Steamboating

A Trip to Albany on the Steamboat James Kent, August 1823

August 21, 2026 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Yesterday afternoon we had the pleasure of visiting the new and beautiful steam boat James Kent, now lying at the foot of Liberty street [in the City of New York].

Through the politeness of Capt. Wiswall and Mr. Rhind, we enjoyed an opportunity of examining her from stem to stern, above and below, and of obtaining such facts, as will enable us to give a pretty accurate description of this superb vessel, which in many respects surpasses any boat, that has ever floated upon our waters. [Read more…] about A Trip to Albany on the Steamboat James Kent, August 1823

Hudson River Steamboats & Stagecoaches, 1809-1810

May 5, 2026 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

The following short news items about Hudson River steamboats were originally published in newspapers in 1809 and 1810.

The first commercially successful steamboat to travel to Albany was Robert Fulton’s North River Steamboat (often colloquially called the Clermont), which made its maiden voyage in August 1807. It departed the city of New York on August 17 and arrived in Albany roughly 32 hours later, proving the viability of steam-powered commercial vessels. [Read more…] about Hudson River Steamboats & Stagecoaches, 1809-1810

1848 Great Albany Fire Kills 10, Burns Fleet of Schooners & Canal Boats

February 16, 2026 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

The following text is from an article printed in the New York Daily Herald of August 19, 1848.

The Albany papers are filled with accounts of the disastrous conflagration which took place in that city on the 17th inst. We are indebted to Capt. Gorham of the steamboat Hendrik Hudson, for Albany papers, delivered at an early hour on Friday afternoon. [Read more…] about 1848 Great Albany Fire Kills 10, Burns Fleet of Schooners & Canal Boats

New York’s International Port at Rochester: Some History

January 20, 2026 by William M. Goodman 2 Comments

As Rochester’s Democrat and Chronicle effused, presciently, in 1874: Charlotte, the Rochester NY neighborhood situated “at the mouth of the Genesee River, surrounded by scenery of unequaled beauty,” is “daily growing more important as a shipping port.”

The paper could scarcely have anticipated the impact of an international deal signed decades later, in 1905. “Car ferries” would be built, with related infrastructure, plus dredging of port channels to accommodate heavy loads, to directly link Rochester, with Cobourg in Ontario, Canada, to its north. The ferries would carry both freight-laden train cars and paying passengers. [Read more…] about New York’s International Port at Rochester: Some History

The Newburgh-Beacon Ferry, 1743-1963

November 6, 2025 by Guest Contributor 1 Comment

What follows is a booklet by Irene E. Wegle, Corresponding Secretary of The Historical Society of Newburgh Bay and the Highlands from the November 2, 1963 opening of the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge.

The Newburgh-Beacon Ferry, which has been in operation on the Hudson River between the cities of Newburgh and Beacon, is [sic, was] the oldest in the United States, having been given its franchise from Queen Anne of England in 1743. [Read more…] about The Newburgh-Beacon Ferry, 1743-1963

They Came by Train: Lake George Railroad History

October 20, 2025 by Anthony F. Hall 2 Comments

The automobile and the highways built to accommodate them gradually but inevitably displaced the nation’s light rail systems, including those in the Lake George region. Long before there was a Northway (I-87), tourists disembarked from trains opposite the Lake George steamboat pier, trolleys rattled along Canada Street toward Warrensburg, and a cable railway carried hotel guests from Lake George Village to the top of Prospect Mountain. There was even a marine railway to launch the pleasure boats that were transported on freight trains from factories in the Midwest.

But the Delaware and Hudson Railroad (the D&H), transporting people from New York City to Montreal and dozens of points in between, including the steamboat landings on Lake George and Lake Champlain, was the system’s apex. [Read more…] about They Came by Train: Lake George Railroad History

‘A Storm of Flies’: Mayflies on the Hudson River

September 5, 2025 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Mayflies are aquatic insects in the order Ephemeroptera (meaning short-lived). They are also known as shadflies, fishflies, or up-winged flies. Folks who live along rivers are more familiar with the “hatch” of mayflies which can number in the thousands or millions, when conditions are just right.

In the past rivers like the Hudson, Mohawk and Susquehanna could see hatches of mayflies so large they became international news. What follows are two stories reporting mayfly hatches of enormous proportions in September 4, 1880. [Read more…] about ‘A Storm of Flies’: Mayflies on the Hudson River

Ernest Hass Historical Painting Collection Now Online

July 28, 2025 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Lake Champlain Maritime Museum has opened the Ernest Haas Collection to the public online. With 31 paintings and numerous sketches, the Ernest Haas Collection contains high-quality paintings of well-known historical events like “The Last Gunboat” (depicting the sunken Revolutionary War gunboat Spitfire) and “Phoenix Sinking” (depicting that fateful night in September 1819 which ended in the destruction of one of the lake’s early steamboats). [Read more…] about Ernest Hass Historical Painting Collection Now Online

Port of Albany: Piers, Wharves and Docks in 1941

July 16, 2025 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

The following description is from 1941.

There are 30 terminal facilities at the Port of Albany, including those on the east side of the Hudson River at and below Rensselaer. These facilities provide a total of 18,661 linear feet of berthing space with depths ranging from 33 to 6 feet at mean low water.

Of this number 10 with a total berthage of 2,948 feet are used for handling petroleum products and five with a berthage of 2,525 feet are used for handling miscellaneous cargo in foreign and domestic trade. Two facilities with 1,370 feet of berthage are used for handling grain, one with 200 feet provides space for the movement of iron and steel scrap, while another with 1,617 feet of berthing space is used exclusively for handling lumber. [Read more…] about Port of Albany: Piers, Wharves and Docks in 1941

John Langdon Sullivan & Hudson River Steam Tow Passage Boats, 1825

July 1, 2025 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

The following article by engineer John Langdon Sullivan was published in the Commercial Advertiser on June 25, 1825. Sullivan was an inventor of one of the first steam-powered towboats which operated on the route of the Middlesex Canal (completed in 1803, between the Merrimack River and Boston). Having established the Boston Steamboat Company in 1818, he secured permission from the New York State Legislature to operate barges towed by steamboats on the Hudson River, but was stymied by the monopoly on steam navigation Robert Livingston and Robert Fulton had secured for themselves. Here he argues that towed passenger boats would be safer and he should be allowed to proceed. You can learn more about Sullivan and his tow-boat experiments below the article.

The expediency and humanity of separating passengers from the danger of steam-boat explosions may now again be urged upon the attention of this community. To become habituated to danger, is not to remove it from the path so many must travel. Time wears upon the steamboats in use, and constantly increases their liability to accident. None now-a-days take passage without a consciousness of hazard. [Read more…] about John Langdon Sullivan & Hudson River Steam Tow Passage Boats, 1825

Watercraft, Shipbuilding and Maritime History

June 23, 2025 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

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

New York’s Tugboats: A Short History

June 12, 2025 by Guest Contributor 1 Comment

The tugboat, as a distinct vessel type, dates back to Scotland with the construction of the Charlotte Dundas (1801) for towing barges on the Forth and Clyde Canal.

The Staten Island ferry Nautilus inaugurated the modern towing and tugboat industries in the United States on January 26, 1818, when she towed the sailing ship Corsair through the ice-choked lower harbor of New York from one mile below the Narrows to the quarantine dock. [Read more…] about New York’s Tugboats: A Short History

19th Century Steamboat Memories From An Old Boatman

April 22, 2025 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

What follows is a letter to the New York Sun by John H. Hubbel from November 12, 1917.

To the Editor of the Sun — Sir: I have been reading the letters of the Mary Powell [built in 1861 and operated 55 years] and other boats on the Hudson River. I was born in Hudson, [Columbia County], NY in 1836, the son of Henry Hubbel of Hubbel, Clark & Co., owners of the steamer Fairfield. Later they bought a boat by the name of Columbia. She ran for a number of years and they bought the Oregon, which was sunk by the steamboat City of Boston [in 1863]. [Read more…] about 19th Century Steamboat Memories From An Old Boatman

Maritime History of the New York Harbor Area

April 3, 2025 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Unlike early colonial enterprises founded on political or religious principles, New York’s development was prompted by trade. Early maritime commerce in the New York Harbor area began in the early 1600s, centering around the trade and barter for furs.

After the area was discovered by the Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524, the Dutch began initial colonization of Manhattan Island, with the Dutch West India Company establishing a trading post of eight men in 1625 to help develop the fur trade. By 1650, New Amsterdam featured peoples speaking some 18 languages. [Read more…] about Maritime History of the New York Harbor Area

Early Hudson River Steamboat Design, 1800-1850

March 20, 2025 by Guest Contributor 1 Comment

Steam power was the result of several developments associated with the Industrial Revolution. The invention of malleable iron by Henry Cort in 1784 certainly provided the means of shaping iron for power-plant production, as did the work of machinist David Wilkinson and others.

In the late eighteenth century, Boulton & Watt established an engine manufacturing plant that eventually provided an opportunity for European and American engineers to experiment with steam-power propulsion. [Read more…] about Early Hudson River Steamboat Design, 1800-1850

The Hudson River Overslaugh & The Old Anchorage

March 14, 2025 by John Warren 2 Comments

Powerful Hudson River currents have always changed the river, leaving shifting sand bars, shoals and shallow areas and even islands in their wake.

One of the more notable places on the Hudson where the forces of nature have impacted the history of river transportation – and indeed New York history itself – was the Overslaugh – a particularly shallow area off Castleton‘s Papscanee Island. [Read more…] about The Hudson River Overslaugh & The Old Anchorage

Blue Jeans: New York’s Waterfront, Levi Strauss & the Gold Rush

March 10, 2025 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

For most of their history, Greenwich Village, the East Village, and the Lower East Side have had an intimately interconnected life and history. These parts of New York have been crossroads and hotbeds of cultural and intellectual innovation.

The East River and Hudson River waterfronts have linked these neighborhoods to global networks of trade and immigration. This lively and vibrant maritime history is perfectly encapsulated in the life of Levi Strauss (1829-1902), and in that of the denim jean. [Read more…] about Blue Jeans: New York’s Waterfront, Levi Strauss & the Gold Rush

Poughkeepsie’s Captain James Ackley: A Boatman’s Life

February 21, 2025 by Guest Contributor 2 Comments

The Nautical Gazette says: One of the oldest pilots actively engaged in steamboating today [in 1905] is Captain James P. Ackley, who daily steers the Hudson River ferryboat Brinkerhoff on her trips between Poughkeepsie and Highland [in Ulster County, NY]. [Read more…] about Poughkeepsie’s Captain James Ackley: A Boatman’s Life

New York Harbor History: Furs, Flour, Slaves, Sugar and Shipwrecks

February 10, 2025 by Guest Contributor 3 Comments

Europe’s first exposure to the New York Bay was during the voyages of Giovanni da Verrazzano (1485–1528). An Italian from Florence sailing for Francois I, the king of France, he left European waters in January 1524 to find a route to China. [Read more…] about New York Harbor History: Furs, Flour, Slaves, Sugar and Shipwrecks

Appalling Disaster: An 1871 Staten Island Ferry Disaster

February 2, 2025 by Guest Contributor 2 Comments

The following is from the Harpers Weekly of August 12, 1871. It was transcribed by Hudson River Maritime Museum contributing scholar Carl Mayer.

About half past one Sunday afternoon, July 30, [1871] the Staten Island ferry boat Westfield was lying quietly in her slip at the foot of Whitehall Street, New York. Over four hundred souls were on board, lured by the delightful weather from their crowded homes to breathe the pure sea air and enjoy the grass and shade of the uncontaminated country. [Read more…] about Appalling Disaster: An 1871 Staten Island Ferry Disaster

Steamboating

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