[Note: Traveling from New York to Boston in the 19th
Century meant catching one of the large overnight Long Island Sound steamboats docked during the day at a pier in lower Manhattan. After steaming up the sound through the night, the steamer would reach a port in eastern Connecticut or on Narragansett Bay early, in some cases very early, the following
morning. An equal number of steamers departed from the same ports in southern New England
every evening heading in the opposite direction to New York.
Before 1900, there were no steamers carrying passengers from New York directly to
Boston, as the voyage around Cape Cod in the open ocean adding several rather uncomfortable
hours to the trip. The steamer pulled into its dock in New London, Stonington, Providence, or
Fall River early in the morning (5:30 AM at Fall River), passengers boarded a train waiting right
at the pier to speed them on to Boston, where they would arrive before 8:00 AM, in time for a
full day of business. Many of the railroads of southern New England had originally been created
to connect with one of the steamship lines to New York.
By far the most prestigious and most popular of the overnight steamboat routes was the
famous Fall River Line which operated the sound’s largest and most elegant steamers on the
overnight route between New York and Fall River, Massachusetts, with a stop at Newport,
Rhode Island, in each direction. The Fall River Line’s larger and more staunchly constructed
steamers such as the Bay State or Empire State were built to take the sometimes turbulent waters
off Point Judith with comparative ease. In 1854, the Fall River Line added the longer and faster
Metropolis. At 352 feet in length, Metropolis was almost thirty feet longer than and faster than
Bay State or Empire State. Source: The Seaman’s Journals of Captain LEONARD SAMUEL GRANT (1812 – 1880)
On Oct-03-11 at 19:56:02 PDT, seller added the following information: