The Wreck of the Steamboat "SWALLOW" (Hudson River, 1845)

[Music] in 1807 robert fulton sailed his legendary voyage of the steamboat north river up the hudson river which was called the north river at the time his personal secretary a man named anthony hoffman would later go on to design some of the fastest vessels on that very same water one of which would meet a terrible fate and ultimately be forgotten aside from a few local tales hoffman designed the world's first clipper steamboat claiming she would be faster than anything else and named her the swallow the swallow was built in brooklyn in 1836 running for the north river line between manhattan and albany new york for almost eight years initially built to be 233 feet long she was lengthened to 256 feet and could make speeds of over 15 knots she was a paddle steamer with two funnels and two paddle boxes on either side with a motif of a swallow painted above the name board interestingly the swallow was one of the very first ships to have artwork painted on her paddle box she had grand interiors which would have been similar to this photo of a hudson steamer a few years later now the people's line was a competing company against the north river line that ran the same route and they introduced a strikingly similar vessel called the rochester the rochester and the swallow were often neck and neck in speed with their owners tweaking them here and there to gain the advantage the two steamers would often race each other both for the company's glory and to the joy of the spectating passengers in 1844 the north river line sold the swallow to their competition and now the swallow and rochester were running mates at the command of the swallow was captain squires a worthy sea captain who only a few years prior was sailing on lake erie and saw a steamer in distress and brightly ablaze he brought his own vessel charging almost 20 miles across the waves and pulled a good number of survivors out of the water at 6 pm april 7 1845 in the thick of an evening snowstorm the steamer swallow departed albany in this exact spot and route to manhattan with roughly 300 souls on board the steamer rochester left closely behind her and a competing steamer the ss express followed behind the rochester the express actually departed albany ahead of its own schedule in order to stay on top of the heels of the other two vessels now there are very few modern day accounts that summarize the events of this voyage so i've had to put this video together using contemporary sources such as interviews and newspapers they often contradicted each other and i may have overlooked some evidence from an article that i missed but i did my best here the swallow was steaming south as the heavy snow and winds beat upon her decks she was the lead ship in a convoy of the three vessels and maintained her position the entire time the ships were all sailing within sight of each other staying close in the low visibility of the storm while they did often race they were not now not in the storm instead they proceeded down the river at a cautious pace now a few minutes prior william burnett the ship's pilot reduced the speed by half to account for the low visibility most of the passengers on board were settling in for an early night some retired to their cabins and others were sitting in the saloon conversing absolutely none of the passengers were out on deck braving the elements at about 8 p.m swallow rounded four mile points and beared to the right approaching a long flat island in the middle of the channel the long island we see here today is not what it was in 1845 it grew significantly in the last century due to dredging at the time of the swallow it was only a sandbar and it was recorded to have been there since henry hudson ran aground on it in 1609. now normally a southbound vessel kept to the west of this island and that's exactly what the helmsman did however as the storm kicked up he seems to have second guessed himself uncertain of where precisely the ship was in the river as a precaution the crew stopped the engines but this did very little to slow the movement of the vessel in the rough and raging currents the exact sequence that led to the crash does not appear to have been documented however looking at the course we can surmise what may have occurred in order to stick to the designated steamer route a vessel must navigate between the western shore of the north river and the middle ground flats as the boat continues south it needs to bear to port a little bit to move towards where the channel opens back up it appears that the swallow may have missed this subtle maneuver because continuing straight ahead put it right on its collision course the swallow rammed hard into a rock snapping its bow and pushing it high out of the water the ship was now fast to the rock despite the howl of the storm the people of the nearby towns of athens hudson and lunenburg heard the crash distinctly within minutes church bells were ringing the alarm and the townsfolk were quickly readying themselves to offer assistance on board the swallow all hell was breaking loose there was initial confusion those in the after part of the vessel thought they rammed a smaller boat as the captain investigate he assured the passengers that all is safe which was repeated through shouts throughout the vessel which caused some of the passengers to sit back down and resume their conversation captain squires continued a hasty investigation in the ship and saw the stern beginning to settle into the water he returned to the main stairwell beckoning the passengers to all move forward the weekly herald reported that at the first sign of alarm one mad lad who was described in 1840s euphemism as being plethorically proportioned opened a saloon window with no questions asked squeezed himself through leapt into the water and just swam away however soon after it did become apparent that there was a problem the raging waters began to pull the stern of the ship down sweeping water over the fantail and into the accommodations she sank lower and water began crashing into her after windows the windows of the ladies cabins some of the women managed to escape their cabins and moved forward some passengers went up the stairs to the upper deck following the captain and crew while others continued through the corridors of the main deck moving further forward the ones that went forward eventually reached the shattered and twisted section of the bow that wedged onto the rock and shouts were given to turn around and move aft in the confusion and chaos some passengers took that to mean for them to move all the way aft to the flooding stern of the ship and some tried but water reached the ship's boilers at this point rapidly filling the cabin with flames and steam now fortunately despite furthering the panic this wall of steam prevented them from moving further aft to what would be their inevitable doom and directed them correctly up the stairwell despite the initial burst of the flames the flooding and snow prevented the ship from truly igniting the topography of the river has changed significantly in the roughly 180 years since the disaster at the time there was a lengthy strip of grassy land attached to the rock and the captain and crew were guiding passengers down onto it from the bow of the ship a nearly orderly flow of passengers was coming out on deck but there were still stragglers in the stern of the ship men were breaking into the rapidly flooding and submerging ladies cabin and pulling out anyone that they could find one passenger a mr charles mann entered the swirling waters of the after section to find the three women and young child that he was sailing with he managed to pull them out and into the main saloon just forward of the ladies section as the swallow settled deeper he pushed the women and child out of a broken skylight and he himself forced his way through a shattered window severely cutting himself in the process help had arrived by this point less than five minutes since the collision rowboats had come out from the towns and the steamboats rochester and express had come in as close as they could to the wreck and were picking people from the water as the stern continued to drop the last remnant of order was lost only a few dozen had made it off the ship and onto the grassy strip of land by this point most were still aboard the swallow choking on a cloud of steam the rowboats lingered at a distance holding off for fear of being swamped by jumpers but actively pulling people aboard from the water with cracks and groans the stern of the swallow dropped ever deeper and now water was raging up over the aft end of the top deck the ladies quarters were now completely submerged and the state rooms above them were sinking fast using fire axes men were chopping through the decks and managed to pull two more women through the splintered and gurgling hull that they had just chopped as the water rushed into the main saloon passengers were thrown through glass windows on the side of the ship ejecting furniture along with them those in the water clung to this furniture awaiting rescue another male passenger made a last-ditch effort to get into the ladies quarters and found five more women in there as their last ounces of air were being smothered from the room they managed to make it to the ship's main saloon but no further their bodies were found there two days later the stern of the swallow had completely settled as far as it could within 10 minutes but the bow remained affixed to the rock keeping the rest of the vessel anchored some survivors were taken ashore while most had been pulled aboard either the rochester or the express and when the recovery was through those two ships brought the survivors down to manhattan it's unknown how many people were lost in the wreck because there was no solid figure of how many were on board to begin with fifteen bodies were recovered from the river while the swallows designer anthony hoffman later gave the figure of 23 dead because the bow of the ship was near perpendicular and lodged so high out of the water on the rock captain squires and pilot burnett were immediately condemned for speeding in fact the press being what it is repeatedly reported that the ship was traveling at full speed and even claimed that she was racing the rochester as she often did when the weather was clear this was most certainly not the case in fact the surviving passengers of the wreck banded together to compile written affidavits attesting to the ship's speed and good conduct of her officers they were eventually acquitted salvage was repeatedly attempted on the wreck but comedically poorly executed now correctly priority was given to recovering the bodies but once that was completed a comedy of errors ensued including the dewitt clinton the steamboat attempting to raise the wreckage striking the very same rock and sinking right on top of the swallow now they did manage to raise the swallow and i think they raised the dewitt clinton as well but they dropped the swallow again after a barge broke apart on the site damaging the swallow further in the end they recovered the engines and some of the upper wooden structures which were brought across the north river to the town of the lady and fashioned into a home and that home still stands i've never been able to get into the house however conveniently the house was recently sold and interior photos were posted on real estate sites it's probable that the house itself was made from spare timber from the wreck and the floors were made from her decking but the most striking artifact is the spiral stairwell almost enough to give us a direct glimpse right into the interior of the swallow her lower hull remains buried in the riverbed and it's rumored that at least one paddle wheel remains submerged as well billy shannon wrote an excellent account of surveying the site in 2016 and confirmed that there was indeed something down there purportedly the hull sits in two pieces a link to his article is in the description below while much of this video was sourced directly from first-hand evidence i want to thank john maynard.net for compiling several of these into one organized directory and author andrew amolinsks for his excellently researched article from 2016 on the hudson river zeitgeist a link to both of these is also in the description below the swallow disaster in many ways has parallels to the ss atlantic disaster of 1873 on the rocks of nova scotia she became fast to the rocks with her cern section sinking as with nearly every steamer since the very first one by robert fulton the stern section was designated for women as this was believed to be the area that would be the safest in the event of a collision so they were put back there out of harm's way however in both disasters a cruel twist of fate put the women and children at the forefront of the incoming waters i've made a documentary about the ss atlantic on my channel if you are interested and another interesting coincidence i surveyed and filmed a video about a boat that crashed on the shores of lunenburg nova scotia named the schwalbe that still sits there the swallow we just discussed crashed on the rocks near lunenburg new york and schwalbe is german for swallow you can find that video on my channel as well what was once the fastest steamer afloat and designed by a master hand that trained under robert fulton himself now lies forgotten and buried in the mud of the hudson river gone without even a memorial plaque to her or the 15 or more souls lost in her wake [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Part-Time Explorer

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Id: FP1c0FUIkZg

Length: 15min 9sec (909 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 13 2021