Tuesday, December 7, 2021 – A “SPORT” FEW COULD AFFORD AND THOSE THAT DID WENT FOR THE AMERICAS’ CUP
TODAY IS THE 80th ANNIVERSARY
OF THE ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2021
ISSUE #539
BIG BOYS’ TOYS
OF THE
GILDED ERA
STEPHEN BLANK
Detroit Boat Club
Big Boys’ Toys of the Gilded Era
A lot of really big, really famous yachts have been associated with New York City. Why not? So here is a brief overview of some of fanciest early private yachts.
Size doesn’t matter, we are told. A yacht is a boat designed for the express pleasure of its owner, any size, any shape. In the heyday of the Dutch Republic, small, fast boats were sent to chase smugglers, pirates and criminals. Rich ship owners used these small “jaghts” to sail out to celebrate their returning merchant ships. It quickly became chic to use these “jaghts” to take friends out just for pleasure.
We are told that the first organized regatta was hosted by England’s King Charles II in 1661, a 40-mile race on the Thames between Katherine, Charles’s newly constructed yacht and Anne, the Duke of York’s new yacht. Katherine won, and a new sport was born. Soon some of the world’s wealthiest pushed into the Sport of Kings. The first yacht club in the world was the Cork Water Club, in Ireland in 1720, followed by the Starcross Yacht Club in 1772 in England.
Here, yachting began with the Dutch, but the first large, expensive ocean going yacht was American, George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge, built in 1815. Crowninshield was the eldest son of an enormously wealthy Salem family. At a time when all American ships were either merchant or naval vessels, the concept of a pleasure yacht was unique and Cleo’s Barge set the bar for luxury and elegance for the grand yachts in the later 19th century.
The first continuing American yacht club, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839 but it was more of a rowing club. In 1844 John C. Stevens founded the New York Yacht Club – which became the most famous of all yacht clubs. Early on, racing for prize money was the objective. The Club contracted with designer George Steers for a 101 foot schooner christened America, launched on May 3, 1851. America crossed the Atlantic on her own bottom that year and challenged all of England’s fastest yachts to a match race. No yachts were willing to race her. Finally, America joined a free-for-all on Friday, August 22, racing against 15 yachts of the Royal Yacht Squadron in the club’s annual 53-nautical-mile race around the Isle of Wight. Finishing 8 minutes ahead of its closest rival. America won the Royal Yacht Squadron’s “Hundred Guinea Cup“, later called the America’s Cup to honor the yacht that won it.
America, Wikipedia
Watching the race was Queen Victoria, who supposedly inquired, “Which is first?” Told it was America, she asked, “Which is second?” “Ah, Your Majesty, there is no second,” was the reply. So the story goes. The NYYC defended the trophy from 1870 to 1983, the longest winning streak in sports history.
A few years later, yachts became a giant sign of success. “Boys will have their toys,” one article on 19th century yachts opens, “and the boys of the Gilded Age were no different. Only, their toys were behemoths, and cost a small fortune.” America’s Industrial Age captains poured as much money into yachts as they did into “castles.” Nothing exemplified the era’s ostentation more than their yachts. In this, as in their homes, bigger was better.
Yachts were built for ocean going excursions to Europe as well as coastal entertainment, and contained all the luxuries of home—a very rich man’s home. “Ice rooms, hot and cold running water, tiled baths and mahogany paneling, soft, sumptuous upholstered furniture, and electric lights were commonplace. After all, these families wouldn’t think of going abroad on a scheduled steamer of the day.”
This was the very beginning of the era of Atlantic steamships, in the 1890s with rising competition between German and British lines – finer than before, but still looking forward to the grand ships of the early 20th century. These private yachts, built in the early era of steam power, could rival the luxury of the Atlantic trade.
We know something about a few of the most famous. James Gordon Bennett, Jr. was publisher of the New York Herald, founded by his father, and founder of the International Herald Tribune. Bennett indulged in yachts, opulent private railroad cars, and lavish mansions. He was the youngest Commodore ever of the New York Yacht Club. In 1861, Bennett volunteered his newly-built schooner yacht, Henrietta, for the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service during the Civil War. In 1866, he won the first trans-oceanic yacht race. The race was between three American yachts, the Vesta, the Fleetwing and the Henrietta. They started off of Sandy Hook, New Jersey, on 11 December 1866 amid high westerly winds and raced to The Needles, the furthest westerly point on the Isle of Wight.
The Great Ocean Yacht Race Between Henrietta, Fleetwing & Vesta, by Currier & Ives in 1867
However, he often scandalized society with his flamboyant and sometimes erratic behavior. In 1877, he left New York for Europe after an incident that ended his engagement to socialite Caroline May. According to various accounts, he arrived late and drunk to a party at the May family mansion, then urinated into a fireplace (some say grand piano) in full view of his hosts.
One of the most opulent was the Atalanta, was owned by Jay Gould, railroad executive, financier, and speculator, an important railroad developer who was one of the most unscrupulous robber barons of 19th-century American capitalism (and New Yorker). Built in 1883, the 235-foot, 3-masted steam yacht boasted a crew of 52, including three cooks and six servants. A New York Times article gushed over its elaborate carving decorations, its main saloon fully the width of the boat and 21 feet long, and the 7 large and handsomely furnished staterooms each with a washstand fitted with a silver plated toilet seat.
Jay Gould’s Atalanta (Library of Congress photo)
In 1886, the even longer 285-foot luxury steam yacht Alva was launched by Alva and William K. Vanderbilt, grandson of transportation tycoon (and New Yorker) Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt. The yacht had a piano, a library with a fireplace, seven guestrooms and a 10-room suite for the Vanderbilts, and quarters for a crew of 53.
Poor Alva was run down on the Nantucket Shoals by the Metropolitan Line Steamer H. F. Dimock making its way from Boston to New York. Happily the crew of 53 “worked like clockwork” and the Vanderbilt party was safely removed from the distressed yacht.
J.P. Morgan sometimes enjoyed commuting between his Hudson River estate and the office on Wall Street by boat. His second yacht named Corsair, which Morgan owned from 1890 to 1898, was certainly one of the most luxurious commuting vehicles the world has ever seen. During its heyday as Morgan’s luxury vessel, the boat served as the flagship of the New York Yacht Club, of which Morgan was Commodore from 1897 to 1899. The yacht was his pleasure cruiser on which Morgan hosted many social events with famous guests such as Theodore Roosevelt and Thomas Edison, and often took Morgan upstate and to various points on the eastern seaboard.
Many of these yachts served in wartime. When the United States hastily declared war against Spain in 1898, it did so without much in the way of a navy – the Great White Fleet was yet to be created by Theodore Roosevelt. Since war with Spain would necessarily involve naval battles and blockades, in order to bring the Navy quickly up to par, Congress authorized the purchase of more than 100 private yachts and corporate ships, among them: JP Morgan’s Corsair, Ogden Goelet’s Mayflower, J.D. Spreckels’ Fearless, two Standard Oil ships Atlas and Hercules, and Henry Flagler’s Alicia.
Today’s great yachts are owned by sports stars and young corporate magnates. They are often big and very lux, and some are even weird, but to me they lack the style of this early generation of big boys’
toys. And who has silver toilet seats? Sail ho!
Stephen Blank
RIHS
December 4, 2021
Tuesday Photo of the Day
SEND YOU RESPONSE TO ROOSEVELISLANDHISTORY@GMAIL.COM
IF BOUNCED-BACK SEND TO JBIRD134@AOL.COM
Monday Photo of the Day
TWEED COURTHOUSE
LAURA HUSSEY & ARON EISENPREISS GOT IT!
 Photography by Michael Rogol, Courtesy of the Art Commission of the City of New York. |
The Old New York County Courthouse, better known as Tweed Courthouse, is architecturally one of New York’s greatest civic monuments. Built between 1861 and 1881, it is the product of two of New York’s most prominent 19th-century architects, John Kellum and Leopold Eidlitz. Tweed is a designated New York City landmark and sections of the interior are designated interior landmarks as well. The courthouse has retained its original spatial arrangement, encompassing 30 monumental courtrooms and a central rotunda. Their immense cast-iron structural and decorative elements are unparalleled in any American public building.
In December 1861, John Kellum won the commission to build the “New County Courthouse.” Kellum designed a rusticated basement, monumental Corinthian portico, and a dome, which was never built. On the interior, Kellum created neoclassical-style courtrooms and offices as well as the first two floors of the rotunda. After Kellum’s death, the City commissioned Leopold Eidlitz in 1874 to complete the interior and design a new south wing. Rather than following Kellum’s neoclassical style, Eidlitz incorporated elements of Romanesque architecture, including on the interior polychromed brick and richly-carved stonework as well as a spectacular laylight over the octagonal rotunda-one of the most impressive public spaces in New York City.
Tweed Courthouse is the legacy of Tammany Hall boss William M. Tweed, who used the construction of the building to embezzle large sums from the budget. Boss Tweed was tried in 1873 in an unfinished courtroom in this building and was convicted and jailed. After the Tweed Ring was broken up, work stopped on the building from 1872 to 1876. Construction progressed slowly after the Tweed years, and it was not until 1881 that the building was finally completed.#
In 1999, a comprehensive restoration began to return Tweed to its original grandeur. The front staircase, which had been removed in 1940 to widen Chambers Street, was reconstructed. The restoration also included the reapplication of the historic paint scheme, which includes faux brick painting and gold leaf appliqué.
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 Melanie Colter and Deborah Dorff
STEPHEN BLANK
Sources
https://asa.com/news/2017/12/16/history-of-the-yacht/
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1900/07/21/102611358.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1892/07/25/106810124.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
https://www.flaglermuseum.us/history/flaglers-yacht-aliciahttp://villanamouna.com/history.html
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD
Copyright © 2021 Roosevelt Island Historical Society, All rights reserved.Our mailing address is:
rooseveltislandhistory@gmail.com
Leave a comment