Last of a Line

On the old Fall River Line, on the old Fall River Line, I fell for Susie's line of talk, and Susie fell for mine; Then we fell in with a parson, and he tied us tight as twine, But I wish, oh Lord! I fell overboard, On the old Fall River Line. One day last week the 426-ft. Priscilla, one of the matriarchs of the Fall River Line (water wheels and feathering buckets, double-inclined compound engine, 95-inch cylinders and eleven-foot stroke) moved with stateliness up New York's East River, as if ignoring the ignominious fact that she was being towed by a tug and had only a skeleton crew. Old rivermen watching her passage guessed they were seeing the black stacks and sedate white hull of the old paddle-wheeler for the last time.

The Priscilla's crew had been conducting a sit-down strike in New York harbor and came ashore only when driven by hunger. In Fall River, the striking crew of the Commonwealth packed their kits, debarked with sombre faces. For not only was their strike ended but so, it seemed, was the Fall River Line.

Operated by a subsidiary of the New York, New Haven & Hartford R. R., the Fall River Line had been losing money ever since 1931. The Providence Line and the New Bedford Line were abandoned earlier this year. The railroad was continuing only its Fall River and New Bedford, Martha's Vineyard & Nantucket Lines, and had planned to let Fall River give up the ghost after this summer. When the National Maritime Union, C. I. O. affiliate, started a series of crippling strikes, the company replied with an order to halt operations. Technically the order was one of "temporary suspension" but General Manager John H. Lofland declared that permanent discontinuance was "virtually certain." Civic groups in Newport (port of call) and Fall River wailed that tourist trade and employment levels would be hit. But there seemed no way to force the company to continue in business against its will. Trustees of the railroad asked court permission to sell or scrap its nine vessels--Priscilla, Commonwealth, Providence, Plymouth, Chester W. Chapin, City of Lowell, Pequonnock, New Haven, Mohawk.

As a nostalgic New York Times editorial last week observed, "side-wheelers and side-whiskers go together in the memory." Thousands of New England newlyweds and not-yet-weds got their first breathless glimpse of Manhattan from the deck of a Fall River queen, occasional suicides bought tickets and jumped overboard, U. S. Presidents and statesmen from abroad enjoyed the luxury of travel on Long Island Sound and well-dressed financiers on board were mistaken for sports and gamblers by sports and gamblers. A great show for ordinary passengers and dock gawpers was the splendorous debarkation of socialities at Newport.

The Fall River Line was called Bay State Steamboat Co. in 1846 when it was chartered by a group of Boston and Fall River businessmen. In May 1847 the line got under way with the Massachusetts, chartered from the Providence Line, and the Bay State, brand new and considered the finest craft afloat on the coastal waters of the U. S. She was 315-ft. long, had a 1,500-h.p. beam engine. On her maiden voyage she encountered a rival boat of the Stonington Line, the Oregon, and in the race that ensued, the Bay State not only passed the other ship easily but added insult by crossing her bow. The Bay State could make the New York-Fall River trip in eleven hours, burning 44 tons of coal. In 1854 she yielded the speed crown to the Metropolis. According to one historian, when the Metropolis was under way "the disturbance in the water through which she was passing was such as to give the appearance of her pushing the whole body of water before her."

In 1850 the new line was so prosperous that it declared 6% dividends every month for ten months. Ruinous rate wars broke out among competing companies, however, and the fare to Boston was once as low as $1, to Providence 50-c-. When Financiers Jay Gould and Jim Fisk got their powerful hands on the line, competition turned from rates to magnificence. Staircases became grander, chandeliers larger and more glittering, furnishings and decorations more sumptuous. In 1883 appeared their first iron-hull vessel, the Pilgrim, which carried 675 passengers. It was taken for granted that anyone would sleep better in a Fall River berth than in his own bed. Food was good and plentiful.

In 1874 the Fall River Line was bought by Old Colony R. R., which was absorbed 18 years later by the New Haven. Fast and frequent trains were putting a damper on water traffic; but, looked at another way, water traffic was taking some business from the railroad. The New Haven tried to solve both problems by acquiring as many shipping lines on the Sound as it could. These moves were fought tooth & nail by competitors and the Interstate Commerce Commission was appealed to time & again to pry the New Haven loose from its subsidiary, New England Steamship Co. In recent years these efforts have subsided, as though it were not worth while to make a fuss over a herd of once glorious but now old and asthmatic white elephants. New England Steamship Co. lost $926,000 in 1935, $1,277,000 in 1936.

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