Hudson’s Merchants and Whalers
The Rise and Fall of a River Port 1783-1850
Hudson Valley Magazine
November, 2003
by Richard Butler
When walking around Hudson today, even on a weekend when antiquers throng Warren Street, it’s hard to believe that the city was once a bustling seaport, in fact the state’s second busiest after New York City. From the late 18th to mid 19th century, Hudson’s docks were crowded with incoming and outgoing ships, and its waterfront bristled with seafaring activity, although the ocean was 120 miles away.
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by Margaret B. Schram. First Edition 2004 Published by |
How a seaport sprouted in such an unlikely spot is the subject of a fascinating new book by Hudson historian Margaret B. Schram. But as its title - Hudson’s Merchants and Whalers: The Rise and Fall of a River Port 1783-1850 - implies, the book recounts both the city’s glorious past and, perhaps even more intriguing, why its fortunes disappeared.
The city got its start in 1783, when New Englanders - primarily Quakers from Nantucket, where employment opportunities were dwindling - started purchasing land in what was then called New Claverack. Shippers from the island had long sailed up the Hudson and were familiar with its shores. New Claverack not only offered a deep water port for their ships but the inland farms that could provide produce to trade.
Hudson was founded by men who had lots of startup capital (estimates range from $100,000 to $500,000), but it’s not true that all of the Proprietors, as the first settlers were called, were seafarers. “The city could not have been so adequately planned and plotted had the organizers been off to sea for several years,” Schram writes. “Some were seamen, but more were artisans and businessmen. Many had their fingers in an array of commercial and civic activities, and those pursuits were directed to making the city a successful port”
(One seagoing Proprietor with an interesting past was Marshall Jenkins, who had survived a horrifying, Jonah-like ordeal several years before settling in Hudson. He was far out at sea when his boat was bitten in two by a whale the seamen were chasing. The creature scooped Jenkins into its mouth and submerged. Shortly after, the whale came back up for air and spit the man out, depositing him on a piece of the wrecked boat, from which he was rescued.)
It didn’t take long for Hudson’s waterfront, which started with a wharf and a single store, to become a mass of warehouses, shipyards, caulkers, blacksmith shops, sailmakers, and riggers. By 1800, 32 ships had been built there. Each launching was an occasion to celebrate. “Cannons were fired, the militia fired guns, and people cheered as the boat slid into the river,” Schram writes. "Hudson’s ships regularly traded with major U.S. ports and the Indies. Holds of Hudson River herring found ready buyers as far away as Sardinia, and the city’s whalers, off for months at a time in the Southern Atlantic or Pacific oceans, come back with $300,000 worth of precious oil."
Schram provides harrowing accounts of several of these voyages. The Meteor, for example, was under the command of a Captain Clasby. ‘They lowered for a whale and the harpooner successfully fastened. As the whale moved away from the boat and the line uncoiled, Clasby’s leg became entangled, and he was pulled overboard and drowned.” Other vignettes tell of sailors stranded at sea, marooned on Pacific islands for a year or more, and held for ransom by Barbary pirates. One poor sailor was eaten by a cannibal.
As its ships prospered - according to one account, as many as 15 left the city in a single day - so did Hudson, whose population nearly doubled between 1790 and 1814. Breweries, bakeries, and tanneries flourished. Chandlers turned the spermaceti brought back on whalers into smoke-free candles, while cobblers crafted the hides of seals into shoes and boots. (Elephant seal oil was used to waterproof them.) Farmers choked the streets with their wagons and sleighs. The city even had its own federal customs house, a sign of its importance to the national economy.
The residents’ every whim was catered to. ‘Thomas Jenkins advertised ‘the best India and New England rum, salt and dry goods’; Thomas Worth had silk and stuff shoes for sale; and Dennis MacNemara was a ‘tailor for Ladies and Gentlemen,’” Schram writes. “Mr. Robardet advertised he would open a class for the instruction of dancing, ‘after the most approved method.’ Ambrose Liverpool would open a seminary, teaching all the English branches, the Latin and Greek classics, plus the principles of several musical instruments.
“Orders for millinery and mantuas (a loose-fitting gown) could be obtained from Mrs. Hussey, who promised the best fashions from New York City. Monsieur Hyacinth L’Escure kept ‘a choice lot of essences’ near the market house. Monsieur L’Escure was formerly a drummer under General Burgoyne, and was employed as the one and only ‘barber to the corporation.’ He dressed in a ‘long striped calico gown, a ruffled shirt, silk stockings and yellow slippers. His habit was to pace in front of his shop, humming a tune and snapping his fingers. So much for the staid, stuffy Quaker city!”
The good times came to a crashing halt in the early 1800s, thanks to something beyond the city’s control - hostilities in Europe. “As England and France warred, both preyed on American ships,” Schram writes. “Sail cargo to France, be seized by British ships. Sail cargo to England, be seized by French ships. Hudson skippers made fortunes, then lost money and ships to capture.”
By the time Napoleon had been banished and the War of 1812 was over, Hudson’s economy was in shambles. In 1815, it lost its designation as a federal Port of Entry; five years later, the Bank of Hudson failed. Efforts were made to restart whaling operations in the 1830s and ‘40s, but Schram says that the cards were stacked against success from the get-go. “In the over 10 years since the last whaler left Hudson, the whaleships were gone, the experienced masters and mates had moved to prosperous whaling ports. All the paraphernalia needed for long voyages had to be procured, including ship gear and victuals. More important, there was the problem of finding a crew. The industry was suffering from the inability to sign on men who would tolerate the conditions and toil on a whaleship. The new West and factories offered safer adventures and occupations.”
Schram contends that Hudson’s local investors put so much money into trying to jump-start the whaling business that they ignored investing in more lucrative, and potentially long-lasting, industries. But that was only one of the factors that doomed Hudson. The one newfangled business that money was poured into - the Berkshire Railroad - quickly failed. Two fires destroyed parts of the city, and in 1837 the Town of Greenport was formed; it virtually surrounded the city and prevented it from growing. The Panic of 1837, a deep economic depression (which began, ironically, during the administration of Kinderhook native Martin Van Buren), was the knockout blow to the city’s once glittering fortunes. By 1850, and for the next 125 years, Hudson, like so many other Valley cities, just managed to get by. (For much of the early 20th century, it was best known for its brothels and bars.) Then the antiquers came to town.
Today, Federal-style houses - a little long in the tooth, but many undergoing restoration - stand as testament to Hudson’s grand past. And from Parade Hill, where the throngs once cheered the newly launched ships, you can look down river and imagine the whaling fleet sailing away.