When steamboats whistled on the Upper Delaware River
My favorite place for off-road biking is the Delaware Canal towpath from New Hope to Upper Black Eddy, then cross the Delaware River to Frenchtown. There I head down river on a rail trail and Raritan Canal towpath to Lambertville and its river span back to New Hope. That’s a 32-mile loop past picturesque farms and villages like Lumberville, Point Pleasant and Erwinna on the Pennsy side and Byram, Raven’s Rock and Stockton on the Jersey side. The paths hug the Delaware the entire way with stunning overlooks.
By the mid-1800s, magnificent steamboats plied that stretch of the waterway to Easton. Steamers were ubiquitous on major waterways everywhere in that era, thanks to Warminster’s John Fitch. In 1785 he invented a steam engine to drive a prototype paddle-wheel boat he designed and built in a Philadelphia shipyard. The idea took off though poor Fitch never made the fortune and fame he imagined. Others did.
Sixty-five years after Fitch invented steamboats, investors decided it was time to see if a fleet could operate on the Delaware between New Hope/Lambertville and the coal shipping port of Easton 36 miles upstream. “The first of these boats to ascend the river was known as the ‘Major William Barnet’,” Frenchtown historian Clarence Fargo noted. “This boat first awoke the echoes of the village with its steam whistle as it passed Frenchtown on March 13, 1852.”
Built in a Camden shipyard, the Barnet was a stern wheel paddler that had been scheduled to reach Easton a year earlier. A big July Fourth reception had been arranged. Visitors packed hotels. Throngs poured into town from throughout the region. The National Guard and Easton’s brass band led a parade, followed by a gala reception on Goose Island to await the steamer. It was the largest gathering in city history. A dignitary read the Declaration of Independence and letters from prominent Americans. The Phoenix Fire Company arrived dressed as Indians. British magician Signor Blitz entertained.
As the afternoon wore on, visitors kept an eye on a bend in the river from which the Barnet would steam into view. It never did. Disgruntled spectators began leaving, wondering if it ran aground or sank.
Hardly. The great vessel was still in its shipyard. No one sent word to Easton. More than two weeks later it finally got underway with a full cargo and 300 passengers. It ran effortlessly up the estuary past Bristol to Trenton but couldn’t get past the city’s rapids. The Barnet backed down to the municipal wharf to await higher river flow.
The layover lasted four months. On Nov. 17 the Barnet finally powered past the rapids and steamed upriver as far as Yardley where a paddle broke, forcing a return to Trenton for repairs. A week later, the boat was underway again and reached Lambertville 16 miles upstream. There it docked for two days. Casting off, the Barnet ran aground a bit upstream and returned to Lambertville where it stayed for the winter to await spring snow runoff.
By March 13, the Delaware was in full flow. At dawn, the riverboat headed for Easton. It was smooth going. The captain announced arrival with shrill steam whistle toots at every village ― Centre Bridge, Lumberville, Point Pleasant, Upper Black Eddy, Riegelsville, Frenchtown and Stockton. Jubilant crowds materialized all along the river. At Frenchtown, a horse rider raced ahead to alert Easton the dreamboat was on its way. An estimated 5,000 Eastonians gathered, many jamming the covered bridge to Phillipsburg where they peered down from its many windows. Spectators cheered wildly as the triumphant vessel passed under the bridge, its whistle sounding loudly. It circled back grandly and crossed under again to moor at Easton’s wharf near the confluence of the Delaware and Lehigh rivers.
In days to come, fate would not be kind. On May 12, the Barnet’s boiler exploded in the river off Point Pleasant, dooming the vessel. Sister steamboat Reindeer continued service. Nevertheless, the era of steamboats on the Upper Delaware would succumb in a few short years to newly built Belvidere-Delaware Railroad on riverside tracks from Trenton to Easton.
These days on my bike rides, I like to dismount and walk a pedestrian suspension bridge spanning the Delaware from Lumberville’s Black Bass Inn. It’s from the span I can imagine joyful passengers waving from the Reindeer decks as it passes. It helps that my wife Mary Anne and I strolled the promenade of the showboat Lt. Robert E. Lee moored on the Mississippi River in St. Louis in 1976. We were on our way by car to cover the national GOP convention in Kansas City for this newspaper. Thirty-five years later, fire destroyed the Lee. Like the Reindeer and Barnet, it too disappeared into American lore.
Sources include “The History of Frenchtown” by Clarence Fargo published in 1933; “Steamboat Barnet reached Easton 8 Months Late” by S.M. Parkhill published on Dec. 1, 1998 in The Morning Call newspaper of Easton, and information from reader Rick Epstein who suggested I write this column.
Carl LaVO can be reached at carllavo0@gmail.com
This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Steamboat whistles on the Upper Delaware River in Bucks and Lehigh
