Yachting
America’s waterways have always been a resort of choice, both for those living along them and as a destination for tourists. Yacht clubs began forming in the United States shortly after the War of 1812. Yachts were then, as they are now, the playthings of the wealthy, unattainable for the rising American merchant class, a precursor for the American middle class. Many of the more affluent merchants wanted to enjoy time on the water as well. The solution was to charter a yacht, either for an excursion cruise returning to the point of departure or to carry them to another destination. Enterprising boat owners soon took advantage of this potential market.
Spending leisure time on the water became popular in the Chesapeake Bay, Delaware Bay, and along the coasts of the Carolinas. New York Harbor was a popular sailing destination, with numerous inns and hotels in the growing city of New York and on Staten Island and Long Island accommodating visitors who came to the city to charter a boat and tour the harbor, or along Long Island Sound. Cape Cod became a tourist destination, as did Martha’s Vineyard. When steam power emerged in the early nineteenth century, New Yorkers were soon able to travel by steam ferry to Albany, with stops at points in between.
The Great Lakes began to be a tourist attraction, accessible from the east with the opening of the Erie Canal. One of the most vivid descriptions in Dickens’s American Notes is that of a journey on a canal boat, though he was traveling in Pennsylvania instead of New York. Tourists arriving at the Great Lakes found points of interest along the shores including the sites of the American victories on the Great Lakes during the war of 1812, and the burgeoning industry in the lake ports. Sailing excursions carried the travelers to various points along the shores. Niagara Falls became a destination by both coach and steamer.
The inland waterways became a highway for tourists with the advent of the river steamboat, which came to resemble tiered wedding cakes as they evolved. The larger steamboats offered onboard entertainment in the form of music, dance, and minstrel shows. They also offered the potential for a naïve vacationer to be fleeced by the gamblers, con men, and thieves which found them a lucrative place in which to ply their trades. The steamboats also had a disturbing habit of blowing up from time to time as well as running aground because of the constantly changing channels of the larger rivers, including the Ohio and Mississippi.
By the late 1840s a traveler could enter a canal boat in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and travel the entire distance to New Orleans on water, with the exception of being hauled overland on the Allegheny Portage Railroad, which itself became a tourist attraction. While many of these tourists were foreigners, a growing number of Americans were taking time off to explore the attractions of their country. Leisurely speeds when covering larger distances still limited the taking of extended vacations to the wealthy, and the working class, which still labored six days per week, could only envy the advantages held by the “idle rich.”