Robert Fulton's First Steamboat
(From Fulton's own Sketch)
On Sept. 1, 1807, the Albany "Gazette" announced that the "North River Steamboat [i.e., the "Clermont">[ will leave Paulus's Hook [Jersey City] on Friday, the 4th of September, at 6 in the morning and arrive at Albany on Saturday at 6 in the afternoon." The New York Central train now takes only a few minutes more than three hours to make the trip. The same paper on Oct. 5, 1807, announced that "Mr. Fulton's new steamboat left New York against a strong tide, very rough water, and a violent gale from the north. She made headway against the most sanguine expectations, and without being rocked by the waves."
73 M. POUGHKEEPSIE, Pop. 35,000.
(Train 51 passes 10:14; No. 3, 10:38; No. 41, 2:48; No. 25, 4:27; No. 19, 7:24. Eastbound: No. 6 passes 7:32; No. 26, 7:51; No. 16, 2:02; No. 22, 3:29.)
Poughkeepsie was the Apokeepsing of the Indians—"the pleasant and safe harbour" made by the rocky bluffs projecting into the river, where canoes were sheltered from wind and wave. The city is built partly on terraces rising 200 ft. above the river, and partly on the level plateau above. Poughkeepsie was settled by the Dutch in 1698. The most momentous event in Poughkeepsie's history and one of the most important in that of the whole Union, was the convention held here in 1788 at which the state of N.Y. decided to ratify the federal constitution. The decision was carried by three votes.
The credit for bringing N.Y. into the Union must go largely to Alexander Hamilton and his supporters, John Jay and Chancellor Robert R. Livingston. Of the three N.Y. delegates to the federal convention, Hamilton was the only one to sign its report, and when the state convention was called at Poughkeepsie, June 17, 1788, two-thirds of its members voted against the proposed U.S. constitution. The opposition was led by Gov. George Clinton and his party, known as the "Clintonians." Clinton, though he here fought bitterly the proposed new constitution and government, lived to be a Vice President of the U.S. (He should not be confused with the DeWitt Clinton who later built the Erie Canal.) The eloquence of Hamilton, Jay and Livingston, however, coupled with the news that New Hampshire and Virginia had ratified, finally carried the day, and the N.Y. Convention gave its approval of the new Constitution by a vote of 30 to 27.
Vassar College, the oldest women's college in America, and one of the most famous, occupies extensive grounds to the east of the city.
Vassar was founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar (1791-1868), an Englishman who had established in Poughkeepsie in 1801 a brewery from which he became rich. He got the idea of founding a woman's college from his niece, Lydia Booth, a school teacher. His total gifts to the institution amounted to about $800,000. His nephew, Matthew Vassar, Jr., became manager of the brewery after his uncle's death, and gave in all about $500,000 to the college. Vassar now has a campus and farm of about 800 acres, and possesses an endowment of $2,440,000. Its students number about 1,100.
The Hudson near Poughkeepsie furnishes the course for the intercollegiate races in which American college crews, with the exception of Harvard and Yale (which row on the Thames at New London) have rowed practically every year since 1895. The river is spanned at this point by one of the largest cantilever bridges in the world. It is 2,260 ft. long and 200 ft. above the water, and is the only bridge over the Hudson south of Albany.