Robert Fulton
early years of
Hudson River
Steamboats
1807 - 1824
Hudson River
Steamboats
before the
Civil War
1824 - 1860
Hudson River
Day Line
1863 - 1948
The Hudson River Day Line
A Great American Steamboat Company
1863 to 1948
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Timeline of
the Hudson River Day Line
Formation of the Hudson River Day Line - 1860's Hudson River Day Line - 1860 to 1880 New
Steamboats |
Of the many Hudson River steamboat lines, the Hudson River Day Line was the most prominent and dependable. Their steamboats were known for elegance and speed, and provided the most enjoyable way to travel the Hudson River. No one could claim to have seen America without seeing the Hudson River, and the only way to properly see the Hudson River was from the deck of a Day Liner steamboat.
In the 1880's and 1890's, the Day Line promoted their steamboats as “strictly first-class – no freight.” A local newspaper reporting about the Day Line said:
“With rare exceptions, the passengers are nice people. The peanut and sausage eaters; the beer drinkers; the pipe smokers; the expectorators; the loud talkers; the life long enemies of soap and water, are never seen here.”
Another newspaper reported that:
“The Albany day boats are doing an unusually large business . . . The excursionists are of the better class – people who take more interest in the beauties of nature than they do in whisky.”
The Day Line felt they received this praise because they were doing exactly what they intended to do - give the public the best possible service. Hudson River travelers were very proud of their steamboats, "the most elegant in the world," and thought of them as social assets. Important foreign guests were taken for steamboat rides soon after their arrival in New York.
For over 150 years, steamboats carried freight and passengers on the Hudson River, but in 1948, regular steamboat service by the Hudson River Day Line between Albany and New York ceased. On September 13, 1948, the Day Line steamboat Robert Fulton made its last run from Albany to New York City bringing to an end the era of gracious steamboat travel on the Hudson River.
For Additional Reading
Buckman, David Lear, Old Steamboat Days on the Hudson River, The Grafton Press, 1907
Reprinted by J.C. & A.L. Fawcett, Inc. 1990
Selected chapters are available on the Hudson River Maritime Museum website:Dayton, Fred Irving, Steamboat Days, New York, Frederick A. Stokes, 1925
Selected chapters are available on the Hudson River Maritime Museum website:Ringwald, Donald C., Hudson River Day Line, The Story of a Great American Steamboat Company, Fordham University Press, Second Edition 1990
Van Zandt, Ronald, The Catskill Mountain House, America's Grandest Hotel, Black Dome Press, Hensonville, NY, Copyright 1991
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