Description

Colored lithograph of steamboat Isaac Newton sailing to left. The steamboat features two smokestacks with a blue flag on left, American flag on right. Three people in center foreground are depicted on a rowboat. The vessel consumed four tons of coal per hour, a startling amount for the time. The paddle wheels were 39 feet in diameter and the ship was 338 feet long. The steamer was rebuilt in 1855, extending the length to 405 feet. The "Isaac Newton" was unsurpassed in its size and the splendor of its interior furnishings. As was often the case with steamers, the ship's starboard boiler exploded and on December 5, 1863, when opposite Fort Lee, the liner burned to the water's edge injuring seventeen people and killing nine.

Caption above title: "Entered acording to Act of Congress in the year 1855 by N. Currier in the Clerk's ofice of the District Court of the Southern District of N.Y."