Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-07-05
new YORK HARBOR TRAFFIC
THE WATER FRONT EXCEEDS
COAST LINE OF HOLLAND.
Development of the Lighterage Bust
ness-Navy of Tugs and Hundreds
of Floats and Barges.

Including the thirty miles of Jersey
shore between Amboy and Fort Lee, the
water front of New York harbor meas
ures AS miles. or eight miles more than
the coast line of Holland Along this
great extent of water front are TO miles
of wharf room to accommodate the mar
kets. warehouses and manufactures
which supply the personal necessities Of
four millions of people and the chief COM
mercial requirements of eighty millions.
To maintain communication between
widely scattered and diversified interests
that necessity which is said to be the
mother of invention has created floating
New York which for ugliness and utility
cannot be matched by any other fleet in
the world While the functions of this
fleet are legion they are all designated by
the comprehensive term. "lighterage."
Lighters in All Harbors.
Floating New York has no monopoly Of
the llghterage business, even If the first
Dutch cargo was landed in small boats
nearly three hundred years ago. for the
system Is contemporaneous with deep
water navigation. Small boats Of all
sizes, shapes and names are still extern
ship and shore in all the ports of the
world. At Yokohama, Lisbon and other
important seaports which have no
wharves ana docks lighters are. OF course.
the sole reliance: but even at such great
commercial centers Liverpool. Bremen,
Hamburg and London they also play an
important part. But New York may
properly lay claim to pre-eminence IN the
wonderful development of this system Of
cheap communication. More to the skill
wi wi OIL
than to any other single cause New York
owes her supremacy in commerce.
The lighterage Of New York harbor Is
performed by a fleet Of 1880 vessels. OF
which LOO are tugs and steam lighters.
This great fleet represents an investment
of approximately quarter OF a billion
dollars To operate it requires an army
of 10000 men. Thirty Independent light
erage and towing companies are engaged
in the trade. Some of the big corpora
tons have their own private fleets en-
gagged exclusively in handling their own
business.
Yet all of the history of floating New
York that really counts is comprised in
the lifetime of some barges still in serv-
ice. such as the Republic, built in 1881,
and now ending it's days in the eminently
respectable Albany hay trade: the Henry
Suydam the first freight barge ever
ready endured sixty years of honest work
and seems good for several more, and a
number of others.
Old-Time Lighters.
For the development of the modern
liehterage system, which is but a phase
of the evolution OF the railroad, really
began September "a. 1871. when the first
ton of freight to pass from New York
warehouse to a railroad car was towed
from the foot of Duane street. twenty
miles up the Hudson. to Piermont, then
the eastern terminus of the Erie.
Up to that time the favorite lighter
had been keelless. fiat-bottomed boat
modelled like a flatiron and propelled
by a sail. When loaded to the limit
with hundred bales Of cotton. or
the equivalent thereof, these periaguas
cou;l sometimes make one or two miles
an hour when the wind was very strong.
After the periagua came a sailing light
er something on the style of a schooner
and carrying more cargo than Its prede-
cessor. These lighters were employed be-
tween New York and South Amboy. the
terminus of the Camden and AmbOy rail-
road when that line was the only rail-
road between New York and Philadel-
phia. In favorable weather the voyage
could be made in a day or two; but the
cOns.gnee was not expected to exhibit
Impotence If 1t took week.
mat SUcn craft 1ully met the REQUIRE
mentS Of the day may be better under
stood when it is borne in mind that be-
fore the war when the coasting steamers
in the New Orleans trade brought in a
cargo of 1850 bales of cotton, the feat
was considered something extraordinary.
Today there are plenty OF lighters in the
harbOr capable of handling 200 to 2,3OJ
bales of cotton.
In earlier days when traffic was de-
veloping more rapidly than skill in han
Ring it. anything that would float was
deemed good enough to press into service
as lighter. Old Hudson river steamers,
superannuated sloops and schooners and
unseG worthy clippers Of a bygOne age
were cut down and cobbled into shape for
lighters.
Blu: now every detail of the enormous
business is highly specialized SO as to
get the greatest possible results from the
least possible expenditure. The apotheo-
sis of specialization in lighterage is ex-
empified In the tugs, radiant with red
bearing a huge 81 on their smokestacks.
These belong to the private fleet of ten
tugs and sixty bargeS operated in the
harbor by the Standard Oil Company.
When petroleum first began to be in de-
mand, some forty-seven years ago. a re-
Brooklyn. All the crude oil used at the
refinery was handled in barrels between
Jersey City and NewtOwn Creek by Capt.
Charles S. Beardsley, who had established
the first modern lighterage company few
years before with a fleet consisting of a
was afraid of the new oil. so Capt.
Beardsley enjoyed a monopoly Of the
business until the Standard Oil Company
undertook the work itself.
This plan of having a private fleet of
lighters proved SO satisfactory that it has