Hudson River Sloop Restoration Inc.

Dark blue sailboat on a light blue background with dark blue text between two dark blue lines around the rim and small dark blue text under the sailboat

Nowadays a trip from New York City to Albany, New York will take just about an hour by plane, or three hours by train. But until the mid-1800s, you were in for a 24-hour boat ride aboard the Hudson River sloop! The sloop, a type of sailboat, transported passengers, cargo, and livestock along the Hudson River from New York’s days as a Dutch colony until the widespread adoption of the steamboat in the 1820s. In the 1960s, folk singer and environmental activist Peter Seeger and his wife, Toshi, began raising funds for a full-size replica of the sloop Clearwater, which launched from South Bristol, Maine, in 1969. Ever since, Clearwater has served as a mascot for cleaning up the Hudson and hosts local students for field trips. As Seeger told the New York Times in 1969, “Until people start to love their river, it’s going to be a sewer.”