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Editor's note: The following text is from the "Kingston Daily Freeman" newspaper September 16, 1905. Thank you to Contributing Scholar George A. Thompson for finding and cataloging this article. The language, spelling and grammar of the article reflects the time period when it was written. BRICKYARDS OF KINGSTON AS DESCRIBED BY THE BUILDING TRADES EMPLOYERS ASSOCIATION BULLETIN. In its "Story of Brick" on the Hudson river, yards of Kingston and vicinity are described by the Building Trade Employers' Association Bulletin as follows: The brick which bears the highly popular brand, "Shultz," is the product of the Shultz yards at East Kingston, near Rondout, N. Y. Henry H. Shultz, the present manager of the concern for the Shultz estate, represents the third generation of a family which has been in the brick making business since the earlier half of the last century. At that period Charles Shultz owned, at Keyport, N. J. an interest in what would now be considered a very modest plant, operated with horses, and having a daily capacity of 40,000, or for the season, 8,000,000 brick. This passed to his son, Charles A. Shultz, who before long realised that the banks of the Hudson river not only afforded enormous advantages in the matter of shipping, but provided a better quality of the raw material, and in tempting abundance. Accordingly, in 1876, Charles A. Shultz removed to East Kingston and began, at first in a comparatively small way, a business which has been growing ever since, and which, under the management of his son, Henry H. Shultz, has reached a position of the highest Importance in the building material industry. The first notable step in the development of the Shultz yards on the Hudson river was when steam power was substituted for horses. This was in 1878, and from that time the business of the plant, increasing yearly with the recognised value of the "Shultz" brand, has climbed without one serious check, until, at the present writing it employs a plant the capacity of which is 138,000 per day, or 18,000,000 brick per season. These commercially satisfactory results have been in great part due to sheer persistence; but a particular "strong" quality of their clay banks and the incessant exercise of thought and care, with constant alertness to seize upon every chance of improvement, had quite as much to do with the reputation which the brand has earned of an almost perfect brick for general building purposes. The clay banks adjacent to the works yield also quantities of sharp sand This, with "culm" in the proper proportions, is used on the Shultz yards ' to form a brick in which there is both yellow clay and blue, one-third of the former and two-thirds of the latter. Special attention is given to the processes of mixing and tempering. The latter is carried on in a circular pit with a "tempering wheel" worked by steam power. So far there is no secret in the composition of the Shultz brick. But in the precedent process of mixing the case la somewhat otherwise; the strength, beauty and evenness of color for which this brick is noted has not been secured without years of thought and experiment, both by the late Mr. Shultz and the present manager of the estate. The expenditure of time, thought and capital upon all this repays it self in more than one way. There is the enormous saving involved in the fact that here the percentage of waste arising from the spoiled brick is lower than in almost any modern plant where brick are made on anything like the same large scale. The economy is continuous from the very first moulding to the finished product. It is based on -- apart from the careful and skillful mixing already referred to — a system of special attention in the details of "jarring" the moulds, of "dumping," "edging" and "hacking" upon the open yards which are in use here; then again it is a principle of the Shultz works that good drying is half the battle, if the manufacturer cares to produce an output of good color, and not the ugly grey which results from burning half-moist brick. Eternal vigilance is the price of success in these matters, and to complete the claim after watching the brick like delicate infants from "hack" to kiln, the "setting" is there done like a work of art, so as to ensure the perfection of draft for the burning. The fuel used in these kilns is hard coal, the kiln consuming, on an average 100 tons to each 1,000,000 brick. Another notable feature in the Shuliz works is their system of repairing all machinery and tools on the premises, a complete machine shop and staff of experts being maintained for that purpose. The well known corporation of The Terry Brothers Company Is represented in the market by two highly respected brands of brick: The "Terry" and the Terry Bros." The latter is made from blue clay alone; the former from mixed blue and yellow. The company's banks at Kingston and East Kingston, where, the two plants are situated, are of enormous extent. These deposits run mostly to blue clay, the East Kingston banks showing a large percentage of yellow, those at Kingston containing only blue. The banks are overlaid with an excellent quality of sand for both moulding and mixing. The company's plant includes eleven machines with an aggregate dally capacity of 250,000 or 30,000,000 bricks per season. Both circular pits and improved sod pits are used here -- eight „of the former and three of the latter. The product is shipped down the river on the company's own barges, of which it owns seven, varying in capacity from 200.000 to 325,000 brick per barge. The Terry Brothers Company enjoy the distinction of being the first concern on the Hudson river to burn brick with coal for fuel. This innovation was begun in 1884, and has been continued ever since. After more than twenty years experience with mineral fuel in their kilns, the management maintain that it gives a more uniform burn than can be obtained with wood fuel. In addition to this important point of uniformity, they believe that coal is more manageable, more amenable in nice adjustments and in every practical respect more satisfactory than wood. Besides the honor of being the pioneer coal burners of the Hudson river yards, the Terry Brothers Company claims a smaller percentage of broken brick than any other plant. This very favorable condition for a concern using only open-yard systems, which no doubt operates to the advantage of the consumer by reducing the waste for which the consumer has to pay in the long run — whether he knows It or not — is secured by a system of exceptionally careful handling, both of the green brick and of the burnt, in every one of the processes from moulding to culling. The dumping here is performed very gingerly, the edging is done as if the brick were so much porcelain, though with great speed, which can only be consistent with extreme care when as is the rule of this establishment, the workmen are all thoroughly practiced in their business. Lastly, the cullers lay down the selected brick taken from the kiln so deftly that very few foremen of buildings have ever had good cause to complain of ragged edges on the "Terry" or "Terry Bros." material since these brands appeared on the market. Artificial coloring material is not used in either brand, the natural color alone being relied upon to produce a good red brick. The Terry yards were founded in 1850 by the late David Terry. At his death, which took place in 1869, the business was taken up by his sons, Albert and Edwin, who carried it on in partnership until 1902, when Edwin Terry retired and the concern was incorporated as the Terry Brothers company: Jay Terry, vice-president; David Terry, secretary and treasurer. If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!
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Editor's Note: Thank you to Alison Morris, Hudson River Maritime Museum education intern, for this blog post. For more information about the environmental history of the Hudson Valley view the Rescuing the River online exhibit. The battle for the environmental well being of the Hudson Valley has been a long and hard fought battle. Without Frances “Franny” Reese the physical state of the Hudson Valley would be extremely different today as well as the overall grassroots environmental preservation movement otherwise known as “a movement that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Movements and organizations use collective action from the local level to implement change at the local, regional, national, or international levels.”[1] Spurred by a love of the Hudson Valley region by way of her husband’s family home, Obercreek Farm, set on former dairy farmland in the hamlet of Hughsonville in the Town of Wappinger, Franny joined with other activists to advocate at a local level to preserve the beautiful lands of their homes along the Hudson River.[2] It is important to acknowledge the hard work and contributions of women like Frances Reese and how they spearheaded different grassroots movements that still have significance in preserving the lands of the Hudson River Valley and the river itself. Born in Manhattan in 1917, Frances Reese attended Barnard College, majoring in playwriting and English, and also attended Yale Art School. In 1937, she married her husband Willis Livingston Meier Reese. They both shared interests in conservation and preservation in the Hudson Valley.[3] Frances was a “lifelong advocate and protector of the land and life in the Hudson Valley” and was considered an “environmental trailblazer.”[4] She was “a founder and chairwomen [(1966-1984)] emeritus of the environmental group Scenic Hudson [founded in 1963] and a veteran of the fight to keep a power plant from being built on Storm King Mountain.”[5] Prior to the establishment of Scenic Hudson, a non-profit environmental preservation organization, “grassroots environmental activism did not exist” in the capacity that it does today.[6] Known by many, Franny “was a sparkplug in the movement that began over 40 years ago” ensuring that unbridled development in the Hudson Valley would not go unchecked.[7] She unfortunately passed away in July of 2003 after sustaining fatal injuries in a car accident “on Route 9 near Cold Spring.”[8] In 1965, she and the crew of citizens that she recruited, initially known as the Scenic Hudson Preservation Committee, won legal standing to take on the Federal Power Commission and the developer, Consolidated Edison who were attempting to build, at the time, the largest hydroelectric plant, on Storm King Mountain.[9] Not only would the face of Storm King Mountain be forever changed if Con. Edison's plans were approved, but because of the porous nature of the Hudson Valley's bedrock, there was a high risk that untreated Hudson River water would filter into groundwater, which was and is the source of drinking water for Cornwall, NY.[10] The location of the proposed plant’s construction and water pipeline was also located extremely close to the Catskill Aqueduct.[11] Concerns were raised about the potential impacts of blasting, and how it could interrupt or damage the aqueduct, significantly or completely interrupting the water supply to New York City.[12] This decision came to be known as the “Storm King Decision.”[13] Stopping this development, “Frances and her committee of like-minded individuals achieved important precedent in the national environmental movement, establishing the principle that citizens could intervene in court cases affecting the environment.”[14] She, and those who would become the Scenic Hudson founders, opposed such a development as it would deface the famous peak of Storm King Mountain and harm the ecology of the Hudson River.[15] Language from this case would go on to be included in the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act.[16] In similar legislation, like the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act, there also came the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency that mandated environmental impact studies for construction projects.[17] The Clean Water Act of 1977 and the Superfund Law of 1980 also secured passage in the legislation through precedent set by the Storm King Decision.[18] During Franny’s lifetime and involvement in Scenic Hudson which eventually became the organization that we know today, “she […] oversaw the group's legal and educational work. She attended board meetings[...] and remained cheerfully active as a strategist for policy and litigation, a liaison to state and federal governments and one of the organization's leading fund-raisers.”[19] You might ask, how might the environmental movement and land preservation directly impact the Hudson River? Well, it's important to look at particular locations along the Hudson that would not be the way they are today without Franny Reese’s direct contributions and actions. The Franny Reese State Park, Highland, New York,, which is a recognized by New York State Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation as well as the Palisades Interstate Park System, is one of these very locations. The very organization that Franny helped in establishing, Scenic Hudson, manages the grounds of this park to this day. Through its official recognition and ultimate protection under these organizations, the natural landscapes and ecosystems of the Hudson River Valley are allowed to flourish. Through the very establishment of Franny Reese State Park, Scenic Hudson was able to “conserve this magnificent bluff-top forest [and] to prevent a massive residential development from destroying it.”[20] Industrial development that would otherwise negatively impact the land through the destruction of crucial ecological communities as well as pollution is blocked from occurring. It is with state parks, like Franny Reese, that the natural views and integrity of the Hudson River Valley and the River itself are maintained. As the Franny Reese State Park has direct access to the Hudson River, it also preserves the riverfront land, and the river itself directly, through its allocation of environmentally preserved land through the park systems and non-profit organizations like Scenic Hudson. The very creation of parks leads to the ability for non-profit organizations, like Scenic Hudson, to conserve important ecological environments and allow for individuals to explore the natural treasures of the Hudson Valley. The very ability for people to be able to connect with nature is one of the important motivating pillars for Scenic Hudson. Movements like environmental conservation go hand in hand with many other women’s movements. Franny Reese’s involvement in such critical environmental projects and decisions in the Hudson Valley provides insight into the larger picture of Women's involvement in crucial public change organizations and efforts. Environmental conservation movements empower women. In many instances, women are often subordinated under men and their voices largely go unheard or are completely blocked. Environmental conservation gives women an outlet to enact meaningful and lasting change in their communities. This ultimate growth of women's participation in public policy contributes to the ultimate increase in women’s involvement in everyday institutions of society and life. According to the organization IUCN, “women often have deep knowledge of their local ecosystems, and are habitually the primary caregivers and providers for their families. They are more likely to be directly impacted by environmental degradation, particularly in developing countries where they may rely heavily on natural resources for their livelihoods.”[21] When looking at the role that the environment plays in the larger picture of established societies, it is easier to recognize the interconnectedness between environmental conservation and political activism and change. Below are two critically important quotes from the IUCN that illuminate the necessity of environmental conservation and activism in the scheme of women’s rights and empowerment: “Women's participation in environmental policy and action is not only a matter of equity and justice, but also essential for achieving sustainable development. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, [...] states that ‘gender equality is not only a fundamental human right but a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable world.’”[22] “Empowering women and amplifying their voices in environmental policy and action is crucial to achieve sustainable development and address the urgent environmental challenges facing the world today. It requires recognizing the gender inequalities that exist, and working to overcome them through inclusive and gender-responsive policies and programs. It also requires valuing women's knowledge and expertise, and supporting their leadership and entrepreneurship. Only by doing so can we ensure that the environmental policies and actions we take are effective, equitable, and sustainable for all.”[23] The undeniable contributions of Franny Reese reveal the larger story of how land conservation was a crucial aspect of public change/advocacy for women’s rights and the maintenance of the Hudson Valley and Hudson River. [1] “Grassroots,” Wikipedia, February 24, 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grassroots. [2] Alexandra Zissu, “How Franny Reese Fought Con Edison and Saved Storm King Mountain,” Times Union, Accessed March 6, 2024. https://www.timesunion.com/hudsonvalley/outdoors/article/how-franny-reese-fought-coned-saved-storm-king-16972561.php. [3] Wolfgang Saxon, “Frances Reese, 85, Defender of Hudson Valley,” The New York Times, July 9, 2003. https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/09/nyregion/frances-reese-85-defender-of-hudson-valley.html. [4] “Parks & Trails New York: What’s in a Name? Who Was Franny Reese?” Parks & Trails New York, Accessed March 6, 2024. https://www.ptny.org/news-and-media/you-gotta-have-friends/2020/04/whats-name-featuring-franny-reese-state-park. [5] Wolfgang Saxon, “Frances Reese, 85, Defender of Hudson Valley,” The New York Times, July 9, 2003. https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/09/nyregion/frances-reese-85-defender-of-hudson-valley.html. [6] Steve Rosenberg, “Preservation and Perseverance: Pillars of Scenic Hudson’s Grassroots Legacy,” Hudson River Maritime Museum, Accessed March 6, 2024. https://www.hrmm.org/history-blog/preservation-and-perseverance-pillars-of-scenic-hudsons-grassroots-legacy. [7] Ibid [8] Ibid [9] Wolfgang Saxon, “Frances Reese, 85, Defender of Hudson Valley,” The New York Times, July 9, 2003. https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/09/nyregion/frances-reese-85-defender-of-hudson-valley.html. [10] “Powering The Hudson: Storm King,” Hudson River Valley Heritage, accessed March 20, 2024, https://omeka.hrvh.org/exhibits/show/rescuing-the-river/powering-the-hudson/storm-king. [11] Ibid. [12] Ibid. [13] Alexandra Zissu, “How Franny Reese Fought Con Edison and Saved Storm King Mountain,” Times Union, Accessed March 6, 2024. https://www.timesunion.com/hudsonvalley/outdoors/article/how-franny-reese-fought-coned-saved-storm-king-16972561.php. [14] Wolfgang Saxon, “Frances Reese, 85, Defender of Hudson Valley,” The New York Times, July 9, 2003. https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/09/nyregion/frances-reese-85-defender-of-hudson-valley.html. [15] Susan Hereth, “Franny Reese: A Hero For the Hudson Valley,” Accessed March 6, 2024. https://www.scenichudson.org/wp-content/uploads/legacy/u2/freesebooklet.pdf [16] Wolfgang Saxon, “Frances Reese, 85, Defender of Hudson Valley,” The New York Times, July 9, 2003. https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/09/nyregion/frances-reese-85-defender-of-hudson-valley.html. [17] Ibid. [18] Ibid. [19] Ibid. [20] Susan Hereth, “Franny Reese: A Hero For the Hudson Valley,” Accessed March 6, 2024. https://www.scenichudson.org/wp-content/uploads/legacy/u2/freesebooklet.pdf [21] Srinivasan Balakrishnan, “Empowering the Unheard: Why Women’s Voices Are Crucial in Environmental Policy and Action,” IUCN, accessed March 3, 2023. https://www.iucn.org/story/202303/empowering-unheard-why-womens-voices-are-crucial-environmental-policy-and-action. [22] Ibid. [23 Ibid. Bibliography Allen, Maeve. “5 Inspiring Women Who Made History in the Hudson Valley.” Hudson Valley Magazine, July 19, 2023. https://hvmag.com/life-style/hudson-valley-inspiring-women/. Balakrishnan, Srinivasan. “Empowering the Unheard: Why Women’s Voices Are Crucial in Environmental Policy and Action.” IUCN, March 3, 2023. https://www.iucn.org/story/202303/empowering-unheard-why-womens-voices-are-crucial-environmental-policy-and-action. “Franny Reese State Park.” Scenic Hudson, June 28, 2023. https://www.scenichudson.org/explore-the-valley/scenic-hudson-parks/franny-reese-state-park/. “Grassroots.” Wikipedia, February 24, 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grassroots. Hereth, Susan. “Franny Reese: A Hero For the Hudson Valley.” Accessed March 6, 2024. https://www.scenichudson.org/wp-content/uploads/legacy/u2/freesebooklet.pdf “Parks & Trails New York: What’s in a Name? Who Was Franny Reese?” Parks & Trails New York. Accessed March 6, 2024. https://www.ptny.org/news-and-media/you-gotta-have-friends/2020/04/whats-name-featuring-franny-reese-state-park. Rosenberg, Steve. “Preservation and Perseverance: Pillars of Scenic Hudson’s Grassroots Legacy.” Hudson River Maritime Museum. Accessed March 6, 2024. https://www.hrmm.org/history-blog/preservation-and-perseverance-pillars-of-scenic-hudsons-grassroots-legacy. “Powering The Hudson: Storm King.” Hudson River Valley Heritage. Accessed March 20, 2024. https://omeka.hrvh.org/exhibits/show/rescuing-the-river/powering-the-hudson/storm-king. Saxon, Wolfgang. “Frances Reese, 85, Defender of Hudson Valley.” The New York Times, July 9, 2003. https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/09/nyregion/frances-reese-85-defender-of-hudson-valley.html. Zissu, Alexandra. “How Franny Reese Fought Con Edison and Saved Storm King Mountain.” Times Union. Accessed March 6, 2024. https://www.timesunion.com/hudsonvalley/outdoors/article/how-franny-reese-fought-coned-saved-storm-king-16972561.php. AuthorAlison Morris is a senior at Marist College, majoring in History with a double minor in Music and Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies. Their areas of interest in History include South East Asia, particularly that of China and Japan, as well as World War II era History from global & American perspectives. Currently, Alison is an education intern at the Hudson River Maritime Museum, working on various social media endeavors for Solaris and HRMM's various tour offerings, as well as curriculum development and support for homeschool lessons on Indigenous people of the Hudson Valley & their maritime history. Alison is a Hudson Valley native who took on this internship with HRMM to broaden their historical understanding of and outreach to the Hudson Valley. If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!
Editor's note: The following text is from the "Kingston Daily Freeman" newspaper August 15, 1906. Thank you to Contributing Scholar George A. Thompson for finding and cataloging this article. The language, spelling and grammar of the article reflects the time period when it was written. ALL THE YARDS ARE BUSY AND IN NEED OF MORE HELP. BUILDERS PAY $250,000 ANNUALLY IN WAGES. SEVERAL HUNDRED MEN ARE EMPLOYED. One of the most important branches of industry that this city is blessed with is that of boat building, which has more than doubled Itself within the past ten years. 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. All the yards are located on the Rondout creek, extending from Ponckhockie to Eddyvllle. In order to give the readers of The Freeman an idea of what is being done at these yards a representative of this journal made a tour of the yards today and gleaned the following facts: The leading boat building establishment is that of C. Hiltebrant at South Rondout, and this was the first one visited. At this yard at the present time 133 men are employed. There are seven barges in course of construction and a large amount of repairing work is going on. Two floating dry docks are used at the works, the largest being able to take on a vessel of 1,300 tons burthen, and the second one accommodating a vessel of 800 tons. At short intervals large cargoes of timber are received at the yard for the construction of all classes of freight-carrying boats. Yesterday the work of discharging a big cargo of timber was begun and there will be several more before the snow flies. One cargo of lumber that is due at this yard almost any day now was shipped on a large sea vessel which left Puget Sound with its load on February 15th last. The failure of the vessel to arrive long before this is attributed to adverse weather. Mr. Hiltebrant, on being asked what the prospects were for a busy winter's work on the yard, replied, with a chuckle, that it was a little early to state positively, but things looked remarkably bright. The last few words mean a great deal, and it is dollars to doughnuts that, the yard will be busy all winter. Mr. Hiltebrant volunteered the information that there is as much money paid out here weekly among the boat yards as there was on the Delaware & Hudson canal in its palmiest days. So busy, indeed, has the work been at the yard since early spring that Mr. Hiltehrant has been compelled to refuse several orders for new boats. More good mechanics would be a welcome addition to his works and he needs them very much. The workmen all hold Mr. Hiltebrant in high esteem. They know his kind and generous nature and every man is happy and contented with his lot. The pioneer in the boat building business on the Rondout creek is John J. Baisden, who has in active operation two yards, one at Sleightsburgh and the other at Eddyville. Mr Baisden began his boat building experience at Mongaup, Pa., in the year 1853. On October 2, 1882, he opened a yard at Eddyvllle, which he has continued ever since, many fine boats having been launched from the ways there. In the year 1897 he branched out and established a yard at Sleightsburgh. which before long became his main plant. Today Mr. Baisden has three barges in course of construction, two of which are well advanced toward completion. Over 40 men are at work on the two yards, which is small in comparison to the number which he usually employs. At the Sleightsburgh yard much repairing is done, this part of the industry at his works being a little slack just now. During the past few years Mr. Baisden has built for the Old Dominion Steamship Company of New York ten large lighters and one steamer, and all his work has given the best of satisfaction to the Old Dominion people. On the dock close by the South Rondout ferry on the Rondout side of the creek is located the boat yard of J. Rice & Son, the selling agents of the building firm being Schoonmaker & Rice. Here 45 men are employed, and no good mechanic who applies for work is turned away. But for the delay in receiving timber fifty more men would have been at work on the yard some time ago. At present there are three large barges in course of construction, and it was learned from Mr. Rice that the outlook for a busy winter's work on the yard was very rosy. This firm expects, before navigation closes, to have over 1,000,000 feet of lumber on its yard, which will be used up in the building of boats before next spring. All the barges built at this yard are now constructed for Schoonmaker & Rice, who find a ready market for them in New York and elsewhere. On Saturday J. Rice & Son gave their employes, who were accompanied by their wives and sweethearts, an excursion down the river on the new house barge Central, recently completed at the works. The tug J. D. Schoonmaker towed the barge. The firm provided its guests with an abundance of refreshments and music was furnished by an orchestra. Every one on board had a delightful time. As the reporter was taking leave, Mr. Rice said: "Any man who understands the work of boat building will not be turned away." At Derrenbacher's Corners near the foot of Ravine street can be found another boat building establishment. that of R. Lenahan & Company, which now gives employment to 65 men. On the stocks three big freight barges are being put together and as soon as they are finished and launched work on others will be begun, as the firm has several nice orders ahead which will keep the men busy for a long time. There will be plenty of winter work at this yard. The firm has large consignments of timber on the way to the yard and for a concern that developed not such a long time ago it is doing remarkably well. First-class mechanics and sober and industrious laborers are ever welcome at this yard. Adjoining the yard of J. Rice & Son is the Rondout boat yard conducted by W. J. Turck. Jr., and John Turck, with A. M. Cooper as manager. This yard was formerly known as the McCausland ship building works. The present occupants have forty men busily engaged in building two barges, and have many orders ahead for the construction of others. At this yard a large amount of repairing work is done, and the only trouble seems to be the shortage of help. Good ship carpenters are needed badly. The specialty of this concern is the building of ice, coal and brick barges. A member of the firm said that the prospects for a busy winter's work on the yard were exceedingly bright. On Turck's dock in Ponckhockie is still another boat building industry, that of Captain Dennis Donovan. Although not as large some of the others, it materially increases the number of men employed in this branch of industry. Mr. Donovan employs, on an average, 22 men, and would give work to more, but sometimes is hard pushed to retain his usual force. Two barges are in course of construction on his yard, and he told the reporter that he had enough orders ahead to keep his men — and he would be pleased to engage more good mechanics — busy for a year to come. He said that the demand for freight barges at the present time was great, and the yards hereabouts could not turn them out fast enough. The J. Graham Rose Freighting Line is the title of another boat building enterprise doing business on the upper island dock of the Delaware & Hudson Company. This firm employs at present on its yard 35 men. The building of coal and cement boats is the principal feature of its business. In conjunction with this yard are the Consolidated Cement Company's plants at Eddyville and Creek Locks, which give employment to 30 men or more. At the present time all the yards are busy. Nearly a quarter of a million dollars is paid out annually by the boat builders of Rondout and vicinity to their workingmen. who find steady and lucrative employment in the yards that line both sides of the Rondout creek from Ponckhockie to Eddyville. Editor's Note: Our thanks to Joan Dwyer for compiling, and sharing, this list of Rondout Creek boatyards during research for her newly published book "Dwyer Brothers". If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today! Editor's Note: It is an understatement to say that Ray Ruge was accomplished in many areas and lived a remarkable life. He was born on June 21, 1908, in New York City to Bernard Arnold and Beulah E. Ruge. U.S. Census records show the family lived in Manhattan (1910), Bronx (1915), Tarrytown (1920), Carmel (1925 & 1930), and East Orange, Essex NJ (1940). Raymond married Valice Foley in 1942. For information about current ice boating on the Hudson River go to these websites: White Wings and Black Ice, HRIYC or Hudson River Ice Yacht Preservation Trust . Editor's Note: The following text is from "Madison Day by Day", Wisconsin State Journal, Tuesday, Feb. 6, 1945 by Betty Cass. In the February 10, [1945] Saturday Evening Post, which subscribers will receive tomorrow and which will appear on the news stands Thursday, is what is probably the best article on ice-boating ever written, titled, “Fastest Sleigh Ride in the World,” which is interesting for many reasons. First, and perhaps most important since we have two lakes in our laps, it points out, and proves, that ice-boating, “once a rich man’s game, today is a sport for anyone who has seventy-five dollars, a craving for speed, and plenty of ice." Second, it gives many intriguing facts about famous old racing ice boats of Wisconsin, and brings to light (for practically all Madisonians except the few iceboating fans still left here) the fact that one of the two premier trophies of the sport, the Hearst cup, “now rests at Madison, jealously guarded by the 350 square-footer, Fritz, owned by Fritz Jungbluth and sailed by Carl Bernard. Third, and most interesting, the article is written by a man now living in Madison but who didn’t live here when he wrote it. This man, Raymond A. Ruge, of West Point, NY, now an architect at Badger Ordinance Works, landed in both the pages of the Post and in Madison by two of the most circuitous routes we've ever encountered. One of them is traced in detail in the Keeping Posted department of the Post: RAYMOND A. RUGE says that the most remarkable thing about him as a writer is that he is not a writer and that, as a nonwriter, he has made both the Encyclopedia Britanica [sic] and the Post the same year - both by request. (He wrote the Britanica’s section about iceboating.) We asked Mr. Ruge to tell us how he got to be such a successful writing nonwriter. “You have to be born in New York, move to Lake Mahopac, about fifty miles north of New York, when you're eight years old, go to Princeton, become an architect, forsake architecture for running a hotel and, to keep the hotel running, develop winter sports in the vicinity.” At least that’s the way it happened in Mr. Ruge’s case. As a winter-sports lover, Mr. Ruge would have preferred to go to Dartmouth, but his headmaster at Pawling School thought he had better go to a college which didn’t have such pleasant winters. Princeton, Mr. Ruge believes, ideally filled this bill. He still remembers the Jersey winters, with their mud and fog, with a shudder, but he played ice hockey, and lacrosse in the spring. He picked up a Phi Beta Kappa key along the way. The depression by 1935 had made architecture a profession which men ‘used to follow,’ so Ruge took over the management of a country club hotel near West Point. Winter business was nonexistent, except when snow for skiing was on the ground. To bolster trade, Mr. Ruge built a couple of iceboats and introduced New Yorkers to the sport. When it snowed, the skiers came. When it didn’t snow, the iceboaters came. Mr. Ruge probably got the greatest bang out of the fact that a regular guest for the iceboating was a manager of the lordly Waldorf. (Waldorf Astoria Hotel in NYC)
To keep his hand in at architecture, Mr. Ruge designed a cottage-type summer resort at Lake George in 1939 and supervised the building. “Starting with a hayfield, four ancient apple trees and a beautiful stretch of sandy beach on May first,” he said, “we set four contractors to work racing one another, and completed the place and were ready for business at four p.m., July first. By six p. m. there wasn’t an empty room.” THAT, then, is the round-about way Mr. Ruge got into the Post . . that and being recommended to the editor of the magazine as being the man most likely to write a good article on modern iceboating. And THIS is the way he got to Madison: When the war started, Mr. Ruge was engaged, as an architect, in slum-clearance work in New York. Since then he has been doing architectural work on war constructions, and as he sometimes has a choice of locations, he has made it a point to choose jobs which are in places which offer winter sports. Several of them have taken him to the west, one in particular taking him to the Canadian Rocky Mountains, near Lake Louise, where he did some skiing at 9,000 feet in a beautiful spot which could be reached ONLY on skiis [sic], or by snowshoes. When an opportunity to take a job at Badger Ordinance Works in Madison, WI, was offered, he chose it promptly, and last November landed here with Mrs. Ruge and their year-old son Peter, expecting a big winter of ice boating . . . expectations which have resulted in exactly one hour of the sport to date. “I’m amazed at the apparent lack of interest in iceboating here,” he says, “In the east we travel 20 and 30 miles for a day of iceboating, while here, with two wonderful lakes at your front doors, only a handful of people take advantage of them.” So sincere is Mr. Ruge in his enthusiasm for the sport and in his interest in helping revive it that he has become a member of the committee recently formed under the auspices of the Madison municipal recreation division which is planning a series of regattas here, starting Sunday, Jan. 21, on Lake Monona, during which he expects to get in that long-anticipated iceboating on “the famous lakes of Madison” of which he’s heard so much. Editor’s Note: Badger Ordinance Works in Madison, WI In the months prior to the U.S. entry into WWII, the U.S. government began construction of several smokeless powder plants to meet the increasing needs of the U.S. and its allies fighting against Hitler and the Third Reich. Ideas to build upon or extend existing production capabilities at existing plants were discarded in favor of building additional plants at new locations which provided greater safety from enemy attacks or sabotage. Spreading the workload out at several plants would also provide employment opportunities throughout the country. Badger was first operated by Hercules Powder which had a plant in Port Ewen, NY. Badger Army Ammunition Plant Historical Overview 1941-2006 If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!
March is a good time to celebrate the Irish cultural and historical heritage of the Catskill Mountains. What had been fondly called “Ireland’s 33rd County,” the Irish Alps, or Irish Catskills, was the prime summer destination for thousands of Irish immigrants living in the dense cultural neighborhoods of New York City. Many would take refuge in the lush, rolling green hills of the Catskills away from the heat and dust of NYC summers. Whether by bus, train, or car, hundreds of Irish New Yorkers would make the annual trip to the Catskill Mountains from the 1920s to the early 1970s. The PBS documentary, “The Irish Catskills: Dancing at the Crossroads,” referenced for this blog post, takes viewers on a tour of not only Irish cultural heritage but a sweeping history of the annual migration of Irish-American families to keystone towns of the Irish Catskills, like East Durham, Leeds, and South Cairo. The Catskill Mountains became synonymous with summertime and the leisure of the middle and upper classes by circuitous means. According to Michele Herrmann, writer of “The Borscht Belt Was a Haven for Generations of Jewish Americans,” for Smithsonian Magazine, Jewish aid societies in New York created programs that encouraged Jewish immigrants to earn a living via agriculture as a way of supporting Jewish communities in the States. The Catskill Mountains, however luscious in its greenery, are not conducive to farming given their rocky terrain. New inhabitants of the area quickly learned that they were better off using the land to attract borders for the summer months. The mountains were a major draw for New Yorkers, initially, as doctors at the time often advised tuberculosis patients to get fresh mountain air and (literal) breathing room; the disease was easily contracted in the tightly packed neighborhoods and tenement houses of New York City. Advertising also helped direct attention to the Catskills’ resorts and hotels, such as the guidebook series “Summer Homes” published by New York and Ontario Railway. As Herrmann writes, “...one Jewish farmer named Yana “John” Gerson listed one of the publication’s first advertisements for a Jewish boarding house in the 1890s.” As tens of thousands of Irish immigrants made their way to the United States, they sought a lucrative opportunity to renovate old barns and boarding houses (previously owned by German immigrants up until World War II) into modest hotels for the typical urbanite looking for the fresh mountain air of upstate New York. Many Irish immigrants were also motivated by homesickness, and sought out the familiar surroundings, familiar accents and cultures that made home not feel so far away. The Irish Echo, the oldest Irish-American Newspaper in the United States, established in 1928, and later the Irish Voice were written for Irish audiences, as well as word of mouth, may have advertised these Irish-founded bars, restaurants and hotels bolstered the weary Irish-American city-dweller to explore upstate New York. Hotels like O’Neill’s Cozy Corner in East Durham, NY, later named The O’Neill House, were among the first Irish-owned establishments in the area and sported the latest trends in hotel hospitality. Far more humble than the free wi-fi and complimentary gym access that are the bare minimum of hotel standards today, hotels in the 1920s and 1930s were still writing the “blueprint” that the hospitality industry uses today. A top choice hotel like O’Neill’s Cozy Corner would include such amenities as private toilets, hot and cold running water, electric lights, and East Durham’s first concrete swimming pool. Converted barns acted as dance halls for patrons who would dance along to the musical styles of famous Irish musicians living in New York City who would come up to East Durham and play traditional Irish music. A fun night out in the Irish Catskills would be incomplete if it didn’t have “Stack of Barley/ Little Stack of Wheat,” playing at least a few times that evening. The newfound leisure of the working class came on the heels of harsh working conditions of Irish transit workers in New York City, who worked primarily in subway, bus and railroad industries. At this time in American history, there were no laws that dictated the quality of working conditions or for how long people worked or whether or not they were allowed to take time off, so work hours depended upon the generosity of one’s boss, who was usually not very generous. It was common for a transit worker to have 12 hours-long, grueling shifts, every single day with no vacation time. In fact, transit workers were regularly fired for taking off on a Sunday to go to church. That is, until Michael J. Quill, from County Kerry in Ireland, co-founded the Transit Workers Union of America in 1934. He advocated on behalf of over 34,000 transit workers for higher wages, a 40-hour work week, and paid vacation time. These changes introduced leisure time to the lives of many transit workers and their families. With higher wages and paid vacation time, Irish families could now afford to travel and stay at resorts and hotels for extended periods of time. Predominantly working class families could now experience rest and what it felt like to be waited on for a change. Of the over 40 Irish-owned hotels and resorts in the Catskills at the height of their popularity, only a handful are in business today. As one contributor reflects in “The Irish Catskills” documentary, “Air conditioning, airlines, and assimilation were the three A’s that killed the Catskills.” As the 1960s and 70s came to a close, the majority of Irish immigrants were no longer working class but were upper middle class. They could not afford the luxury of their own backyards and larger homes that made escaping to the mountains redundant. When the Irish Catskills first came into prominence, most immigrants could not afford to go back home to Ireland, which is what made resort life in the Catskills feel so welcoming. Around the time of the Catskills’ decline in popularity, upper middle class Irish-American families could afford to travel to the real Ireland whenever they wanted, so an analogue of Ireland was no longer necessary. Air conditioning went from a luxury to a summertime necessity, so spending one’s free time in a hot wooden cabin in the middle of the woods was no longer as appealing as it once had been. However, there are places in upstate New York that are doing their part to keep the Irish musical and cultural history of the Catskills alive. Shamrock House, an inn/restaurant/bar holds Traditional Irish Sessions every Sunday afternoon, in which musicians can bring their own instruments and play alongside each other, or simply come and be a joyful spectator. Annual events like Irish Arts Week have also taken on the mantle of maintaining Irish traditional music and dance for the next generation of young artists. Each summer, famous musicians teach middle school and high school aged kids the traditions and cultures that have become synonymous with the Catskills Mountains and Irish communities abroad. External Links: To watch the full “Irish Catskills” documentary: WMHT Specials | The Irish Catskills: Dancing at the Crossroads | PBS
AuthorCarissa Scantlebury is a volunteer researcher at the Hudson River Maritime Museum. She graduated from Hunter College with a degree in Classical Archaeology. She loves getting lost in a cozy fantasy novel, watching Doctor Who (David Tennant is her favorite), and learning new languages. If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!
Experiencing maritime travel during the reign of the steam engine in the Hudson River Valley was a vastly different experience for women than it was for men. Especially during the 1800s, it was quite rare to find both men and women traveling in the same spaces, such was the case in most forms of transportation, including steamboats on the Hudson River. The standard for the time was that men and women, when traveling, should be separate from each other. Matthew Wills on JSTOR Daily writes, “The Victorian segregation of men and women into separate spheres was quite rigorous in hotels, trains, and steamboats by the 1840s. Escorted and unattached ladies – ladies being very much a middle and upper class designation – were kept apart from unattached men (whatever their social status) via separate entrances, rooms, cars, and cabins.”[1] Mind you that the vast majority of these women traveling on steamboats on the Hudson River were of moderate to high wealth. To find steamboats or any other form of transportation without separate spaces for men and women was rare. It was very common to see women traveling with a suitable male escort, and rare to see women traveling without one. While women and men could meet each other in saloons and dining rooms, women would not permanently stay in these areas, and had access to their own separate space that only women could access. These separate spaces, at least on a Hudson River steamboat, were called “Ladies Cabins.” These spaces acted as their own separate saloon or parlor for women to relax and socialize with each other on journeys up and down the Hudson River, including everything women would need right down to their own bathroom facilities. Even the Rondout’s hometown steamboat, the Mary Powell, “Queen of the Hudson,'' had a ladies cabin. These ladies cabins would be managed by a female member of the steamboat’s crew. Such was the case with a Miss R. White, who was in charge of the ladies department on the steamboat L. Broadman.[2] Another example that depicts a woman being in charge of a ladies department of a steamboat is the story of the steamer Chief Justice Marshall. This unfortunately unnamed woman became a hero during a trip along the Hudson. The Newburgh Gazette reported on May 7th, 1830 that during a routine trip on the Hudson a boiler aboard the steamer Chief Justice Marshall exploded leading to boiling hot steam spreading across the ship. Immediately reacting, the unnamed woman quickly shut the door leading to the ladies cabin, and thoroughly secured it. This prevented the boiling hot steam from entering the cabin and scorching the women within the cabin alive.[3] While it is quite unfortunate that this woman was left unnamed, she is nevertheless responsible for saving the lives of all the women who were located in the ladies cabin of the steamer Chief Justice Marshall. Another woman that worked aboard a steamboat was Fannie M. Anthony, a stewardess aboard the famous steamer Mary Powell in its “ladies cabin.” As a woman of color, Fannie would clean and maintain the cabin, along with assisting passengers with requests. As a stewardess, her job would be similar to that of a housekeeper of a wealthy family. She would serve aboard the Mary Powell for decades before retiring in 1912. Interestingly, she was celebrated in local newspapers, uncommon at the time due to the fact that she was a woman of color, whose experiences are usually disregarded and forgotten throughout history. For example, an 1894 issue of the Brooklyn Times Union, quoting the Newburgh Sunday Telegram, celebrates Fannie Anthony in an article titled “Compliments for a Jamaica Woman.” It reads, “Mrs. Fannie Anthony, the efficient and obliging stewardess on the steamer Mary Powell, is about concluding her twenty-fifth season in that capacity. Mrs. Anthony enjoys an acquaintance among the ladies along the Hudson River that is both interesting and highly complementary to the amiable disposition and cheery manner of the only female among the crew of the favorite steamboat. Mrs. Anthony travels over 15,000 miles every summer while attending to her duties on the boat. She seldom misses a trip and looks the picture of health and happiness.”[4] You may notice that the article refers to Fannie as a Jamaican woman, they are not saying she is from the island of Jamaica in the Caribbean, she is actually from Jamaica, Queens in New York City. There are many other articles just like this one that reference Mrs. Fannie Anthony and talk about her in a positive way. While she was only a stewardess aboard the Mary Powell, it seems that through her enjoyable personality, the excellence of her service, and longevity in the time she served aboard the Mary Powell, she managed to overcome many of the immovable obstacles that faced most women of color at the time. Like the steamboat Mary Powell herself, Fannie achieved a measure of fame not usually afforded ordinary people, much less a woman of color. These three women all played vital roles in ensuring the successful, enjoyable, and safe travel of steamboats along the Hudson River. These women dedicated themselves to the people they served in their respective “ladies cabins.” In the case of Miss R. White and Mrs. Fannie Anthony, that was to serve their passengers with distinction and dignity. In the case of that unfortunately unnamed woman who worked in the “ladies cabin” of the steamer Chief Justice Marshall, she was a hero who saved the lives of everyone in the ladies cabin from being boiled alive from the steam that escaped the engines of that steamer. [1] Wills, Matthew. Separate Spheres On Narrow Boats: Victorians At Sea. Jstor Daily, November 22, 2021. https://daily.jstor.org/separate-spheres-on-narrow-boats-victorians-at-sea/ [2] Rockland County Messenger. Welcome Steamer L. Boardman. Haverstraw, New York. March 21, 1878. 1878-03-21 [3] The Newburgh Gazette. 1830-05-07 [4]https://omeka2.hrvh.org/exhibits/show/mary-powell/staffing-the-mary-powell/african-americans/fannie-m--anthony AuthorJack Loesch is a senior at SUNY New Paltz majoring in the field of History, with a minor in If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!
Originally built in 1839 of granite Robbins Reef Lighthouse is located between Staten Island's North Shore and the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. The spark plug style lighthouse warns mariners to avoid a rocky reef. The solar powered light, blinking every six seconds is maintained by the US Coast Guard. The Noble Maritime Collection maintains the structure. Before the days of automated lights, lighthouse keepers and their families lived in the lighthouses and maintained the lights. The Robbins Reef lighthouse has six levels from the cellar where the cistern was kept for fresh water up to the the lantern gallery above the fifth level balcony. The kitchen was on the first level, the sitting room and office on the second floor with bedrooms on the third and fourth levels. Katherine Walker maintained the light for 33 years following the death of her husband Captain John Walker. from pneumonia in 1890. The lightkeeper's duties included: checking the light throughout the night to be sure the lens was clean so the light could be seen - this was especially important on frosty winter nights. A foghorn, powered by an engine in the basement, sounded every three seconds. When it failed, the lightkeeper had to hammer on a bell at the top of the tower until help came from the mainland to repair the engine. Detailed records were required as was meticulous cleaning of the lens and windows. Rescues were an important part of Kate's duties as she took her rowboat out to aid mariners in trouble. The American Seaman's Friend Society maintained a library boat that provided reading material. Learn more about the Noble Maritime Center, Kate Walker and the Robbins Reef Lighthouse here. If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!
Editor's Note: This article was by Raymond A. Ruge and originally published in the March 1945 issue of "Yachting". magazine. The language, spelling and grammar of the article reflects the time period when it was written. For information about current ice boating on the Hudson River go to these websites: White Wings and Black Ice here. HRIYC here Hudson River Ice Yacht Preservation Trust website here THE FALL of 1943 found me in Edmonton, Alberta, most northerly of Canadian cities (almost 800 miles northeast of Vancouver, BC), which enjoys the same long summer days — and the same cold winter — as does Moscow and the Scandinavian Peninsula. I was there on an assignment for the Army, but we did have one day off each week. Throughout the summer nearly every Sunday was devoted to 14-foot dinghy sailing with the Edmonton Yacht Club, and red hot sailors they were, believe me. But now the dinks were laid away and the nights were clear and frosty. By the end of October, it was freezing every night and early duck hunters reported up to two inches of ice on sloughs a few miles to the north. One day, as if by magic, a thumbnail sketch of an ice boat appeared on my desk pad. It went into an envelope with the brief message: “If this interests you, call me up for lunch” and was dispatched to Dr. T. F. MacDonald, commodore of the Edmonton Y.C., figure skater, twice president of the Alberta Fish & Game Association, a real sporting man. The phone rang next day before noon. The good doctor was not only interested, he was enthusiastic. “But,”said he, “no plywood, no dural, no fittings, no this and no that, how in the world can we build a decent ice boat now?” And the question certainly seemed sensible enough. But there was the lake, ready to freeze; there was the sail boat’s rig, ready to use; there were the tools and the shop to work in. So we just decided to start in and see how far we could get. Within a week, the plans were drawn, with simplification and substitution the keynotes of the design. We settled on a simple type of bow-steering boat, similar in basic construction to Icicle (see YACHTING, December, 1936). For the backbone, we had to revert from the modern built-up box fuselage, involving much aircraft plywood and Sitka spruce, to a simple solid stick; in this case, a 20’ piece of 3” by 10” Douglas fir. This was kept full size at the mast step, tapering to 3” by 5” at the bow and 3” by 6” aft, where it rested on the runner plank. All taper cuts were taken off the top, leaving the bottom perfectly straight. This stick was so stiff that no bobstay was rigged and no deflection could be observed even when sailing in a stiff breeze. The design called for a 24’ backbone, so we pieced out our 20’ stick with a ‘‘boomkin” made of two pieces of 34” by 6” screwed to the sides of the main timber and cocked upward at the proper angle to receive the after ends of the shaped side rails. These side rails were two pieces of 3/4’’ by 10” by 14’ spruce; they started from the backbone at the mast step, swung out 17” on each side at the seat, and met again at the extreme after end of the boomkin (or extended backbone). A floor of 14” pine boards was screwed to the under side of the center timber and the rails for 48” from the seat back to the forward spreader which also served as a footrail when sailing. To cut out what might have been a most uncomfortable cold breeze through the cockpit, we floored the rest of it forward of this spreader with the only plywood -available— 3/16” poplar, supposed to be for drawer bottoms, etc. If it doesn’t stand up, it can always be replaced since it is entirely non-structural and serves only as a wind-stopper. The seat back, framed of ¾” stuff, was shaped to a smooth curve from railtop to railtop and was carefully reinforced to take the pull of the sheet. A strip of 1⅛” by 2” maple was securely anchored to the seat back at the center of its upper edge and ran back to the tip of the boomkin, where it formed the center filler of a five-ply ‘‘squeeze”’ consisting of itself, the two pieces of the boomkin and the two side rails. This strip of hardwood acted as a ridgepole for the after deck covering but its main function was to serve as a secure anchorage for the sheet blocks. The “dashboard” (for lack of a better name) was cut from a wide birch board of 1” stock. At each end, it was screwed to a filler block which in turn was securely fastened to the side rail by screws and waterproof glue. From the center of this curving member another ridgepole, this time of pine, ran forward to the mast step block. This served only to carry the forward deck and hence didn’t have to be of hardwood. The mast step was simply a birch block, slotted for the heel of the spar, and screwed to the top of the backbone timber. With the curved seatback and dashboard and their two ridgepoles (running aft and forward respectively) as its only support, 6-ounce canvas was stretched and tacked to the above members and to the top outside edge of the side rails. A small hardwood molding covered the tacks in the rails, and those on the ridgepoles were hidden by arranging the cloth as shown in the sketch. The two-way stretch possible only with fabric enabled this canvas “deck” to take a most pleasing trumpet-shaped curve as it swept up to the dashboard. With no finish whatever, this canvas gave perfect satisfaction for one entire season, and should last for many years. It is easily renewable at any time. The steering gear had started life in a small car of predepression vintage and was obtained from a local auto wrecker for a small consideration. It was mounted directly on the side of the backbone by a couple of 3/8” bolts running through that member. The gear was hung so that the pitman arm swung in a horizontal arc directly under the backbone. A similar arm, complete with ball fitting, was welded to the rudder post just above the fork, and the two were connected by the car’s original drag link, lengthened by cutting and welding in a piece of 3/4” pipe. The steering column was clamped to the underside of the curving dashboard in true automobile style and the entire assembly gave fingertip control and perfect service. Cutting away one section of the steering wheel’s rim gave a bit more room when getting in or out of the cockpit but we decided it wasn’t a good idea after all, because the sheet tended to get fouled in the cutaway wheel when sailing. Incidentally, to get a left turn by moving the top of the wheel to the left — as in a car — it was necessary for the pitman arm on the gear and that on the rudder post to project on opposite sides of the backbone. This meant that the long drag link crossed under the backbone from starboard to port when the rudder was set straight, and that it went through a peculiar twisting motion when in action, but it worked perfectly — so don’t worry if it happens to you! The rudder post bearings were simply two pieces of 3" steel channel let into the top and bottom of the backbone and drilled for a good fit on the rudder post. They were held in place by 1/4" bolts passing horizontally through their flanges and the backbone. They were used in place of the more usual flat plates because of the unusually narrow backbone timber. The rudder post was a short length of 3/4" shaft with a simple steel fork and the above-mentioned pitman arm welded on. A pair of heavy truck valve springs were slipped over the shaft between the pitman arm and the under bearing plate on the backbone; they gave a little shock-absorbing action that seemed to work well. All this miscellaneous ironwork was dug out of the scrap pile at a local junk yard. We had a lucky break on the runner plank, finding two clear spruce boards 1 1/2” by 12” and 16’ long at a local lumber yard. These were glued together with about 6” crown when the clamps were set. After removal of clamps, the crown came back to about 4". The two boards were tapered to 1” thick at the ends before gluing, giving the plank a built-in taper which looked quite professional. The sections between side rails and runner chocks were then shaped out to a streamlined profile. Runner chocks were simply 11” pieces of 3” by 5” by 3/8” angle bolted to the plank. Because structural steel angles are not exactly true right angles, the under side of the plank was carefully planed so that the standing sides (the 5” ones) of the chocks would be parallel and give a good fit to the runners. These angles, too, came from the junk pile. The plank was attached to the backbone by a single U-iron or gammon strap, of ⅝” rod threaded on both ends and bent into a U that just slipped over the after end of the backbone timber and passed through two holes in the plank. There was no attachment of the side rails of the hull to the runner plank. For runner blades, we dug around some more in the junk yard until we unearthed some old T-section steel which looked as if it might have been a rolling door track in better days. It was about 1 1/2” by 2” by 5/16” in cross section. We had the top drilled and countersunk on 4” centers for No. 10 flat head wood screws, and the edge was rough-ground on a wheel to a 90° V. Later dressing with a file was tedious but proved to be feasible in spite of much advice to the contrary. The runner tops were made of oak, 1 3/4” by 4 1/2” in cross section, 53” long for main runners which had 48” shoes, and 41” long for the 36” rudder blade. The tops were doweled with machine bolts spaced 9” apart, running right through the oak from bottom, where the heads were countersunk, to top, where the nuts (with washers) were drawn up tight. These bolts prevent peeling off the runner shoes in a bad skid, and should be tightened up before each season, as the wood dries out and shrinks during the warm summer months. The blades were then screwed on, using 1 1/2” No. 10 steel screws. The sharp section of the blade was kept down to a mere 10” or so directly under the riding bolt. From there, running both forward and aft, the edge was made more and more dull, which served to put a slight rocker into it and also to give an easy entrance and exit, vital for speed. A blade without rocker can’t be turned and one that is sharp for any great distance forward of the riding bolt will grip and cut down speed a lot. All runners rode on 5/8” machine bolts, which were drilled for cotter pins. The hollow sail boat mast had no shrouds below the forestay, and the unsupported spar between the step and this point was too long to be trusted. Accordingly, a simple spar band with three projecting tangs was cut from 1/8” metal and held in place by a single 1/4” bolt running straight through the mast. The extra set of shrouds was made from odds and ends such as are usually at hand in any sailor’s slop chest, and ran from a point half-way between forestay and mast step. All stays terminated in rope lanyards, led to big 3” diameter iron rings attached to plank and backbone by eyebolts. Rope lanyards are not only a cheap and foolproof substitute for turnbuckles, they are also an easy way to piece out the sail boat rigging for the extra length that will be needed on the ice boat. Blocks, like spars, were borrowed from the sail boat but we decided against light summer canvas and had a sail made. A local tent and awning maker undertook the job and did a surprisingly good piece of work. By designing the sail as a flat surface, with a roach on the luff and another on the foot, as well as the usual one on the leach, we succeeded in getting a fine-setting sail which was not too difficult to make. Full-length batten pockets were run parallel to the boom, and track slides were borrowed for the winter from the regular sail boat mainsail. Battens were ripped from a flat-grained two-inch oak plank at a local mill. This gave us edge grain in the battens, which were a full 1/4” thick at the after end, and were planed down to about 1/8” thick at the mast. Since most broken battens are caused by the whipping of the sail when coming about, we taped the three lower ones thoroughly from 1 foot to about 4 feet from the leach. The upper battens don’t get the whipping, and rarely break. Throughout the first winter of use, the sail boat mast stood up beautifully until sundown of the last day of the season, when it somehow contrived to come unstepped and broke when it struck the ice. A new spar was built for the sail boat and a letter received the other day informs me that the doctor has built a typical streamlined ice boat spar for the winter sailing. This stick has a groove plowed in its after edge to recess the sail track and improve the airflow, and it will be stepped on a trailer ball and hardwood socket to permit proper pivoting. The sketches show a typical cross section of the new spar and also the arrangement of the ball-and-socket step. Several factors combine to give an ice boat mast far heavier punishment than is met by a sail boat spar carrying the same area of canvas. In the first place, the speed of the airflow over the ice boat’s sail may easily run from two to four times as fast with the same wind velocity, simply because the boat is able to move so much faster. This means development by the sail of four to sixteen times as much-power and, as a result, four to sixteen times as much induced compression in the mast. Practically. every ice boat mast that “goes” (from causes other than capsizes), buckles and “explodes” from excessive compression. Secondly, the boat cannot heel to every puff; it takes a really hard one to make her hike and, even then, the relief afforded the spar by the heeling action is negligible. Both shrouds and spar should be sized for stresses that may run a good ten times higher than those in a sail boat of comparable sail area. By the same token, the sail should, if possible, be made of heavier canvas and headboard and clew should be most thoroughly reinforced. The entire pull of the sheet, which is nearly always sweated in taut, is transmitted through these two corners of the sail. This is one advantage of the train of single--sheave blocks now standard equipment on ice boats, the sheet pull is spread along the boom and not concentrated at one point. The raked mast with tunnel or “Swedish track” contrives to spread the pull along the mast a bit instead of leaving it all to the headboard, as is the case with a vertical spar and sail track. In addition, raking the mast shortens the length of the leach, thus making it possible to keep the leach taut. The advantage when turning to windward is tremendous. To return to our Canadian boat from this brief digression into ice boat design: In setting up the boat, backbone and runner plank were placed in position and joined by the U-iron (“gammon strap”). The two whisker stays running from bow to runner plank were then set up snug, using a steel tape to check the distance from bow to runner chock on each side until we were sure the plank was square with the backbone. The whisker stays should not be drawn more than snug taut, for they will bend the runner plank and cause the runners to toe in if set up too much. Next, the mast was stepped and the ‘shrouds’ set in approximately the proper position, with just one turn of the rope lanyards. Then the sail was bent and hoisted and the headstays adjusted until the boom had just a slight rise from mast to clew when the sheet was sweated in taut. Shrouds were then set up, but not more than just enough to take the excess slack out of them. Tight-set shrouds simply bend the runner plank, throw constant stress into stays, plank and mast, and may actually cause a broken spar in action on a puffy day. Ice boat rigging always looks sloppy to the racing sail boat man but rest assured, it isn’t that way by accident or from carelessness. That’s the way it should be. The lee shrouds are always very slack when sailing and here is another place where rope lanyards are superior to turnbuckles. The lanyards won’t kink when they go slack, as a turnbuckle or shackle will, and it shouldn’t be necessary to point out that they won’t strip threads or crystallize no matter how far the thermometer drops. Final clincher in these days, is the fact that you can always get some sort of line for lanyards but try to buy a turnbuckle! Thanks to an exceptionally snowless winter, we had a fine lot of sailing with this boat, starting on November 21st and continuing, off and on, until Easter, April 9th. We wound up the season on the last day by sailing the entire twelve-mile length of the lake and back in a fine southwest breeze with the thermometer in the forties. One night of sailing by the illumination of a really exceptional display of Northern Lights was a thrill I shall never forget. Based on our experience, it seems a safe bet that, given some assorted rigging, a lumber yard, a well-stocked junk yard and a little determination, War Babies like this one are entirely feasible. They sure are a lot of fun! If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!
Editor's Note: This article was by P.S. Wood and originally published in the US AIR magazine January 1985. The language, spelling and grammar of the article reflects the time period when it was written. For information about current ice boating on the Hudson River go to these websites: White Wings and Black Ice here. HRIYC here Hudson River Ice Yacht Preservation Trust website here For thousands of enthusiasts, the high-speed excitement of iceboating is a habit that no one wants to break. Oh, you could always think of something - like running triathlons or climbing Mount Everest without oxygen. But of all the self-flagellating activities pursued in the name of sport, few can be more baffling to outsiders, and more compelling to those who are hooked—6,000 at latest count—than iceboating. Some miscreant once likened it to "driving a truck at 90 miles an hour in sub-zero weather down a steep, rutted hill without brakes and with bits of broken windshield flying in your face.” Get one alone, in a reflective moment, preferably in the fall when anticipation is high, and he may tell you what it's really like - or try to: The adrenaline is flowing and there is no cold; with the ice racing past you just inches away, the sense of speed is incredible; on smooth, black ice there is a silence given depth by the whoosh of the wind through the rigging and over the hull. So simple, so pure, so fast, one feels he must be approaching the outer edge, where the worldly crosses the boundary to the intergalactic. What else could bring Charles Edward (Rock) Hildreth at the age of 48 to lay down his hammer and saw (he builds houses in the Hamptons, on eastern Long Island, where his family has lived for ten generations) a little early last Friday - or next Friday, or the Friday after - and hurry home to load up his 1977 Chevy station wagon? On a roof rack go the spars, planks, and hulls of two identical 12-foot DN iceboats. Sails, riggings, runners, sharpening equipment, other tools, and extra clothing are piled inside, until there is just room enough in the front seat for Hildreth and his similarly afflicted buddy, Tom Halsey. Halsey, like his brother John, whose whole family sails, is a potato farmer with 11 generations on the land. (Potato farmers with names like Hildreth, Halsey, and Topping still are well represented in the membership of the local Mecox Bay Ice Yacht Club, but besides the present Commodore, David Lee Brown, who is a sculptor, there are also painters, bank executives, test pilots, doctors, and writers. ABC anchorman Peter Jennings just bought a boat last year and joined the club.) His car loaded, Hildreth then calls a special number and listens to a recording telling him where the action is that weekend—to wit: what lakes have ice and no snow (like as not somewhere deep in New Jersey). Then it's rising at 3:00 a.m., driving for five or six hours, unloading the station wagon, setting up their boats, racing all day, piling into a motel room somewhere for Saturday night, racing all day Sunday, and then driving home. And doing it, often, under arctic conditions that keep the saner segment of the population home by the fire. An affliction. In North America the true ice belt is no more than 150 miles wide. The sport has no true center. It hangs in a shallow arc from Cape Cod on the Eastern Seaboard out to the Great Lakes. On its way it passes through southern New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, the major eastern areas. Midwesterners congregate on the wide-open lakes of Michigan and Wisconsin, where winds sweeping off the plains are relied upon as much as winter thaws to keep the ice open. Europe's ice belt begins in Sweden, and reaches through Germany, Poland, and into the USSR. Four out of the past seven years, Poles and Latvians have won the World Championship - the Worlds, as they are known, sailed in alternate years in North America and Europe in the same DN design boat that Hildreth and Halsey race. With iceboating, as with icebergs, there is a lot below the surface. A great deal, for instance, goes on in Hildreth's basement. It is almost axiomatic that an enthusiast like Hildreth built his own boat. And along about Christmastime it was in his cellar that he set it up for this season - sharpening and aligning the runners (to a tolerance of a few thousandths of an inch), checking all the fastenings, touching up the varnish. In fact, like most ardent iceboaters who have pursued the sport for a decade or more, Hildreth has built a series of boats (six DNs in his case, and he is already planning a seventh, because there's a slight weight refinement he would like to make). Although it is possible to buy a ready-made DN (cost with mast and sail runs about $2,500, but $1,000 should buy a serviceable second-hand boat), a large part of the challenge and pleasure of the sport is in the building, whether it be within the strict limits of the DN design (more on this later) or some imaginative aberration. Hildreth actually started when he was 12 - not just with the traditional bed sheet, broom handle, boards, and old ice skates, but with hand-me-down parts from his older brothers' and their friends' boats. Today there are dirt bikes and snowmobiles and weekend trips to ski country to sate a young boy's appetite for thrills, but when Hildreth was starting out, just after World War II, there wasn't much a kid could do outdoors in winter on the flat eastern end of Long Island except take an iceboat out on Mecox Bay when it froze. The boats Hildreth and his confreres sailed then - they called them A boats - were larger than DNs. They were gaff-rigged, usually carried a couple of passengers, and by today's standards were clumsy. But when wind and ice were just right, they went like the blazes and produced enough excitement to hook a kid for life. Editor’s Note: Wikipedia has an illustration of Gaff sail parts labeled. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaff_rig The A boats are pretty much gone now, relegated like horse-drawn carriages to the backs of barns. Their progeny have developed along two distinct lines, skeeters and DNs. Skeeters are to iceboating what formula one racing cars are to the automotive world. The sole design specification is sail area, 75 square feet. Beyond that they represent the cutting edge of iceboat development. Anything goes, so that a skeeter regatta may produce an assemblage as varied and colorful as the Westminster Dog Show. And the boats really fly, reaching speeds of up to five times that of the wind, which translates to a top speed of 80 or 90 mph. The smaller DNs (62 square feet of sail), on the other hand, belong to a strictly regulated class. Weight, materials, and configuration are all specified to knife-edge limits. And still there is enough difference between boats to make the building and tuning of them as important as - or perhaps more important than - how well their skippers handle them out on the ice. In hull streamlining, the tiniest bit helps. It is better to paint the name of the boat on the side rails than to mount two projecting mahogany name boards! It is just this sort of "ridiculous" extreme in streamlining which makes that unaccountable difference in speed, especially to windward. Then, in 1933, a design breakthrough occurred as important to ice-boating as rocketry was to the aeronautical industry. Walter Beauvois from William Bay, Wisconsin, built what was, by the standards of the day, a mere toy. It had a 13-foot hull and a single, stiffly battened sail measuring 75 square feet. But the significant difference was that Beauvois sailed her backwards. That is, he turned the sail and runners 180 degrees so that now the steering runner was out front. The harder she was driven the more firmly her front runner held the ice. No flicker, though like any iceboat she still might hike a windward runner. And though far smaller than other iceboats of the day (and thus less expensive, more easily transported, and able to be sailed singlehandedly), Beau Skeeter, as he named his creation, outraced all comers. Here was a boat - the skeeter, as it would universally become known - that any man might aspire to own. Four years later, at the height of the Depression, this democratization of a hitherto rich man's sport was completed with the appearance of the "DN." The letters stand for Detroit News, the newspaper that published the plans, following a contest for an easy-to-build, inexpensive iceboat of minimum size. The design - 12 feet long, 62 square feet of sail, single-handed - has become the world standard for racing. The only significant inhibiting factor that keeps an iceboat from accelerating steadily until it reaches the speed of light and disappears into a time warp is what aeronautical engineers call drag. Drag builds with speed through a liquid or gaseous medium. It is the negative force that acts on the trailing edge of any surface, be it a car or a falling rock. Streamlining reduces drag. Even the most perfect airfoil, however, is subject to drag. When drag builds to the point that it equals the forward thrust, the iceboat has reached terminal velocity. It can't go any faster. What is intriguing to soft-water sailors is that on ice this natural speed limit is so much higher than in water. Even for a little DN, this may be as high as 80 or 90 mph, which, when one is skimming along on one's back only inches over the ice, gives an illusion of speed that transcends the supersonic, many times the six-mile distance. But the speed is real. Races, which begin with a running start, are three times up and down a mile-long course, set by a single leeward and windward mark. That is six miles by the tape, but a race may be over in minutes, even though the boats, dashing out on wide tacks, upwind and down, will cover many times the six-mile distance. If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!
Editor's note: The following excerpts are from the January 3, 1875 issue of the "New York Times". Thank you to Contributing Scholar George A. Thompson for finding and cataloging this article. The language, spelling and grammar of the article reflects the time period when it was written. Loading Her Up. Scenes on the Docks. The Shipping Clerk – The Freight – The Canal-Boat Children. I am seeking information in regard to the late 'longshoremen's strike, and am directed to a certain stevedore. I walk down one of the longest piers on the East River. The wind comes tearing up the river, cold and piercing, and the laboring hands, especially the colored people, who have nothing to do for the nonce, get behind boxes of goods, to keep off the blast, and shiver there. It was damp and foggy a day or so ago, and careful skippers this afternoon have loosened all their light sails, and the canvas flaps and snaps aloft from many a mast-head. I find my stevedore engaged in loading a three-masted schooner, bound for Florida. He imparts to me very little information, and that scarcely of a novel character. "It's busted is the strike," he says. "It was a dreadful stupid business. Men are working now at thirty cents, and glad to get it. It ain't wrong to get all the money you kin for a job, but it's dumb to try putting on the screws at the wrong time. If they had struck in the Spring, when things was being shoved, when the wharves was chock full of sugar and molasses a coming in, and cotton a going out, then there might have been some sense in it. Now the men won't never have a chance of bettering themselves for years. It never was a full-hearted kind of thing at the best. The boys hadn't their souls in it. 'Longshoremen hadn't like factory hands have, any grudge agin their bosses, the stevedore, like bricklayers or masons have on their builders or contractors. Some of the wiser of the hands got to understand that standing off and refusing to load ships was a telling on the trade of the City, and a hurting of the shipping firms along South street. The men was disappointed in course, but they have got over it much more cheerfuller than I thought they would. I never could tell you, Sir, what number of 'longshoremen is natives or aint natives, but I should say nine in ten comes from the old country. I don't want it to happen again, for it cost me a matter of $75, which I aint going to pick up again for many a month." I have gone below in the schooner's hold to have my talk with the stevedore, and now I get on deck again. A young gentleman is acting as receiving clerk, and I watch his movements, and get interested in the cargo of the schooner, which is coming in quite rapidly. The young man, if not surly, is at least uncommunicative. Perhaps it is his nature to be reticent when the thermometer is very low down. I am sure if I was to stay all day on the dock, with that bitter wind blowing, I would snap off the head of anybody who asked me a question which was not pure business. I manager, however, to get along without him. Though the weather is bitter cold, and I am chilled to the marrow, and I notice the young clerk's fingers are so stiff he can hardly sign for his freight, I quaff in my imagination a full beaker of iced soda, for I see discharged before me from numerous drays carboys of vitriol, barrels of soda, casks of bottles, a complicated apparatus for generating carbonic-acid gas – in fact, the whole plant of a soda-water factory. I do not quite as fully appreciate the usefulness of the next load which is dumped on the wharf – eight cases clothes-pins, three boxes wash-boards, one box clothes-wringers. Five crates of stoneware are unloaded, various barrels of mess beef and of coal-oil, and kegs of nails, cases of matches, and barrels of onions. At last there is a real hubbub as some four vans, drawn by lusty horses, drive up laden with brass boiler tubes for some Government steamer under repairs in a Southern navy-yard. The 'longshoremen loading the schooner chaff the drivers of the vans as Uncle Sam's men, and banter them, telling them "to lay hold with a will." The United States employees seem very little desirous of "laying hold with a will," and are superbly haughty and defiantly pompous, and do just as little toward unloading the vans as they possibly can thus standing on their dignity, and assuming a lofty demeanor, the boxes full of heavy brass tubes will not move of their own accord. All of a sudden a dapper little official, fully assuming the dash and elan of the navy, by himself seizes hold of a box with a loading-hook; but having assert himself, and represented his arm of the service, having too scratched his hand slightly with a splinter on one of the boxes, he suddenly subsides and looks on quite composedly while the stevedore and 'longshoreman do all the work. Now I am interested in a wonderful-looking man, in a fur cap, who stalks majestically along the wharf. Certainly he owns, in his own right the half-dozen craft moored alongside of the slip. He has a solemn look, as he lifts one leg over the bulwark of a schooner just in from South America, and gets on board of her. He produces, from a capacious pockets, a canvas bag, with U.S. on it, and draws from it numerous padlocks and a bunch of keys. He is a Custom-house officer. He singles out a padlock, inserts it into a hasp on the end of an iron bar, which secures the after-hatch, snaps it to, gives a long breath which steams in the frosty air, and then proceeds, with solemn mein, to perform the same operation on the forward hatch. Unfortunately, the Government padlock will not fit, and, being a corpulent man, he gets very red in the face as he fumbles and bothers over it. Evidently he does not know what to do. He seems very woebegone and wretched about it, as the cold metal of the iron fastening makes it uncomfortable to handle. Evidently there is some block in the routine, on account of that padlock, furnished by the United States, not adapting itself to the iron fastenings of all hatches. He goes away at last, with a wearied and disconsolate look, evidently agitating in his mind the feasibility of addressing a paper to the Collector of the Port, who is to recommend to Congress the urgency of passing measures enforcing, under due pains and penalties, certain regulations prescribing the exact size of hatch-fastenings on vessels sailing under the United States flag. "Canal Boats on the North River, New York" by Wade, "Gleason's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion," December 25, 1852. Note the sail-like signs for various towing lines and destinations, as well as the jumble of lumber and cargo boxes on the pier at left, waiting to be loaded onto the canal boats (or vice versa). I return to my schooner. By this time the wharf is littered with bales of hay, all going to Florida. I wonder whether it is true, as has been asserted, that the hay crop is worth more to the United States than cotton? I think, though, if cotton is king, hay is queen. Now comes an immense case, readily recognized as a piano. I do not sympathize with this instrument. Its destination is somewhere on the St. John's River. Now, evidently the hard mechanical notes of a Steinway or a Chickering must be out of place if resounding through orange groves. A better appreciation of music fitting the locality would have made shipments of mandolins, rechecks, and guitars. Freight drops off now, and comes scattering in with boxes of catsup, canned fruits, and starch. Right on the other side of the dock there is a canal-boat. She has probably brought in her last cargo. And will go over to Brooklyn, where she will stay until navigation opens in the Spring. There is a little curl of smoke coming from the cabin, and presently I see two tiny children – a boy and a girl – look through the minute window of the boat, and they nod their heads and clap their hands in the direction of the shipping clerk. The boy looks lusty and full of health, but the little girl is evidently ailing, for she has her little head bound up in a handkerchief, and she holds her face on one side, as if in pain. The little girl has a pair of scissors, and she cuts in paper a continuous row of gentlemen and ladies, all joining hands in the happiest way, and she sticks them up in the window. This ornamentation, though not lavish, extends quite across the two windows, the cabin is so small. Having a decided fancy, a latent talent, for making cut-paper figures myself, I am quite interested, as is the receiving clerk. I twist up, as well as my very cold fingers will allow, a rooster and a cock-boat out of a piece of paper, and I place them on a post, ballasting my productions with little stones, so that they should not blow away. The children are instantly attracted, and the little boy, a mere baby, stretches out his hands. My attention is called to a dray full of boxes, which are deposited on the wharf for our schooner. Somehow or other the receiving clerk, without my asking him, tells me of his own accord what they contain – camp-stools. I can understand the use of camp-stools in Florida: how the feeble steps of the invalid must be watched, and how, with the first inhalation of the sweet balmy air, bringing life once more to those dear to us, some loving hand must be nigh, to offer promptly rest after fatigue. I return to my post, but alas my rooster and cock-boat have been blown overboard; the wind was too much for them. I kiss my hand to the little girl, who smiles with only one-half of her face; the stiff neck on the other side prevents it. The little boy points to the post and makes signs for more cock-boats. Snow there happens to come along on that wharf an ambulant dealer with a basket containing an immense variety of the most useless articles. He has some of the commonest toys imaginable, selected probably for the meagre purses of those who raise up children on shipboard. There are wooden soldiers, with very round heads but generally irate expressions, and small horses, blood-red, with tow tails and wooden flower-post, with a tuft of blue moss, from which one extraordinary rose blossoms, without a leaf or a thorn on the stem. On that post for ten cents that ambulant toy man put five distinct object of happiness, when the shipping clerk interfered. "It's a swindle, Jacob," he said. That young man was certainly posted in the toy market along the wharves. "You ain't going to sell those things two cents a piece, when they are only a penny? You must be wanting to retire after first of the year. Bring out five more of them things. Three more flower-pots and two more horses. The little girl takes the odd one. What's this doll worth? Ten cents! Give you five. Hand it over. Now clear out. I see you, Sir, watching them children. Poor little mites. No mother, Sir. Father decent kind of fellow; says their ma died this Spring. Has to bring 'em up himself, and is forced to leave them most all day. He is only a deck-hand and will be the boat-keeper during Winter. Been noticing them babies ever since I have been loading the schooner – most a week – and been a wanting to do something for their New-Year's. A case of mixed candies busted yesterday, and they got some. They have been at the window ever since, expecting more; but nothing busted. You can't get in; the cabin is locked, but I can manage it through the window." So my young friend climbed on board, with the toys in his pocket, lifted up the sash, and passed through the toys one by one, the especial rights of proprietorship having been carefully enjoined. Presently all the soldiers and the follower-pots were stuck in the window, and the little girl was hugging the doll. "Loading her up; taking in freight for a vessel of a Winter's day on a wharf isn't fun," said the young gentlemen sententiously. "I shouldn't think it was," I replied. "In fact, there ain't much of anything to see or do on a wharf which is interesting to a stranger." "You are from the country, ain't you?" asked the young man with a smile. "Never seen New-York before? Wish you a happy New Year, anyhow." I did not exactly how there could be any reservation as to wishing me a happy New Year whether I was from the country or not, but supposing that this singularity of expression arose from the general character of the young man, or because he was uncomfortable from the frosty weather, I returned the compliment, inquiring "whether a stiff neck was not very hard on children," and not being a family man, added, "They all get it sometimes, and get over it, don't they ?" "It ain't a stiff neck, it's mumps. Mother sent me a bottle of stuff for the child three days ago, and her father has been rubbing it on, and she's most over it now. When I was a little boy," added the clerk reflectively, "toys cured most everything as was the matter with me." "Just my case," I replied, as we shook hands and I left the wharf. If you enjoyed this post and would like to support more history blog content, please make a donation to the Hudson River Maritime Museum or become a member today!
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