Hudson River
The busiest river in nineteenth-century America
The Hudson carried the fastest steamboats in the world, and their races and collisions became national news.
From the 1820s onward, sidewheel packets raced between Albany and New York City, and the river's fog, traffic and crowded anchorages produced a long record of fires, collisions and groundings. Several disaster sites lie along the river's banks and shallows.
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Records in These Waters
AvailableDaniel Drew
AH-WR-0312Hudson River, New York
1886 · Steamboat
AvailableGeneral Jackson
AH-WR-1007Grassy Point, Haverstraw Bay, New York
1831 · Steamboat
AvailableHenry Clay
AH-WR-0192Riverdale, New York
1852 · Steamboat · Intertidal; the hull was beached deep
AvailableIsaac Newton
AH-WR-0903Fort Lee, New Jersey (Hudson River)
Early December 1863; sources differ between December 3 and December 5 as the date of the boiler explosion and fire. · Sidewheel Passenger Steamboat
AvailableJ. R. Coleman
AH-WR-0907Albany, New York
November 1904; reported as "Wednesday night" before the November 14, 1904 newspaper account. · Lumber Barge
AvailableJonathan Boram
AH-WR-0310Hudson River, New York
Date not established · Sailing Vessel
AvailableNew York
AH-WR-0911Newburgh, New York
1908 · Sidewheel Passenger Steamboat
AvailablePoint Comfort
AH-WR-0307Hudson River, New York
Date not established · Steamboat
AvailableReindeer
AH-WR-0234Malden-on-Hudson, New York
1852 · Passenger Steamboat
AvailableRiver Belle
AH-WR-0309Hudson River, New York
Date not established · Steamboat
Historical ListingSaratoga
AH-WR-0193Tivoli, New York
1906 · Steamboat · About 15 to 20 feet deep
AvailableSaugerties
AH-WR-0308Saugerties, New York
Date not established · Steamboat
AvailableStorm King
AH-WR-0866Coxsackie, New York
Sunk by the mid-1930s · Freighter
AvailableSunnyside
AH-WR-0446Hyde Park, New York
1875 · Passenger Steamboat
AvailableSwallow
AH-WR-0233Athens, New York
1845 · Passenger Steamboat
AvailableTappan Zee
AH-WR-0904Nyack, New York
1887 · Ferry
AvailableThomas Cornell
AH-WR-0207Newburgh, New York
1882 · Sidewheel Steamboat
Historical ListingUSS Congress
AH-WR-1002Kingston, New York
1777 · Frigate
Historical ListingUSS Montgomery
AH-WR-1003Fort Montgomery, Hudson Highlands, New York
1777 · Frigate
AvailableWashington Irving
AH-WR-0311Manhattan, New York
1926 · Steamboat
