"It was said that a man considered sober in Rondout would be considered a drunkard in Kingston." ell had exceptionally long lives of fifty years or more and the Powell became probably the best known of all Hudson River steamboats. In addition to anthracite coal, there were other products indigenous to the area which contributed to Rondout' s continuing prosperity as the 19th century matured . Natural ice , brick manufacturing , Rosendale cement, Ulster County bluestone and agricultural products, all in demand to meet the needs of the exponential growth of New York City , are examples. Since virtually all of these products were most easily transported by water, the need for vessels to freight them gave rise to an impressive shipbuilding and transportation network . Before the advent ¡of electricity, ice was a commodity in great demand for food preservation , especially during the summer months. Due to its relative proximity to metropolitan New York, the Hudson north of Poughkeepsie (where the river is free of salt) , was a prime source of the ice for the New York market. It has been said that along the river north of the ' ' bridge city'' one was never out of sight of an icehouse , those huge double-walled (the void fill ed with sawdust) wooden structures that housed the winter' s crop of ice . Normally, the upper Hudson would freeze over in mid-December and when the ice had reached a thickness of ten or twelve inches , generally in late January or early February, it would be harvested
and stored , to be shipped downriver by barge during the warm-weather months. Although there were at least three icehouses along Rondout Creek, Rondout's principal connection with the ice business was the construction and repair of ice barges in the shipyards that bordered the Creek between the Hudson and the D & H Canal. Brick manufacturing was another large Hudson River industry , there being over l 00 brickyards along the river between Haverstraw and Coeymans during the heyday of this enterprise. It was an industry that owed its success to three principal factors-an abundance of clay deposits at various locations along the riverbanks ; the river itself, which offered an easy and convenient way of shipping the bricks; and the rapidly growing City of New York which used Hudson River common brick literally by the millions in the construction of the city. A large concentration of brickyards existed between Kingston Point and Saugerties, and the Rondout Creek shipyards built and repaired a major portion of the scows, used by these and other brick manufacturers along the river. Limestone existed in substantial quantities along the banks of the upper Hudson and a form known as natural cement was found in relatively large deposits in the vicinity of Rosendale and north of the village of Rondout. During the latter half of the 19th century , a number of companies came into ex istence to mill
and market this cement, which possessed great strength when fully cured or hardened. Rosendale Cement was used in the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. Ulster County bluestone was another native product. Quarried in an area northwest of Kingston , the stone was naturally fissured so that large , fairly thin slabs could be obtained. Before the introduction of Portland cement, much of the stone was carted to the shores of the Creek from where it would be shipped by scow, to become New York City sidewalks and curbing. Although a railroad along the east shore of the Hudson from New York to a point opposite Albany was was completed as early as 1852 , a railroad along the west shore did not reach Kingston from the metropolitan area until three decades later. Ten years prior to this, however, a railroad had been completed from Rondout into the Catskill Mountains as far as Stamford , New York and another from Kingston southwest through the Wallkill valley . These railroads, especially the latter, forged a direct link with the steamboats out of Rondout for carrying downriver freight (to a large extent agricultural) and people . Then as now , Delaware County was known for its dairy products and southern Ulster County for its fruit growing. The night boats out of Rondout carried both in huge quantities for the New York market. If it was not a time of wine and
Steamboats at Rondout Landing , typical of so many of the do cks from which people and goods boarded ships and ferries in the last century . The C. A. Schultz (foreground) was a local, carrying passengers to hamlets along Rondout Creek, while the William F. Romer was part of the Romer and Tremper line between New York and Kingston . Though she does not loom too large here, note the massive walking beam, tall dark single stack, and the broad and deep paddlebox: elements of an imposing power. Photo Hudson River Maritime Center, Saulpaugh Collection.