Photo Essay by Theodore W. Scull

The Staten Island Ferry operated sidewheel and propeller-driven steamboats from the beginning of steam navigation until 1982 when the diesel ferryboats Andrew J. Baraberi and Samuel I Newhouse replaced the last trio of steamboats.
The three steamboats, completed in 1950 and 1951 at Bethlehem Steel Company’s Staten Island yard, were named Pvt. Joseph F. Merrell, Cornelius G. Kolff and Verrazzano, the last-named an unusual spelling, with a double ‘z’ for the Florentine navigator explorer
Giovanni de Verrazano.
The trio shared a length of 269 feet, gross tonnage of 2,285, capacity for 106 passengers and a vehicle deck for cars, vans and small trucks.
4000-horsepower Skinner Marine Unaflow Steam Engines were driven by three Babcock and Wilcox boilers.
In the last weeks of operation, a visit with chief engineer Reinert Roaldsen revealed that the steamboats burned 550 gallons an hour at 15 knots compared to only 230 at the same speed for the Kennedy-class diesel boats completed in 1965. The steamboat’s engine crew numbered seven – chief engineer, assistant engineer, two marine oilers, one water tender (also an oiler), and two firemen. The diesel boats did away with two firemen and one water tender.
The following photographs were taken in March 1982 by Theodore W. Scull as he researched his book –
The Staten Island Ferry, Quadrant Press, 1982 (out of print).

1) The steam ferry Pvt. Joseph F. Merrell approaches St. George at a sharp angle due to the strong currents passing in front of the slip. In April 1945 near the end of World War II, Staten Island-born Private Merrell (1926-1945) killed 22 Germans near Nuremberg, Germany and was then shot by a sniper and died at age 19. Besides having a ferry named after him, he was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, on exhibit at Fort Wadsworth, while he is buried in St. Peter’s Cemetery on Clove Road.

2) The docking is often tricky due to currents and the F/B Merrell hits the wooden rack with a glancing blow.

3) The ferry then uses the rack to slide forward into docking position.

4) Ferryboat Cornelius G. Kolff maneuvers off its Whitehall Manhattan terminal with the Brooklyn Bridge spanning the East River in the background. Kolff (1860-1950) was a prominent Staten Island civic leader and realtor. He formed and later became president of the Staten Island Chamber of Commerce, brought a foreign trade zone to S.I., purchased land for commercial and recreational purposes and helped establish Richmondtown Restoration, a complex of historic island buildings spanning 300 years.

5) A Merrell-class ferry passes the Statue of Liberty about midway in its 22-minute run en route to Staten Island.

6) A Merrell-class ferry steams through Upper New York Bay toward St. George. Note the funnel placed slightly aft of center, nearer to the boat’s New York end than the Staten Island end.

7) With the World Trade Center’s twin towers as a background, the ferryboat Merrell slows on its approach to the St. George slip.

8) Ferryboat American Legion, a Kennedy-class diesel ferry, shows her repair patch almost a full year after the Norwegian freighter Hoegh Orchid rammed her in early morning fog on May 6, 1981. A number of passengers were injured, a few seriously.

9) The USS Intrepid, a World War II aircraft carrier, is lying at the Bayonne Military Ocean Terminal prior to moving to her new home at Pier 86 North River on the West Side of Manhattan. Coincidentally, 25 years later, the carrier is back in Bayonne undertaking her first overhaul since becoming a Sea-Air-Space Museum, while her permanent berth, Pier 86, is being rebuilt.