Samual Ward Stanton grew up in a family of Shipbuilders with his father operating Ward-Stanton Shipyard in Newburgh. Born in Newburgh, January 8, 1870 he went on to become a well-known artist of Steamships and a Historian of Steamshipping. He had later moved his family to Brooklyn.
In 1912 he was in Paris and Spain and wrote his wife Cornelia that he would be returning home on the “Unsinkable” Titanic as a second class passenger. His body was never recovered.
From the SteamShip Historical Society of America: “His first drawings reproduced in the magazine were of scenes along the Erie Canal. Then it featured his views of American shipyards and the individual ship portraits that gave him fame. The World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893 exhibited the majority of the full page drawings. Stanton received a medal and diploma, which read, “A very finely executed and interesting collection of drawings which show with great skill and cleverness various types of war ships, mercantile ocean steamers, lake and river steamers and yachts. They are of general interest and show artistic merit and historical technical value.””
In 1895 many of his works were published in “American Steam Vessels”. His original works are still sold through auction houses today. His drawing were often displayed in various seafaring magazines and he also participated on the Committee for the 1909 Hudson-Fulton Celebration.
Short history of Ward-Stanton Shipbuilding Courtesy of the Hudson River Maritime Museum: https://drive.google.com/…/10n0-gORSVh4Fm-PEd40kzN9OP…/view…
Samuel Ward Stanton’s drawing of The North River Steamboat, aka the Clermont designed by Robert Fulton and the first steamboat to navigate the Hudson River from New York to Albany and back setting the stage for commercially viable steam powered transportation.
