The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-04-22
SOUND STEAMBOATS IN THE
 OLDEN DAYS.

OLDEN DAYS.
 Captain Richard Peck, Who Built
 Many, Tells About Then--He Be-
 came a Captain When He Was Six
 teen and Numbered Many Distln-
 guished Persons Among His Pa
 irons
 Captain Richard Peck who is now completing his eighty-third year, is man Of many distinctions. He is probably the only living steamboater who became a full-fedged captan in his sixteenth year, and in that capaci- ty has rounded out seventy years of active service says the New York Sun. He started as cabin boy in 1928, un- der his father, Captain Jonathan Peck, friend and contemporary of Robert Fulton, and completed his sev- entieth year only the other day, cele- brating the occasion by retiring from the field. Captain Peck is inclined to look upon this as something of rec ord, and declares that there is no old timer who can show the like. His ca reer, just ended, is coincident with the history of sea travel by steam, and he can remember the time when the pulp lie were not entirely reconciled to the new means of locomotion. The suspi- cious were still inclined to record the steamboat as a deceitful engine of the devil, and the tinid still preferred to intrust themselves to one of the few surviving packets. It is true that Captain Peck's career has been con- fined entirely to the Sound and that he may therefore be regarded as some 1,i, ofo Tor. h,1t has not been without it's romance and he has still many an entertaining sto- ry to tell.
 Captain Peck is very much of laudator tenporis act, and is fully persuaded that the golden age has come and gone. He will admit, how ever, one great advancement of the present age over the age that he is pleased to regard as his own, and this is in his own speciality, the steamboat. He takes pride in his namesake, the Richard Peck, and bristles up at any suggestion that she is not the fastest steamer on the Sound. He also takes pride in his own family and it's impor- tant influence upon the Sound traffic
 q don't suppose" he said the other day in one of his reminiscent moods, that there is a better known name than Peck, when we come to talk of Long Island Sound and it's steamers. l am by no means the first of my line, nor the last. My father and my un- cles were in their day-and that is a long time ago, too-masters of Sound steamers, and I grew up naturally to the trade. I couldn't have done any, thing else if I wanted to, which I didn't. My father built many of the first steamboats on the Sound such as the Fanny, the Linnaeus and others that have since gone the Lord knows where He was born way back in the other century, long before Fulton launched his Clermont in 1907. He had been captain of one of the packets that used to sail from New York to New Haven, making the journey any where from two days to week, and I used to sail with him frequently on those trips. I was little chap, of course having been born in 1916. My father easily transferred himself from these boats to the new steam yachts that proved the astonishment of the world.
 ''Fulton's boats and those that were
 
 the ocean, you remember and had to confine themselves to such waters as the Hudson river and the Sound. My father, I think, was the first man to command a steam vessel. on the Sound. He began about 1920. His first command was with the United States, which sailed both up the Hud- son and along the Sound. remember the old boat we'll r | to compare it to-day with my ow snamesake, the Richard Peck. It was about one hum dred and fifty feet long, with a beam of thirty-four feet and engines of one hundred and twenty horse power. It had a square stern, just like schoon- CT, and was propelled by cogwheels iu- stead of paddles. There were two decks, but they were both open and afforded no protection. Of course we had no state-rooms. These are very modern affairs. There were no easy chairs and no restaurants. A few stools and benches were provided for the passengers In place of state- rooms there were a few hunks in the cabins, not over comfortable. The captain had the only room, which in case there was some distinguished vis- itor aboard he would be obliged to give up. The United States, the pioneer in Sound steamers, cost, I think about thirty thousand dollars. She was not much beside the Northam and the Richard Peck, but we all thought her the eighth wonder of the world. Where is she now? Dear me, I don't know where she was fifty years ago.
 1T made many trips in the United States when a boy, and trace my love of the calling principally to that ves- gel. After she had outlived her use- fitness my father built the Fanny, something of an improvement, with a capacity of fifty or sixty passengers. He commanded this vessel for a year or two, and then became master of the L.innaeus. It was built at Flushing, where there was a garden called the Linnaean Garden and that suggested the name. I was twelve years old when I became cabin boy on this steamer. It was one of the first side wheelers, and was a trife more con- fortable than the Fanny and the Uni- ted States. At that time, of course, there was no railroad to New Haven the New Haven road was not built till 1S49 All those who wished 0 quick