Our Incrredible Valley Page 3 - Columbia County Historical Society

By Dominic Lizzi
Mr. Lizzi is an author and Valatie Village
Historian. His new book, Valatie; The
Forgotten History is in first draft status.
The mid-nineteenth century was the
heyday of steamboats in America and
on the Hudson River. Indeed,the
Hudson Morning Republican, August 28, 1905
stated: “Early in the nineteenth century the
Hudson River set the pace for speed with magnificent
steamboats.” Columbia County’s main
ports were the City of Hudson and Stuyvesant
Landing, also called Kinderhook Landing.
Passengers, freight, crops and textile products
were loaded onto the majestic boats
which steamed up and down the Hudson
River. Finished goods, bales of cotton and
passengers were discharged at these ports. The
steamboat, with its chugging engines, smoke
stacks belching black smoke, singing whistles
and splashing paddles, were a common sight
to residents of Columbia County from the
time the ice melted in the spring until the
waters froze again in the winter. There were
continuing reports on the steamboats, their
schedules, and cargoes in the county newspapers
of the era.
Unfortunately, there are no surviving
Hudson Valley steamships as there are on the
Mississippi River. The last steamboats of the
Hudson River Day Line are but
memories of the elderly. There
are scattered momentos in
museums and histories written
that preserve aspects of this
once great river traffic.
However, Valatie, among its
many hidden treasures, has the
most prominent relic of the
Hudson River steamboats. The
Swallow House, a residence
now belonging to Stephen and
Heather Desmonie, is built of
the timbers and other remains
of the Swallow, a vessel that for
nine years plied the river. The
house and its components are
the only known remains of a
steamboat in Columbia County.
The house is located at 1413
Albany Avenue, and is well doc-
Columbia County Historical Society www.cchsny.org
umented in numerous news articles and
books dealing with the steamboats on the
Hudson River. The Desmonies live in the well
maintained two-story frame house with their
children, Dominic and Alexander.
The Swallow was destroyed on April 7,
1845, during a race with two other vessels off
the village of Athens (Figure 2, page 31). The
Swallow struck a rock known as Dooper Island
or Noah’s Brig. The ship was described as “a
beautiful, long, rakish, go-ahead steamboat.”
Shipbuilder William Capes built it in his
Brooklyn shipyard in 1836 for Anthony
Hoffman and Associates. The wooden hull
was 226 feet long and weighed 426 tons. In
1837, the vessel was lengthened to 240 feet in
order to give it better navigation and speed.
The two paddle wheels were about 24 feet in
diameter each and turned at 24 rpm. The West
Point Foundry produced the steam engine
which powered the boat. It was a sleek doubledecker
which could easily accommodate about
300 people, including the crew. The vessel was
worth about fifty thousand dollars in 1840.
Anthracite coal was used for fuel on this
steamboat and most others after 1810
replacing thick pine slabs of wood. However,
pine was often added to the burner for quick
bursts of speed. The main fear of passengers
and crew on these “floating volcanoes” was
the ship catching fire due to exploding boil-
38
ers, a common occurrence during this era.
The Swallow was considered one of the
two fastest steamboats in America and better
than any that plied European waters. By the
early 1840s the Swallow had set records for
the trip between New York City and Albany.
It could easily and safely make the trip in a little
over ten hours. The graceful Swallow was
in a bitter rivalry with other steamboats not
only in speed of travel but also for the passenger
trade. Price wars between existing steamboat
companies often broke out. For example
at one time in 1840, fares that had been originally
set at 7 dollars between Albany and
New York City were cut to 25 cents, and on
some boats nothing at all with passengers paying
for stateroom and meals only.
The rivalry, particularly with regard to
speed and condition of the boats, was a matter
of pride for both captains and crews. Their
reputations often depended on the performances
of the steamboats during the 142 mile
long races on the Hudson between the docks
in Albany and Manhattan. Heavy betting also
The Swallow House
The Swallow House as seen today; a depiction of the wreck of the Swallow is
shown on page 31.
took place between rival owners, captains and
other gamblers.
On the day before the tragedy, April 6,
1845, while speeding upstream, the Swallow
lost a close race to its bitter enemy, the
Rochester. The Rochester was a smaller, sleek
steamboat which was very fast. It was about
210 feet long. The next evening
the captain of the Swallow, A.
H. Squires, was determined to
avenge the loss.
At 6:00 p.m., April 7, the
Swallow cast off from Albany’s
steamboat docks, as this part of
the port was known. At the
same time, two other steamboats,
the Rochester and the
Express also left. Immediately
the boats began racing downstream.
The crews quickly
began shoveling large amounts
of coal into the steam engines.
The boilers began hissing and
making great rumblings. Black
smoke poured from the smoke
stacks of the three boats. When
steamboats raced passengers
often became very frightened