{"id":33201,"date":"2018-07-02T10:11:33","date_gmt":"2018-07-02T14:11:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=33201"},"modified":"2018-07-02T10:11:52","modified_gmt":"2018-07-02T14:11:52","slug":"my-8-year-old-cousin-made-an-accidental-trip-to-new-york-city-in-1911","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/my-8-year-old-cousin-made-an-accidental-trip-to-new-york-city-in-1911.html","title":{"rendered":"My 8-Year-Old Cousin Made an Accidental Trip to New York City in 1911"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently, while searching for my Applebee cousins in GenealogyBank\u2019s Historical Newspaper Archives<\/a>, I found a humorous article about my cousin John Applebee<\/a>, who made a solo trip to New York City without his parents\u2019 knowledge at age 8.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
Source: GenealogyBank, Watertown Daily Times (Watertown, New York), 14 September 1911, page 9<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This article reports:<\/p>\n

\u201cNew York, Sept. 14 \u2013 A neatly dressed blonde boy, who said he was John Applebee, eight years old, of 888 South Pearl Street, Albany, N.Y., was brought to police headquarters today by a citizen and turned over to the children\u2019s society, and his parents notified.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe boy arrived in town this morning on the Albany night boat. His visit to the metropolis was rather unexpected and the result of his curiosity.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cJohnny said he boarded the night boat at Albany last night to look about the boat and while he was inspecting the vessel started off on the trip.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAlbany, Sept. 14 \u2013 John Applebee, the boy who said he made an unexpected trip to New York last night on the night boat, is a son of Alvin Applebee, an engineer of this city. The youngster is said by his relatives to be of a roving disposition and has made trips heretofore to Troy and Catskill without his parents\u2019 knowledge.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Imagine John\u2019s surprise when the boat starting moving while he was on it! And imagine his parents\u2019 shock upon learning that he was in New York City!<\/p>\n

We get a good picture of a night boat from Albany to New York City that John might have taken via Gifford Beal\u2019s 1915 painting The Albany Boat<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"Illustration:<\/a>
Illustration: \u201cThe Albany Boat,\u201d by Gifford Beal, 1915, oil on canvas. Source: Pinterest.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Metropolitan Museum of Art gives us more information on this painting and the ferry service that inspired it:<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the period when this picture was painted, Gifford Beal was spending his summers in Newburgh, New York, where his parents lived. He knew the central Hudson River area well, and frequently used it for his settings. The trip to Albany on the Hudson River was an overnight journey from New York City, but many people traveled only as far as Newburgh, returning to the city on the boat plying in the opposite direction. Here, the passengers have probably just disembarked from the big steamboat that lies in the river below the parklike promenade, directly across from the town of Beacon. Gifford Beal, who had studied with William Merritt Chase, captured the movements and gestures of such scenes of recreation and entertainment with breezy and casual aptness.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Looking at this painting, it\u2019s easy to imagine the scene only four years earlier when young John Applebee made his solo trip.<\/p>\n

Genealogy Tip<\/em><\/strong>: Learn the surprising stories buried in your family history by searching for your relatives in GenealogyBank\u2019s Historical Newspaper Archives<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An article by Thomas Jay Kemp about discovering an old newspaper article reporting on his cousin John Applebee\u2019s solo trip to NYC in 1911 at age 8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33221,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12557],"tags":[12,2020],"class_list":["post-33201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-genealogy-stories","tag-genealogy","tag-newspaper-archives"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/illustration-0702-2018-featured-graphic-gifford-beal.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}