than paper ones; and if the quality of lightness alone is considered, this is true; yet when the practical test of use is applied, such extremely light wooden boats have always proved, and will continue to prove, failures, as here this quality is only one of a number which combine to make the boat serviceable. A wooden shell whose hull weighs twenty-two pounds, honest weight, is a very fragile, short-lived affair. A paper shell of the same dimensions, and of the same weight, will last as long, and do as much work, as a wooden one whose hull turns the beam at thirty pounds.
"An instance of their remarkable strength is shown in the following case. In the summer of 1870, a single shell, while being rowed at full speed, with the current, on one of our principal rivers, was run into the stone abutment of a bridge. The bow struck squarely on the obstacle, and such was the momentum of the mass that the oarsman was thrown directly through the flaring bow of the cockpit into the river. Witnesses of the accident who were familiar with wooden shells declared that the boat was ruined; but, after a careful examination, only the bow-tip was found to be twisted in a spiral form, and the washboard broken at the point by the oarsman as he passed between the sides. Two dollars covered the cost of repair. Had it been a wooden shell the shock would have crushed its stem and splintered the skin from the bow to the waist."
Old and cautious seamen tried to dissuade me from contracting with the Messrs. Waters for the building of a stout paper canoe for my journey. Harvard College had not adopted this "new-fangled notion" at that time, and Cornell had only begun to think of attempting to out-row other colleges at Saratoga by using paper boats. The Centennial year of the independence of the United States, 1876, settled all doubts as to the value of the result of the years of toil of the inventors of the paper boat. During the same year the incendiary completed his revengeful work by burning the paper-boat manufactory at Troy. The loss was a heavy one; but a few weeks later these unflinching men were able to record the following victories achieved that single season by their boats.
And every other important race of the season, besides receiving the highest honors at the Centennial Exhibition. The right to make boats of paper in Canada and in the United States is exclusively held by the Messrs. Waters, and they are the only manufacturers of paper boats in the world.
It is not many years since Mr. Macgregor, of London, built the little Rob Roy canoe, and in it made the tour of interesting European waters. His example was followed by an army of tourists, and it is now a common thing to meet canoe voyagers in miniature flotillas upon the watercourses of our own and foreign lands. Mr. W. Baden-Powell, also an Englishman, perfected the model of the Nautilus type of canoe, which possesses a great deal of sheer with fullness of bow, and is therefore a better boat for rough water than the Rob Roy. The New York Canoe Club, in 1874, had the Nautilus for their model. We still need a distinctive American type for our waters, more like the best Indian canoe than the European models here presented. These modern yacht-like canoes are really improved kyaks, and in their construction we are much indebted to the experience of the inhabitants of the Arctic Circle. Very few of the so-called Rob Roy canoes, built in the United States, resemble the original perfected boat of Mr. Macgregor – the father of modern canoe travelling. The illustrations given of English canoes are from imported models, and are perfect of their type.
CHAPTER VI
TROY TO PHILADELPHIA
PAPER CANOE MARIA THERESA. – THE START. – THE DESCENT OF THE HUDSON RIVER. – CROSSING THE UPPER BAY OF NEW YORK. – PASSAGE OF THE KILLS. – RARITAN RIVER. – THE CANAL ROUTE FROM NEW BRUNSWICK TO THE DELAWARE RIVER. – FROM BORDENTOWN TO PHILADELPHIA.
MY canoe of the English "Nautilus" type was completed by the middle of October; and on the cold, drizzly morning of the 21st of the same month I embarked in my little fifty-eight pound craft from the landing of the paper-boat manufactory on the river Hudson, two miles above Troy. Mr. George A. Waters put his own canoe into the water, and proposed to escort me a few miles down the river. If I had any misgivings as to the stability of my paper canoe upon entering her for the first time, they were quickly dispelled as I passed the stately Club-house of the Laureates, which contained nearly forty shells, all of paper.
The dimensions of the Maria Theresa were: length, fourteen feet; beam, twenty-eight inches; depth, amidships, nine inches; height of bow from horizontal line, twenty-three inches; height of stern, twenty inches. The canoe was one-eighth of an inch in thickness, and weighed fifty-eight pounds. She was fitted with a pair of steel outriggers, which could be easily unshipped and stowed away. The oars2 were of spruce, seven feet eight inches long, and weighed three pounds and a quarter each. The double paddle, which was seven feet six inches in length, weighed two pounds and a half. The mast and sail – which are of no service on such a miniature vessel, and were soon discarded – weighed six pounds. When I took on board at Philadelphia the canvas deck-cover and the rubber strap which secured it in position, and the outfit, – the cushion, sponge, provision-basket, and a fifteen-pound case of charts, – I found that, with my own weight included (one hundred and thirty pounds), the boat and her cargo, all told, provisioned for a long cruise, fell considerably short of the weight of three Saratoga trunks containing a very modest wardrobe for a lady's four weeks' visit at a fashionable watering-place.
The rain ceased, the mists ascended, and the sunlight broke upon us as we swiftly descended upon the current of the Hudson to Albany. The city was reached in an hour and a half. Mr. Waters, pointing his canoe northward, wished me bon voyage, and returned to the scene of the triumphs of his patient labors, while I settled down to a steady row southward. At Albany, the capital of the state, which is said to be one hundred and fifty miles distant from New York city, there is a tidal rise and fall of one foot.
A feeling of buoyancy and independence came over me as I glided on the current of this noble stream, with the consciousness that I now possessed the right boat for my enterprise. It had been a dream of my youth to become acquainted with the charms of this most romantic river of the American continent. Its sources are in the clouds of the Adirondacks, among the cold peaks of the northern wilderness; its ending may be said to be in the briny waters of the Atlantic, for its channel-way has been sounded outside of the sandy beaches of New York harbor in the bosom of the restless ocean. The highest types of civilized life are nurtured upon its banks. Noble edifices, which contain and preserve the works of genius and of mechanical art, rear their proud roofs from among these hills on the lofty sites of the picturesque Hudson. The wealth of the great city at its mouth, the metropolis of the young nation, has been lavished upon the soil of the river's borders to make it even more beautiful and more fruitful. What river in America, along the same length of coast-lines as from Troy to New York (one hundred and fifty-six miles), can rival in natural beauty and artificial applications of wealth the lovely Hudson? "The Hudson River," says its genial historian, Mr. Lossing, "from its birth among the mountains to its marriage with the ocean, measures a distance of full three hundred miles."
Captain John Smith's friend, the Englishman Henry Hudson, while in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, in his vessel of ninety tons, the Half-Moon, being in search of a northwest passage south of Virginia, cast anchor outside of Sandy Hook, September 3, 1609, and on the 11th passed up through the Narrows into the present bay of New York. Under the firm conviction that he was on his way to the long-sought Cathay, a day later he entered the Hudson River, where now stands the proud metropolis of America. As the Half-Moon ascended the river the water lost its saltness, and by the time they were anchored where the city of Albany now stands all hopes of Cathay faded from the heart of the mariner. Englishmen called this river in honor of its discoverer, but the Dutch gave it the name of North River, after the Delaware had been discovered and named South River. Thus, while in 1609 Samuel Champlain was exploring the lake which bears his name, Hudson was ascending his river upon the southern water-shed. The historian tells us that these bold explorers penetrated the wilderness, one from the north and the other from the south, to within one hundred miles of each other.
The
Note to Page 72. – The author has been criticised by technical canoeists for using oars on a canoe. On this cruise, experience proved that the paddle could be used effectively only two miles out of every three. Head winds and seas frequently drive the paddler into camp, while the adaptive cruiser pushes on with oar and outrigger, and avoids the loss of many hours. Many canoeists exploring our broad watercourses have adopted the oar as an auxiliary, – the paddle properly taking the precedence. We are progressing. The canoeist of 1882 may follow the teachings of common-sense
