THE SLOOPS OF THE HUDSON RIVER
A Historical and Design Survey
Introduction
This study was initiated, researched, and written to accomplish several distinct but related objectives. The most obvious was to produce a general survey of the history and evolution of Hudson River sloop design from the type’s introduction in the early seventeenth century until its demise at the end of the nineteenth.
Shipping on the Hudson River was dominated by Sloops for almost two hundred years after European settlement of the valley. Even in the face of competition from steamboats these vessels remained a major force in the riverine transportation industry for another half-century afterwards. Evolutionary processes produced Sloops that, in their heyday, were highly distinctive vessels very well adapted to the conditions and trades in which they operated. They were most remarkable among American coastal Sloops for their size, their passenger facilities, and their huge rigs, all of which were virtually unrivaled in any other part of the country.
The second aim was to ascertain if more general conclusions could be drawn from this specific survey which might be broadly applicable to the study of vessel design evolution as a whole. There appear to be several principles which govern the pattern of change. The first is that no changes generally occur unless there is a change in function. Once a design has stabilized there are no alterations unless outside factors come into play. Next, it is clear that form follows function: when a vessel’s purpose changes, builders make incremental alterations to the design until it fulfills completely its new function, and a new design is stabilized. Both of these seem very obvious, and hardly worth stating, but it is remarkably easy to overlook the essential conservatism of owners, builders, and designers.
A simplistic application of the principle that form follows function will not adequately account for the pattern of changes which are seen to occur in reality. Instead, it is crucial to appreciate that a vessel is not produced and does not operate in a vacuum; it is the product of its total environment. This total environment has many different aspects, only one of which is the nature of the trade in which the vessel is engaged. Natural features of the areas in which it operates profoundly affect a vessel’s design, as do the level, suitability, and affordability of available technology. Suitability and affordability are factors governed not only by a technology’s existence but by the wealth of owners, the profitability of trade, applicability to particular situations, readiness of builders to utilize new techniques, and a social climate conducive to innovation. This social climate is a powerful influence, for it may decide whether crews are obtainable, define operating cycles, or even pass judgment on the moral character of the trade or operators. Changes in any one aspect of the elements making up a vessel’s total environment may have a profound impact on its form. Thus any study of vessel design must be guided by the principle that function is defined within the parameters of a complete environment. Furthermore, aspects of this very environment set the limits for design evolution itself. This study of the evolution of Hudson River sloop design was therefore intended also to verify the validity of these principles.
The final purpose of this work was to explore the possibilities for expanding the range of evidence applicable to research into maritime history. Students of large portions of the early history of American maritime enterprise, and particularly of the coastal trades, set themselves a nearly impossible task if they decide to base their researches entirely upon conventional documentary evidence. Many of the participants, notably the commanders and crewmen, and the designers and builders, left few written records of their trades. In part this may have been because some of them were either actually or functionally illiterate, which is possible, but unproven and quite probably unprovable. It may also be irrelevant, since the evidence indicates that there was, in fact, simply no climate in the United States conducive to the transmission of the lore of the shipping industry through technical treatises prior to the 1830s. The earliest original American publication dealing with this field was Francis G. Clarke’s The Seaman’s Manual, published in 1830, which covered the business of shipping, navigation, and the sparring and rigging of merchant vessels, and there was to be no American treatise on shipbuilding until the publication in 1839 of Lauchlan McKay’s The Practical Shipbuilder. Earlier European manuals were known, and even American editions of these works were published in the early nineteenth century, but their circulation seems to have been fairly limited. The evidence points to the dissemination of the lore of ship operating, handling, and building through demonstration and oral transmission, rather than through written instruction.
The historian must therefore turn to other less conventional forms of evidence which, the author contends, are equally as valid as conventional documents. Written evidence may come from contemporary descriptions by nontechnical individuals of what they saw themselves, or were told by the technicians. A second written source is the recollections of practitioners many years after the event. Both Sources must be assessed with circumspection, but that has been the historian’s task since Herodotus’s time. Artifacts form a second collection of valuable evidence. Surviving vessels, either complete or partial, together with their cargoes, utensils, tools, and machinery are invaluable in the data they provide. Again, caution is in order, particularly when studying preserved vessels, since many changes may have been made in their structure and fittings since original construction. Secondly, there are extant shore installations, such as wharves, warehouses, shipyards, and above all the tools associated with them, especially the builder’s half-hull model, which was a major design instrument during the nineteenth century. There is also the evidence provided by contemporary full-hull models, with or without their rigging, which can be invaluable guides in studying a vessel-type’s history.
The final category of additional evidence which should be considered is that provided by the visual arts: drawings, paintings, prints, and photographs. These documents, for that is their true status, can furnish evidence on three separate levels. First is that of an overall impression; an illustration may simply provide a general idea of the size, shape, rig, equipment, and cargo of a particular vessel or type, which may in itself be valuable. Under the right circumstances an illustration may provide far more solid hard data, such as the actual dimensions of the vessel and its fittings. This is most likely when the picture depicts other items, such as buildings or other structures, or even other vessels, whose dimensions are already known, and with which the subject may be compared. This process has long been used, in this century at least, by military intelligence analysts, and its use by technical historians is long overdue. Finally, a view of a subject may provide data through implication; the presence or absence of equipment or rigging gear will permit the drawing of certain conclusions about the vessel which are not necessarily contained within the illustration in question. In general, these features would have been installed on a vessel for a specific purpose, and their presence gives us valuable information about it. One clear example of this would be a picture of a sailing vessel with hoops for lookouts at its mastheads, which would enable us to determine it to have been either a whaler or a sealer, even if no other evidence of its trade were visible.
The specific case of this survey of the design and development of the Sloops of the Hudson River requires the use of all these additional sources of evidence. One problem arises immediately: it has proven impossible to trace any surviving contemporary lines drafts or builder’s half models for these Sloops which may be dated accurately to a period earlier than the 1830s. Furthermore, for the entire period of the sloops’ existence not a single authentic sail plan exists. The situation improves somewhat for the last half-century of the history of their development, but even then only limited hard data survives. Various museums have conserved less than a half-dozen builder’s half models, all unnamed and some undated. These are supplemented by fewer than a dozen reliable lines drawings; however, several of these are very valuable since they are of named vessels. Most of these drafts are take-offs from lost half models, and few of them have been published. Hundreds of these models existed but, after the Sloops were built, their models frequently were destroyed, often being burned as firewood in shipyard stoves. For example, we know that, as late as the 1920s, Charles G. Davis and George B. Douglas jointly had access to a large group of some two dozen half models by William Dickey, a prominent builder of Sloops in the 1830s and 1840s at Nyack, New York. They were able to rescue only six from the flames, take-offs from four of which have survived, but only one of the models themselves now can be located.
Substantial numbers of fully rigged models of Hudson River Sloops exist in museum collections, mainly in the northeastern United States, but none of them were constructed earlier than the 1930s. Their hull lines were either derived from the few published lines then known for authentic vessels or wholly reconstructed. Although we know that some of these model builders extensively researched sloop hulks surviving at the time, these models also incorporate substantial reconstruction in their details. Furthermore, it is difficult to rely on these models for evidence, since the model constructors very rarely provided information on their sources for the reconstructions.
In the place of the hard technical data provided by models, drafts, and sail plans, we must turn to other sources for further evidence of the design and evolution of these vessels. The extensive illustrative record of the Hudson River and the waters around Manhattan Island comprises by far the most prominent and valuable of these sources. The river has served as a magnet for the attention of artists over the past two centuries, eventually giving rise to the so-called "Hudson River School" of painters from the early 1800s. Many collections, both major and minor, of paintings and prints of the river are to be found, again primarily in the northeastern United States, the most notable being those of the New York Historical Society and the New York Public Library. From about 1860 these paintings and prints were supplemented by photographs and stereographs (paired images for use in stereoscopes, the televisions of the age in the United States), and these too are well represented in both public and private collections. When using illustrative evidence it is important to remember the existence of "artistic license," and to endeavor, as far as possible, to check data from one picture against another, in order to ascertain the general consensus of the time, and avoid placing excessive weight on any one piece of data.
Shipping on the Hudson, and particularly the Sloops of the river, figure prominently in these views. Often, vessels fill much of the picture, and are shown in considerable detail in these illustrations, which permits their use for the study not only of the general appearance of the sloops, but also of the minutiae of their fittings and rig. It is even possible to estimate vessel dimensions from some of these illustrations with a high degree of accuracy, through comparison with objects of known size that are also depicted elsewhere in the view. The many etchings, engravings, and aquatints are especially valuable, not simply because of their clarity of detail, but also because usually their printing date is shown, which provides a valuable historical frame of reference. Oils and watercolors, too, abound, and are the best sources for color schemes; watercolors in particular are often extremely useful for details as well. Both formats are rarely as specifically dated as prints, which lessens their chronological value. The photographs and stereographs are also very useful, although the latter are rarely as clear in their details as earlier prints, due to their format. The greatest value of photographs lies in the clarity of the record they provide of the declining years of the sloops, free from the romanticism found in so many of the later paintings.
Official papers form a second major lode available to be mined for information. Enrollment documents provide valuable data on dimensions, ownership, and often builders, while this information is also available in a tabular format in the registers for the Port of New York. When using this data for purposes of comparison it is important to be aware of the changes in mensuration systems, particularly in the mid-nineteenth century. However, when vessels were constructed and registered prior to the change in mid-century, and are still listed afterwards, David R. MacGregor’s "ratio of under-deck tonnage" method may be used to highlight those Sloops built with fast sailing as a major consideration in their design. These registers also are the prime sources for useful statistical data on numbers, size, and place of ownership, which assist in rounding out the overall picture of the sloops’ significance and patterns of operation.
Invaluable for the colonial period, and very useful for later years, are other official documents, such as reports and letters by government officials and functionaries, customhouse papers, and the records of provincial, state, and municipal courts. The information from these official papers is supplemented and often expanded by newspaper reports and advertisements. In the same category are the business and private papers of sloop owners and shipbuilders. Very few such documents have been found, which is unfortunate, since they provide useful insights into contemporary views of trade on the Hudson, which were precisely the forces driving the evolution of sloop design.
Further valuable sources of information are the letters, diaries, journals, and published narratives of travelers along the river. A steady procession journeyed along the Hudson, beginning with Henry Hudson and his crew in 1609, as the river became a major highway to the interior. Many of these narratives have survived, starting with Hudson’s own journal, and that of Robert Juet, one of his officers on board de Halve Maen. They are invaluable for the information they provide on the nature of navigation and trade on the Hudson River, the crews, operating procedures, and living conditions on the sloops, and, very often, on the fitting and construction of the vessels themselves. The surviving letters and diaries in particular are also full of those spontaneous details that bring history to life, such as commentaries on breakfast conversations, or remarks on the character of fellow passengers.
For the period from the late 1830s a new source of valuable data is available: detailed technical literature on contemporary American wooden ship construction and operation started to be published. This literature is compendious, providing lines plans, dimensions, scantlings, and construction details and methods for hulls, proportions and sizes for spars and rigging, and details of equipment and fittings. The treatises by Lauchlan McKay, Francis Clarke, and John W Griffiths are particularly useful, but there are many other extant works, ranging in scope from the highly theoretical to the mundane "how-to" manuals for budding shipwrights. All of these are very valuable in reconstructing missing sail plans and fittings for the available designs, but there is one important caveat: it is essential to remember that every one of these treatises represented the particular views of the individual author, so they must be compared to find the consensus of the period, and, if possible, to screen out ideas that were peculiar to each expert. The eccentricities of each author are valuable in themselves, but must not be confused with generally accepted points of view.
The final source of information to be considered are secondary published books and articles. Not much has been written on the history of Hudson River sloops. In this century, a few items by a half-dozen authors comprise the entire literature. The one book, published in 1908, is The Sloops of the Hudson by William E. Verplanck and Moses M. Collyer, which is largely a breezy collection of reminiscences with a few solid factual gems embedded in it. It is, however, valuable for the letters and contemporary descriptions that it incorporates. The remaining pieces are articles, starting with another chatty work by Winfield M. Thompson in The Rudder for February 1913. Alfred S. Brownell contributed an article on modeling a Hudson River sloop in The Rhode Island Mariner for July 1932. This piece is particularly valuable for the sketches of details on board the hulk of the old sloop Comet, which were researched and submitted by Irving R. Wiles. Charles G. Davis wrote two articles which appeared in Yachting in September 1932 and February 1933. These look authoritative, but, in fact, their information needs to be treated with care, since he listed few sources, and, for example, his drawing and data on the sloop Victorine are seriously flawed. The single academic contribution to the study of the type’s history was also a product of this period, in the form of John S. Curtiss’s article "The Sloops of the Hudson, 1800-1850," which appeared in New York History for 1933. A long hiatus then ensued before the next work appeared in 1970. This was a monograph by the Hudson River Sloop Restoration, Inc., entitled Hudson River Sloops, which mainly brought together previously published information. The next article, by Portia Takakjian on the sloop Victorine again, was published in Model Shipwright for December 1977 and March 1978. She subsequently wrote a substantially revised and expanded piece on the same subject, which appeared in ModelShip Builder between July 1986 and July 1988. The most recent article, by Charles T. Keppet and Nathan A. Lyons, once again on this same sloop, was published in Sea History in Spring 1987.
Some further information on the sloops was published in more general histories. William P. Stephens devoted several pages to the type in his Traditions and Memories of American Yachting, as did William A. Baker in Sloops and Shallops. Howard I. Chapelle published a plan of the early centerboard sloop First Effort in The Search for Speed Under Sail, along with some descriptive material relating to this and other sloops, but, unfortunately, both the plan and the description contain material errors. A limited amount of information pertaining directly to the Sloops of the river is also to be found in general histories of New York and the Hudson Valley. In general, these works are more useful for the information they provide on social and economic development, which is obviously pertinent to an understanding of the forces behind the sloops’ development. Biographies also can be useful, particularly those few that have been produced of shipowners or builders, principally by local historians or historical societies.
Although it might thus appear that there is insufficient surviving data to analyze the evolution of the Hudson River Sloops with any certainty, the simple consistency of the information permits the drawing of general conclusions. There do not appear to be any startling anomalies in the evidence; instead each limited piece of information reinforces another item to build up a coherent picture of the type’s history and design evolution.