The Van Buren press., 1896-10-17
a FLOATING TOWN.
What Ono Sees ON the Canaiboats of this
Hudson River


of December one may hardly ever take
a steamboat trip up or down the Hud
son river without passing one of thost
big canal boat lows dragging slowly
and heavily along the wide stretch oil
water in the wake of more distant pad
dle-wheel steamboat. Sometimes these
tows, five or six boats abreast, and
stretching away half mile in length
look like floating town with long lines
of level decks for streets and squat
awning-eovered cabins with little shin
ing windows and bright green blinds
for the houses; sometimes they appear
like little clustered villages or hamlets
of heavy barges, with scattering pop
ulation of a few dozen men, women and
children to give life to each.
To reach the humanity that is the
real heart of all the picturesque scene
one must become a citizen of that drift.
ing town-an inhabitant of a floating
home, like the other floating homes that
make up the transient community TINT
clings together for the 30 odd hours
of voyage it takes to run from New
York to Albany. For the good simple
people are very ready to respond to any
advances made toward acquaintance
ship, and one soon becomes intimate
with ones neighbors, visiting across the
decks and perhaps down into the cabin
home. The little narrow space is al
ways Immediately clean. There are
nearly always flowers in the little cur
tanned window, and the easy rocking
chair is briskly busted for the visitor.
If one stays long enough with them
and shows sufficient interest in their af
fairs the captain and his wife will talk
very freely about themselves-of their
simple hopes and aspirations; of the
pleasures and sorrows they have to
look back upon. 1t is thus when one
comes to know them as they are that
they cease to be mere remote and pic
turesque aggregation, and become indi
vidual human entities of real warm
flesh and blood.
| have never felt keener and mora
tingling eXhilaration than | felt that
morning when, coming upon deck in
the brisk GOODNESS of the early daytime,
| saw all around me the quaint level OF
white-painted decks, swarming with its
own peculiar life, the great wide river
stretching away on all sides, the distant
tugboats straining at the slow-moying
mass, and just ahead the open door OF
the highlands standing wide for the
passage of the silvery level of water be.
You'd 1t was like fresh draught OF
the nectar of vitality after long months
of work TO awaken into an existence SO
new as this, so strange, SO full of the in
terest of unwonted things, so lusty with
its vigorous freshness.
1t had been pretty late when we left
New York the evening before, and we
could only see in a sort of dark and inn
perfect way that there was a great lot
of boats being gathered together in the
choppy waters that lie betwXt the Bat
terv and Governors island, ana present
ly that we ourselves were Oh integer OF
the general whole. Now it was the fresh,
keen daylight again; the sun shone Nc
bright as lightning and as hard as steel,
and there was a swift, cool wind blow
ing that drove whtecaps down the river
and sent the clouds flying to the east
ward across the profoundly clear and
fathomless sky Now we could see how
big and busy was the floating town o!
which we and our boat were com
ponent part.
Everywhere they were washing down
the decks with noisy dashings and
swashinsl of bucketfuls of water and a
ceaseless scratching and rasping Of
scrubbing brooms, the rubber-booted
men hard at work pattering and slop-
ping about in the sheets of water. The
toilets of some of the boats had already
been made, and they were now slowly
drying in the sunlight, but nevertheless
there was a general impression of the
universal wet GOODNESS, as of the whole
town taking bath. Everywhere the
smoke was sweeping away from the
cabin stoyepipes and there was q pre-
vailing smell of cooking breakfast fiji
ing the swift, fresh air.
The river bumboats had begun to
come off from the shore. There was one
lust ahead of us and another down the
tow, each clinging like parasite to the
canal boat beside which it lay. These
bumboats-little steamboats, fitted ont
in the cabin like a peddler's wagon
nf In aly l. re n M q
boat necessities and Injuries, from tape
buttons and shoestrings to bananas, To
bacco and peanuts; from fresh milk to
bottled beer - these bumboats Turk
everywhere along the river shore, from
the lower part of the highlands to NJ
above Newburgh. From dozen dp
ferent points they come putting off in =
tremendous hurry and with great deal
of footing of piping whistles, struggling
TO catch up with the slow-moving tow
and whistlng to let the boatmen know
that they are coming. Reaching tn"
tow, they throw out line as spider
throws out a web over a big fly, and So
clinging to the nearest canal boat,
never let go their hold until the last
penny is drained from that part of thu
coating town.-Howard Pyle, in Har-
per's Magazine.
The First Yacht Built in America.
A number of wealthy gentlemen in
New York city founded the New York
Boat club in 1880: and for them Mr..
n l.