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Through the Waves of Time
Story ran on: April 8, 2001
From the: Sunday Herald News, Fall River, MA
Author: Ralph Busby
Fall River - The turnout wasn’t as high as organizers had hoped, but those who attended Saturday’s Maritime Symposium heard lectures from some very qualified speakers.
Topics ran the gamut from the preservation of lighthouses to the rise and fall of the Fall River Steampship Line.
The symposium, which was held in the theater building in Heritage Park, was the first event of its kind hosted by the Marine Museum at Fall River. Trustee Douglas M. Bingham said he won’t give up on the idea, and a similar event will be held next year.
Bingham said he hopes the museum will be able to raise a significant amount of money from the event in the future.
“There’s a lot of opportunities to be had with the Maritime Museum,” he said, adding that community support is required.
Bingham said one thing the museum needs is a climate control system; if one is obtained, the Smithsonian will agree to allow the Maritime Museum to display some of its exhibits, Bingham said.
Ed Dunbaugh, of Hofstra University, spoke about the Fall River Steamship Line. He grew up in New York, where his father worked for the competing Colonial Steamship Line.
“I started studying this stuff when I was but six years old,” the now grayhaired Dunbaugh said.
With the use of a slide projector and photographs of some of the 19th century’s finest and best-known steamships, Dunbaugh told the story of the line. It started with Col. Richard Borden and his brother, Jefferson, who saw how steamships from New York would travel to Connecticut or Providence, where passengers would then get on a train to go to Boston.
The Bordens figured it would be more convenient for people to come to Fall River by steamship before heading out to Boston, and they proved correct. The line, which Dunbaugh said became the world’s most famous steamship line, ran for 100 years starting in 1847.
Dunbaugh said that when the line’s first voyage was made with the steamship Bay State, “half the city of Fall River went out to watch it come in.”
The Fall River Line produced some of the world’s largest and fastest steamboats, like the Priscilla and the Commonwealth. Photographs shown of the liners indicated that 19th century travelers enjoyed a good deal more luxury than the travelers of today. The ships featured elegant rooms with beautiful carpeting, columns, and delicate woodwork.
As the 20th century got under way, though, the large ships did have a major drawback – toilet facilities. The 400-room Priscilla, for instance, had only one bathroom for each gender. You could wait in line or “use that thing under the bed,” Dunbaugh noted.
The line survived a number of challenges to its existence over the years. Competing lines – including one that went directly from New York to Boston – came and went. Two ships burned while docked in Newport. And the line even survived the enmity of J. Pierpont Morgan, the infamous robber-baron who sat on the board of the New Haven Railroad, which owned the Fall River Line.
In the end, Dunbaugh said, two things killed the line – the rising popularity of the automobile and the Cape Cod canal, which made a direct trip from New York to Boston considerably more plausible.
In the end, the Fall River Line sold its magnificent steamboats to a scrap yard in Baltimore for $88,000.
Other speakers at the symposium included Capt. Eric Takakjian, an experienced shipwreck diver, Timothy Harrison, the founder of and chairman of the American Lighthouse Foundation, and Marguerite Desy, curator of the USS Constitution Museum.
Date Entered into online database: April 25, 2001
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