History, Natural History & the Arts
The waters around Long Island were long known for their bounty. Fish and oysters sustained the indigenous population long before the coming of Europeans.
The settlers developed full-fledged oyster (Crassostrea virginica) and then hard clam (Mercenaria mercenaria) industries and fished striped bass, bluefish, flounder (fluke), and weakfish. [Read more…] about Long Island Baymen & Great South Bay Seafood
Brightwork, a publication of the Finger Lakes Chapter of the Antique & Classic Boat Society (ACBS), recently offered this primer on describing ACBS classic and antique boats: [Read more…] about What Kind of Old Boat is That?
During its glory years of operation, the first two decades of the 20th century, the J.E. Sexton Boat Shop, located in Hague, was one of the most respected boat-building businesses on Lake George.
Years later however, the decaying wooden structure where Jesse Sexton and his colleagues built many excellent vessels, finally tumbled to the ground. [Read more…] about Jesse Sexton’s Lake George Boat-Building & Photography Shop
There is no such thing as dead wood. Any wood boat, even one as modest as my sixteen-foot rowboat, will teach you that. Wood is moody; it swells and contracts; it looks and feels different on different days.
But wood also gives you the impression that it is collaborating with you; you have an undeniable sensation that your boat is actively supporting you as you row, keeping you afloat (aloft, even), pulling you onward. [Read more…] about The Smith Rowboat: A Unique Contribution to Watercraft History
New York shipwrights and boat builders have created an enormous variety of vessel types from the dugout and bark canoes and the early various batteaux and Durham boats to sloops, steam boats, ocean liners, canal boats and lighthouse tenders; from scows and barges to lighters and pile drivers and dredges.
New York Almanack has assembled stories about the history and construction of these various crafts under a single tag – New York Watercraft, this is a subset of our collection of stories about maritime history. [Read more…] about Watercraft, Shipbuilding and Maritime History
Covered barges were once heavily employed in the New York port areas to lighter (i.e., load, transport, and offload) various non-bulk, perishable cargoes from and to ship or shore.
By the mid-nineteenth century, covered barges with boat-shaped hulls were present in New York State ports, including Plattsburgh, Whitehall, Buffalo, Troy, Albany and other Hudson River and New York Bay ports. [Read more…] about New York Watercraft: Working With Freight
Some of the world’s greatest cities originated on river banks. In spite of individual histories, there is one common pattern. These were all “hydraulic” communities that developed creative skills to control the elements and open up the access to waterways.
Environmental intervention facilitated their adaptation to the habitat. They engineered techniques to dig canals, drain swamps, reclaim land and build on marshy ground by using mud banks to produce stylish brick. The transition of Venice, Antwerp or Amsterdam from soggy settlements to iconic port cities symbolized man’s ability to master his surroundings. New York City joined that list. [Read more…] about The Sloop: Queen of the Hudson River
The Ulster County Archives has launched its first digital collections on New York Heritage Digital Collections, offering free public access. [Read more…] about Ulster County Archives Puts New Collections Online
If you were walking in Lower Manhattan in the mid-1950s and happened upon a dead-end street of warehouses named Coenties Slip, you would have stumbled upon a “Canalboat Village” – a cluster of barges which had once hauled limestone from Vermont and oysters to Essex, NY, now permanently moored. [Read more…] about The Lives of Cannalers: Lake Champlain’s Sailing Canal Boat Families
The Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (State Parks) has announced that 18 maritime heritage projects across New York State will be supported by almost $400,000 in federal grants through the New York State National Maritime Heritage Grant Program. [Read more…] about New York State Maritime Heritage Projects Get $400k in Grant Funding
The following article, “All The Yards Are Busy And In Need of More Help. Builders Pay $25,000 Annually In Wages. Several Hundred Men Are Employed,” is from the Kingston Daily Freeman of August 15, 1906. It was transcribed by Hudson River Maritime Museum volunteer researcher George A. Thompson and additionally edited and annotated by John Warren.
One of the most important branches of industry that this city [Kingston] is blessed with is that of boat building, which has more than doubled itself within the past ten years [1896-1906]. But few people outside of the men employed on the yards have an adequate conception of the magnitude of this particular work and the number of men employed at good, substantial wages. [Read more…] about Kingston’s Boat Building Industry, 1906
The canal boat Seneca Chief was built in 1825 in anticipation of the completion of the Erie Canal‘s western section.
It famously carried Governor DeWitt Clinton and other dignitaries to the city of New York in the fall of 1825 to celebrate the completion of the Canal. [Read more…] about In 1825 Buffalo’s Seneca Chief Opened the Erie Canal in NYC
The geology and climate of the Finger Lakes region presented a landscape of great natural beauty that has attracted tourism and recreation for more than 200 years.
Wealthy elites from the city of New York began building homes at Skaneateles Lake as early as 1809, and mineral springs in Livingston County in the western portion of the greater Finger Lakes region attracted visitors starting in the 1820s. [Read more…] about A Short History of Finger Lakes Tourism
Imagine the Mohawk River flowing with more force than Niagara Falls. Around 22,000 years ago, that’s exactly how it was. During the last ice age, the Laurentide Glacier began to melt, forming a large lake atop the glacier. As the glacier receded north, it opened access to the Mohawk River, which for thousands of years had been buried beneath the two-mile thick block of ice. Suddenly, all that lake water had somewhere to go.
The deluge of water that was released was so great that it carved an entirely new riverbed. It was so great in fact, that geologists gave the river a new name; the Iromohawk. Water rushed down the valley, carving away the cliffs of Clifton Park, the gorge at Cohoes, and the channel at Rexford. The river also curved back onto itself, creating the bend around Schenectady that the Mohawk follows today. [Read more…] about A Brief History of the Mohawk River
In October 2023, after 20 years of service, the replica sailing canal schooner Lois McClure will be retired, the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum announced today. The original Lois McClure was built in 1862. [Read more…] about Replica Canal Schooner Lois McClure Being Retired, Dismantled
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For centuries, residents of New York have built watercraft and waterfront facilities to transport people and goods locally, nationally and internationally. For residents of the area, boating was a way of life, providing employment, recreation, and transportation. [Read more…] about New Book On Boat Building, Boatyards of Long Island
Long Island Traditions (LIT) has been awarded a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) for its Maritime Folk Arts programs, enabling it to launch a new joint program with the New Bedford Fishing Heritage Center (FHC) connecting Long Island maritime folk artists with their counterparts in Massachusetts.
The grant will also enable LIT to continue to bring maritime tradition bearers into classrooms in the Freeport and East Williston school districts, as it has done for decades. [Read more…] about Long Island Traditions Expanding Maritime Folk Arts Programs
Charles Bryan, in The Raquette, River of the Forest (1964), argued that Long Lake played a major role in the development of the Adirondack Guideboat.
That legacy got a local revival recently, when Long Lake resident Colleen Smith re-launched a guideboat on Long Lake built there by her grandfather George W. Smith in the early 1900s. [Read more…] about An Adirondack Guideboat Returns to Long Lake
Bowery in Dutch means a colonial plantation or farm. In late June 1775 – Connecticut Provincials made farm fields on Bowery Lane in New York their temporary home while British soldiers made a hasty retreat to ships in the East River.
The presence of General David Wooster and 1500 to 2000 of his men made the occupants of the King’s garrison near Battery Park uncomfortable. Connecticut men were there at the request of the New York Provincial Convention and their mission was to protect city residents from British and Tory aggression. [Read more…] about Wooster’s Bowery Hangout During Summer of 1775
2017 New York State Fair opening day visitors will be able to see a replica of the gunboat USS Philadelphia that carried General Benedict Arnold and his Continental Army troops in 1776 during the Revolutionary War rebuilt in just one day, Wednesday, August 23.
Erich Tichonuk, co-executive director of the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, Vergennes, VT, will lead the assembly of the replica of the oldest surviving American fighting naval vessel. The original Philadelphia was discovered in Lake Champlain in 1935 and is now housed at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC. [Read more…] about Rev War: USS Philadelphia Gunboat Being Rebuilt in A Day
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