Ice Yacht Exhibit Brings Local Family Heritage To LIfe
Amodeo Family at the Hyde Park Ice Yacht Exhibit January 7, 2025
Over at the FDR mansion, in Hyde Park, there was a recent exhibition of Ice Yachts. Not a surprising event since the former president himself had such a contraption in his youth. (That boat is in the possession of the Presidential Library and Museum on the grounds there.)
A last moment decision to attend the final exhibit day, on January 7th, unveiled a treasure trove of history for one local family. Tim Amodeo, lifetime Dutchess County and his teenage son Leo walked into the Henry A. Wallace Visitors Center on a cold Sunday afternoon. What they discovered amazed both of them.
“We used to sit around my grandmother’s kitchen and hear stories of Samuel “Danny” Rogers building iceboats” said the resident of Wappingers Falls, “I was told he built boats for FDR and knowing what they could do he then built himself better boats that proceeded to beat him.”
All of this happened 125 years ago
Turns out, there was a boat that his great grandfather had built-one Samuel Rogers-was on display in Hyde Park. It was from 1899.
Named Allons, in French approximately “let's go”, it raced from 1900 to 1910. Decked out with hardwood runners (skates) a slightly tattered, white canvas sail and maroon colored cloth covered the pilot’s running plank; “old-school” without an inch of fiberglass or laminate to be found over its nineteen foot-seven inch structure.
Samuel Rogers (circa 1900) Hudson River Ice Yachting Blogspot
His son Leo, a freshman at Dutchess Community College, joined in. Over lunch, he mentioned that he never had a chance to meet either of his paternal grandparents, let alone know very much about this part of his family heritage. “It was truly a fascinating day. I was thrilled to see the ice boats in person and their intricacies, to physically witness the handy work of my great, great grandfather was quite an experience.”
Leo Amodeo displaying Samuel Roger’s Ice Sailing trophies from 1900 to 1904.
In the Late 19th Century-this was as fast as you could travel.
A competition first developed by The Dutch, it is believed that these boats could sail, on a glass-smooth-river, at excesses of 100 miles per hour when the wind was right. Remember, this was before cars or planes and even before trains or boats could ever dream about such speeds. According to Reed Spalding, a local historian at Scenic Hudson: “The ice boats usually beat the trains; for a time, they were the fastest vehicles on the planet.”
As a young man Franklin Delano Roosevelt was often seen racing on the wintery Hudson River
Franklin D. Roosevelt on his ice yacht, HAWK, ca. 1901. Courtesy FDR Presidential Library.
-Kevin Bergin
Bergin is a long time resident. He was a former Hyde Park
Town Councilman and one-time Dutchess County Deputy Clerk.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
