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Circa 1910. "Steamer Greenport at Manhanset House landing, Shelter Island, N.Y." 8x10 inch glass negative, Detroit Publishing Company. View full size.
Montauk Steamboat Co. purchased "Sagadahoc" at Bath, Maine in 1903 and renamed her "Greenport." She was built as "Star of the East" by John Englis in New York in 1866 but was modernized a few years before the M.S. purchase.
Placed on the Block Island run, she was slow and expensive for the work, so was sold in winter, 1906. [From "Steel Rails to the Sunrise, The Long Island Rail Road" by Ron Zeil and George Foster]
The Greenport began life as the Star of the East, built 1866 by John Inglis & Company at New York for the Kennebec Steamboat Company, to run between Kennebec and Boston. 244.2' x 35.2' x 12.8,' 1413 gross tons. It was powered by a vertical beam engine, 56" x 11,' built by the Morgan Iron Works. In 1891 it became the Sagadahoc and was placed on the Boston-Bangor run and in 1903 sold to the Montauk Steamboat Company for Long Island service, receiving the name Greenport, one of its stops. Its time in this service is undoubtedly depicted in the photograph.
Greenport was withdrawn from service in 1909 and used as a spare boat for the Hudson Navigation Company, but spent virtually all its time laid up at Newburgh until resurrected in 1914 and briefly placed on the Albany-New York City run on the Hudson. That resurrection was short-lived, and in 1916 the vessel was converted to a coal barge for use at Connecticut, but was soon back at New York, where the hull was abandoned at 215th Street on the Harlem River, about where the Harlem River turns west towards the Hudson.
The Greenport has sails bent to her gaffs, ready for instant use if the engine fails. Her masts have no booms, only gaffs; her sails will be set "flying".
The diamond shaped device on the top deck is the "walking beam" of her single-cylinder steam engine.
If you look closely, there's an oil lantern hung on one of the stays of the mizzen (rear) mast.
The area of the pier with the white picket fences is a small vehicular ferry slip. At this date, most of the vehicles on the ferry will be horse-drawn.
There's an array of cargo laid out on the pier by the gangway. I can't make out what it might be. Can anyone identify it? It's probably outgoing agricultural produce.
[Those are logs. - Dave]
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