Historic Pelham

Presenting the rich history of Pelham, NY in Westchester County: current historical research, descriptions of how to research Pelham history online and genealogy discussions of Pelham families.

Wednesday, July 05, 2017

Pelham's Most Entrepreneurial Oysterman Was Forced To Sell His Steam Engine Oyster Dredge in 1882


How could one tiny little news story about Pelham published in 1882 contain so much significant history about our little town?  

 First, it tells us that what likely was Pelham's first "photograph gallery" opened on Main Street on City Island in June, 1882.  "Mr. Hilbert" opened the gallery.  

 Second, it tells us that shipyard entrepreneur and owner, John Hawkins was building yet another significant "ship."  This one, however, was "patented."  It was unusual because it was a large garbage scow -- a nasty trash dumping barge that, according to the article, was "considered a great success."

 A larger City Island success, however, was the amazing three-masted schooner laid at Carll's Yard.  It was to be a 900 tonnage ship with a "double deck."  Moreover, plans were underway to build a 1200 ton vessel with a keel of 150 feet -- the largest vessel ever built on City Island up to that date.

 Perhaps the most interesting reference in the news story, however, was an announcement that famed Pelham oysterman Joshua Leviness had sold his oystering steamboat.  Leviness was a true oyster entrepreneur -- a successful and affluent one at that.  He was the first on City Island to have a specialized steamboat built to haul oyster dredges in Long Island Sound.  Many, however, were horrified.

 Oystermen feared that such specialized steamboats would be so ruthlessly efficient that they quickly would wipe out natural oyster beds and destroy the natural resource on which so many Long Island Sound oystermen depended.  New York quickly passed legislation outlawing the use of steamboats to dredge oysters.  

 Leviness quickly tested the new law.  He was hired by a City Island resident to harvest oysters from the resident's planted oyster bed.  Leviness used his steamboat to harvest the oysters and was charged with violations of the law.  At trial Leviness and his lawyer argued that the statute applied only to natural beds and that a steamboat could be used on privately-owned planted oyster beds.  The court rejected the argument and found Leviness guilty of violating the law.

 Thus, the June 24, 1882 issue of The Chronicle, published in Mount Vernon sadly reported:

 "WE understand Capt. Joshua Leviness has sold his oyster steam boat to parties in Westchester for to run as a freight boat between that place and New York.  It will be remembered Capt. Josh had this boat built in a peculiar manner and expressly to dredge by steam for oysters.  Afterwards an act was passed by the Legislature prohibiting the use of same."

 Steam technology to harvest oysters in Long Island Sound would not be permitted.  Captain Leviness had to resort to the oystering methods that had been used off the shores of Pelham for the previous fifty years.


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 "CITY ISLAND NOTES
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 MR. HILBERT has opened a photograph gallery on Main street.

 MR. ISAIAH KINSEY is building a two story house on Fordham ave., for Mr. Fred Gianisure.

 AN exhibition of the pupils of District School No. 2 [City Island] has been given of late, every Friday afternoon, under the supervision of the principal, Mr. Sterne.

 MR. JOHN HAWKINS is building another large dump scow for Mr. Goodyear of New York.  The patent is one of Mr. Hawkins own and is considered a great success.  

 The keel for a new three masted schooner has been laid at Carll's yard recently.  Tonnage to be 900 tons with a double deck.  Also at this same yard there will soon be laid the keel for a vessel of 1200 tons, with a keel of 150 feet.  This will be the largest vessel ever built on City Island.  

 THE boat race on Saturday last between Ayres and Nelson (colored) was not a very satisfactory affair.  Nelson took the lead from the start and kept it throughout.  The race was for $25, checks undoubtedly.  These checks are the same as cash.  But as a general thing it is a bad practice to pull an eight mile boat race for any man's check.

 MESSRS. A. B. WOOD & Son are building a steam launch for William Astor to be used as a tender to the yacht Ambassadress.  The English launch formerly owned by Mr. Astor has been sold to Mr. Dermouth, of New York city, and is undergoing repairs at the same yard.

WE understand Capt. Joshua Leviness has sold his oyster steam boat to parties in Westchester for to run as a freight boat between that place and New York.  It will be remembered Capt. Josh had this boat built in a peculiar manner and expressly to dredge by steam for oysters.  Afterwards an act was passed by the Legislature prohibiting the use of same.  

 MR. WILLIAM BELDEN, on Saturday afternoon last, gave the Saturday Night Club, of New York city, a sail up the Sound in the yacht Yosemite.  The water was smooth, and all enjoyed themselves.  An elegant dinner was served on board and addresses made by L. M. Bates, Chas. M. Beech, the Hon. B. A. Willis, Richard B. Kimball, Bronson Howard and Fred Taylor.  The health of Mr. and Mrs. Taylor was drank [sic] and the former was nominated for a member of the club."

 Source:  CITY ISLAND NOTES, New Rochelle Pioneer, Jun. 24, 1882, Vol. XIII, No. 12, p. 3, col. 6.  

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The oystering industry was, for decades, a critically-important economic activity in the Town of Pelham.  Many residents of City Island made their living from the industry or ran businesses that catered to the oystermen.  Accordingly, I have written about Pelham oystering on many, many occasions.  See, e.g.:

 Tue., Jun. 27, 2017:  John E. Price of City Island, One of Pelham's Earliest Commercial Oystermen.

Thu., May 11, 2017:  Nineteenth Century Fake News: Announced Discovery of Another Great Oyster Bed in 1871 Led to a Near "Oyster Riot".

Wed., Mar. 29, 2017:  Important Description of the Oyster Industry in Pelham in 1853.

Thu., Feb. 11, 2016:  Was a City Island Hotel Keeper Among the First to Learn of the Great Oyster Bed Discovered in 1859?

Wed., Jun. 24, 2015:  The 1895 Oyster War Involving City Island Oystermen - Part I.

Thu., Jun. 25, 2015:  The 1895 Oyster War Involving City Island Oystermen - Part II.

Mon., Dec. 01, 2014:  Jury Finds City Island Oystermen Guilty of Stealing Oysters from Planted Bed in 1878.

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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

1899 Article About City Island's New Bridge Describes History of Area and Includes Wonderful Images


During 1899 and 1900, the bridge that now connects City Island to the mainland was built next to the ancient wooden bridge as a replacement.  The November 5, 1899 issue of the New-York Daily Tribune included a lengthy, interesting article about the new bridge, the history of the area and plans for development of City Island.  The article also included a number of wonderful photographs of the old bridge, the new bridge under construction, the Leviness mansion and more.

Transcribed below is the text of the article.  Also included are images that accompanied the article.

"CITY ISLAND'S NEW BRIDGE
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A DRIVEWAY AND OTHER IMPROVEMENTS INTRUDE ON THE VILLAGERS.
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THE SLUMBER OF A CENTURY BROKEN BY CONSOLIDATION -- WHERE YACHTS REPAIR AND SPEND THE WINTER.

A slow, sleepy fisherman's existence, with oystering, yacht building and yacht beaching for the winter months, and of recent years the care of the inner wants of shoals of bicyclists, have been City Island's life for a century past.  Until recently the oldest inhabitant could recall hardly a change of importance on the whole island.  Except during the summer, when the roads become gay with visitors and amateur fishermen, uneventfulness has been City Island's portion.

It was far off from the village of West Chester, and difficult of access particularly when all the land from the Harlem to Long Island Sound belonged to Westchester County.  Now itself within the city limits, City Island is as hard to get to as ever before.  If not, indeed, more difficult.  A bred in the bone fisherman summed it up the other day in this wise:  'Fifteen or twenty years ago we had a boat to take us to New-York, the New-Rochelle boat that stopped here.  The boat went down in the morning and came back at night.  It cost us 40 cents the round trip.  Now we have to pay about 90 cents to get carried both ways.'

There is nothing to be wondered at in the isolation of City Island.  It lies at the extreme northeastern end of the new New-York, out in the meadow land, away from the mainland, in the waters of Pelham Bay.  A 'bobtail' horse car line, with only two cars running on week days and a maximum of twelve on Sundays, is its only link with the world without.  And this link is only a partial one, for these relics of transportation run only to the old Harlem Railroad station at Bartow, two miles away.  It is safe to say that had not City Island risen into fame on its shipyards and its sheltered places for the laying up of pleasure craft during the winter its name would hardly have been known at all through the years.

TO BE MADE PART OF THE PARK SYSTEM

Of this sort is City Island of the past and present.  Its future brings it into popular interest now.  One of the quaintest, prettiest spots on the Sound, its light is no longer to be hid under a bushel.  Plans are afoot to improve the little island over by the Mount Vernon line in a wonderful manner.  If all goes well, and the plans are approved, it will become a part of the great system of parkways through the borough of The Bronx, and not the least delightful section for purposes of driving and wheeling.

The topographical bureau of the Board of Public Improvements, under the direction of Louis A Risse, chief topographical engineer, has prepared this plan for City Island's regeneration.  Shoreward Pelham Bay Park lies, with its great boulevards that are to come, connecting with the other parks in New-York's northern section.  Thus the first requisite is a bridge.  This is already under way, having been started in January, and is to be finished late next spring or early in the summer.  It will not only be a driving bridge, but will carry over a trolley line, for the trolley is to make its way through Pelham Bay Park, run over the stream and traverse City Island as well joining with existing lines, replacing the antediluvian, jaunting horsecar, which boasts of only one horse.

In the whole length and breadth of America there are probably few such curious, inconsequential horsecar lines as this.  It is said to have on its rolls seven employees -- four regular drivers (others are taken on temporarily when needed), a foreman, a man who cleans out the stables and a boy.  Yet to its owner the line has been little short of a small sized gold mine.  The trolley company, the City Island story has it, is now negotiating for the road, with the result that the owner and the corporation are still a considerable distance apart.  The company offers to buy it out for $75,000, the owner wants $125,000.

A FINE DRIVEWAY TO BE BUILT.

The bridge begins the list of improvements.  New streets are to be laid out here and there.  The approach on the City Island side will divide itself into three roadways.  Two of these start and end at the Shore Road, which is completely to circle the island along the water's edge.  It will prove a superb bit of driveway, different from anything else in the parkway system, and as the island is about a mile and a half long by half a mile wide at its broadest point this shore road will cover nearly three miles.

At the island's southern end there will be a park of seventeen acres, embracing the lawns of a famous old mansion, built by one Belden, who was associated with Jay Gould in many enterprises.  The old mansion still stands, in the charge of a caretaker.  Though dismantled, it is rich and elegant within, and possesses many a fine carving.

The shore roadway will be eighty feet broad.  The cost of all this work has not yet been estimated, but the sum total will be exceedingly large.  It must be remembered that outside of the new bridge, the piers of which are now rising well above the water of the bay, all the plan pretends to do is to set a general design.  It simply represents the chief topographic engineer's idea of how the best results may be obtained.  The plan has not yet been brought forward officially, though it is understood that it soon will be.

Nearly $300,000 is being spent on the bridge alone.  It is to have a draw in its centre, the height of its span is 25 feet above the water-line; 600 feet is its length, and the distance from one end to the other of the approaches are:  City Island approaches, 251 feet; approaches in Pelham Bay Park, 150.

Interesting beside it by comparison is the old wooden bridge, that has been in use for many years.  A picturesque view of it is given here.  There is a local tradition that some of the hardwood timber in it came from the old warship New-Orleans, that was broken up not long after the Civil War.

The natives look askance at all these projects and highly disapprove of them.  The general sentiment of the island is against any change.

VILLAGERS RESIST IMPROVEMENT.

There are fifteen hundred persons on City Island, four hundred of them being voters.  The people are disturbed because they think that all is settled that the Shore Road will be at once begun.  They seem qyite unable to realize that this planning is all in the future, and that the existing design may be wholly modified.

One long street suffices for the commerce of City Island.  It is a pleasant, quaint street, beginning at the bridges, which stand side by side and running to the southern point of the island.

In one way City Island has joined the procession of progress.  It has its own fire company.  It is what is called a 'combination company.'  This has just been installed, and so infrequent are the fires on the island that the machines are frequently to be seen parading over the streets at a measured pace, to give the horses exercise.  This is another benefit City Island shares through consolidation.  Another is its free postal delivery.

But City Island must rest its fame on its fishermen and its shipyards.  The fish are caught, not for sale, but for the tables of the fishermen.  The City Islander dearly loves his sport.  He finds fine black bass out in the bay and good fishing at all times.  The shipyards number five of real importance.  There are a hundred or more yachts laid up for winter at this season.  Piepgras's is one of the most noted of the shipyards.  Hawkins's, Robeson's and Wood's are others.  At Hawkins's the other day there was a pleasing sight.  Up on the shore, high and dry, standing on their fins, supported so that they stood upright, were the Defender, the Navahoe and the Emerald.  The picture brought up many a racing memory.

There is also to be seen a new schoolhouse, a Colonial structure of red brick with a white porch.  By fate it sets alongside of what is perhaps the quaintest structure on the island, the Leviness house, now unoccupied, slowly growing into a ruin.  Each story of this remarkably constructed house is smaller than that below it.  The building ends in what is practically a square tower, with a balcony."

Source:  City Island's New Bridge,  New-York Daily Tribune, Nov. 5, 1899, p. 3, col. 1.

Map of City Island.
Source:  City Island's New Bridge, New-York Daily Tribune, Nov. 5, 1899, p. 3, col. 2.

The Present Wooden Bridge to City Island and the State of Construction of the New One.
Source:  City Island's New Bridge, New-York Daily Tribune, Nov. 5, 1899, p. 3, col. 2.

NEW AND OLD AT CITY ISLAND.
The new Colonial schoolhouse and the quaint old Leviness mansion (unoccupied).
Source:  City Island's New Bridge, New-York Daily Tribune, Nov. 5, 1899, p. 3, col.1.
NOTE:  On left is today's City Island Nautical Museum at 190 Fordham Street.

IN HAWKINS'S SHIPYARD, CITY ISLAND.
The yachts seen in their order from right to left are the Defender, the Navahoe, the Emerald and the Colonia.
Source:  City Island's New Bridge, New-York Daily Tribune, Nov. 5, 1899, p. 3, col.1.

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