Among the many hundreds of steamboats plying the Hudson River when that waterway served as a primary method of moving people and freight, a few stand out as unusual. The most remarkable of these is perhaps the railroad transports, used to ferry railroad cars.
Also known as train ferries, or car ferries (not to be confused with auto ferries), they were fitted with railway tracks and doors at each end to allow for loading and unloading. [Read more…] about Train Ferries: The Hudson River’s Most Unusual Steamers
In fiction and research, the history of an estate is often used to throw light on the lives of former residents and the cultural environment in which they acted. The monumental white mansion now known as Bevin House, Long Island, hides an intriguing tale that offers a snapshot of New York’s cosmopolitan past. 
Online auction sites regularly offer a number of collectibles — postcards, brochures, tickets, even china — bearing the name and logo of the Monticello Steamship Company of San Francisco.
The new book The Majestic Nature of the North: Thomas Kelah Wharton’s Journeys in Antebellum America through the Hudson River Valley and New England (SUNY Press, 2019), edited by Steven A. Walton and Michael J. Armstrong, features the travel diaries of nineteenth-century artist, educator, and architect Thomas Kelah Wharton, documenting his trips in the lower Hudson River Valley and New Orleans to Boston and back. 
U.S. Coast Guard Licensed Master Capt. Stanley Wilcox is set to speak in a program entitled “Tales of the Majestic Hudson: Rare and Little Known Stories of the Hudson River Valley” in Kinderhook, Columbia County, NY.