the Steamboat Inspection Bill of that year. Though the captain of the Clay and the owners insisted there had been no racing, the passengers claimed there had; — the coroner's jury found she had been racing all the way down the river with the Armenia and the disaster was without doubt the result of the woodwork catching fire from the overheated boilers. Disasters of River Travel 81 The New World sank off the Stuyvesant shore on July 4, 1861, on her way from New York to Albany. It was in the morning and daylight and fortunately no lives were lost. She was raised and repaired at New York and was used during the Civil War, then in progress, as a hospital ship, being stationed in the vicinity of West Point. Her engines were placed in a new night boat for the People's Line, called the St. John. The Oregon was sunk in collision with the City of Boston, at New York, October 22, 1863, and in June, 1864, the Berkshire burned near Hyde Park with loss of life. The Isaac Newton, on her up-river trip on the night of December 5, 1863, exploded her starboard boiler opposite Fort Washington Point, after which she caught fire and was completely destroyed. Seventeen persons were scalded, nine of whom died. The Francis Skiddy, one of the four pipers with as many boilers, built for speed in 1851, came to grief on her down trip November 5, 1864. She hit a rock near Staatsburg while trying to avoid a large tow and proved to be so bad a wreck that she was never put again in service. Her engines were taken out and for the most part placed in the Dean Richmond, which was new in 1865, and they are still doing duty in that boat. Though the Skiddy never fulfilled the expectations of her owners as a speeder, she, for a long period, accom- 82 Old Steamboat Days plishcd what none of the present boats are called upon to do: she made a round trip between Albany and New York every twenty-four hours. The St. John burst one of her boilers October 29, 1865, a few miles below Albany, and fifteen lives were lost, most of them being passengers. She was repaired and ran for twenty years, one of the most popular boats on the river, finally being destroyed by fire while laid up in winter quarters at the foot of Canal street. New York, in February, 1885. The St. John rammed and sank the Catskill several years ago off West Sixty-fifth street. New York, and the Onteora not long since ran high and dry in a brick- yard above Ncwburgh, but was hauled off without much damage. One of the latest serious accidents to befall the river boats was on October 13, 1906, when the Troy Line boat Saratoga ran down the Adirondack near Tivoli. The Saratoga was so badly injured she dropped one of her boilers in the river and it has never been recov- ered. The Adirondack had much of her forward work carried away, but continued to run for the balance of the season. Each boat lost a man. The Saratoga ended her career on the river then and there. The City of Troy was discovered to be on fire after leaving Yonkers on the evening of April 5, 1907. She had aboard about one hundred passengers and a valuable cargo of freight. Captain Briider and his crew Disasters of River Travel 83 made a desperate effort to subdue the fire which origi- nated in the galley in the hold, but without success, so he effected a landing at the Gould Dock at Ardsley. All the panic-stricken passengers were safely landed, but the entire cargo, including several horses, was lost, as the vessel, after setting fire to the dock, burned to the water's edge and was a total loss. She was built in 1876, but several times reconstructed. She was two hundred and eighty feet long, thirty-eight feet beam, and her engines were 1,600 horse power. CHAPTER X FLOATING TOWNS AMONG the most picturesque sights on the Hud- son are its floating towns. No more fitting term can be used to designate the long hnes of canal boats lashed together four and five abreast and strung out for nearly a half mile, being towed down the river, so slowly that the movement is hardly discernible. The tows, which are made up at the basin above Albany where the Erie Canal enters the Hudson, look very much like floating towns, presenting the regu- larity of blocks of buildings, with lanes of open water between, not unlike streets in appearance. These clusters of "canalers," hay barges and ice boats, though of a motley appearance, are always interesting. Home life in its every phase can be noted, for the "canaler's" boat is largely his world. His family is domiciled on the craft from the opening to the close of navigation, and the boat is often maintained as the home when in winter quarters. On one the captain's wife may be seen washing Floating Towns 85 clothes just outside iier cabin door and on another the entire wash hanging up to dry; red flannel shirts of the men flutter in the breeze, and on the same lines is the finest of snowy under-linen of both male and female variety. Little shirts and "petties" also indicate the presence of children, and if you watch for them you will find them on some of the boats, playing with children from the other craft in the tow or running over the decks with their dogs at such a rate, one wonders they do not fall overboard. Some of the cabin roofs are fitted up with gay canvas awnings, hammocks and swings. Bright hued geraniums and other flowers in boxes in front of the cabin windows add to the picture. Sometimes a group of men and women will be seen on one of the boats, spending a pleasant hour eating and listening to the lively music of a concertina or guitar, for it is while the boats are being slowly towed down or up the river, that the " canalers " have a rest and the opportunity to relieve the rather dull monotony of their lives, by these social amenities. Because these people of the canal boats live lives apart and different from others, do not imagine for a moment there is not to be found among them men and women who are quite the equal of the average men and women met with elsewhere. Especially was this the fact in the years that followed shortly after the opening of the Erie Canal. Many young men on the farms and in the mid- 86 Old Steamboat Days state towns through the Mohawk Valley, married and single, saw in the new waterway opportunities to make a fortune and to travel to the great cities. They in- vested in canal boats and became both owners and captains. They carried grain and products of all kinds to New York and went back loaded with manu- factured goods for the up-state farmers. Some men ran passenger packets on the canal, and the Red Bird and other lines carried many between Albany and Buffalo. Many of the boats, those carrying wheat especially — for it was before the day of railroads with their huge grain elevators at the terminals — were kept particularly clean and were provided with roomy cabins in the stern, wonderfully contrived for convenience, in which the captain, his wife and sometimes the children lived comfortably. The mules that towed the boats on the canal were quartered in a stable built in the bow of the boat. The owners of this great inland marine, that sprang into existence on the opening of the Erie Canal, had as many different ideas as to the naming of their boats as come to the minds of parents naming their first bom. Some were fancy, some just homely family names after the owner's wife or daughter; others were those of heroes and even mythological gods and goddesses were not forgotten. It is on this account if you ever get near enough to closely inspect these river tows, you are apt to find the Gladiator of Spencerport bound Floating Towns 87 more firmly with two-inch hawsers to Elizabeth Jones of Fort Ann, than the marital ties of many couples bind them to-day. General George Washington is apt to be found keeping company with Polly, all the way down the river and if two late stragglers join the tow and are hitched on behind all the rest, it is like as not to prove to be Minerva and Jim enjoying, as it were, for a few hours, only too brief, a tete-d-tete by them- selves. This towing of canal boats on the Hudson con- stitutes a large and profitable business in its own class. It is in the hands of regularly organized companies and the rates are now so thoroughly established that "cut-throating" is a tlaing of the past. It was not al- ways so, for competition in the towing business was quite as fierce as it was in the freight and passenger business. The time was, when a canal boat owner could get a tow all the w^ay from Albany to New York for five dollars, but the average fee when competition was not cutting all profit from the business was more likely to be fifteen. Some of the old-time companies engaged in the business was the Schuyler Towing Co. of Albany, the Austin Towing Co., the Ronan Co. and the Swift Sure Towing Co. of New York. Most of the canal boats rendezvoused in New York at the basin at Coenties Slip, on the East River, and it is at this point that the up-river tows are still made up. 88 Old Steamboat Days The steamers that pulled these immense tows up and down llio riviT wore for the most part old passenger boats, rebuilt and adapted for the purpose by the removal of most of their upper works, saloons and staterooms. The Vanderbilt, Niagara, Norwich, Alida, Cayuga, Syracuse, Connecticut and many others have become tow boats, and if you have ever seen an old cattle boat, the John Stevens, knocking about the river, loaded with livestock for the abattoirs, you will have recognized in many of her lines those of the fine passenger boat she was in the fifties. It required nearly a week for one of these tows to make the trip down the river, the progress was so slow. Generally sixty to eighty boats made up a good sized tow, but Capt. Harvey Temple went up the river one time, with a broom on the flagstaff of the old Con- necticut, and pulling one hundred and eight canal boats behind her, which made a new record in the size of towing fleets, and so far as the author is in- formed, still is the largest. These flotillas of canal boats, not so large now as in the former days, are all witnesses of the great impor- tance of the vast system of inland waterways which helped to make undisputed New York's title to being the Empire State. It has nearly one thousand miles of canals within its borders, the construction and main- tenance of which has cost upward of a hundred million dollars. Floating Towns 89 Of these the Erie Canal, three hundred and sixty-one miles in length, is by far the most important, connecting the Great Lakes with the tidewater of the Hudson. Next in importance is the Champlain Canal and Glens Falls Feeder which connects the Hudson with Lake Champlain. These and the other canals have in the past played a great part in the development of the State. The cities on the Hne of the Erie Canal — Schenectady, Amsterdam, Utica, Rome, Little Falls, Syracuse and Rochester — owe much to the waterway that brought commerce to their doors and placed them in ready communication with the rest of the country. Call to mind if you can the many towns in the center of the State, far from the waters of the lakes, rivers or ocean, which have an aqueous termination or sug- gestiveness in their names and you will realize in a small degree the importance of what the great canal system meant to places that would have been to-day little more than straggling hamlets on dusty country cross roads. With the ocean and the Great Lakes many miles distant you will find in inland New York, Lockport, Gasport, Middleport, Shelby Basin, Eagle Harbor, Brockport, Adams Basin, Spencerport, Fair- port, Waynesport, Port Gilson, Weedsport, Port Byron and other " ports, " all witnesses to the developing power of the canal system of the State. The work of building the Erie Canal was begun 90 Old Steamboat Days uiulor :ui act of the Legislature, July 4, 1817, at Rome, ill the presence of Gov. Dc Witt Clinton, through whose earnest endeavors, exerted at all times and in the face of much opposition, the great improvement was urged to a successful completion. The Governor's opponents always referred to the vast undertaking in those days as " Clinton's Big Ditch." The plans provided for a canal forty feet wide at the top, eighteen feet at the bottom, with a depth of at least four feet of water, which was calculated to accommodate boats of one hundred tons burden. The work had progressed so far that on October 22, 1819, the first boat was able to make the trip from Rome to Utica with Governor Clinton, Chancellor Livingston and other distinguished men aboard. It was not until October 26, 1825, however, after eight years of prodigious labor, that the Erie and Champlain Canals were opened and the Hudson was the scene of such a maritime pageant that the people of that period had never dreamed of. On the date named a flotilla of canal boats, all new and gaily decorated, started from Buffalo, on Lake Erie, for New York City. The news of the departure was communicated to the latter city by the booming of cannon located along the hne and the signal thus traveled across the entire State and down the Hudson in one hour and twenty minutes. When the boats reached Albany they were received by a great throng Floating Towns 91 of people. Governor Clinton, the Canal Commissioners and all the State officials. There never was such a ring- ing of bells and booming of cannon in the place before. The people who had made the trip from Buffalo were escorted to the capitol in a triumphal procession and welcomed by Mayor Hone, of New York City, on be- half of the people of the metropolis. On November fifth, at five o'clock in the morning, the canal boat packets, convoyed by the Chancellor Liv- ingston, with Governor Clinton and distinguished guests on board the Young Lion of the West and the Seneca Chief, reached New York and were welcomed by the New York Common Council, which met the fleet on board the steamboat Washington. Every vessel in the harbor was gaily decorated with flags, the church bells rang and cannon saluted as the naval procession rounded the Battery and sailed up the East River as far as the Brooklyn Navy Yard. There other vessels joined the fleet, which turned and sailed to Sandy Hook where the schooner Dolphin had been anchored. Here took place the most unique feature of the celebration. As the boats circled round the schooner Governor Clinton poured a keg of the fresh water of Lake Erie into the salt water of the Atlantic and the marriage of the Great Lakes and the ocean was an- nounced as having been duly solemnized. As another token of what the great improvement meant to the civilized world Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell poured into 92 Old Steamboat Days the ocean, waters collected by him from the Thames, Seine, Riiine, Danube, Amazon, La Plata, Orinoco, Ganges, Inilus, (Gambia, Nile, Mississippi and Colum- bia Rivers. On returning to the city the distinguished State officials were met at the Battery with a procession nearly four miles long, which marched through the principal streets. At night there was a great display of fireworks, the city was brilliantly illuminated and altogether it was the greatest celebration old New York had ever had up to that time. The Erie Canal having demonstrated its great use- fulness to the State was enlarged in 1854 to seventy feet at the surface, fifty-six at the bottom, with a depth of seven feet. At the present time a third enlargement and im- provement is being made by straightening the course so as to afford a larger capacity to float barges of one thousand tons burden. The people carried the propo- sition to spend one hundred and one million dollars on the last enlargement, by a large majority at a general election, though many of the best informed maintain the usefulness of canals is at an end and the more modern method of railroad transportation has ren- dered them obsolete. The people, however, have gen- erally favored maintaining the canals, as the most effectual check they could impose on railroad mo- nopolies. CHAPTER XI BARGE TRAVEL ON THE RIVER ANOTHER feature of river life in the early days of steam navigation was the barges that carried passengers up and down the Hudson. These generally hailed from some of the small towns on the upper river that could not supply traffic enough to support a steamboat service. At first the barge was, however, conceived to afford passengers the means of travel by steam without being subjected to the dangers of being upon a steamboat, with the attendant possibilities of bursting boilers and other fearful accidents from breaking machinery. The first to appear were the Lady Clinton and the Lady Van Rensselaer and they were called "safety barges." The barges were boats with a main and upper deck almost as long and commodious as a steamer. The main deck was fitted up with a cabin, extending in some instances the whole length of the boat. There was a long saloon, with "state" or sleeping rooms arranged along on either side. Windows looked out on 94 Old Steamboat Days the water and doorways opened in on the cabin. There was generally a long table in the saloon at which meals were served for fifty cents each to the passengers. The captain of the barge always sat at the head of the table and helped make the meal hour quite an event of the trip. These barges were towed by one of the regular passenger boats up to their home town, where they would be dropped. The " safety barges " were quite popular in their day, for they carried many passengers who were enthusiastic over the pleasure derived from a trip on the water on boats of this character. Thomas L. McKenney, who was attached to the Department of the Interior at Washington and one of the Commissioners who with Lewis Cass negotiated the treaty with the Northwest Indians, made a barge journey up the Hudson in June, 1826, on his way to the Great Lakes. He has left us such a vivid descrip- tion of these barges and the delights of the trip, the reader will surely pardon a somewhat longer quotation than usual: " I left New York, as it was my intention to do, in the Lady Clinton, yesterday morning, at nine o'clock. It was the first time I had ever seen one of these barges. I must say I was struck with the admirable invention, and with the extent and variety and perfection of the accommodations. You have seen steamboats. This barge, in all respects except breadth of beam and Barge Travel on the River 95 machiner}', resembles the finest you ever did see. It took me the first half hour after getting on board to walk through this floating palace. It certainly ex- ceeds anything I have ever yet seen in all that enters into the composition of safety and comfort. Indeed there is a splendor too in the ornamental parts which is very striking and as if the inventive genius of the owners was apprehensive that the ear might grow jealous of the eye that organ had been provided for also, with a fine band of music. I have heard some question the security of this barge, by saying her buoy- ancy and great elevation above the surface of the water rendered her liable to turn over. But I doubt whether if she or her sister, the Lady Van Rensselaer, were to glide up and down the North River for a century such an occurrence would happen. Were they visitants of the sea the swells of the ocean might rock them over, but never in my opinion will the North River roll so as to occasion such a disaster. " This beautiful barge is towed by the Commerce, an unusually fine steamboat, and of great power. The connection is by means of two pieces of timber some six feet long. They are fastened to either side of the bow of the barge, and uniting in the form of a pair of compasses, the upper or joint part receives a bolt of iron which rises out of the stern of the Commerce. The connection parts work on swivels, hence none of the motion of the steamboat is communicated to the 96 Old Steamboat Days barge. Communication is had between the two by means of a movable platform some two and a half feet wide, with hand rails on either side. Openings are made in the stern of the Commerce and in the bow of the barge in wliich the platform rests. . . . "Some of the advantages which the barge possesses over the steamboat arc, in the security from the effects of a bursted boiler — freedom from the heat and steam and from the smell of grease and the kitchen, and from the jar occasioned by the macliinery and the enlarged accommodations — the whole being set apart for eating and sleeping and walking. The cabin in which we dined is below and is the same in which the gentlemen sleep; and one hundred and eighty persons can sit down at once and each have elbow room sufficient for all the purposes of figuring with the knife and fork in all the graces of which these two instruments are sus- ceptible. At the termination of this immense dining apartment and towards the bow is a bar, most sump- tuously supplied with all that can be desired by the most fastidious and thirsty. The berths occupy the entire sides of this vast room; they are curtained in such way as to afford retirement in dressing and un- dressing; there being brass rods on which curtains are projected and these are thrown out at night. In the day the curtains hang close to the berths as is usual. Next above this are the ladies' cabin and apartments — staterooms rather — furnished in the most splendid style. Barge Travel on the River 97 and in which a lady has all the retirement and comfort which the delicacy and tenderness of her sex requires. ■ " Over the bar and upon this middle apartment or tier is an apartment where the gentlemen dress, shave and read. All around this second story, it being, I should judge, not over two-thirds the width of the boat, and resting on the middle deck, is a fine walk with settees where you can sit when you please and lounge. Then comes, and over all, the grand promenade, with an awning when the sun or rain requires it over the whole. "It is not possible for New York to furnish in her best hotels a better dinner than we sat down to yes- terday; nor in a better style of preparation. I suppose our company numbered one hundred. The captain is highly qualified, no less by his masterly knowledge of his duty than by his gentlemanly courtesy, for so splendid a charge; and the attendants appeared to be the best. Taken altogether I question whether the world ever witnessed anything so perfect in all that relates to the accommodation and comfort and pleasure of passengers." Evidently Mr. McKenney enjoyed his barge trip up the Hudson, and it is quite likely that he traveled on a pass. Some of the passenger barges that plied for years on the river were the Newhurgh, Susquehanna and Charles Spear. Their towing steamer was the Highlander owned by the Powell family, which gave the Hudson 98 Old Steamboat Days two well-known steamers, the Thomas and Mary Poiccll. The first named, however, never equaled the latter in j)()int of speed. The firm of T. & J. Powell of Newburj^h ran a line of sloops on the river as early at 1802; and it was from that beginning the present daily evening steamboat service to that city came eventually into existence, the owners of the Homer Ramsdell Line (now included in the Central Hudson Co.) being grandsons of Thomas Powell. It is believed the propeller type of river boat was especially built to make it more feasible to tow these barges, as the side wheel boats made it very noisy, the revolving paddles splashing the water at the side of the barges all night long. With the propeller wheel at the stern this difl&culty, as well as much of the motion, was overcome. Traveling by barge was not always the height of en- joyment and comfort described by the enthusiastic traveler just quoted. Progress was slow and the boats latterly carried a varied cargo of farm products, baled hay and live stock. Calves and lambs bound for the city slaughter houses, and horses for the New York street car lines — the Third Avenue line had three thou- sand horses in its stables alone — frequently made such a chorus of " bahing," bleating and neighing that rendered futile any attempt to sleep in the "stateroom" in the " grand saloon " on the upper deck. Most, if not all the passenger barges have been taken Barge Travel on the River 99 from the river, and after being altered, first, to make excursion boats for Sunday school and social club picnics around the cities, finally became hay boats to carry that staple product of the Hudson Valley farmers to the New York market. Doubtless there are grand- fathers and grandmothers who may read this, who will be able to call to mind rare midsummer holidays spent aboard the "elegant and commodious barges" William Myers, Walter Sands or the Caledonia, in dancing and merry-making, as they were slowly towed to some popular picnic ground near the great city. Possibly the best conception of what the old passen- ger barges were like may be found in the floating hospital of St. John's Guild, the Helen C. Juilliard, which in the summer months can be seen almost daily being towed up the river or down the bay crowded with mothers and babies from the East Side tenements and affording them rare opportunities to be in the sunshine and breathe the fresh air. The boat is pro- \aded with every accommodation in the way of cabin accessories, having been built especially for the pur- pose. The floating hospital is considered one of the most beneficent charities of the great city. CHAPTER XII THE STEAMBOATS OF TO-DAY THERE is none of the old time competition for the passenger traffic on the river to-day. It has been adjusted between the several lines. Indeed some kind of a traffic arrangement is made between the boats and railroads. The character of the boats and the accom- modations have been improved and most all the craft now operating in the passenger service are new, pre- senting every luxury possible to secure in boat travel. The principal steamboat companies operating on the river at present are the People's Line night boats to Albany, the Day Line to Albany, the Citizens' Line to Troy, the Catskill Night Line, the Hudson Night Line, the Newburgh Night Line and the Central Hudson Company's Lines to several of the cities on the river south of Albany. Passengers on the boats travel in comfort and safety, for the days of steamboat racing are past and the cheap rate competition, Avhich overcrowded the boats, exists no longer. To-day the journey up and down the The Steamboats of To-day 101 river is made on modern boats, the passengers enter- tained with delightful music from stringed orchestras and at night with searchlight exhibitions. These are indeed beautiful, the cultivated hillsides, handsome villas of the wealthy and rugged grandeur of the rocky Highlands being brought out in a series of wonderful pictures as the boats, twinkling with a thousand electric lights of their own, move slowly along the river. It is not only the passengers that enjoy these nightly illumi- nations of unusual beauty. The dwellers on the river banks know just when to expect them and almost set their clocks, say their prayers and go to bed after the night boat has passed. Some of the newer boats now in service on the river are the Homer Ramsdell, the Newhurgh, the Onteora, the Albany, New York and Hendrick Hudson, of the Day Line, the Adirondack and C. W. Morse, of the Night Line to Albany. Of these the Hudson and Morse are the newest and are of a type so distinctly in advance of the others, an extended note of them will be of interest. The Hendrick Hudson is the second steamer of that name that has plied the river. They were probably named Hendrick instead of Henry because of some confusion arising from the English discoverer of the river having come to this country in a Dutch vessel and under the Dutch flag. From whatever cause it arises, it is the fact that half of the time Hudson is referred lOvJ Old Steamboat Days to as Ilcndrick and it no doubt is a more picturesque rendering of the name. The Ilcndrick Hudson was built on the banks of the Hudson at Newburgh and launched March .'Jl, 1906. She is three hundred and ninety feet long, forty-three feet beam and eighty-two feet over the guards. She draws but eight feet of water. Her hull is of steel divided into seven water-tight compartments, with two collision bulkheads. She has five decks, three of which are for the exclusive use of passengers, of which she can carry five thousand, no space being reserved for freight. The engine is of the three cylinder compound variety of five thousand five hundred horse power with a seven foot stroke. The paddle wheels are twenty-four feet in diameter, of the feathering type, on a shaft twenty- two inches in diameter, of open hearth carbon steel. One of the new features of this boat is the fact that the crank shaft is below the main deck line, made possible by the small diameter of the paddle wheels, but adding greatly to the comfort and convenience of the passen- gers. No sacrifice of speed has been made by this im- provement as the Hudson can make twenty-three miles an hour easily. The boat is magnificently furnished in hard woods and handsomely decorated. The dining room on the main deck aft and surrounded with large plate glass windows, is finished in mahogany, as are the saloons on the upper decks. The Steamboats of To-day 103 A grand staircase leads to a large observation room on the upper deck, over which is a handsome stained glass dome. In the forward saloon is a suspended band stand and so situated that it is estimated the concerts given by the orchestra, which are a great feature on the boats of this line, can be heard by at least three thousand seated passengers. There are a number of private drawing rooms furnished in Louis XVI, Japanese, French-Empire, Dutch and Colonial styles and a large writing room in polished teakwood. Every^'here throughout the boat are large plate glass windows, affording passengers an opportunity to view the beautiful scenery of the river. She is steered by steam, has her own electric light equipment and in short an attempt has been made to supply every com- fort and convenience that the most exacting passengers could desire. A new Day Line boat, companion to the Hudson, is about to be laid down on the ways in Marvel's Yards, at Newburgh, and is to be finished in time for the sum- mer traffic in 1909. She will be named the Robert Ful- ton. The boat will be 415 feet long, 85 feet beam, 62 feet from her keel to the top of the pilot house. The engines will be 6,500 horse power and the boat will be licensed to carry 6,000 passengers. The C. W. Morse is one of the longest side wheel steamers afloat. She is four hundred and twent}'-seven feet over all, fifty feet six inches beam, but ninety feet 104 Old Steamboat Days over guards. The load draft is but nine feet. The hull is of steel, divided in eight water-tight compartments with collision bulkheads. She has four steel masts. On the lower deck are accommodations for fireman and deckhands and a saloon with berths for passengers, besides room for the boilers and dynamos for supplying two thousand five hundred electric lights all through the boat and the thirty-six inch search light on the pilot house. The kitchens, barrooms and pantries are also on this deck. The main deck forward is reserved for freight, but aft, the entire room is a handsomely fitted up lobby and magnificently appointed dining room, in richly carved mahogany woodwork and lighted with two hundred and twenty-five electric lights, held in green bronze fixtures. This room will seat three hundred comfortably. The main staircase leads from the lobby to the grand saloon, which is twenty-eight feet high with a domed ceiling in white and gold and sur- rounded with two galleries having highly ornamented guard rails of mahogany and bronze. Staterooms with brass bedsteads and parlors de luxe with bath rooms and toilets can be entered from the saloon direct or communicating corridors, richly carpeted. There is also a passenger elevator on the boat. In all there are four hundred and fifty of these sleeping apartments furnished in varying degrees of elegance. She is li- censed to carry two thousand passengers. The Steamboats of To-day 105 The boat is four stories, or decks, high and the floor of the pilot house is forty feet above water level. She is steered by steam and every movement of the vessel can be directed from the pilot house. The engines, which are of the vertical type, are four thousand five hundred horse power, cylinder eighty-one inches in diameter, twelve foot stroke, and the boilers are four in number and are thirty-three feet long, nine feet six inches in diameter and there are two smokestacks. The paddle wheels are of the feathering type variety, thirty feet in diameter, and the paddle wheel shaft is twenty-four inches in diameter. It was a clever piece of marine engineering to produce so huge a steamer, when the draught of the boat was restricted to nine feet loaded on account of the shallow water near Albany, but the designer appears to have wrestled most suc- cessfully with the difficult problem with which he had to contend. Another type of modern steamboat, differing entirely from those described, is the Ashury Park. She is of the propeller type. Though not designed especially for the Hudson, she leaves daily from the North River side of the city of New York for Sandy Hook and is frequently seen by the travelers on the river. The Sandy Hook route is operated by the Central Railroad of New Jersey and is for the special benefit of the patrons of the shore resorts on the Jersey coast. All of the boats of this line, the Monmouth and Sandy Hook, 106 Old Steamboat Days arc propellers and very speedy. The latest .addition to the fleet, the Asburij Park, built by the Cramps and put on in 1903, is the fastest on the line. She is three hunilrcd and seven feet long, forty-two feet beam and fifty-one feet over her guards. The hull is steel with six water-tigiit compartments, and forward and aft there are collision bulkheads. She draws but eleven feet of water on account of the shoals inside the Hook. Her appointments for the accommodation of passengers — she is licensed to carry two thousand one hundred and fifty-nine — are of the most complete character. Her grand saloon, one hundred and ninety-five feet long, is finished in quartered oak, and large plate plass win- dows afford the traveler most dehghtful views of the shipping in river and bay. There are nineteen state- rooms and four drawing rooms are also provided. She has two engines of the four cylinder, triple type, of six thousand horse power and the boat has developed a speed of twenty and five one-hundredths knots. This means she can make the run to the Atlantic Higlilands at Sandy Hook, a distance of eighteen miles, in one hour and five minutes with the regularity of a railroad time-table. Indeed she runs in close connection with railroad trains that carry the passengers from the land- ing point to Sea Girt, Long Branch, Ocean Grove and other popular resorts. Two new boats, one for the People's Line and the other for the Citizen's Line to be built on the ,f t- "y ^'^i^'i -trf^^l The Steamboats of To-day 107 general lines of the Morse, have been contracted for, both of which will be ready for the summer season of 1908. They will have steel hulls, and the larger one of the two, will be four hundred and forty feet long haAang over five hundred staterooms and accommoda- tions for two thousand passengers. Every convenience will be provided and they are expected to be the most luxurious river craft afloat. The name of the new People's Line boat will be the Princeton and the Citizen's Line new boat will be named the Knickerbocker repeating the name of a pop- ular steamer in the passenger service on the river in 1844-5. CHAPTER XIII HUDSON-FULTON MEMORIALS THE names of Henry Hudson and Robert Fulton will be borne in large letters on the pages of his- tory, so long as the river that was the scene of their great achievements finds its way to the sea. The Ter- centennial of Hudson's discovery and the Centennial of Fulton's successful application of steam to naviga- tion will furnish opportunities, however, for New York to erect such memorials as will suitably honor the memories of the two men. It is indeed strange that neither has heretofore been honored in any way, unless an exception is noted on account of the panel in the Astor bronze doors in Trinity Church, which represents Hudson on the deck of the Half Moon off Manhattan Island, and the tablet on Fulton's grave. Two important committees are at work on the prop- osition and they include in their membership, some of the best known men in the country. The scheme to suitably celebrate the Tercentennial of Hudson's discovery took its first tangible shape on Hudson-Fulton Memorials 109 February 15, 1905, when Mr. Robert Roosevelt, uncle of President Roosevelt, invited a number of gentlemen to meet with him and the subject was discussed. The attendants at that conference represented most of the patriotic and historical societies of the city of New York. It was determined to secure the creation of a commission under act of the Legislature to carry out the object of the conference. This was done and December 5, 1905, the Hudson Tercentenary Joint Committee was duly organized at the New York City Hall. The New York Board of Trade and Transportation, and others, acting quite independently, having deter- mined that some celebration should mark the Cen- tenary of Steam Navigation, on July 13, 1905, or- ganized the Robert Fulton Memorial Association with Gen. Fred D. Grant as president, who has since been succeeded by Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt, a great- grandson of the " Commodore " who broke the river monopoly. It did not take long after these two separate move- ments had been inaugurated, for those at the head of each to appreciate the fact there was such a general tendency of scope and purpose as to suggest a con- solidation of endeavor, though the actual anniversaries fall in 1907 and 1909 respectively. A special legislative act. Chapter 325 of the Laws of 1906, was passed with a view of co-ordinating the two propositions; General 110 QUI Steamboat Days Stewart \j. AVoodford, ex-United States Minister to Spain, has been elected president of the joint commis- sion and tlie success of the celebration is assured. It is the purpose of the combined associations to cause suitable memorials to be erected to Hudson and Fulton, to be followed with a joint celebration on the waters of the Hudson that will bring together, possibly, the greatest number and finest types of steam craft ever assembled. The entire week beginning Sep- tember 20th, 1909, will be given over to land and water parades and commemorative exercises in the schools and by the Historical Societies. The Hudson Memorial Committee has already ad- vanced its plans in a large measure toward completion. These provide for an imposing Hudson Memorial Bridge to span Spuyten Du}^il Creek, connecting the Boulevard system of Manhattan Island with the park- ways of Westchester County. There has already been appropriated $1,000,000 by the City of New York to make a beginning, and the total cost of the contemplated improvement is likely to approximate $5,000,000. The Memorial Bridge, as planned, is to span the Spuyten Duyvil Creek at a height of one hundred and seventy feet. The central steel span of the bridge will be eight hundred and twenty-five feet in length, the largest in the world with a single exception, that being the steel arch bridge over the gorge at Niagara, which Hudson-Fulton Memorials 111 is fifteen feet longer. From abutment to abutment the length of the bridge will be two thousand five hundred feet. The stone viaduct approaches are to be carried on a series of masonry arches. The structure will be one hundred feet wide, affording two sidewalks, each eighteen feet wide, and a central roadway of sixty feet. No attempt will be made at elaborate decoration on the structure itself. Its grace of outline and massive- ness are relied upon to produce an appreciation of its solidity and impressiveness, but parklike effects at the approaches will be introduced and a knoll some thirty- five feet in height at the southern end will be retained and it is expected to crown this with some suitable monument to Hudson. The city is not expected, in the plans of the commission, to defray the cost of this memorial as it is believed that a popular subscription will produce sufficient funds to insure its erection by the time the bridge has been constructed and opened for the use of the public. The views that will be obtained from the bridge when completed will be among the finest that can be secured anywhere near the great city. Immediately below will be the Harlem River and the ship canal to the east. To the west will lie the Hudson, showing a stretch of water several miles in length, teeming with river craft, and beyond, the Palisades on the New Jersey shore. To the north the eye will take in the heights above River- dale and the wooded hills of Van Cortlandt Park, and 112 Old Steamboat Days to the south, extended views of what is rapidly becom- ing:: the (» Old SteamV)oat Days only give you the general principles. — It is, in several parts, similar to the late improved steam-engines in Europe, though tliere are some alterations — our cylinder is to be horizontal, and the steam to work with equal force at each end. The mode by which we obtain (what I take the liberty of terming) a vacuum, is, we believe, entirely new; as is also the method of letting the water into it, and throwing it off against the atmosphere without any friction. It is expected, that the engine, which is a 12 inch cylinder, will move with a clear force of 11 or 12 cwt. after the frictions are deducted; this force is to act against a wheel of 18 inches diameter. The piston is to move about three feet, and each vibration of the piston gives the axis about 40 evolutions. Each evolution of the axis moves 12 oars or paddles 5^ feet (which work per- pendicularly, and are represented by the stroke of the paddle of a canoe). As 6 of the paddles are raised from the water, 6 more are entered, and the two sets of paddles make their strokes of about 1 1 feet in each evolution. The cranks of the axis act upon the paddles about J of their length from the lower end, on which part of the oar the whole force of the axis is applied. Our engine is placed in the boat about J from the stem, and both the action and re-action turn the wheel the same way. "With the most perfect respect, sir, I beg leave to subscribe myself "Your very humble servant, "JOHN FITCH." PROMINENT HUDSON RIVER STEAMBOATS rl.KKMONT rvU l>K NKITUNK I'AUAIION lUII'K KIKK KI.Y I..Vl>Y ItlCHMOSlI OI.IVK IIUANCII rHAMKLUlK I.IVIN0S-|X)N. rNll'KH STATKS jAMI-^i KENT (\)NS TITUTION IMNSTKLLATION COMMKKCK SWIFT SURK NKW IMlILADKLI'lllA INPKrKNDENOK Al-liANY NDKl'll AMEKICA VICTOUY DE Wirr CLINTON 1)1110 NOVELTY EKIE nlAMl'LAIN WES ICIlhl^TEK millKUl' L. STEVENS IIIIillLANDEK SWALLOW HtX-KKSTER UTICA BALLOON NOKTII AMEKICA SOUTH AMEKICA .. TROY EMI'IRE NIAOAKA UiON WITCH nil- VAN WINKLE UKNDKIK HUDSON OKK(iON THOMAS l-OWELL ISAAC NEWTON ALIDA ARMENIA NEW WORLD FRANCIS SKIDDY DANIEL DREW JAMES W. BALDWIN MARY POWELL THOMAS CORNELL BERKSHIRE ST. JOHN CHAUNCEY VIBBAKD DEAN RICHMOND NUHPA DREW CITY OF TROY SARATOGA CITY OF CATSKILL ALBANY KAATERSKILL CITY OF KINGSTON NEWBURGH HOMER KAMSDELL NEW YORK ADIRONDACK ONTKORA C. W. MORSE HENDKICK HUDSON PRINCETON KNICKERBOCKER ROBERT FULTON 1807 IHOtl IHII IKIl l!il:l 1813 1815 1816 18.11 1823 183S 1825 1827 1837 1827 1827 1828 1829 1830 1833 1S33 1S32 183ri 1835 183C 1836 1837 1839 1839 1810 1841 1813 1844 1844 1845 1846 1846 1847 1847 1847 1852 1660 1801 1861 1S63 1 863 1863 1664 1664 1665 1866 1876 1677 1880 1880 1883 1887 1887 1896 1898 1904 1906 1907 1907 1909 i'o.vsTKi'crtiv isr Cluirlcn ltr..wii .!.> ilo Cliarlvs Uruwii do do Henry Kckford J. WIIIUIIIH llloKKoiii, Smith A DInion.. Brown A B.-ll do C. Borxh Ilrown * Bill J. VHii«lin Wlllliim Cnpea M, Kenyon do CliRiincey Goodrich Blown & Bell do Smith & DInioii . I^wrencu it Sneden William Capes Smith* Dlnion W'llllum Capes Devine Burtls do do Wm. Capes Wm. H. Brown Georse C()llyer Hogg & Delanmter Georse Collyer Smith & Dimon Lawrence & Sneden William Brown do Thomas Collyer William H. Brown George Collyer Thomas Collyer M. S. Allison do E. S. Whitlock Morton & Ednionds John Englls Lawrence A Sneden John Enxlis J. S. Baldwin John Englis do do Van Loan & Macree Harlan A HolliuKsworth Co Van Loan A Magee Harlan A Hollingsworth Co Neafle A Levy T. S. Marvel A Co Harlan A Holllngsworth Co John Enclis Marvel A Co Harlan A Holllngsworth Co Marvel A Co N. Y. Shipbuilding Co Marvel A Cr Marvel A Co Brooklyn . . . do Philadelphia. New York . . Philadelphia. New York. . Albany do do Hyde Park . . New York . . do New York.. Kingston . . . New York. Brooklyn . . . New Y"ork . . Brooklyn. . . . Brooklyn. . New York . Brooklyn. Athens. . . Brooklyn. Qreenpoint New Baltinu.re. . Greenpoint Athens Wilmington, Del Athens Wilmington, Del. Philadelphia Newbnrgh Wilmington Greenpoint Newburgh Wilmington, Del. Newburgh Camden, N. J. - . Newburgh Newburgh GROSS VJHSA'SIONS TOi\a L. i(. i>. 133' X 18' X 7' 295 1 75' X34' X 8' 331 173' X 37' X 9' 380 118 100' X 19' X 7' 370 113' 295 133' X SO' 495 157' X 33i X 10" 180 140' 364 140' X 48' 276 146' X 37' 275 149' X 27' 371 130' X 24' X8i' 205 130' X 34' X8l' 300 170' X 34' 534 1,170 1 ,050 1,418 1,235 148' X 20* 313' X 26' X 9' 218' X 30' X 8' 983 1,256 2,645 1 ,158 2,535 1,332 2,002 1,527 1,438 1,416 1,361 1,117 1,033 1,181 1,552 3,644 1,213 4,307 2,847 4,500 2,000 3,000 233' X 28' 192' X 30' 106' X 24' 180' X 28' 180' X 28' 134' X 23' 176' X 24' 175' X 24' 224' X 22' 209' X 24' 160' X 21J' 160' X 18' 230' X 26' 260' X 26' 294' X 61' 307' X 30' 265' X 28^' 225' X 27' 242' X 25' 320' X 35' 330' X 35' 231' X 28' 336' X 40' 265' X 30' 185' X 28' 385' X 35' 322' X 38' 251' X 30' 242' X 34' 260' X 34 y 310' X 34' 253' X 37' 420' X 51' 281' X 35' 348' X 46' 253' X 37' 366' X 4 7' 300' X 36' 300' X 35' X 9' X 8' X 8j' X 8J' X 8J' X71' X 9' X 9i' X 9' X9J' X 9.J' X 10' X 9' xlOj' X 10' X 8' X 11' X Hi' X9i' X 9' X 10^' X 10' X 10' X 9' X 10' X 10' 250' X 35' X 10' 295' X40' xlU' 281' X 38' X 10' 250' X 33i' X13J' 210' X 32' Xl3f 213" X 32j' X 11' 311' X 40' xl3i' 410' X 50' X 12' 250' X 33" x 10' 427' X ^.^■ X 14' 390' X 45' X 134' 440' X 50.6 X 14.6 330' X 42' X13.7 415' X 501' X 14' 1807=1907* Compiled and Arranged by S. W. 5tanton. SIZE ENGIXE 1 ^S BUILT BY DIAM. STROKE lyCHES FEET 24 33 4 iltou '8 Works do 33 4 Utou 8 Works 20 3} un mm 4 Co 10 40 14 k 76 15 14 ngham 4 Co on Works 60 10 arrison A Co ... . 60 11 lo 72 12 72 54 12 11 * •^ 76 62 15 12 arr son 4 Co nlnitham 4 Co. . . 75 14 arriaon 4 Co . . . 37 5 ■k» 80 60 14 12 ■on Works 9 4 •q 60 66 73 12 12 12 1 63 30 4 56 12 3 oil ngsworth Co. 1 vv 26 4 45 28 4 52 75 3 3 12 1 rlx It . etcher Co 81 12 55 10 81 12 45 4 70 7 8.-. 12 70 12 45 4 70 7 N. Y. and Albany , N. Y. and Newburgh. N. Y. and Albany . . N. Y. and Troy.., lo nd Albany N. Y. and Newbnrgli N. Y. and Troy N. Y. and Albany . . . , Pou^^hkeepsie and Albany N. Y. and Albany N. Y. and Troy . N. Y. and Albany . N. Y. and Newburgh, Y. and Albany , . X. Y. and Kondout . nd Hudson. N. Y. and Albany. N. Y. nd Hudson, nd Albany . nd Troy . . . do anil Catskill N. Y. and Albany N. Y. and Catskill N. Y. and liondout N. Y. and Newburgh do N. Y. and Albany People's Line, N.Y. 4 Albany. ml Catskill Line People's Line, N.Y. 4 Allmny. Hudson River Day Line People's Line, N.Y. 4 Albany. Citizens' Line, N. Y. A Troy. . Hudson River Day Line REMARKS Lengthened 1808 and name changed to NORTH RIVER. Broken up. Struck a rock and sunk near Albany. Had mate in PERSEVERANCE, both broken up. Broken up. Broken up about 1830. Built for N. Y. and New Brunswick route. Broken up. Placed on L \. Sound 1828; Boston 4 Portland route 1832. N.Y. 4 New Haven route; afterwards towboat on Hudson. Stake boat on North River until 1895 ; broken up. Altered into towboat named INDIANA ; broken up. Dismantled and engine taken to Lake Erie. Altered 1852 and named ONTARIO; broken up 1894. Altered into towboat ; broken up. Altered into towboat ; broken up. Altered Into towboat ; broken up. Lenghlened 1839 to 289 feet ; broken up. Two beam engines ; sunk by ice 1839. Altered into towboat ; sunk 1845. Twice enlarged ; broken up. Broken up. Lengthened to 220 feet ; 2 engines ; 12 boilers ; 4 stacks. Two engines ; 4 smokestacks ; engines placed in TROY. Mate to ERIE ; broken up. Altered into towboat named HUDSON ; broken up. Broken up; engine placed in CHARLOTTE VANDERBILT. Went to Delaware River; broken up. Lost, April 7, 1845 ; over 100 persons perished. Broken up. .\ltered into towboat ; condemned 1875. Broken up on Delaware River. Broken up at New Orleans. Broken up ; engine placed in BERKSHIRE. Engines from ERIE ; placed horizontally ; broken up. In collision, July 16, 1853 ; broken up. Altered Into towboat ; broken up 1898. Name changed to ERIE ; made barge ; broken up. Wrecked at Albany, April 16, 1872. Broken up. Lost by collision with steamer City of Boston, 1864. Broken up. Lengthened, 1854, to 405 feet ; burned Dec. 5, 1863. Altered into towboat ; broken up. Went to Potomac Kiver, 1883 ; burned Jan. 5, 1886. Engine put in ST. JOHN ; broken up. Wrecked, Nov. 5, 1864 ; engine in DEAN RICHMOND. Burned August 29, 1885. I.*ngthened to 273 feet ; now named CENTRAL-HUDSON. Lengthened to 300 feet ; running 1907. Wrecked March 27, 1882. Bunied June 5, 1864 ; 40 persons lost. Burned Jan. 24,1885. Broken up, 1902. Running to Troy, 1907. Propeller; name changed to METROPOLITAN; brnken up. Broken up, 1904. Burned, April 6, 1907. Sunk by collision, Oct. 13, 1906: raised and rebuilt, 1907. Burned Feb., 1883. Lengthened, 1893, to 325 feet ; running 1907. Running 1907. Propeller ; sold, 1889, for service on Paclflc; sunk 1899. Propeller ; running 1907. Propeller ; lengthened 1885 to 237 feet ; running 1907. I.engthened to 350 feet; running 1907. Running 1907. do do do Ready for service 1908. do. Ready for service 1909. INDEX INDEX Page Albany 35,72 Amsterdam 89 Baker's Falls 122 Barlow, Joel 4, 12 Brownne, Charles 10 Buckman, Ira 79 Buffalo 90 Builders of steamboats . . . 53, 54 Calliope 27 Canal packet boats 86 Captains of Steamboats Anderson, Capt. A. L. . . 63 Anderson, Capt. A. E. . . 63 Bartholomew, Capt 60 Benton, Capt. C 60 Bruder, Capt 82 Bunker, Capt. Elihu F. 31,60 Burnett, Capt. J. M 28 Cochran, Capt 60 Cruttenden, Capt. R. G. 60, 61 DeGroot, Capt. A 61 Drake, Capt 60 Fitch, Capt 60 Fountain, Capt 60 Furey, Capt. R. G 61 Gorham, Capt. A 61 Halstead, Capt. Chas. ... 61 Hitchcock, Capt. Dave. . 64 Captains — Cont'd. Page Houghton, Capt. "Pug" . 61 Hulse, Capt. Thos. N. . . 61 Jenkins, Capt. Samuel 14, 59 Johnson, Capt. Samuel . . 61 Kellogg, Capt. H. J 61 Macy, Capt. R. B 61 Moore, Capt. H 60 Odell, Capt. J. S 61 Peck, Capt. D 60 Peck, Capt. W. H 61 Post, Capt 64 Roe, Capt. J. S 63 Roorback, Capt 59 Samuels, Capt. John .... 61 Sherman, Capt 60 Squires, Capt. A. H 77 Temple, Capt. Harvey . . 88 Tupper, Capt. G. 61 Tupper, Capt. W. W.... 61 Wiswall, Capt. Saml...59, 61 Wiswall, Capt. T 60 Clay, Henry 23 Clinton's big ditch ........ 90 Clinton, Gov. DeWitt. . . .90, 91 Coal-burning boilers 54 Collect Pond, N. Y 2,38 Copper boilers 54, 72 Corning, Erastus 24 liO Old Steamboat Days Page Oirnwallis, Genl 73 Dam at Troy I'ii Disaoters on the river 75 Discoverie 117 Dolphin 91 Dorothea 5 Drew, Daniel 24, 63 Emmett, Mr 42,46 Engineers 64 Erie Canal 84, 90, 91, 92 Erie Railway 73 Fitch, John 2,38 Fowler, Reginald 25 Franklin, Benjamin 3 Fulton, Robert, 1, 17, 19, 20, 108 Fulton Ferry 16 Fulton Water Gate 112 Gibbons, Thos 41 Glens Falls 122 Grant, Genl. Fred D 109 Half Moan 113, 114, 115, 116, 117 Henry KnowUon 75 Hoboken, N. J 2 Hog frames 57 Horse ferryboats 16 Hudson 69 Hudson's Bay 117 Hudson, Henry.. 108, 114, 115, 116, 117 Hudson Memorial Bridge. . 110 Hudson River lines 35, 102 Hudson River R. R 25, 33 Iron boilers 72 Iron hulls 56 Page Kirkpatrifk, Chief Justice, 41 Kosciusko, Genl 23 Little Falls 89 Livingston, Chancellor Robt. R 7,8,14,39,90 Livingston, Harriet, Ful- ton's wife 13 Marshall, John, Chief Jus- tice 51 Memorial park 112 Mitchell, Dr. Samuel L. . . 91 McKenny, Thos. L 94 Monopoly broken 37 Newton, Isaac 24, 55 New Amsterdam 117 Newburgh Bay 79 Noah Broxvn 79 Noah's Brig 78 Oakley, Mr 42, 45 Ogden, Ex-Gov 41 Old Hickory — Genl. Jack- son 23 Ormsbee, Elijah 2 Ossining 70 Passenger barges 97, 98, 99 Piermont 73 Pitt, William 5 Powell, T. & J 98 Propellers 57, 98 Rates of fare 14, 20 Richmond, Dean 24 Rival Lines 30 Rochester 89 Rome 89 Rondout 28 Index 141 Page Roosevelt, Nicholas J 29 Roosevelt, Robert 109 Rumsey, James 1 Runners for steamboats .... 32 Safety barges 71, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97 Saugerties 28 Schenectady 89 Seine River 7 Sloops 13, 36 Steamboat inspection law, 71. 80 Steamboat profits 35 Steamboat racing 68, 71 Steamboats Adirondack 82 Advocate 21 Air Line, ferryboat 28 Albany 21 Albany II 67, 101 Alida 21, 66, 70 Andrew Harder 22 Armenia 25, 27, 66 Asbury Park 105 Atlas 21 Baloon 24, 55 BeUona 41 Berkshire 21, 81 Bolivar 21 Buffalo 21, 34 CatskiU — City of Hudson 22 Car of Neptune 18, 20 Cataline 21 Cayuga 21 Champion 21 Champlain 21, 67, 68 Steamboats — Cont'd. Page Chancellor Limngston 19, 20, 54, 66 Chauncey Vibbard 22, 65, 66, 67 Chief Ju^ice John Mar- shall 60 Chrystenah 22 City of Boston 81 City of Hiidson 21 City of Troy 83 Clermont, renamed North River, 1, 10, 13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 39, 54, 58, 66, 76 Columbia 22, 68 Confidence 22 Connecticut 21 Constellation 20, 65, 66 Constitution 20, 65 Cornelius Vanderbilt. . .69, 71 Coxsackie 22 C.W.Morse 21,101, 103, 104, 105 CuHis Peck 22 Daniel Drew 22, 66 Dean Richmond 22, 63, 81 DeWitt Clinton 21, 79 Diamond 21 Drew 22, 63 D. S. Miller— Pough- keepsie 22 Eagle 21 Emerald 21 Empire 21, 79 Empire State 21 Erastus Coming 21 IH Old Steamboat Days 8ti>anihoats — Cont'd. Pago Erie 21. 67 Eureka 22 Ej'prcss 21 Fairfield 21 Fanny 21 Francis SIciddy 66, 81 Fulton 31 Fulton, ferryboat 16 General Jacksoti 22, 76 General Sedgivick 28 General Slocum 75 Glni Cove 22, 28 Helen 21, 67 Hendrik Hudson I, 21, 34, 70 Hendrick Hudson H 65, 101, 102 Henry Clay 21,70,79 Henry Eckford 21 Hero 21 Homer RamsdcU 101 Hope 21 Illinois 22 Independence 21 Iran Witch 22, 56 Isaac Newtrni 21, 55, 81 James Kent 21, 54 James Madison 21 Jas. W. Baldwin — Central Hudson 22 Jenny Lind 21 Jersey, ferryboat 16 J. L. Hasbrook — Marl- boro 22 Joseph Belknap 25 Kaaterskill 22 Steamboats — Cont'd. Page Knickerbocker 1 21 Knickerbocker II 107 Kosciuszko 21, 34, 69 Larchmont 75 Legislator 21 Lung Branch — Sleepy Hol- low 25 Manlmttan 21, 34 Mary PmveU. . . .22, 56, 63, 66 Mctamora 22 M. Martin 22 McManv^ 22 Mouse in the Mountain . . 41 Newburgh 101 New Orleans 29 New Jersey 22 New London 71 New Philadelphia 21, 56 NewW(yrld....'i\,S5,55, 66, 70, 81 New York 67, 101 Niagara 21 Nimrod 21 North America. . . .21, 54, 65, 66, 68, 69, 76 Norwich 26 Novelty 54 Nuhpa 22 Ohio 21 Olive Branch 60 Oliver Elsworth 21 Onteora 82, 101 Oregm 21, 69,81 Paragon 18 Portsmouth 22 Index 143 Steamboats — Cont'd. Page Princeton 21, 107 P.O. Coffin 21 Reindeer 70, 80 Rhode Island 21 Richmond 21 Rip Van Winkle 21, 63 Riverside, ferrj'boat 29 Robert Ftdt.()() net. Benjamin Franklin Newcomer, A Memorial. The Norris Genealogy. Octavo, cloth, 64 pages, frontis- piece. Price $3.00 net. The Plantagenet Roll. Folio, cloth, about 550 pages. Price $45.00 net. The History of Redding, Connecticut. New edition. 8vo, cloth, illustratetl. Price $5.00 net. The Right to Bear Arms. 12mo, cloth. Price $3.00 net. The Prindle Genealogy. Octavo, cloth, illustrated. Price $5.00 net. The Rix Family in America. Octavo, cloth, illustrated, 250 pages. Price $5.00 net. Register of Christ Church, Middlesex, Virginia. Folio, 341 pages, cloth. Price $5.00 net. Register of the Colonial Dames of New York. Register of Saint Peter's Parish, New Kent County, Virginia. 8vo, 187 pages, cloth. Price $5.00 net. The Sension — St. John Genealogy. Octavo, cloth, illu.strated. Price $9.00 net. Arms and Pedigree of Seymour of Payson, Illinois. Quarto, boards. Price $10.00 net. Full levant, $25.00 net. The Smith Family. 8vo, cloth. Price $3.20 net. Shakespeare's Family. 8vo, cloth. Price $4.00 net. The Tyler Genealogy. Compiled from the Manuscripts of the late W. I. T^'ler Brigham, by The Grafton Press Genealogical Department. 2 vols., 8vo., cloth, illustrated. Price $20.00. The History of Ancient Wethersfield, Connecticut. 2 vols., folio, cloth, gilt top, uncut. Price $25.00 net. Tryphena Ely White's Journal. 12mo, cloth, illustrated, 250 copies. Price $1.00 net. Vestry Book of Saint Peter's Parish, New Kent County, Virginia. 8vo, 242 pages, cloth. Price 5.00 net. Note : The cost oj delivering all net books is payable by the purchaser. The Grafton Press, Genealogical EoiTORa and PUBLISHEKS, 70 F^FTH AvENUE, NeW YoKK. MO PH®N^' laN 1 > 1961 ^^^ 2 I96f ^AY2 9 19B1 IMVlRSllY or C Al.IIORMA. l.OS ANGELES Till UMVFRSnT I.IURARY .s ni I iMitlic \:\s\. d.iii' M. imped lu'low Sim '^ SEP 021986 " JAII 13 1965 N0Vl7l98fi W l.OAfJ DE2!< I Form L-0 25M-10, '11(2 191) O20QI 3 1158 01132 1 .yC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACIl AA 001006 361 iiiiiii ri^iiiiililSiiliplii ^r.,".i!:dli!.'t!!i!l