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Ship Name
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Photographer
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Location
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Adirondack
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Rod
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Ships from the rest of the world outside of New England
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IMO Number
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Ship Type
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Date Taken
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n/a
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n/a
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June 21, 2005
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Flag: 
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United States
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95 year young Adirondack looks wonderful in her new paint job as she finishes up her winter overhaul in Lake Champlain Transportation Companys Burlington yard on June 21st 2008.
Built as the South Jacksonville in 1913 at the Merrill-Stevens shipyard in Jacksonville Florida for
the Jacksonville Ferry and Land Company. The 130-foot double-ended ferryboat had a 40-foot beam
and was powered by a coal-fired steam engine. She was put into service on the Saint Johns River
between downtown Jacksonville and South Jacksonville. A bridge (a ferryboats worst enemy) was
built in 1921 and the boat was no longer needed. She was sold to the Tocony-Palmyra Ferry Company
of Philadelphia and put into service on the Delaware River under the new name Mount Holly In
1927 the Mount Holly went further north, to New York Harbor. Her new owners, the 34th Street
Vehicular Ferry Company kept the name Mount Holly and put her into service on the East River
between Long Island City and the foot of East 34th Street in Manhattan. The company failed in 1936
when the Mount Holly was a quarter of a century old. The national economy was in the midst of the
Great Depression. New bridges and tunnels were eliminating the need for ferryboats up and down the
east coast, making her future gloomy indeed.
Yet the Mount Holly survived. On May 5, 1938, the expanding Chesapeake Bay Ferry
Company purchased her. Major rebuilding of the superstructure was done at this time, giving her, to a
large extent, the appearance that she has today. She was renamed the Governor Emerson C
Harrington II and ran on Eastern Bay on the Chesapeake, connecting the communities of Clairborne
and Romancoke. The company was taken over by the State of Maryland in the early forties.
In 1945, The Governor Emerson C. Harrington II was sent to the Baltimore Marine Repair
Shops where her original steam and coal fired boilers where removed and replaced with a pair of 6-
cylinder Atlas Imperial diesel engines.
The first span of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge opened in the summer of 1952 and the State of
Maryland ceased its ferryboat operations. The Governor Emerson C. Harrington II was for sale
again.
The Lake Champlain Transportation Company, of Burlington Vermont, purchased the
Governor Emerson C. Harrington II in 1954. The ferryboat that was about become the
Adirondack (named for the mountain range in Upper New York State) entered a shipyard in Troy
New York where her upper deck was disassembled and lowered to the car deck. This was done so she
could be brought up the Champlain Canal with its low bridge clearances (13 feet) to Lake Champlain.
The Adirondacks second deck was restored to its original position in Burlington, where she began
the current phase of her extraordinary and colorful career.
The Adirondack has sailed every summer between Burlington and Port Kent since 1954. Her
only major modification during this time was the replacement of the Atlas Imperial engines with two-
12V71 Detroit Diesel in 1970.
The Adirondack is the oldest, in service, double-ended American ferryboat of all time! On
January 15, 2013 the Adi will celebrate her 100th birthday.
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