September 25, 1909
After luncheon I scampered over to Riverside Park to see the commemorative naval parade. The ideal weather, the magnetic crowds, the great beauty of the natural setting -I sat upon the park slope, tree-shaded, and lookt athwart the noble river to the stately Jersey hills -the warships in gala array, saluting with their guns, amid clustering craft, graceful "Half Moon", that moved like a swan upon the water, and the interesting "Clermont", as they approached the water-gate, with music and huzzas, for the reception ceremonies, - all made an animated and memorable pageant.
The "Half Moon" and "Clermont" were approximately facsimiles of the originals or so intended. The "Clermont" however, resembled more the old "North River", the first "Clermont" of the trial trips and voyage up the Hudson in August, 1807, being a third smaller. It was later extended and rechristened "North River". This remodeling has caused some confusion. It is true that Fulton somewhere mentions that "my first steamboat on the Hudson's River was 150 feet long, 13 feet wide, drawing 2 feet of water, bow and stern 60 degrees". Yet he probably had in mind his first registered steamboat and not the trial boat. In Chancellor Livingston's agreement with Fulton it is expressly stipulated that the vessel shall not exceed 120 feet in length. Col. Beckwith, who was familiar with the facts, gives the length as about 100 feet. M. Michaux, a French botanist and careful observer, who was a passenger on the initial return voyage from Albany, says in his account, made at the time, that it was about 25 metres or 82 feet long. The festival boat that is masquerading as a copy of the "Clermont", is it would seem, a copy of the "North River". The spectacle would have been still more interesting, the contrast with the huge ocean steamers and warships of today still more pronounced, if the dimensions of the original, smaller boat had been followed. This perhaps is of minor importance, but significant. The "Clermont" and "Half Moon", so-called, were undoubtedly the compelling features of the celebrations.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
Western trip 1909, steamboats, writing, and more...
August 6, 1909
Got home last evening from my Western trip. I had traversed a glorious country, diversified, of scenic magic and compelling extent. I had covered en route about ten thousand miles. Some parts of the Far West were of stupendous grandeur, the canyons and geysers being particularly striking and set apart from the rest of the natural scene in wonderful coloring, sharpness of acclivity, the dizzy plunge of waterfalls, strange wall structures, satanic and mysterious action. Yet withal I felt the want of depth and complexity in the human and historic backgrounds. There was a paucity of legend and tradition. Even Lo, the Poor Indian, failed to make a satisfactory appeal. Science and the Mormons gave me some imaginative looks into a bewildering past, and the Indian and Spaniard had their relative value, their caress and humanizing effect. The soldier and cowboy served in a measure to subdue and render friendly the plain, the valley and more rarely the lovely mountain fastness. How the spirit expands almost to solution and contracts to an aching loneliness and despair amid the austerities and eternities of the Rocky and Sierra ranges! And there were superabundant energy and achievement in the short-lived cities. I brought back many pleasant memories, incidents well graven, sensations, fine impressions, studious returns. I get much from my travels after they are done and digested. The direct vision, the stimulus of view and experience have left their residuum in the soul. There succeed the assimilated results, the breadth of comparison, the maturity of tested knowledge and unbounded scope. The fancy plays with delight over place and people; it finds coming even from the dimness incidental spots of refuge and recreation that brighten in fairy-fashion. With much travel one is enfranchised, into a kind of world-citizenship and universal brotherhood.
August 10, 1909
Eastern people should more frequently travel or go out West and Western people similarly come East. This would bring about a complementary understanding, a mutual benefit and wider view. Whilst I should not like to lessen the interest and charm of diversity, homogeneity makes for the national development and defence, subdues the province to the country and develops a great national spirit, an indigenous yet continental art and literature.
August 12, 1909
If you have a feeling for all styles and a mastery of them, you can best express your prevailing mood and thought, your temperament, in any style. And wonderful are the ways, the lights and shadows of words! Sometimes the concise, direct, concentrated style makes a close appeal and is fit, when the phrase is trimmed of all superfluities and the word stands pat upon the thought; at other times the soul is leisurely and expanded and welcomes a rich, copious, if not more gracious manner, when the spirit likes to play in and out and around about the scene or idea, when even circumlocution, the amplifying and qualifying adjective seem none too much and all the charming optatives and little prepositions must be put in. If you know and have the art in this or any other kind, then the quidnuncs and fault finders go to the wall, and you simply write well.
August 19, 1909
It is not so much conventional goodness as essential goodness that should count. Is that patent? Look around and see.
Oh, the smallness and meanness of the small!
O, the greatness and magnanimity of the great!
September 2, 1909
This appeared in today's Evening Journal (EM):
1.THE CLERMONT IN JERSEY CITY
Edtor of the Evening Journal:
Apropos of the Hudson-Fulton celebration, the following account of the Cermont is not only especially pertinent, but gives a fillip in our civic pride and interest in the approaching festivities. It is taken from a book called ?The Sloops of the Hudson.? By Verplanck and Collyer. Mr. Collyer found it among the manuscript papers of Colonel Nathan Beckwith of Red Hook, Dutchess county, New York, who died in 1865 at the age of 86:
?The first trip of the steamer Clermont started from the East River and went to Jersey City. She was constructed under the personal supervision of Robert Fulton in 1807. She was 100 feet long, 12 feet wide, and 7 feet deep. This steamboat made two or three trips to Albany, and was hauled out at Red Hook, near where Herman Hoffman's store stood, which was destroyed by the British in the Revolutionary war. The property is now owned by Mr. DeKoven. In the winter of 1807 said boat was lengthened to 150 feet and widened to 18 feet: the name was then changed to North River. The hull was built by David Brown of New York and the engine by Watt & Bolton of England. The following advertisement appeared in the Albany Gazette Sept. 1, 1807: ?The steamboat North River will leave Paulus Hook, Jersey City, on Friday, Sept. 4, at 9 o'clock a. m., and arrive at Albany on Saturday at 9 o'clock p. m. Good berths and accommodations are provided. The charge to each passenger is as follows: To Newburgh, $3; time, fourteen hours; to Poughkeepsie, $4; time, seventeen hours; to Esopus, $5; time, twenty hours; to Hudson, $5.50; time, thirty hours; to Albany, $7; time, thirty-six hours.' A notice in the same paper of Oct. 5, 1807, announces that Mr. Fulton's new steamboat left New York at 10 o'clock a. m. against a strong tide and very high water, also a violent gale from the north; it made headway beyond the most sanguine expectations and without being wrecked by the water, heavy sea and gale.?
My impression, or understanding, drawn from competent sources, is that the Clermont, though built on the East River, was brought over to Jersey City, and completed in a ship yard on Greene Street, which then bordered on the river. Certain it is that she made her first trips to and from Jersey City and, it would appear, piled for some time as a packet between this city and Albany. All of the facts and incidents connected with this epoch-making boat are extremely interesting, and the foregoing should receive wider recognition.
Edwin Manners.
(Comment, EM):
As the Clermont was enlarged and renamed in the winter of 1807-1808, the Albany Gazette's announcements were probably of the latter year. But other inferences may be made, and I deem it best to publish documents of this kind as they are found.
If the facts were fully known, it could justly be said that the old Greene street shipyard in Jersey City was the real cradle of steam navigation on the Hudson River and practically of the world. Indeed enough is known to say this substantially. I deduce this from records and traditionary details, however imperfect. The shipyard antedated the Fulton foundry at Greene and Morgan streets. Here the enlarged Clermont or North River was finally dismantled.
September 6, 1909
It is a bright day with a tempered autumn air, suitable for the holiday of labor. Today all who labor and are heavy-laden have the opportunity by statute to rest from their labors and quietly enjoy. But somehow they generally succeed beyond expectation in making of it a true labor day indeed. They become more weary and heavy-laden at their tasks of enjoyment than they would have become of their usual occupations.
After a morning of reading I went over to Manhattan and browsed or moused about the streets. Constantly I find there enough in spectacle and people to feed upon, catch, bog, amuse, ripen, season knowledge and finally to instruct in the harmonies of wisdom and truth. What a captivating theatre of light, movement, incident and life is a great city!
I noticed on the bulletin-boards that Commander Peary had discovered the North Pole on April 6th last. This is startling news and an amazing coincidence, coming so soon on the delayed reports that Dr. Cook had attained the same goal April 21, 1908 -the baffling, mysterious goal that had defied the centuries. There is no doubt that this puts a particularly bright star in the annals of American discovery.
September 9, 1909
Edward H. Harriman died this afternoon at Arden, his country seat. I knew him and his brothers when they were boys in this city. They called at the house. The Harriman pew in Grace Church was just to the left of ours, and I fear I sometimes allowed my eyes to stray from my prayer-book to their sister, an attractive girl and much devoted to the church. Mr. H. was a financier of large wealth and accounted one of the great, if not the foremost of railroad operations. He has done much undoubtedly over a wide territory to develop the resources of the Country, and to unify and improve transportation facilities. The railroad and steamship lines he controlled comprised the most extensive system of transit in the world, exceeding the Hill properties.
As I knew him, he was called Henry and a likely young man, but as he trained in an older set, I do not bring back much about him except his calling upon my sisters. His father was an Episcopal clergyman and preached occasionally at Grace Church, this City.
Got home last evening from my Western trip. I had traversed a glorious country, diversified, of scenic magic and compelling extent. I had covered en route about ten thousand miles. Some parts of the Far West were of stupendous grandeur, the canyons and geysers being particularly striking and set apart from the rest of the natural scene in wonderful coloring, sharpness of acclivity, the dizzy plunge of waterfalls, strange wall structures, satanic and mysterious action. Yet withal I felt the want of depth and complexity in the human and historic backgrounds. There was a paucity of legend and tradition. Even Lo, the Poor Indian, failed to make a satisfactory appeal. Science and the Mormons gave me some imaginative looks into a bewildering past, and the Indian and Spaniard had their relative value, their caress and humanizing effect. The soldier and cowboy served in a measure to subdue and render friendly the plain, the valley and more rarely the lovely mountain fastness. How the spirit expands almost to solution and contracts to an aching loneliness and despair amid the austerities and eternities of the Rocky and Sierra ranges! And there were superabundant energy and achievement in the short-lived cities. I brought back many pleasant memories, incidents well graven, sensations, fine impressions, studious returns. I get much from my travels after they are done and digested. The direct vision, the stimulus of view and experience have left their residuum in the soul. There succeed the assimilated results, the breadth of comparison, the maturity of tested knowledge and unbounded scope. The fancy plays with delight over place and people; it finds coming even from the dimness incidental spots of refuge and recreation that brighten in fairy-fashion. With much travel one is enfranchised, into a kind of world-citizenship and universal brotherhood.
August 10, 1909
Eastern people should more frequently travel or go out West and Western people similarly come East. This would bring about a complementary understanding, a mutual benefit and wider view. Whilst I should not like to lessen the interest and charm of diversity, homogeneity makes for the national development and defence, subdues the province to the country and develops a great national spirit, an indigenous yet continental art and literature.
August 12, 1909
If you have a feeling for all styles and a mastery of them, you can best express your prevailing mood and thought, your temperament, in any style. And wonderful are the ways, the lights and shadows of words! Sometimes the concise, direct, concentrated style makes a close appeal and is fit, when the phrase is trimmed of all superfluities and the word stands pat upon the thought; at other times the soul is leisurely and expanded and welcomes a rich, copious, if not more gracious manner, when the spirit likes to play in and out and around about the scene or idea, when even circumlocution, the amplifying and qualifying adjective seem none too much and all the charming optatives and little prepositions must be put in. If you know and have the art in this or any other kind, then the quidnuncs and fault finders go to the wall, and you simply write well.
August 19, 1909
It is not so much conventional goodness as essential goodness that should count. Is that patent? Look around and see.
Oh, the smallness and meanness of the small!
O, the greatness and magnanimity of the great!
September 2, 1909
This appeared in today's Evening Journal (EM):
1.THE CLERMONT IN JERSEY CITY
Edtor of the Evening Journal:
Apropos of the Hudson-Fulton celebration, the following account of the Cermont is not only especially pertinent, but gives a fillip in our civic pride and interest in the approaching festivities. It is taken from a book called ?The Sloops of the Hudson.? By Verplanck and Collyer. Mr. Collyer found it among the manuscript papers of Colonel Nathan Beckwith of Red Hook, Dutchess county, New York, who died in 1865 at the age of 86:
?The first trip of the steamer Clermont started from the East River and went to Jersey City. She was constructed under the personal supervision of Robert Fulton in 1807. She was 100 feet long, 12 feet wide, and 7 feet deep. This steamboat made two or three trips to Albany, and was hauled out at Red Hook, near where Herman Hoffman's store stood, which was destroyed by the British in the Revolutionary war. The property is now owned by Mr. DeKoven. In the winter of 1807 said boat was lengthened to 150 feet and widened to 18 feet: the name was then changed to North River. The hull was built by David Brown of New York and the engine by Watt & Bolton of England. The following advertisement appeared in the Albany Gazette Sept. 1, 1807: ?The steamboat North River will leave Paulus Hook, Jersey City, on Friday, Sept. 4, at 9 o'clock a. m., and arrive at Albany on Saturday at 9 o'clock p. m. Good berths and accommodations are provided. The charge to each passenger is as follows: To Newburgh, $3; time, fourteen hours; to Poughkeepsie, $4; time, seventeen hours; to Esopus, $5; time, twenty hours; to Hudson, $5.50; time, thirty hours; to Albany, $7; time, thirty-six hours.' A notice in the same paper of Oct. 5, 1807, announces that Mr. Fulton's new steamboat left New York at 10 o'clock a. m. against a strong tide and very high water, also a violent gale from the north; it made headway beyond the most sanguine expectations and without being wrecked by the water, heavy sea and gale.?
My impression, or understanding, drawn from competent sources, is that the Clermont, though built on the East River, was brought over to Jersey City, and completed in a ship yard on Greene Street, which then bordered on the river. Certain it is that she made her first trips to and from Jersey City and, it would appear, piled for some time as a packet between this city and Albany. All of the facts and incidents connected with this epoch-making boat are extremely interesting, and the foregoing should receive wider recognition.
Edwin Manners.
(Comment, EM):
As the Clermont was enlarged and renamed in the winter of 1807-1808, the Albany Gazette's announcements were probably of the latter year. But other inferences may be made, and I deem it best to publish documents of this kind as they are found.
If the facts were fully known, it could justly be said that the old Greene street shipyard in Jersey City was the real cradle of steam navigation on the Hudson River and practically of the world. Indeed enough is known to say this substantially. I deduce this from records and traditionary details, however imperfect. The shipyard antedated the Fulton foundry at Greene and Morgan streets. Here the enlarged Clermont or North River was finally dismantled.
September 6, 1909
It is a bright day with a tempered autumn air, suitable for the holiday of labor. Today all who labor and are heavy-laden have the opportunity by statute to rest from their labors and quietly enjoy. But somehow they generally succeed beyond expectation in making of it a true labor day indeed. They become more weary and heavy-laden at their tasks of enjoyment than they would have become of their usual occupations.
After a morning of reading I went over to Manhattan and browsed or moused about the streets. Constantly I find there enough in spectacle and people to feed upon, catch, bog, amuse, ripen, season knowledge and finally to instruct in the harmonies of wisdom and truth. What a captivating theatre of light, movement, incident and life is a great city!
I noticed on the bulletin-boards that Commander Peary had discovered the North Pole on April 6th last. This is startling news and an amazing coincidence, coming so soon on the delayed reports that Dr. Cook had attained the same goal April 21, 1908 -the baffling, mysterious goal that had defied the centuries. There is no doubt that this puts a particularly bright star in the annals of American discovery.
September 9, 1909
Edward H. Harriman died this afternoon at Arden, his country seat. I knew him and his brothers when they were boys in this city. They called at the house. The Harriman pew in Grace Church was just to the left of ours, and I fear I sometimes allowed my eyes to stray from my prayer-book to their sister, an attractive girl and much devoted to the church. Mr. H. was a financier of large wealth and accounted one of the great, if not the foremost of railroad operations. He has done much undoubtedly over a wide territory to develop the resources of the Country, and to unify and improve transportation facilities. The railroad and steamship lines he controlled comprised the most extensive system of transit in the world, exceeding the Hill properties.
As I knew him, he was called Henry and a likely young man, but as he trained in an older set, I do not bring back much about him except his calling upon my sisters. His father was an Episcopal clergyman and preached occasionally at Grace Church, this City.
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