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III RIVER TRAFFIC BEFORE the advent of the railroads, and for a number of years afterward, there was hardly a village on the Hudson that did not have a fleet of five or six sailing vessels, and some towns had ten times that many. A considerable proportion of the able-bodied men “followed the river.” Not only were they proud of their calling, but the skipper who made the best runs and carried the biggest freights was a man of distinction. With so numerous a white-winged fleet on its waters, the Hudson must have had a beauty which it does not attain at present. For no steam vessel fits into a scene with such grace and charm as does one equipped with sails. A voyage from the metropolis to
Albany was then a serious undertaking. The sloops were often many days on the
way; for the cautious navigators took in sail when it blew fresh, and came to
anchor at night, and they stopped and sent the boat ashore to get milk for tea,
without which it was impossible for the worthy old lady passengers to subsist.
Besides there were the much-discussed perils of the Tappan Sea and the
Highlands. In short, “a prudent Dutch burgher would talk of such a voyage for months
beforehand, and never undertook it without putting his affairs in order, making
his will, and having prayers said for him in the churches.” In those simpler days, Washington
Irving, while still a youth, made this river trip, and in a letter describing
it says: “A sloop was chosen, but she had yet to complete her freight and
secure a sufficient number of passengers. Days were consumed in drumming up a
cargo. This was a tormenting delay to me, who, boy-like, had packed up my trunk
at the first mention of the expedition. “At length the sloop actually got
under way. As she worked slowly out of the dock into the stream, there was a
great exchange of last words between friends on board and friends on shore, and
much waving of handkerchiefs when the sloop was out of hearing. “Our captain was a native of Albany,
of one of the old Dutch stocks. His crew was composed of blacks, reared in the
family and belonging to him. “What a time of intense delight was
that first sail through the Highlands. I sat on the deck as we slowly tided
along at the foot of those stern mountains, and gazed with wonder and
admiration at cliffs impending far above me, crowned with forests, with eagles
sailing and screaming around them; or beheld rock and tree and sky reflected in
the glassy stream. And then how solemn and thrilling the scene as we anchored
at night at the foot of these mountains, and everything grew dark and
mysterious; and I heard the plaintive note of the whip-poor-will, or was
startled now and then by the sudden leap and heavy splash of the sturgeon.” The best known name connected with
navigation on the Hudson is that of Robert Fulton. He was American born, with a
natural taste for art and invention. Among the various mechanical devices he
originated were a mill for sawing marble, a machine for flax-spinning, several
types of canal boats and a submarine torpedo. He was very far from being the
first to propose steam navigation, but his preeminence in this connection is
deserved, because he was the first to win a practical success. Experiments in
this direction seem to have been made as early as 1690, and as time went on the
attempts became increasingly numerous. In 1784 James Rumsey tried to propel a
boat on the Potomac by forcing a jet of water from the stern with a steam pump.
A few years later he experimented with a boat on the Delaware which was
equipped with long oars moved by steam power, and he actually ran this curious
craft as a public carrier on the river all through one summer. When Fulton took up the problem of
steam navigation he was living in France where our American minister at the
time was Robert R. Livingston. The two men met and became mutually interested
in planning a steamboat. A vessel was built and launched on the Seine; but it
was too frail for the weight of the engine, which broke through the bottom one
stormy night and sank in the river. However, Fulton and his partner were not
discouraged, and the latter agreed to provide funds for a larger boat to be
tried on the Hudson. This was constructed, after plans furnished by Fulton, at
a shipyard on the East River and was about 130 feet long with uncovered
paddle-wheels at the side. She was named the Clermont after Livingston’s
country seat on the banks of the Hudson at Tivoli. The boat left New York for Albany on
August 17, 1807; and a writer of that time in speaking of its departure says:
“Nothing could exceed the surprise and admiration of all who witnessed the
experiment. Before the Clermont had made the progress of a quarter of a mile,
the greatest unbeliever must have been converted. The man, who, while he looked
on the expensive machine, thanked his stars that he had more wisdom than to
waste his money on such idle schemes, changed the expression of his features as
the boat moved from the wharf and gained her speed. The jeers of the ignorant
who had neither sense nor feeling enough to suppress their contemptuous
ridicule and rude jokes, were silenced by a vulgar astonishment which deprived
them of the power of utterance, till the triumph of genius extorted from the
incredulous multitude which crowded the shores, shouts of congratulation and
applause.” The Clermont made the trip to Albany
in thirty-two hours, a speed of about five miles an hour, and Fulton wrote to a
friend: “The power of propelling boats by steam is now fully proved. The
morning I left New York there were not perhaps thirty persons in the city who
believed the boat would ever move one mile an hour, or be of the least
utility.” Its success as a passenger boat was
assured. People would not be satisfied with the slow sloops and stage-coaches
when they could travel by steamboat at five miles an hour. The Clermont was
equipped with two masts and sails to take advantage of favoring winds. She
burned fat pine wood under her boilers, and volumes of black smoke poured out
of her large funnel. At night when the smoke was brilliant with sparks a
contemporary writer declares that “The crews of many sailing vessels shrank
beneath their decks at the terrific sight, while others prostrated themselves
and besought Providence to protect them from the horrible monster which was
lighting its path by the fire it vomited.” One of the Hudson Valley farmers,
after observing the strange apparition, hurried home and assured his wife that
he “had seen the devil going up the river in a sawmill.” The year following the Clermont’s success two more
steamers were finished for the Hudson, and the same number were constructed in
1809, and three in 1811. For a long time nearly all the travelling on the boats
was for business rather than pleasure.
Fulton soon turned his attention to
inventing a steam ferry-boat, and by 1813 had two in operation, one on the
North and one on the East River. These took the place of boats that were propelled
by driving two or four horses round and round in the hold. The horses were
attached to a pole connected with a gearing that made the paddle wheels rotate,
and the boats were primitive and slow. Not till 1819, four years after
Fulton’s death, did a vessel propelled by steam cross the Atlantic. She sailed
from Savannah for Liverpool and made the trip in twenty-eight days, using both
sails and steam. She was so constructed that her paddle-wheels could be taken
on to the deck in stormy weather. All the earlier river boats which
followed the Clermont were small, and most of the space in them was devoted to
the machinery. Accommodations for passengers were limited, and freight was
seldom or never carried. The fare from New York to Albany was seven dollars,
and for even the shortest distance between stops the fare was one dollar. In a
steamboat advertisement published in 1808 the following caution supplemented
the time-table: “As the times when the boat may arrive at the different places
may vary an hour, more or less, according to the advantage or disadvantage of
wind and tide, those who wish to come on board will see the necessity of being
on the spot an hour before the time.” The New York legislature at first
gave Fulton and Livingston a monopoly in the steamboat business of the Hudson;
but rivals presently began to appear, rates were cut and “runners” for the
different steamboat lines made the New York water front a lively place.
Competition was keenest about 1860. The steamboat business had already become a
good deal demoralized by the Hudson River Railroad which was completed to
Albany in 1851, and the river trip from New York to Albany could be made for a
dime. The only recourse of the steamboats was to charge well for meals and
sleeping accommodations. Steamboating reached the height of
its glory in 1840 when there were not far from one hundred steamboats on the
Hudson. They were the pride of the towns from which they hailed, but were as a
matter of fact gorgeously overloaded with ornament, though it must be
acknowledged that this vulgar mangificence accorded with the taste of the
period. Each craft had its partisans and they were ever ready to engage in a
wordy warfare over its speed and beauty as compared with rival boats. Vessels that were at all evenly
matched were always trying to beat each other. Sometimes the racing spirit was
so intense that they would rush past an announced landing, even if a score or
more of persons were waiting to embark, leaving the hapless people on the dock.
During a race between the Vanderbilt and the Oregon from Albany to New York the
latter’s coal gave out; but instead of allowing this to mean defeat, the
captain had the woodwork of the berths, the chairs, benches, furniture of
staterooms and everything else that would burn put under the boilers to keep up
steam. He was rewarded for the sacrifice by having the satisfaction of winning
the race. In 1852 racing was practically
stopped by law, because it had developed so reckless a disregard for the safety
and convenience of the passengers, and bursting boilers were of such frequent
occurrence as to make travellers very nervous. The Hudson is a treacherous river to
navigate in a fog, and the pilots have to be watchful at all times owing to the
numerous shoals and rocks. Only an expert can take a boat through the sharp
turns of the Highlands. The disasters make a formidable list, though
considering the number of persons carried the loss of life has been creditably
small. One of the most serious of the wrecks among the earlier boats was that
of the Swallow, April 7, 1845. She left Albany in the evening. When near the
city of Hudson she struck a little rocky island, broke in two, and in a few
minutes sank. Two steamboats with which she was racing soon came to her
assistance and other help was rendered by dwellers on the land; but the night
was exceedingly dark, with snow and rain and a heavy gale, and fifteen lives
were lost. The rocks on which the vessel was wrecked were formerly known as
“Noah’s Brig,” a title that originated in the following incident: One night a
raft in command of a man whose first name was Noah neared this point, and the
skipper espied in the gloom a dark object looming before him which he concluded
was a brig under full sail. “Brig ahoy!” he shouted. There was no response. Again in
stentorian voice he hailed the craft, and still received no attention. The
mysterious vessel kept unswervingly to its course. Noah was exasperated and he
yelled, “Brig ahoy, there! Answer, or I’ll run you down.” No reply was vouchsafed, and true to
his word, he ran down the island, but without doing great damage either to that
or his raft. What he thought were two masts and sails proved to be two trees. Boiler explosions were a cause of a
number of wrecks, and collisions were responsible for others; but the most
serious loss of life was the result of the burning of the Henry Clay in 1852.
She was nearing New York from up the river when the fire was discovered. The
captain headed her for the shore at Riverdale and ran her hard aground. But
while it was only a step to the shore from the bow, the stern was in deep
water, and unfortunately most of the passengers were cut off from the forward
end of the boat by the flames. A wild panic ensued, terror-stricken men and
women fought for possession of the life preservers and struggled with one
another after leaping into the water. Sixty persons perished and among these
was a sister of Nathaniel Hawthorne. The passenger steamers on the river
now are very different from those of the old days. They are great floating
hotels, faithful to their schedule time, swift and comfortable. Their
appointments are tasteful and they are run with a due regard for safety. But
whether they sweep along in full view during the day, or pass at night scanning
the country with the inquisitive brilliance of their searchlights, no one is
amazed by them. They are far more imposing spectacles than Fulton’s little
Clermont, but that was the first of its kind and aroused the wonder of every
villager and boatman from the metropolis to Albany. Of perhaps more commercial importance than the steamers, are the canal boats. The tows for down the river are made up at the basin just above Albany where the Erie Canal enters the Hudson. They are lashed four or five abreast and there are often from sixty to eighty boats in a tow, so that they string out for nearly half a mile. The steamers that pull these tows up and down the river are for the most part old passenger boats rebuilt and adapted for the purpose by the removal of their upper works. The Erie Canal connecting the Great
Lakes with the tide water of the Hudson is 361 miles in length. It was begun in
1817, and eight years were required for its completion, in celebration of which
a grand pageant was prepared.
October 26, 1825, a flotilla of new
and gaily decorated canal boats started from the Lake Erie end of the canal for
New York City. The news of the departure was communicated to the metropolis by
the firing of cannon located along the line of the canal and the Hudson so that
the signal travelled the entire distance in an hour and twenty minutes. When the canal boat packets reached
New York on November fifth at five o’clock in the morning every vessel in the
harbor was adorned with flags and bunting, the church bells rang, and a salute
of cannon was fired. The canal boats were accompanied by a procession of
vessels to Sandy Hook where the schooner Dolphin was anchored; and around this
the flotilla circled. On the leading canal boat was a golden hooped keg, filled
to the bung with the fresh water of Lake Erie. Governor Clinton, who was
present with his retinue, poured the contents of the keg into the salt water of
the Atlantic, and it was announced that the marriage of the Great Lakes and the
ocean had been duly solemnized. |
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