New England Steamship Company

We saw that Michael Dwyer worked for the New England Steamship Company as a marine engineer. Many men from Sneem came out to work for this company so I just want to say a few words about it.

The Rhode Island Historical Society website -  www.rihs.org/mssinv/Mss300.htm - has a lot of information about this steamship line.          

In 1812 - the year of the battle of Waterloo - steam navigation began in earnest between New York and southern New England ports.  "Big paddle steamers, gleaming white, ornamental and luxurious, linked the growing cities, touched all the islands and reached up the long tidal rivers, carrying what Ward McAllister called “The Four Hundred” and what O. Henry called “The Four Million.” Even though the fare once sank to as little as fifty cents (from New York to Providence, including berth and two meals on board), the lines paid handsomely; stockholders in one of them received six per cent, monthly. "

The Bay State Steamboat Company was chartered in 1846, and operated regular service from New York to Fall River. The route retained the name "Fall River Line" through several changes of ownership. Trains from Boston came down through Braintree and Middleborough on the Old Colony line to Fall River where passengers boarded a steamship. But not just a steamship - a luxury steamship to rival the luxury liners traveling to and from Europe. "The steamboat portion of the journey traversed Mount Hope Bay, and Narragansett Bay, stopping at Newport, Rhode Island then continuing out to the open Atlantic Ocean after rounding point Judith, and crossed Block Island Sound to enter the sheltered waters of Long Island Sound, continuing on to the piers on the Hudson River in Lower Manhattan. The elite of the Eastern Establishment, such as Astors, Vanderbilts, and others used the line to travel between New York City and Boston, and to travel to their palatial summer homes in Newport, Rhode Island as well.”

"The Fall River Line’s first boat was the steamer Bay State, 300 feet long and forty wide, lit by oil lamps at night. Her cuisine attained considerable renown, at fifty cents for the grand table d’hôte dinner, served at long candlelit tables: ceremoniously the Captain and his guests were seated first, for these were no ferry boats and they affected the grand manner of the transatlantic trade." 

The Fall River operation, then called the Bay State Steamboat Company, "was backed, among others, by members of the famous Borden family (otherwise celebrated for their sinewy if ill-tempered connection. Lizzie, the ax-wielding parenticide). "

The Fall River Line’s first boat was the steamer Bay State, 300 feet long and forty wide, lit by oil lamps at night. Her cuisine attained considerable renown, at fifty cents for the grand table d’hôte dinner, served at long candlelit tables: ceremoniously the Captain and his guests were seated first, for these were no ferry boats and they affected the grand manner of the transatlantic trade. 

"Of all the fleets that plied the Sound, there was never any quite like the Fall River Line. Songs were written about it. Nearly all the presidents and most of the great men and women of that long period traveled it—the famous boat train from Boston in the late afternoon, then off the cars and into the boat at the Fall River wharf, in time to dine in the fine sea air while steaming down Narragansett Bay, past Newport, to head around treacherous Point Judith and thence westward through The Race into the Sound. A fine sleep and into New York in time for business in the morning: it was the recommended route."

Old Colony Steamship.

The line was acquired by the Old Colony Steamboat Company in 1874. "... the waters of Long Island Sound were witnessing what seemed like fresh miracles almost every year. In 1881 the Norwich Line launched the first large iron steamer to travel the Sound, the City of Worcester; she had the first electric lights—and had them nine years before the White House. When the Fall River Line brought out its own great iron double-hulled ship, the Pilgrim, two years later, the company’s blurb writers were carried away. She slept 1,200 persons. Her paddle wheels “feathered.” She was “unsinkable.” “She is lighted with 1,000 incandescent electric lights, aggregating 12,000 candles, and Mr. Edison has exhausted his inventive faculties in fitting up this magnificent vessel.”

The Fall river Line was bought by New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Company in 1894. Eventually most companies came under the control of P. J. Morgan who consolidated them into the New England Steamship Company. The Fall River Line became a division of the New England Navigation Company in 1906. 

"The last of the great paddle steamer fleet was put out of business by a combination of competition from railroads and automobiles, labor troubles, and the Great Depression economy in 1937; however, service on "The Sound" between Providence and New York City continued with screw steamers, until brought to an end in early 1942 by the menace of WWII German U-boat attacks."

It consisted of a railroad journey between Boston and Fall River, Massachusetts, where passengers would then board steamboats for the journey through Narragansett Bay and Long Island Sound to the line’s own Hudson River dock in Manhattan. 

For many years, it was the preferred route to take for travel between the two major cities.

The line was extremely popular, and its steamboats were some of the most advanced and luxurious of their day.