Skip to the story | Text edition home | Full site

Reported by us | Fall River

The Fall River Line: 90 years of overnight steamboats to New York

An SC360 Special on the Borden brothers' steamboat line, its floating palaces and its last summer, told from the histories and newspapers of its own time.

By the SC360 Community Desk | Published Oct. 31, 2026 | Last verified Oct. 29, 2026, 10:12 p.m. ET

FALL RIVER From 1847 to 1937, apart from a few years in the 1860s when the boats sailed from Newport, a traveler could leave Boston by train in the early evening, walk from the cars onto a steamboat at the Fall River wharf and wake up in New York. The Fall River Line ran that overnight trip until July 1937, and Henry M. Fenner, writing his History of Fall River in 1906, said the city's residents "have always taken a great pride" in it "on account of the beauty and high grade of the steamers."

The Bordens' boat to New York

The railroad came before the boats, and the Fall River Railroad opened June 9, 1845, running to Myricks, where passengers changed to trains for Boston, according to Fenner's 1911 history, published by the Fall River Merchants Association. Col. Richard Borden, who planned the railroad and built most of it, watched the steamboat lines running from Stonington and Norwich, Connecticut, to New York and set out to give Fall River the same kind of water link, Henry H. Earl wrote in A Centennial History of Fall River, published in 1877. Earl named Borden's brother Jefferson as his only partner in the venture.

The Bay State Steamboat Company started with $300,000 in capital, and in the spring of 1847 its steamer Bay State, built for the line, began regular trips between Fall River and New York, Earl wrote. Fenner's 1911 edition dates the company's organization to 1846. Earl described the May morning the Bay State first came into the harbor, an arrival marked "by the firing of guns, ringing of bells," while people crowded the bluffs along the shore and pressed onto the wharf. By Earl's account she was 320 feet long and measured 1,600 tons, with Capt. Joseph J. Comstock in command, and the chartered steamer Massachusetts ran as her alternate until the Empire State joined the line in 1848.

Earl wrote that the line was "indeed such a success" that in 1850 it paid 6% monthly dividends for 10 months in a row, and that both the Empire State and the Metropolis were paid for out of its earnings. The Metropolis arrived in 1854, 350 feet long, 82 feet across the beam and 2,200 tons, and Earl called her "the most superb steamboat of her period."

Newport, Jim Fisk and the floating palaces

The line changed hands more than once in the 1860s. After the Old Colony Railroad extended its tracks to Newport, the boats passed to the Boston, Newport and New York Steamboat Company and Newport became the eastern end of the run. Earl and Fenner's 1906 history date that move to 1864, while Fenner's 1911 edition says 1863. The new owners added two steamers, the Newport and the Old Colony, in 1865, Fenner wrote in 1911.

Two new boats, the Bristol and the Providence, were finished in 1867 for a planned New York line that failed, and in 1868 and 1869 they ran between New York and Bristol, Rhode Island, for the Narragansett Steamship Company, according to Fenner. Earl wrote that the Narragansett company was then "under the control of Messrs. Fisk and Gould, of New York," and Fenner's 1906 history names them as James Fisk Jr. and Jay Gould, spelling Fisk's surname Fiske, and says Fisk, "through his striking personality, did much to draw attention to it." In 1869 the Narragansett company took over the old Fall River boats, gave up Bristol and moved its eastern terminal to Fall River, which Fenner wrote remained the line's eastern end from then on.

Earl listed the Bristol and the Providence at 373 feet long and 83 feet across, at 3,000 tons each, with 240 staterooms, berths for 800 to 1,000 passengers and a crew of 130. Fenner wrote that they were "looked on as marvels," and that each boat carried a band while officers and crew wore uniforms, "innovations which helped to make the line famous." By 1877 the evening concert in the saloon was, in Earl's words, "well-nigh indispensable," and he wrote that among the hundreds of thousands of passengers the line carried in the centennial year of 1876, "not one received injury." Fenner's 1911 edition says the Old Colony Steamboat Company, organized by the interests that controlled the Old Colony Railroad, took over the line in 1874.

Supper on the Sound, Boston by breakfast

An 1884 guidebook, The Fall River and Newport Routes between New York and Boston, published in New York by Taintor Brothers, Merrill and Co., set out the schedule. The Pilgrim, the Bristol or the Providence left Pier 28 on the North River, at the foot of Murray Street, at 5:30 p.m. every day and landed passengers at Fall River in time for a train that reached Boston at 6 a.m. Going the other way, trains left the Old Colony and Newport Railway station in Boston at 6 p.m., or 7 p.m. on Sundays, and the boats reached New York at 7 a.m. Earl put the rail leg from Boston at 48 miles, the last 20 or so along the Taunton River, covered in an hour and 15 minutes.

The guide walked readers through a boat from the gangplank, past a main deck laid in alternating strips of yellow pine and black walnut, to stairs with polished brass steps and down to a supper room where tables were "glittering with cut-glass and silver." Staterooms ran in two tiers around the main saloon. The guide said William H. Webb built the Bristol and the Providence and that John Roach and Sons built the Pilgrim, and it promised that brass bands and orchestras rode each steamer during the season of pleasure travel.

The Pilgrim, the Priscilla and the Commonwealth

The Pilgrim, which Fenner called "the first steamboat on Long Island Sound to be built of iron," joined the line in June 1883, and a Currier and Ives print published that year, now in the Library of Congress, billed her as "The Iron Monarch of Long Island Sound." Fenner listed the boats that came after her: the Puritan in 1889, the Plymouth in 1890, the Priscilla in 1894, a second Providence in 1905 and the Commonwealth in 1908. The Plymouth burned at her dock in Newport in 1906 while she was being repaired, and she was rebuilt and back in service the following year, he wrote.

A 1900 picture book published for the news agent on the line's steamers, Fifty Photographic Views of the Steamers of the Fall River Line, gave the Puritan a length of 403 feet 4 inches at the waterline and a registered gross tonnage of 4,593, against 3,484 for the Pilgrim. Fenner wrote in 1911 that the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad had controlled the line since 1894, and his 1906 history named the Providence, Puritan, Priscilla and Plymouth as the steamers on the line or available when needed, backed by a number of freighters.

The last summer, 1937

The end came during a strike, and the United Press reported from New York on July 19, 1937, that the line had announced earlier that year it would stop running at the end of the summer season, and that the decision was believed to have been hastened by a strike the National Maritime Union of the CIO called over working conditions. The strike had tied up two of the line's vessels, the Priscilla and the Commonwealth, the UP reported.

An Associated Press report dated July 18 at Fall River, printed in the Springfield Weekly Republican, said the strike had been called the previous Tuesday, July 13, and that the union had asked to be recognized as the bargaining agent for the line's crews, along with hiring halls and a conference on wages and working conditions. Crews of the New Bedford, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket line, also run by the New England Steamship Company, walked out the same day, and they went back to work after the International Seamen's Union, an American Federation of Labor affiliate, reached an agreement with the company, the AP reported.

On July 18, General Agent John F. Clark of the New England Steamship Company announced that the line was suspending service, the AP reported, and the UP said the announcement Clark authorized was read to both crews from their quarterdecks, aboard the Commonwealth at Fall River and the Priscilla in New York. "The line has suspended operations. There is no more strike," Clark said, according to both wire services. At Fall River, speaking from the steamer's quarterdeck with a police detail beside him, he told the men, "I am sorry to have to tell you this bad news," and said their checks were waiting at the wharf ticket office, the AP reported. The AP noted that the line was a subsidiary of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, and that company officials would say nothing more about the suspension except that freight already waiting would move by railroad.

An editorial in the Washington Evening Star on July 28 said earlier generations had looked on the steamers as "a near approach to a marine paradise, especially for honeymooners," and that 90 years of coastwise shipping had come to an end. "Whiting's Boston Letter," dated July 21 and printed in the Springfield Weekly Republican of July 29, reported talk of efforts to save the line and wondered whether it "ought to be made into some kind of a monument or memorial, though that seems difficult."

Read it yourself

Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.

Notes

The line's early history comes from Henry H. Earl's A Centennial History of Fall River (1877) and Henry M. Fenner's histories of Fall River (1906 and 1911); where they disagree on a year, the story gives both. The schedule and the boats' fittings come from the 1884 Taintor guide and the 1900 Fifty Photographic Views of the Steamers of the Fall River Line. The end of the line comes from Associated Press and United Press reports printed July 19 and July 22, 1937, and the quoted editorials from the Evening Star of July 28 and the Springfield Weekly Republican of July 29, all in the Library of Congress newspaper collection. We read them on Oct. 29 and checked each date and weekday against a calendar. Not heard: no one was contacted.

Corrections

No corrections to this story. If something here is wrong, tell us. Every correction is dated on the story and listed in our public log.

Sources (11)

  1. Henry H. Earl, A Centennial History of Fall River, Mass. (New York, Atlantic Publishing and Engraving Co., 1877) | Internet ArchiveTitle page checked; pp. 50 to 51 (Richard and Jefferson Borden, $300,000, 1850 dividends) and pp. 193 to 196 (The New York Line) read in full. Read Oct. 29, 2026.
  2. Henry M. Fenner, History of Fall River (New York, F.T. Smiley Publishing Co., 1906) | Internet ArchiveTransportation passages and the Fall River Line section, pp. 92 to 93, read in full. Read Oct. 29, 2026.
  3. Henry M. Fenner, History of Fall River, Massachusetts (Fall River Merchants Association, 1911) | Internet ArchivePages 23 to 25 and 34 to 35 (railroad, Bay State Steamboat Co., fleet list to 1908, Plymouth fire, New Haven control) read in full. Read Oct. 29, 2026.
  4. The Fall River and Newport Routes between New York and Boston (New York, Taintor Brothers, Merrill and Co., 1884) | Internet ArchiveOld Colony Steamboat Co. section, pp. 7 to 12, read in full. Read Oct. 29, 2026.
  5. Fifty Photographic Views of the Steamers of the Fall River Line (Rand, McNally and Co. for J.F. Murphy, 1900) | Internet ArchivePlate captions with dimensions and tonnage. Read Oct. 29, 2026.
  6. New palace steamer Pilgrim, of the Fall River line: The Iron Monarch of Long Island Sound (Currier and Ives, c1883) | Library of CongressCatalog record; no known restrictions on publication. Read Oct. 29, 2026.
  7. Springfield Weekly Republican, July 22, 1937, page 14 | Chronicling America, Library of CongressAP, Fall River, July 18: "Fall River Steamer Line Suspends, Ending Walkout." Read Oct. 29, 2026.
  8. The Waterbury Democrat, July 19, 1937, page 3 | Chronicling America, Library of CongressUP, New York, July 19: "Fall River Line to Discontinue." Read Oct. 29, 2026.
  9. Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), July 28, 1937, page 12 | Chronicling America, Library of CongressEditorial, "Fall River Line." Read Oct. 29, 2026.
  10. Springfield Weekly Republican, July 29, 1937, page 9 | Chronicling America, Library of Congress"Whiting's Boston Letter," dated Boston, July 21, on the collapse of the line. Read Oct. 29, 2026.
  11. Steamer Priscilla, Fall River Line (Detroit Photographic Co., c1901) | Library of CongressLead photo, LC-D4-21596, digital file LC-DIG-det-4a15232; no known restrictions on publication. Read Oct. 29, 2026.

This story on the full site