Monday, July 26, 2021 – ALL KINDS OF STEAMERS TRAVERSED THE EAST RIVER
FROM THE ARCHIVES
MONDAY, JULY 26, 2021
THE
425th EDITION
STEAMING
THE EAST RIVER
STEPHEN BLANK
The Nassau, a twin-hulled boat, was the first regularly scheduled steam-powered ferry from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Credit…Brooklyn Historical Society
Steaming on the East River
Stephen Blank
The East River has long been a key thoroughfare for profit and pleasure. A big change, of course, was the advent of steam propulsion. Bigger craft, more people, more business. We’ve seen many pictures of great steamships on the Hudson. But our river, too, had some glorious steamers. So join me for a trip down memory lane, steaming on the East River.
Talking steamboats, begin with Fulton, inventor of the first successful steamboat and the first to put a steamboat on the East River. In 1814, Robert Fulton and William Cutting, his brother-in-law, formed the New York & Brooklyn Steamboat Ferry Association and obtained a lease from the City to establish a steam-powered ferry to cross the river. Fulton’s ferry crossed at the its narrowest point, some 700 yards between what is now Fulton Street in Brooklyn and Fulton Street in Manhattan, between where the River Café is today, beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, and the South Street Seaport. The first ferry was named Nassau. The twin-hulled boat carried 549 passengers, one wagon and three horses. The trip took 5 to 12 minutes and was no longer subject to the mercy of the winds and the East River’s punishing tides. The Nassau was captained by Peter Coffee, who would remain with the company that operated the vessel for 50 years.
Yes, I know this is not really glam travel, it’s commuting.
So how about the fine line of “Sylvan” steamboats which raced up and down the East River from Peck’s Slip (just south of the Brooklyn Bridge, which didn’t exist) to 120th and 130th Streets in Harlem via a stop in Astoria and through Hell Gate?
Why Harlem? For pleasure and profit. The flat, rich, eastern portion of Harlem was fertile farmland, and some of New York’s most illustrious early families, like the Delanceys, Bleekers, Rikers, Beekmans, and Hamiltons kept large estates in the high western section. Harlem recovered slowly from the Revolutionary war struggles that took place there and remained largely rural through the early 19th century. Some of the estates were available at knockdown prices, and Harlem also attracted new immigrants to the City. Undeveloped, but not poor. It is said that Harlem was “a synonym for elegant living through a good part of the nineteenth century.”
To reach Harlem from lower Manhattan Island by stagecoach and later by horse car took a hard hour and a half to two hour ride. But by boat, there was no lovelier vista than the banks of the East River from Jones’ Wood north, where the shore was dotted by splendid country homes with large grounds of well-to-do New Yorkers – except when steaming past Blackwell’s Island.
The Harlem and New York Navigation Company was incorporated in 1856 and the “Sylvan Shore,” the first of this company’s line of “Sylvan” boats, was built that year. Four more “Sylvans” would appear over the next dozen years. The steamboats did the Harlem run on weekdays and excursions to points along the Sound on Sundays.
Steamboat “Sylvan Shore”, James Bard (1815–1897), New York Historical Society
The business went well. Not only did the Sylvan boats grow in number, but another line, the Morrisania steamboat line, joined in as a competitor. Their steamship “Shady Side” carried passengers to upper Manhattan and the Bronx. The Shady Side was the fastest Morrisania boat and frequently raced against the Harlem Line’s swiftest ship, the Sylvan Dell – much to the distress at times of the police. The Sylvan Dell carried on her bow mast an unusual but significant flag – a race horse with a jockey instead of the name of the boat.
By 1867 the elevated railroads were being talked of seriously, experiments projected, and in 1875 the Legislature favored granting a franchise for the elevated roads. The elevated opened for operations in 1876, but it was not until after 1880 that the elevated lines on both sides of the city were extended to Harlem. Simultaneously with that accomplishment the patronage of the Harlem and Morrisania declined.
They were attractive but fairly small sidewheel steamboats. We assume they were nicely fitted out with comfortable lounges but no overnight facilities, but we really don’t know the details. We know more about the spectacular vessels that sailed past our Island in the high age of East River steamboating. Stately sidewheelers connected Peck’s Slip with Hartford, Boston and locations between. One author rhapsodizes “These Long Island Sound steamers, unlike the tubby, wedding cake dowagers of Western waters, were long, sleek craft, with sharp prows cutting a neat wake as they cruised along. Departing each afternoon from State Street or Talcott Street wharf in Hartford, the ‘night boats’ reached New York at daybreak, inaugurating a pattern of city commuting that continues to this day.“
Other destinations were reached by a water-rail combination. The Old Colony Railroad developed a network of railroad lines extending from New York to Boston and southeastern Massachusetts. Steamers connected the railroad lines at various points. Established in 1847, the line was originally owned by the Bay State Steamboat Company.
The classic example was The Fall River Line, a combination steamboat and railroad connection between New York City and Boston that operated between 1847 and 1937. Sailing from New York, the Fall River boats paddled up the East River in the early evenings of dusk; up to Hell Gate then down the Long Island sound; calling at Newport in the middle of the night and the morning they landed at the Fall River dock. Boston was just a train ride away with connections north to Maine’s major cities and resorts.
For many years, this was the preferred route for travel between the two major cities. The Long Island Sound steamboats became firmly established with the public as the safe and comfortable way for New Yorkers to go to Boston since they avoided the long, hazardous water route around Cape Cod and the longer crowded train trip all the way from New York. The line was extremely popular, and its steamboats were among the most advanced and luxurious of their day. Everyone from presidents to swindlers sailed the Sound on “Mammoth Palace Steamers” in the heyday of the side-wheelers.
Big paddle steamers, gleaming white, ornamental and luxurious, touched all the islands and reached up the long tidal rivers, carrying “The Four Hundred” – New York’s Gilded Age High Society. Nineteenth Century steamboat men looked down on the railroads as mere “feeders,” and even later through trains ran rapidly along the shore from Boston to New York they maintained, for some time, the favorite of travelers. Old Commodore Vanderbilt and Daniel Drew struggled for power on the Sound before they began to battle for greater prizes among the railroads; its waters were controlled in turn by Jim Fisk and J. P. Morgan, who eventually brought almost all the various steamboat lines under control of his New Haven Railroad. The star of the Fall River Line was the steamship Priscilla.
Judy Berdy has written about the Priscilla in an earlier number of the Almanac but I will tell you more about the Fall River Line and its rivals in my next essay.
Fall River Line ships Priscilla and Puritan steaming under the abuilding Queensboro Bridge and past the Octagon on Blackwell’s Island
Competition on these routes grew. The Lexington was a paddlewheel steamboat that provided service between New York City and Providence, Rhode Island. It was commissioned by Cornelius Vanderbilt in 1835, and at 220 feet in length was considered one of the most luxurious steamers in operation. In 1837, the Lexington switched to the route between New York and Stonington, Connecticut, to connect with the newly built Old Colony railroad to Boston.
And dangers too. On the night of January 13, 1840, midway through the ship’s voyage through the Sound, the casing around the ship’s smokestack caught fire and ignited 150 bales of cotton that were stored on deck aft of the smokestack. The fire was out of control and the order was given to abandon ship. The ships’ overcrowded lifeboats sank almost immediately, leaving the ship’s passengers and crew to drown in the freezing water. Rough water, poor visibility, the frigid cold and the wind made rescue attempts impossible. Of the 143 people on board the Lexington that night, only 4 survived.
Thanks for reading. I’ll be back soon with more on the East River steamboat business, its pleasures and perils.
Stephen Blank
RIHS
July 11, 2021
THANKS TO GLORIA HERMAN AND HER GRANDKIDS FOR HELPING WEEDING AND FIXING UP THE KIOSK GARDEN TODAY.
Elijah (Eli) and Thomson (Sonny) are 11 and Eadie is 9.
MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY
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WEEKEND PHOTOS
ONE OF THE DECORATED WALLS AND
MOTIFS OUTSIDE “THE SANCTUARY” IS THIS GREAT
GREETING FROM ROOSEVELT ISLAND
MURAL AND SPOT FOR A PHOTO.
WEEKEND PHOTO OF THE DAY #2
(SOMEONE FORGOT TO POST ONE OF THESE ANSWERS)
FORMER TRIBORO HOSPITAL NOW UNDER RESTORATION INTO AFFORDABLE HOUSING IN JAMAICA, QUEENS.
Ed Litcher, Andy Sparberg and Harriet Lieber got it right
Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c)
Stephen Blank
RIHS
July 11, 2021
Sources
A.J.Wall, “The Sylvan Steamboats on the East River, New York to Harlem”, THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY BULLETIN VOL. VIII OCTOBER, 1924 No. 3
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CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
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