by Shannon Butler Have you ever sailed up the Hudson River? It truly is a wonderful feeling to hop on a boat in New York City and take your sweet time as you make your way north. First, you pass by the steep cliffs of the Palisades, then around the curve of Anthony’s Nose, pass the barracks at West Point, then around the ruins of Bannerman Island, and finally to the base of Main Street in Poughkeepsie. Making that journey on a sailboat could take you a few days depending on the wind, but with a good steam boat, it only took about 4 hours. And when you journeyed on one of the stylish Hudson River Day Line ships, you traveled in a little bit of elegance. The Hudson River Day Line prided itself on speed in the early 1860’s. Alfred Van Santvoord had taken over some of his father Abraham’s business of steamboats that ran on the Erie Canal and the Hudson. At the time they had the fastest ship on the Hudson, the Daniel Drew which in 1855 had set the record for fastest time from Albany to New York City (7 hours, 20 minutes). In 1863 the company [...]