Powerful Hudson River currents have always changed the river, leaving shifting sand bars, shoals and shallow areas and even islands in their wake.
One of the more notable places on the Hudson where the forces of nature have impacted the history of river transportation – and indeed New York history itself – was the overslaugh – a particularly shallow area off Castleton‘s Papscanee Island.
This obstruction, about three miles south of present-day Albany, was predominately made of two sand bars (known as the upper and lower). It was formed in part by the entry of the waters of the Normanskill, until its mouth was engineered to enter the river north of its natural course and the construction of modern dykes in the early 20th century.
The name overslaugh (or oversleigh) comes from the Dutch overslaag, and was first encountered as an obstacle when Henry Hudson sailed the river in 1609. It was in the deeper water just below overslaugh where he is believed to have anchored in order to make contact with the large Mohican community at Papscanee.
Hudson may have launched his smaller “ship’s boat” to explore the river to the north from this spot, which as early as 1626 was called oude ree (old anchorage) by the Dutch geographer Joannes de Laet.
“In 1626, Fort Orange on the mainland had been established for only two years,” Shirely W. Dunn notes in her The River Indians. “Therefore an old anchorage referred either to the time before Fort Orange, when ships came to a trading fort called Fort Nassau, located on Castle Island below Albany, or to the time, after Fort Nassau washed away in 1617, when for a few years, Dutch skippers simply traded from anchored ship near the mouth of the Normanskill.”
During the days when sloops dominated Hudson River traffic, the overslaugh was a formidable obstacle during times of low water.
To overcome this and other shallow areas, a sloop’s crew might drop an anchor and send a small boat ahead to a sand bar with a rope and a small anchor called a kedge. From there the sloop could be hauled forward in a process called kedging.
“The sight of from twenty to fifty sail of river craft, fast aground on the Overslagh at low tide, was not rare,” one observer noted “and the amount of profanity uttered by the vexed sailors was sufficient to demoralize the whole district.”
As early as 1790, the State Legislature authorized the construction of a perpendicular dyke on the east side of the river in order to increase the flow through the overslaugh in hopes of deepening the channel.
Between 1797 and 1819 the State Legislature appropriated nearly $200,000 for similarly constructed dykes. Although expensive, this solution proved temporary and it was clear dredging would be necessary.
In 1821, the Chancellor Livingston was grounded on the overslaugh for 29 hours. It was already sometimes necessary for steamboat travelers to use the Greenbush stage coach to make the final three miles to Albany. Freight was often carried over the overslaugh by shallower draft lighters and other small boats.
For a time it was feared that the Erie Canal would be extended through the overslaugh disrupting Albany and Troy’s monopoly on canal traffic and so there was a organized local effort to dredge the river.
In 1826 the Albany Argus reported: “The person who directed the operations of the dredging machine at the Overslaugh, during the last season, has, within a few days, taken the soundings of the channel on which he operated and he finds a depth of from ten to twelve feet water; while on the adjacent bottom not excavated, there is from 5 to 7 feet only.”
In 1835, the steamer Novelty, carrying a cargo of stoves, was sunk at the overslaugh when her keel was broken as she was being towed to Albany by the Oliver Ellsworth. On November 4, 1835, it was reported that “71 Masted Vessels; 5 Steamboats, and 16 Tow-boats” were held up on the overslaugh.
In 1834/35, thanks to the powerful Democrats of the Albany Regency, Congress appropriated $370,000 for Hudson River improvements. US Army Engineers Captain Andrew Talcott and Lieutenant Henry Brewerton (who was at other times Commandant of West Point) oversaw improvement of Hudson River navigation from 1836 to 1842.
It was at this time that longitudinal dykes were first constructed, including the Overslaugh Dyke at Van Wie’s Point. Another was built north of Albany from Port Schuyler – now in Watervliet – to Breakers Island.
Even into the 1880s the overslaugh (and the islands, bars and shoals north of Albany) sometimes required smaller boats, notably the Belle Horton (in operation from 1881-1894), to bring passengers the last six miles as far as Troy.
Read more about steamboats on the Hudson River.
Illustrations, from above: “Crystal Valley Farms, A View on the Hudson River at the Overslaugh,” by William Croome (1790-1860), 1834 (Albany Institute of History & Art); “View near the Overslaugh,” undated, but probably early 1800s; the newly constructed “Overslaugh Dyke” shown in Panorama of the Hudson River, 1845.
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