RARE Advertising Cover & Signed Letter. Congressman, Steamboat Company Owner. & Founder of First Amusement Park in America. Allover cover & letter New York, NY. For offer: a nice old cover and letter. Fresh from a local estate. Never offered on the market until now. Vintage, Antique, old, Original. A Reproduction – Guaranteed!! Autograph signed letter on Starin’s City, River & Harbor Transportation Company. Starin was a US Congressman and founded the founded Starin’s Glen Island Resort, America’s first amusement park. Great all over advertising graphic with a star symbol, and IN after it – making for Starin. Stamp, postal postmark, and cancel on envelope. Sent to Dunkell / Dunkel, of Canajoharie, NY. In good to very good condition. NOTE – letter will be sent folded up in cover, as found. See photos for details. If you collect 19th century Americana history, advertisement ad, American postal history, transportation, industry, business, etc. This is a real nice one for your paper / ephemera collection. Perhaps some genealogy importance for someone as well. Get this one while you can! John Henry Starin (August 27, 1825 March 21, 1909) was a U. Representative from New York, grandson of Thomas Sammons. He also founded Starin’s Glen Island Resort, America’s first amusement park. Early life and education. This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: John H. Starin news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (September 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message). Born in Sammonsville, Fulton County (then a part of Montgomery County), New York. Starin pursued academic studies in Esperance, New York, where he began the study of medicine in 1842. He established and operated a drug and medicine business in Fultonville, New York, from 18451858. From 18481852, he also served as Postmaster of Fultonville. Additionally, Starin was the founder and president of the Starin City River & Harbor Transportation Co. And served as director of the North River Bank, in New York City, and the Mohawk River National Bank. He was also interested in agriculture and stock raising. Starin was elected as a Republican to the Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth Congresses (March 4, 1877 March 3, 1881). From 18831909, he served as president of Fultonville National Bank. He engaged in railroading and served as member of the New York City Rapid Transit Commission, as well. Starin’s Glen Island Resort. He maintained the islands as a select summer resort, operating 12 steamboats to and from New York City. The islands were so popular that hundreds of thousands of visitors were brought every season to the attractions which included a zoo, a natural history museum, a railway, a German beer garden (around the castle-like structure which still stands today), a bathing beach, and a Chinese pagoda. A chain ferry transported visitors from a mainland dock on Neptune Island. By 1882, attendance reached half a million and within six years it broke a million. However, despite the large number of visitors, Starin stressed the well-behaved nature of the crowds and the orderly character of the experience, governed by a “middle-class code of conduct”. His desire was to offer an environment of order and civility which contrasted to the rough-and-tumble atmosphere of New York City. [2] One of the effects of Glen Island’s popularity in the beginning of the twentieth century was the building boom in New Rochelle, which had rapidly grown into a summer resort community. Starin Mausoleum in Fultonville Cemetery. The Starin Mausoleum was constructed in Fultonville Cemetery in the early 1880s. The building was approximately 50 feet tall, 33 feet across, and 24 feet deep. The Starin mausoleum no longer stands in Fultonville Cemetery, but remnants of the foundation can still be found. Starin died in 1909, he left the ownership and the care of the mausoleum to the Starin Benevolent & Industrial Association, which ceased to exist in 1917. In the 1970s, the mausoleum began to fall into disrepair. Sometime around this time, it was also vandalized on Halloween by a group of teenagers, who destroyed most of the caskets and bodies. In the summer of 1975 the mausoleum was taken down, the remains that were left in the mausoleum were re-interred in front of where it once stood, and markers were placed on the graves. At the time of the demolition there was very little left to the mausoleum. Today, a modest upright granite slab with a bronze face marks Starin’s grave and those of his family members. History of Westchester County. Hudson River Museum (January 2006). Westchester: The American Suburb. Retrieved 10 September 2011. Starin died in New York City on March 21, 1909 and was interred in The Starin Mausoleum, in Fultonville Cemetery, Fultonville. Member of the U. From New York’s 20th district. March 4, 1877 March 3, 1881. Sammonsville, Fulton County, New York, U. March 21, 1909 (aged 83). New York City, New York, U. Fultonville Cemetery, Fultonville, New York, U. Starin in the late 1800s. Starin’s resort, referred to as “America’s pleasure grounds”[1] was the first theme park in the country. [2] The park’s original design exhibited the five cultures of the western world on individual islands linked together with piers and causeways. [3] The extreme popularity of the park resulted in a building boom in New Rochelle in the first decade of the twentieth century. The resort was located on Glen Island, in New Rochelle’s Lower Harbor, just off of Long Island Sound. The island is situated between Davids’, Neptune, and Travers Islands in New Rochelle, and Hunter Island in nearby Pelham Bay Park, in the Bronx borough of New York City. Although now one island, the site originally consisted of one large main island in close proximity to at least four smaller nearby islands, a number of rocky outcroppings, low-lying flats, and salt marshes. The site is currently occupied by the county’s Glen Island Park, which includes remnants of some of the historic structures. Until the late 1700s, the area was inhabited to some extent by the Siwanoy Indians of Algonquin stock. Cromwell’s active participation in events leading up to the American Revolution, in opposition to the Patriot cause, brought him disaster, and his property was confiscated. Later, the island came into the ownership of Samuel Wooley, and accordingly, the island was long called “Wooley’s Island”. Depau was the grandson of the Compte De Grasse, the Admiral of France, commanding the fleets operating with Rochambeau in 1781. De Pau was also Napoleon III’s U. At this time, the island was named “Locust” after the lush groves of locust trees found throughout the property. At the center of the island DePau built a grand mansion surrounded by well landscaped grounds and fish ponds, and containing hot houses, bathing facilities, billiard rooms, and a bowling alley. He used his home to entertain such luminaries of the era as the singer Jenny Lind and U. Political leader and statesman Daniel Webster, who met and married his second wife in New Rochelle. Starin for use as a country residence. Starin was the owner of a large transportation company which included nearly every tugboat in New York Harbor and a fleet of passenger steamboats. He used the steamboats to ferry visitors from New York City. In 1881, the Park opened to the general public, attracting thousands of people daily. The walkways along the harbor were lined with colorful flowers, classic bronze statues, and a natural spring that provided cool, fresh water. Winding pathways led visitors through landscaped grounds where they could escape the summer heat under groves of shade trees. Included among its attractions were musical entertainment and performance bandstands, a camera obscura, a Grand Cafe, an aviary, greenhouses, stone castles, a Dutch mill, and a Chinese pagoda. [11] There was also a nationally recognized Museum of Natural History which housed mummies from 332 B. Native American relics of the Stone Age, and other rare antiquities, along with the first fire engine used in New York State, several meteors, and a giant stuffed white whale. [12] There were also bathing beaches, pavilions which could accommodate 800 people, bridle paths, a miniature steam train, and a zoo of exotic animals which included monkeys, lions, elephants, and trained seals. The island’s main attraction was a re-created German castle modeled after an ancient Rhine fortress. The arched entrance was broad enough to admit a coach into the courtyard leading to the great hall. In the great hall was the “Little Germany” (Klein Deutschland) beer garden, where food and beer were served by waiters in Tyrolean dress. Starin’s Island, internationally acclaimed as “one of the most beautiful spots in America, ” and “the first summer resort in the United States, if not the world”, preceded Disneyland as the first “theme park” by many years. By 1882 attendance reached half a million, and within six years it broke a million. However, despite the large number of visitors, Starin stressed the well-behaved nature of the crowds and the orderly character of the experience, governed by a middle-class code of conduct. His desire was to offer an environment of order and civility which contrasted to the rough-and-tumble atmosphere of New York City. [15] Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the park was that all attractions, rides and amusements were free. One of the effects of Glen Island’s popularity in the beginning of the twentieth century was the building boom in New Rochelle, which had rapidly grown into a summer resort community. This era lasted nearly 40 years. The beginning of the end of the island’s heyday came in 1904, when the Starin steamship, General Slocum, burned in Hellgate with a loss of 1,000 lives. Starin died in 1909. The Pioneer further stated that all of the relics of the late John H. [17] However, despite lots of press-agentry, the sale to Peerless was never consummated. Afterwards, the properties’ management passed into other hands and, having become unprofitable, the resort was finally closed. The extensive bathing houses were burned, and later Lewis A. DePau’s mansion, which had been Starin’s summer home, met the same fate. Once under their ownership, extensive landfilling was undertaken to permanently join all five islands together into one larger landmass. A large bascule bridge was also constructed, so that the island would have a permanent link to the mainland and become more accessible to the public. The Glen Island Casino building, seen here in 2011. The Glen Island Casino dining hall rose on the foundation of the Grand Cafe, one of the few structures remaining from Starin’s park. The building opened into a series of balconies overlooking the Long Island Sound, which made it an attractive dining and entertaining location. At the time, the term “casino” was not associated with legalized gambling but instead described a public social place for entertainment. However, the nightspot was soon living up to the contemporary definition of its name. By 1930, when Prohibition was marking its 10th year in the United States, Glen Island Casino was acquiring a reputation as a speakeasy. At the same time, the casino had also begun to book up-and-coming musicians for weekend dances. One of the first was Oswald George Nelson, better known as “Ozzie”, who set the pace packing the 60-foot by 124-foot hall with throngs of young dancers. Accompanied by his wife, Harriet Hilliard, the Ozzie Nelson Orchestra gained national attention when it played the casino’s 1932 season. The next summer, the most influential white band in the United States during the early 1930s, the Casa Loma Orchestra, drew in the crowds and ushered in the Big Band Era for the casino. The performances at the Glen Island Casino were being heard nationwide. Situated on the Long Island Sound, the casino’s enormous ballroom was acoustically ideal for the crystal-clear radio transmissions. Many artists made their names at the casino, among them such notables as Glenn Miller, [22] the Dorsey Brothers, [23] Benny Goodman, Charlie Barnet, Larry Clinton, Les Brown and Doris Day, Charlie Spivak, Woody Herman, Gene Krupa, Hal Mcintyre, and Claude Thornhill. After the Big Band Era’s end, the Glen Island Casino was eventually converted to a restaurant and catering hall, which operates as part of the present-day Glen Island Park of Westchester Countyopen to county residents onlyon the site. Transportation in New York City has ranged from strong Dutch authority in the 17th century, expansionism during the industrial era in the 19th century and half of the 20th century, to cronyism during the Robert Moses era. The shape of New York City’s transportation system changed as the city did, and the result is an expansive modern-day system of industrial-era infrastructure. New York City, being the most populous city in the United States, has a transportation system which includes one of the largest subway systems in the world; the world’s first mechanically ventilated vehicular tunnel; and an aerial tramway. The Castello Plan illustrates the extent of Dutch ambition of trade in Nieuw Amsterdam, in the 17th century. Portions of Broadway were once a part of a primary route of the Lenape people in Pre-Dutch New York. [1] In the 18th century, the principal highway to distant places was the Eastern Post Road. It ran through the East Side, and exited out of what was the northernmost point of Manhattan, in present-day Marble Hill. Bloomingdale Road, later called Western Boulevard and now Broadway, was important for the West Side. According to Homberger, present-day Lafayette Street, Park Row, and St. Nicholas Avenue also follow former Lenape routes. [2] According to Burrow, et al. [1] the Dutch had decided that that Lenape trail which ran the length of Manhattan, or present-day Broadway, would be called the Heere Wegh. The first paved street in New York was authorized by Petrus Stuyvesant (Peter Stuyvesant) in 1658, to be constructed by the inhabitants of Brouwer Street (present-day Stone Street). Lenape trail routes were not only in Manhattan. Jamaica Avenue, which connects the present-day boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, also runs along a former trail through Jamaica Pass. According to the Castello Plan, multiple canals and waterways were built, including a very early canal on the present-day Broad Street, which was called the Heere Gracht. According to Burrows, et al. [1] a municipal pier was built on what is now Moore Street, on the East River. The first regional ground transportation that was built out of Nieuw Amsterdam was a “wagon-road” that linked to Nieuw Haarlem (Harlem). It was built in 1658 to encourage development of that town, by order of Petrus Stuyvesant, who saw that Nieuw Haarlem could provide an important measure of defense for Nieuw Amsterdam. In 1661 the Communipaw ferry was founded and began a long history of trans-Hudson ferry and ultimately rail and road transportation. An 1807 version of grid plan for Manhattan. The Province of New-York greatly improved the old Indian trails that had served the colony’s earlier masters. Country roads suitable for wagons included the King’s Highway in Kings County, two Jamaica Roads through Jamaica Pass, and Boston Post Road. As new streets were laid out beyond Wall Street, the grid became more regular. The river areas being more useful, their streets were first, with streets parallel and perpendicular to their particular river. Later 18th-century streets in the middle of the island were even more regular, with city blocks longer in the approximately north/south direction than east/west. By the early 19th century, inland urban growth had reached approximately the line of the modern Houston Street, and farther in Greenwich Village. [citation needed] Due to expanding world trade, growth was accelerating, and a commission created a more comprehensive street plan for the remainder of the island. New York adopted a visionary proposal to develop Manhattan north of 14th Street with a regular street grid, according to The Commissioners’ Plan of 1811. This would fundamentally alter the city aesthetically, economically, and geographically. The economic logic underlying the plan – which called for twelve numbered avenues running approximately north and south, and 155 orthogonal cross streets – was that the grid’s regularity would provide an efficient means to develop new real estate property and would promote commerce. Into the middle 19th century most streets remained unpaved, but tracks allowed smooth public transport by horse cars which were eventually electrified as trolleys. The 1854 Jennings streetcar case abolished racial discrimination in public transit. Find sources: “History of transportation in New York City” news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (September 2007) (Learn how and when to remove this template message). Water transport grew rapidly in the new century, due in part to technical development under Robert Fulton’s steamboat monopoly. [citation needed] Steamboats provided rapid, reliable connections from New York Harbor to other Hudson River and coastal ports, and later local steam ferries allowed commuters to live far from their workplaces. [citation needed] The first steam ferry service in the world began in 1812 between Paulus Hook and Manhattan[4] and reduced the journey time to a then remarkable 14 minutes. The completion in 1825 of the upstate Erie Canal, spanning the Hudson River and Lake Erie, made New York the most important connection between Europe and the American interior. The Gowanus Canal and other works were built to handle the increased traffic, all suitable existing shorelines having already been lined with docks. The Morris Canal and Delaware and Raritan Canal were parts of the extensive system of new infrastructure serving the city with coal and other commodities. The Canal Age, however, gave way to a railway age. New Yorks’ ports continued to grow rapidly during and after the Second Industrial Revolution, making the city America’s mouth, sucking in manufactured goods and immigrants and spewing forth grains and other raw materials to the developed countries. By the mid-19th century, thanks in part to the introduction of oceanic steamships, more passengers and products came through the Port of New York than all other harbors in the country combined. [citation needed] Conversion to steam brought a large fleet of distinctive New York tugboats. Former streetcar barn in Woodside, Queens. Streetcars found steam power impractical, and more often progressed directly from horse power to electricity. Suburban electrification involved true trolley cars, but the required overhead wires were forbidden in New York (Manhattan). Traffic congestion and the high cost of conduit current collection impeded streetcar development there. 1892 depiction of infrastructure newly built, later built, or never built. New York’s waterways, so useful in establishing its commerce and power, became obstacles to railroads. The Harlem River being not so difficult, three railroads with service to the north agreed to build a common Grand Central Terminal. Disagreement among New Jersey railroad companies foiled efforts to organize a great new rail bridge across the Hudson, so the Pennsylvania Railroad, with its newly acquired Long Island Rail Road subsidiary, built the New York Tunnel Extension for its new Pennsylvania Station, New York. Passengers of the other companies changed to the Pennsylvania, or continued to cross the Hudson by ferries and the Hudson Tubes. The Gowanus Canal being too small to handle late 19th-century barges, Newtown Creek was similarly canalized, serving among other customers the newly translocated gas works of the newly amalgamated Brooklyn Union Gas company on the Whale Creek tributary. Refineries and chemical factories followed in later decades, intensifying the conversion of Greenpoint, Bushwick, Maspeth and other outlying villages into industrial suburbs, later amalgamated into the City of Greater New York. Greenpoint remained a center of the fuel trade beyond the 20th century. Hudson River Day Line steamer “New York”. Workaday purposes were not the only ones pursued on the waters. Some trips went to amusement parks or other attractions, and some merely to a dock with a footpath to a meadow for dancing, picnicking and other pleasures made more pleasurable by absence from the hectic, noisy city. Day-trippers visited the Great Falls of the Passaic River and other tourist attractions by railroad and sometimes by organized bicycle tours. Hudson River Day Line was the last company doing regularly scheduled day trips from West 42d Street; they went out of business in the 1970s. A steamboat is a boat that is propelled primarily by steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels. Steamboats sometimes use the prefix designation SS, S. Or S/S (for’Screw Steamer’) or PS (for’Paddle Steamer’); however, these designations are most often used for steamships. The term steamboat is used to refer to smaller, insular, steam-powered boats working on lakes and rivers, particularly riverboats. As using steam became more reliable, steam power became applied to larger, ocean-going vessels. Limitations of the Newcomen steam engine. Early steamboat designs used Newcomen steam engines. These engines were very large and heavy and produced little power (unfavorable power-to-weight ratio). Also, the Newcomen engine produced a reciprocating or rocking motion because it was designed for pumping. The piston stroke was caused by a water jet in the steam-filled cylinder, which condensed the steam, creating a vacuum, which in turn caused atmospheric pressure to drive the piston downward. The piston relied on the weight of the rod connecting to the underground pump to return the piston to the top of the cylinder. The heavy weight of the Newcomen engine required a structurally strong boat, and the reciprocating motion of the engine beam required a complicated mechanism to produce propulsion. James Watt’s design improvements increased the efficiency of the steam engine, improving the power-to-weight ratio, and created an engine capable of rotary motion by using a double-acting cylinder which injected steam at each end of the piston stroke to move the piston back and forth. The rotary steam engine simplified the mechanism required to turn a paddle wheel to propel a boat. Despite the improved efficiency and rotary motion, the power-to-weight ratio of Boulton and Watt steam engine was still low. The high-pressure steam engine was the development that made the steamboat practical. It had a high power-to-weight ratio and was fuel efficient. High pressure engines were made possible by improvements in the design of boilers and engine components so that they could withstand internal pressure, although boiler explosions were common due to lack of instrumentation like pressure gauges. [1] Attempts at making high-pressure engines had to wait until the expiration of the Boulton and Watt patent in 1800. Shortly thereafter high-pressure engines by Richard Trevithick and Oliver Evans were introduced. Compound or multiple expansion steam engines. The compound steam engine became widespread in the late 19th century. Compounding uses exhaust steam from a high pressure cylinder to a lower pressure cylinder and greatly improves efficiency. [1] Compound steam engine powered ships enabled a great increase in international trade. The most efficient steam engine used for marine propulsion is the steam turbine. It was developed near the end of the 19th century and was used throughout the 20th century. Early attempts at powering a boat by steam were made by the French inventor Denis Papin and the English inventor Thomas Newcomen. Papin invented the steam digester (a type of pressure cooker) and experimented with closed cylinders and pistons pushed in by atmospheric pressure, analogous to the pump built by Thomas Savery in England during the same period. Denis Papin proposed applying this steam pump to the operation of a paddlewheel boat and tried to market his idea in Britain. He was unable to successfully convert the piston motion into rotary motion and the steam could not produce enough pressure. Newcomen’s was able to produce mechanical power, but produced reciprocating motion and was very large and heavy. A steamboat was described and patented by English physician John Allen in 1729. [5] In 1736, Jonathan Hulls was granted a patent in England for a Newcomen engine-powered steamboat (using a pulley instead of a beam, and a pawl and ratchet to obtain rotary motion), but it was the improvement in steam engines by James Watt that made the concept feasible. William Henry of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, having learned of Watt’s engine on a visit to England, made his own engine. In 1763 he put it in a boat. The boat sank, and while Henry made an improved model, he did not appear to have much success, though he may have inspired others. Model of steamship, built in 1784, by Claude de Jouffroy. At its first demonstration on 15 July 1783, Pyroscaphe travelled upstream on the river Saône for some fifteen minutes before the engine failed. Presumably this was easily repaired as the boat is said to have made several such journeys. [7] Following this, De Jouffroy attempted to get the government interested in his work, but for political reasons was instructed that he would have to build another version on the Seine in Paris. De Jouffroy did not have the funds for this, and, following the events of the French revolution, work on the project was discontinued after he left the country. Similar boats were made in 1785 by John Fitch in Philadelphia and William Symington in Dumfries, Scotland. Fitch successfully trialled his boat in 1787, and in 1788, he began operating a regular commercial service along the Delaware River between Philadelphia and Burlington, New Jersey, carrying as many as 30 passengers. This boat could typically make 7 to 8 miles per hour (11 to 13 km/h) and travelled more than 2,000 miles (3,200 km) during its short length of service. The Fitch steamboat was not a commercial success, as this travel route was adequately covered by relatively good wagon roads. The following year, a second boat made 30-mile (48 km) excursions, and in 1790, a third boat ran a series of trials on the Delaware River before patent disputes dissuaded Fitch from continuing. Meanwhile, Patrick Miller of Dalswinton, near Dumfries, Scotland, had developed double-hulled boats propelled by manually cranked paddle wheels placed between the hulls, even attempting to interest various European governments in a giant warship version, 246 feet (75 m) long. Miller sent King Gustav III of Sweden an actual small-scale version, 100 feet (30 m) long, called Experiment. [9] Miller then engaged engineer William Symington to build his patent steam engine that drove a stern-mounted paddle wheel in a boat in 1785. The boat was successfully tried out on Dalswinton Loch in 1788 and was followed by a larger steamboat the next year. Miller then abandoned the project. Charlotte Dundas, built by William Symington. The failed project of Patrick Miller caught the attention of Lord Dundas, Governor of the Forth and Clyde Canal Company, and at a meeting with the canal company’s directors on 5 June 1800, they approved his proposals for the use of “a model of a boat by Captain Schank to be worked by a steam engine by Mr Symington” on the canal. The boat was built by Alexander Hart at Grangemouth to Symington’s design with a vertical cylinder engine and crosshead transmitting power to a crank driving the paddlewheels. Trials on the River Carron in June 1801 were successful and included towing sloops from the river Forth up the Carron and thence along the Forth and Clyde Canal. In 1801, Symington patented a horizontal steam engine directly linked to a crank. He got support from Lord Dundas to build a second steamboat, which became famous as the Charlotte Dundas, named in honour of Lord Dundas’s daughter. Symington designed a new hull around his powerful horizontal engine, with the crank driving a large paddle wheel in a central upstand in the hull, aimed at avoiding damage to the canal banks. The new boat was 56 ft (17.1 m) long, 18 ft (5.5 m) wide and 8 ft (2.4 m) depth, with a wooden hull. The boat was built by John Allan and the engine by the Carron Company. The first sailing was on the canal in Glasgow on 4 January 1803, with Lord Dundas and a few of his relatives and friends on board. The crowd were pleased with what they saw, but Symington wanted to make improvements and another more ambitious trial was made on 28 March. On this occasion, the Charlotte Dundas towed two 70 ton barges 30 km (almost 20 miles) along the Forth and Clyde Canal to Glasgow, and despite “a strong breeze right ahead” that stopped all other canal boats it took only nine and a quarter hours, giving an average speed of about 3 km/h (2 mph). The Charlotte Dundas was the first practical steamboat, in that it demonstrated the practicality of steam power for ships, and was the first to be followed by continuous development of steamboats. The 1909 replica of the North River Steamboat, the first steamboat to achieve commercial success transporting passengers along the Hudson River. The American, Robert Fulton, was present at the trials of the Charlotte Dundas and was intrigued by the potential of the steamboat. While working in France, he corresponded with and was helped by the Scottish engineer Henry Bell, who may have given him the first model of his working steamboat. [11] He designed his own steamboat, which sailed along the River Seine in 1803. Clermont was able to make the 150-mile (240 km) trip in 32 hours. The steamboat was powered by a Boulton and Watt engine and was capable of long-distance travel. It was the first commercially successful steamboat, transporting passengers along the Hudson River. In 1807 Robert L. Stevens began operation of the Phoenix, which used a high-pressure engine in combination with a low-pressure condensing engine. The first steamboats powered only by high pressure were the Aetna and Pennsylvania, designed and built by Oliver Evans. [14] The design was a modification of Stevens’ prior paddle steamer Phoenix, the first steamship to successfully navigate the open ocean in its route from Hoboken to Philadelphia. Henry Bell’s PS Comet of 1812 inaugurated a passenger service along the River Clyde in Scotland. The Margery, launched in Dumbarton in 1814, in January 1815 became the first steamboat on the River Thames, much to the amazement of Londoners. When she reached Paris, the new owners renamed her Elise and inaugurated a Seine steamboat service. In 1818, Ferdinando I, the first Italian steamboat, left the port of Naples, where it had been built. The first sea-going steamboat was Richard Wright’s first steamboat “Experiment”, an ex-French lugger; she steamed from Leeds to Yarmouth, arriving Yarmouth 19 July 1813. [18] “Tug”, the first tugboat, was launched by the Woods Brothers, Port Glasgow, on 5 November 1817; in the summer of 1818 she was the first steamboat to travel round the North of Scotland to the East Coast. A typical river paddle steamer from the 1850s-the Ben Campbell. See also: Steamboats of the Mississippi and Economic history of the United States § The early 19th century. Mississippi Riverboats at Memphis, Tennessee (1906). The era of the steamboat in the United States began in Philadelphia in 1787 when John Fitch (17431798) made the first successful trial of a 45-foot (14-meter) steamboat on the Delaware River on 22 August 1787, in the presence of members of the United States Constitutional Convention. His steamboat was not a financial success and was shut down after a few months service, however this marks the first use of marine steam propulsion in scheduled regular passenger transport service. Oliver Evans (17551819) was a Philadelphian inventor born in Newport, Delaware, to a family of Welsh settlers. He designed an improved high-pressure steam engine in 1801 but did not build it[20] (patented 1804). [21] The Philadelphia Board of Health was concerned with the problem of dredging and cleaning the city’s dockyards, and in 1805 Evans convinced them to contract with him for a steam-powered dredge, which he called the Oruktor Amphibolos. It was built but was only marginally successful. [22] Evans’s high-pressure steam engine had a much higher power-to-weight ratio, making it practical to apply it in locomotives and steamboats. [23] Evans became so depressed with the poor protection that the US patent law gave inventors that he eventually took all his engineering drawings and invention ideas and destroyed them to prevent his children wasting their time in court fighting patent infringements. Robert Fulton and Robert Livingston, who owned extensive land on the Hudson River in New York, met in 1802 and drew up an agreement to construct a steamboat to ply a route between New York City and Albany, New York on the Hudson River. They successfully obtained a monopoly on Hudson River traffic after Livingston terminated a prior 1797 agreement with John Stevens, who owned extensive land on the Hudson River in New Jersey. The former agreement had partitioned northern Hudson River traffic to Livingston and southern to Stevens, agreeing to use ships designed by Stevens for both operations. [24] With their new monopoly, Fulton and Livingston’s boat, named the Clermont after Livingston’s estate, could make a profit. The Clermont was nicknamed “Fulton’s Folly” by doubters. On Monday, 17 August 1807, the memorable first voyage of the Clermont up the Hudson River was begun. She traveled the 150 miles (240 km) trip to Albany in a little over 32 hours and made the return trip in about eight hours. The use of steamboats on major US rivers soon followed Fulton’s 1807 success. In 1811 the first in a continuous (still in commercial passenger operation as of 2007) line of river steamboats left the dock at Pittsburgh to steam down the Ohio River to the Mississippi and on to New Orleans. [25] In 1817 a consortium in Sackets Harbor, New York, funded the construction of the first US steamboat, Ontario, to run on Lake Ontario and the Great Lakes, beginning the growth of lake commercial and passenger traffic. [26] In his book Life on the Mississippi, river pilot and author Mark Twain described much of the operation of such vessels. There were basically three different types of ships being used: standard sailing ships of several different types, [27] clippers, and paddle steamers with paddles mounted on the side or rear. River steamboats typically used rear-mounted paddles and had flat bottoms and shallow hulls designed to carry large loads on generally smooth and occasionally shallow rivers. Ocean-going paddle steamers typically used side-wheeled paddles and used narrower, deeper hulls designed to travel in the often stormy weather encountered at sea. On 22 May 1819, the watch on the Savannah sighted Ireland after 23 days at sea. The Allaire Iron Works of New York supplied Savannah’s’s engine cylinder, [28] while the rest of the engine components and running gear were manufactured by the Speedwell Ironworks of New Jersey. The 90-horsepower low-pressure engine was of the inclined direct-acting type, with a single 40-inch-diameter (100 cm) cylinder and a 5-foot (1.5 m) stroke. Savannah’s engine and machinery were unusually large for their time. For fuel, the vessel carried 75 short tons (68 t) of coal and 25 cords of wood. The SS Savannah was too small to carry much fuel, and the engine was intended only for use in calm weather and to get in and out of harbors. Under favorable winds the sails alone were able to provide a speed of at least four knots. Since paddle steamers typically required from 5 to 16 short tons (4.5 to 14.5 t) of coal per day to keep their engines running, they were more expensive to run. Initially, nearly all seagoing steamboats were equipped with mast and sails to supplement the steam engine power and provide power for occasions when the steam engine needed repair or maintenance. The typical paddle wheel steamship was powered by a coal burning engine that required firemen to shovel the coal to the burners. The propeller put a lot of stress on the rear of the ships and would not see widespread use till the conversion from wood boats to iron boats was completewell underway by 1860. The last sailing frigate of the US Navy, Santee, had been launched in 1855. In the mid-1840s the acquisition of Oregon and California opened up the West Coast to American steamboat traffic. This regular scheduled route went from Panama City, Nicaragua and Mexico to and from San Francisco and Oregon. Panama City was the Pacific terminus of the Isthmus of Panama trail across Panama. Only a few were going all the way to California. [32] Her crew numbered about 36 men. She left New York well before confirmed word of the California Gold Rush had reached the East Coast. Once the California Gold Rush was confirmed by President James Polk in his State of the Union address on 5 December 1848 people started rushing to Panama City to catch the SS California. The SS California picked up more passengers in Valparaiso, Chile and Panama City, Panama and showed up in San Francisco, loaded with about 400 passengerstwice the passengers it had been designed foron 28 February 1849. She had left behind about another 400600 potential passengers still looking for passage from Panama City. The SS California had made the trip from Panama and Mexico after steaming around Cape Horn from New Yorksee SS California (1848). The trips by paddle wheel steamship to Panama and Nicaragua from New York, Philadelphia, Boston, via New Orleans and Havana were about 2,600 miles (4,200 km) long and took about two weeks. Trips across the Isthmus of Panama or Nicaragua typically took about one week by native canoe and mule back. The 4,000 miles (6,400 km) trip to or from San Francisco to Panama City could be done by paddle wheel steamer in about three weeks. It was 1850 before enough paddle wheel steamers were available in the Atlantic and Pacific routes to establish regularly scheduled journeys. Other steamships soon followed, and by late 1849, paddle wheel steamships like the SS McKim (1848)[33] were carrying miners and their supplies the 125 miles (201 km) trip from San Francisco up the extensive SacramentoSan Joaquin River Delta to Stockton, California, Marysville, California, Sacramento, etc. To get about 125 miles (201 km) closer to the gold fields. Most used the Panama or Nicaragua route till 1855 when the completion of the Panama Railroad made the Panama Route much easier, faster and more reliable. Between 1849 and 1869 when the First Transcontinental Railroad was completed across the United States about 800,000 travelers had used the Panama route. After 1855 when the Panama Railroad was completed the Panama Route was by far the quickest and easiest way to get to or from California from the East Coast of the U. So too did the economic and human losses inflicted by snags, shoals, boiler explosions, and human error. Chromolithograph depicting the Monitor and the Merrimack. During the US Civil War the Battle of Hampton Roads, often referred to as either the Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack or the Battle of Ironclads, was fought over two days with steam-powered ironclad warships, 89 March 1862. The battle occurred in Hampton Roads, a roadstead in Virginia where the Elizabeth and Nansemond Rivers meet the James River just before it enters Chesapeake Bay adjacent to the city of Norfolk. The battle was a part of the effort of the Confederate States of America to break the Union Naval blockade, which had cut off Virginia from all international trade. The Civil War in the West was fought to control major rivers, especially the Mississippi and Tennessee Rivers using paddlewheelers. Only the Union had them the Confederacy captured a few, but were unable to use them. The Battle of Vicksburg involved monitors and ironclad riverboats. The USS Cairo is a survivor of the Vicksburg battle. Trade on the river was suspended for two years because of a Confederate’s Mississippi blockade before the union victory at Vicksburg reopened the river on 4 July 1863. The triumph of Eads ironclads, and Farragut’s seizure of New Orleans, secured the river for the Union North. Although Union forces gained control of Mississippi River tributaries, travel there was still subject to interdiction by the Confederates. The Ambush of the steamboat J. Williams, which was carrying supplies from Fort Smith to Fort Gibson along the Arkansas River on 16 July 1863 demonstrated this. The steamboat was destroyed, the cargo was lost, and the tiny Union escort was run off. The loss did not affect the Union war effort, however. The worst of all steamboat accidents occurred at the end of the Civil War in April 1865, when the steamboat Sultana, carrying an over-capacity load of returning Union soldiers recently freed from a Confederate prison camp, blew up, causing more than 1,700 deaths. The Sultana on fire, from Harpers Weekly. Mississippi and Missouri river traffic. For most of the 19th century and part of the early 20th century, trade on the Mississippi River was dominated by paddle-wheel steamboats. Their use generated rapid development of economies of port cities; the exploitation of agricultural and commodity products, which could be more easily transported to markets; and prosperity along the major rivers. Their success led to penetration deep into the continent, where Anson Northup in 1859 became first steamer to cross the CanadaUS border on the Red River. They would also be involved in major political events, as when Louis Riel seized International at Fort Garry, or Gabriel Dumont was engaged by Northcote at Batoche. Steamboats were held in such high esteem that they could become state symbols; the Steamboat Iowa (1838) is incorporated in the Seal of Iowa because it represented speed, power, and progress. At the same time, the expanding steamboat traffic had severe adverse environmental effects, in the Middle Mississippi Valley especially, between St. Louis and the river’s confluence with the Ohio. The steamboats consumed much wood for fuel, and the river floodplain and banks became deforested. This led to instability in the banks, addition of silt to the water, making the river both shallower and hence wider and causing unpredictable, lateral movement of the river channel across the wide, ten-mile floodplain, endangering navigation. Boats designated as snagpullers to keep the channels free had crews that sometimes cut remaining large trees 100200 feet (3061 m) or more back from the banks, exacerbating the problems. In the 19th century, the flooding of the Mississippi became a more severe problem than when the floodplain was filled with trees and brush. The American Queen, the world’s largest operating river steamboat. Most steamboats were destroyed by boiler explosions or firesand many sank in the river, with some of those buried in silt as the river changed course. From 1811 to 1899, 156 steamboats were lost to snags or rocks between St. Louis and the Ohio River. Another 411 were damaged by fire, explosions or ice during that period. [39] One of the few surviving Mississippi sternwheelers from this period, Julius C. The replacement, built in situ, was not a steamboat. The replica was scrapped in 2008. From 1844 through 1857, luxurious palace steamers carried passengers and cargo around the North American Great Lakes. [41] Great Lakes passenger steamers reached their zenith during the century from 1850 to 1950. The SS Badger is the last of the once-numerous passenger-carrying steam-powered car ferries operating on the Great Lakes. A unique style of bulk carrier known as the lake freighter was developed on the Great Lakes. Marys Challenger, launched in 1906, is the oldest operating steamship in the United States. She runs a Skinner Marine Unaflow 4-cylinder reciprocating steam engine as her power plant. Steamboats also operated on the Red River to Shreveport, Louisiana, after Captain Henry Miller Shreve broke the previous log jam on the river. Women started to become steamboat captains in the late 19th century. The first woman to earn her steamboat master’s license was Mary Millicent Miller, in 1884. [44] In 1888, Callie Leach French earned her first class license. [45] In 1892, she earned a master’s license, becoming the only woman to hold both and operating on the Mississippi River. [45] French towed a showboat up and down the rivers until 1907 and boasted that she’d never had an accident or lost a boat. [46] Another early steamboat captain was Blanche Douglass Leathers, who earned her license in 1894. [47] Mary Becker Greene earned her license in 1897 and along with her husband started the Greene Line. The Belle of Louisville is the oldest operating steamboat in the United States, and the oldest operating Mississippi River-style steamboat in the world. She was laid down as Idlewild in 1914, and is currently located in Louisville, Kentucky. Five major commercial steamboats currently operate on the inland waterways of the United States. The only remaining overnight cruising steamboat is the 432-passenger American Queen, which operates week-long cruises on the Mississippi, Ohio, Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers 11 months out of the year. The others are day boats: they are the steamers Chautauqua Belle at Chautauqua Lake, New York, Minne Ha-Ha at Lake George, New York, operating on Lake George; the Belle of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky, operating on the Ohio River; and the Natchez in New Orleans, Louisiana, operating on the Mississippi River. For modern craft operated on rivers, see the Riverboat article. In Canada, the city of Terrace, British Columbia, celebrates “Riverboat Days” each summer. Built on the banks of the Skeena River, the city depended on the steamboat for transportation and trade into the 20th century. The first steamer to enter the Skeena was Union in 1864. In 1866 Mumford attempted to ascend the river, but it was only able to reach the Kitsumkalum River. It was not until 1891 Hudson’s Bay Company sternwheeler Caledonia successfully negotiated Kitselas Canyon and reached Hazelton. A number of other steamers were built around the turn of the 20th century, in part due to the growing fish industry and the gold rush. [51][page needed] For more information, see Steamboats of the Skeena River. Inlander on the Skeena River at Kitselas Canyon, 1911. Sternwheelers were an instrumental transportation technology in the development of Western Canada. They were used on most of the navigable waterways of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, BC (British Columbia) and the Yukon at one time or another, generally being supplanted by the expansion of railroads and roads. In the more mountainous and remote areas of the Yukon and BC, working sternwheelers lived on well into the 20th century. The simplicity of these vessels and their shallow draft made them indispensable to pioneer communities that were otherwise virtually cut off from the outside world. Sternwheelers would also prove vital to the construction of the railroads that eventually replaced them. They were used to haul supplies, track and other materials to construction camps. The simple, versatile, locomotive-style boilers fitted to most sternwheelers after about the 1860s could burn coal, when available in more populated areas like the lakes of the Kootenays and the Okanagan region in southern BC, or wood in the more remote areas, such as the Steamboats of the Yukon River or northern BC. The hulls were generally wooden, although iron, steel and composite hulls gradually overtook them. They were braced internally with a series of built-up longitudinal timbers called “keelsons”. Further resilience was given to the hulls by a system of “hog rods” or “hog chains” that were fastened into the keelsons and led up and over vertical masts called “hog-posts”, and back down again. The hard usage they were subjected to and inherent flexibility of their shallow wooden hulls meant that relatively few of them had careers longer than a decade. The SS Keno in Dawson City. In the Yukon, two vessels are preserved: the SS Klondike in Whitehorse and the SS Keno in Dawson City. Many derelict hulks can still be found along the Yukon River. In British Columbia, the Moyie, built by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in 1898, was operated on Kootenay Lake in south-eastern BC until 1957. It has been carefully restored and is on display in the village of Kaslo, where it acts as a tourist attraction right next to information centre in downtown Kaslo. The Moyie is the world’s oldest intact stern wheeler. While the SS Sicamous and SS Naramata (steam tug & icebreaker) built by the CPR at Okanagan Landing on Okanagan Lake in 1914[53] have been preserved in Penticton at the south end of Okanagan Lake. The SS Samson V is the only Canadian steam-powered sternwheeler that has been preserved afloat. It was built in 1937 by the Canadian federal Department of Public Works as a snagboat for clearing logs and debris out of the lower reaches of the Fraser River and for maintaining docks and aids to navigation. The fifth in a line of Fraser River snagpullers, the Samson V has engines, paddlewheel and other components that were passed down from the Samson II of 1914. It is now moored on the Fraser River as a floating museum in its home port of New Westminster, near Vancouver, BC. The oldest operating steam driven vessel in North America is the RMS Segwun. It was built in Scotland in 1887 to cruise the Muskoka Lakes, District of Muskoka, Ontario, Canada. Originally named the S. Nipissing, it was converted from a side-paddle-wheel steamer with a walking-beam engine into a two-counter-rotating-propeller steamer. The first woman to be a captain of a steamboat on the Columbia River was Minnie Mossman Hill, who earned her master’s and pilot’s license in 1887. Main article: Thames steamers. Lake Lucerne side-wheel paddle steamer Uri (1901) [de]. Engineer Robert Fourness and his cousin, physician James Ashworth are said to have had a steamboat running between Hull and Beverley, after having been granted British Patent No. 1640 of March 1788 for a “new invented machine for working, towing, expediting and facilitating the voyage of ships, sloops and barges and other vessels upon the water”. James Oldham, MICE, described how well he knew those who had built the F&A steamboat in a lecture entitled “On the rise, progress and present position of steam navigation in Hull” that he gave at the 23rd Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement for Science in Hull, England on 7 September 1853. The first commercially successful steamboat in Europe, Henry Bell’s Comet of 1812, started a rapid expansion of steam services on the Firth of Clyde, and within four years a steamer service was in operation on the inland Loch Lomond, a forerunner of the lake steamers still gracing Swiss lakes. On the Clyde itself, within ten years of Comet’s start in 1812 there were nearly fifty steamers, and services had started across the Irish Sea to Belfast and on many British estuaries. By 1900 there were over 300 Clyde steamers. People have had a particular affection for the Clyde puffers, small steam freighters of traditional design developed to use the Scottish canals and to serve the Highlands and Islands. They were immortalised by the tales of Para Handy’s boat Vital Spark by Neil Munro and by the film The Maggie, and a small number are being conserved to continue in steam around the west highland sea lochs. From 1850 to the early decades of the 20th century Windermere, in the English Lakes, was home to many elegant steam launches. They were used for private parties, watching the yacht races or, in one instance, commuting to work, via the rail connection to Barrow in Furness. Many of these fine craft were saved from destruction when steam went out of fashion and are now part of the collection at Windermere Steamboat Museum. The collection includes SL Dolly, 1850, thought to be the world’s oldest mechanically powered boat, and several of the classic Windermere launches. Today the 1900 steamer SS Sir Walter Scott still sails on Loch Katrine, while on Loch Lomond PS Maid of the Loch is being restored, and in the English Lakes the oldest operating passenger yacht, SY Gondola (built 1859, rebuilt 1979), sails daily during the summer season on Coniston Water. The paddle steamer Waverley, built in 1947, is the last survivor of these fleets, and the last seagoing paddle steamer in the world. Sissons triple-expansion steam engine and coal-fired Scotch boiler, as installed in SL Nuneham. After the Clyde, the Thames estuary was the main growth area for steamboats, starting with the Margery and the Thames in 1815, which were both brought down from the Clyde. Until the arrival of railways from 1838 onwards, steamers steadily took over the role of the many sail and rowed ferries, with at least 80 ferries by 1830 with routes from London to Gravesend and Margate, and upstream to Richmond. By 1835, the Diamond Steam Packet Company, one of several popular companies, reported that it had carried over 250,000 passengers in the year. The first steamboat constructed of iron, the Aaron Manby was laid down in the Horseley Ironworks in Staffordshire in 1821 and launched at the Surrey Docks in Rotherhithe. After testing in the Thames, the boat steamed to Paris where she was used on the River Seine. Three similar iron steamers followed within a few years. New York City (NYC), also known as the City of New York or simply New York (NY), is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2018 population of 8,398,748 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles (784 km2), New York is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. [10] Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass[11] and one of the world’s most populous megacities, [12][13] with an estimated 19,979,477 people in its 2018 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 22,679,948 residents in its Combined Statistical Area. [3][4] A global power city, [14] New York City has been described as the cultural, [15][16][17][18][19] financial, [20][21] and media capital of the world, [22][23] and exerts a significant impact upon commerce, [21] entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, art, fashion, and sports. The city’s fast pace[24][25][26] has inspired the term New York minute. [27] Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, [28] New York is an important center for international diplomacy. Situated on one of the world’s largest natural harbors, [31][32] New York City consists of five boroughs, each of which is a separate county of the State of New York. [33] The five boroughs Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island were consolidated into a single city in 1898. [34] The city and its metropolitan area constitute the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. [35] As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, [36][37][38][39] making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. [38][40][41] New York City is home to 3.2 million residents born outside the United States, [42] the largest foreign born population of any city in the world as of 2016. [8] If greater New York City were a sovereign state, it would have the 12th highest GDP in the world. [44] New York is home to the highest number of billionaires of any city in the world. New York City traces its origins to a trading post founded by colonists from the Dutch Republic in 1624 on Lower Manhattan; the post was named New Amsterdam in 1626. [46] The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664[46] and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York. [47] New York was the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790, [48] and has been the largest US city since 1790. [49] The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the U. And its ideals of liberty and peace. [51] In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a global node of creativity and entrepreneurship, [52] social tolerance, [53] and environmental sustainability, [54][55] and as a symbol of freedom and cultural diversity. [56] In 2019, New York was voted the greatest city in the world per a survey of over 30,000 people from 48 cities worldwide, citing its cultural diversity. Many districts and landmarks in New York City are well known, including three of the world’s ten most visited tourist attractions in 2013;[57] a record 62.8 million tourists visited in 2017. [58] Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world. [59][60] Times Square, iconic as the world’s “heart”[61] and “crossroads”, [62] is the brightly illuminated hub of the Broadway Theater District, [63] one of the world’s busiest pedestrian intersections, [64][65] and a major center of the world’s entertainment industry. [66] The names of many of the city’s landmarks, skyscrapers, [67] and parks are known internationally. Manhattan’s real estate market is among the most expensive in the world. [68][69] New York is home to the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia, [70][71] with multiple distinct Chinatowns across the city. [72][73][74] Providing continuous 24/7 service, [75] the New York City Subway is the largest single-operator rapid transit system worldwide, with 472 rail stations. [76][77][78] The city has over 120 colleges and universities, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, ranked among the top universities in the world. The item “Signed Letter & Cover John Starin Congress Steamboat NY 1st Amusement Park 1878″ is in sale since Thursday, January 23, 2020. This item is in the category “Stamps\United States\Covers\Postal History”. The seller is “dalebooks” and is located in Rochester, New York. This item can be shipped worldwide.

• Country/Region of Manufacture: United States
• Topic: Advertising
• Year of Issue: 1879
• Certification: Uncertified
• Quality: Used
• Grade: VF (Very Fine)
• Color: Emerald Green
• Denomination: 3
• Place of Origin: United States