Jersey City and Its Historic SitesEaton, Harriet Phillips
History
Jersey City and Its Historic Sites
Eaton, Harriet Phillips
Jersey City (N.J.) -- History
I give Fulton's description of the boats as quoted by Winfield in
his History of Hudson County: "She is built of two boats, each ten
feet beam, 80 feet long and five feet deep in the hold; which boats
are distant from each other ten feet, confined by strong transverse
beam knees and diagonal traces, forming a deck thirty feet wide and
eighty feet long. The propelling water wheel is placed between the
boats to prevent it from injury from ice and shocks on entering or
approaching the dock. The whole of the machinery being placed between
the two boats leaves ten feet on the deck of each boat for carriages,
horses and cattle, etc.; the other having neat benches and covered with
an awning, is for passengers, and there is also a passage and stairway
to a neat cabin, which is fifty feet long and five feet clear from the
floor to the beams, furnished with benches and provided with a stove in
the winter. Although the two boats and space between them give thirty
feet beam, yet they present sharp bows to the water and have only the
resistance in the water of one boat of twenty feet beam. Both ends
being alike and each having a rudder she never puts about.
[Illustration: THE PLAN OF THE JERSEY.]
"The dock is one hundred and eighty feet long and seventy feet wide,
the bridge is fastened to the middle of the bulkhead. The boat being
only thirty feet wide and the dock seventy, leaves twenty feet vacant
on each of her sides; in each of these twenty feet spans and in the
water are floating stages, made of pine logs, which lie favorably to
the boat for thirty feet, and these run diagonally to the extreme end
of the wharves, so that the boat when coming in hits within the seventy
feet and the stages guide her direct to the bridge."
In 1813 the York, built on the model of the Jersey, was completed and
placed on the ferry. It is said that "they ordinarily took an hour
and a half to make a trip." They started at sunrise from each side
of the river and ran all day, every half hour, by "St. Paul's Church
clock." The fares were collected on the boat during the passage over.
The Jersey was in service for many years and finally being condemned,
was broken up and sold to Mr. Isaac Edge, who built a stable from its
planks and beams. From a portion of this wood two canes were made,
which are still treasured in the Edge family.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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