1st motorized ferry service between Staten Island and Manhattan

1st motorized ferry service between Staten Island and Manhattan run by Richmond Turnpike Company, on the steam-powered Nautilus. It was owned by steamboat entrepreneur and future titan of industry Cornelius Vanderbilt until the Civil War before eventually being sold to the Staten Island Railway, which was run by brother Jacob Vanderbilt.Jacob had to sell the ferry, though, to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad company in 1884 after being charged with murder for an explosion in a ship’s boiler room that left more than 80 people dead and hundreds wounded.At the turn of the century, in 1905, the service landed in the hands of the city. Officials seized control that year as a result of the deadly 1901 sinking of the ferry Northfield.