Street, the departure time being 8:30 am. Presidential trip and more records, 1870s A highlight of Chauncey Vibbards career occurred in the 1873 season when President Ulysses S. Grant took passage on the vessel from New York to Rhinebeck. Apparently hoping to travel incognito, Grant boarded the steamer with only two companions, General Orville E. Babcock and an attaché to General George H. Sharpe, to whose residence the three were travelling before setting out on a sightseeing visit to Overlook Mountain. News of Grant's presence on the steamer quickly spread, however, and Grant soon found himself the subject of "a somewhat inconvenient scrutiny". Arriving at Rhinebeck, a large crowd gathered as Grant waited for the ferry Sandy, pressing forward to shake his hand. The rest of the President's journey was accompanied by cheering crowds, gun salutes, a marching band, the unfurling of flags and banners, and showers of flowers strewn along the route. In 1875, Chauncey Vibbard broke the nine-landing speed record between New York and Albany by ten minutes, a record set 40 years earlier by the steamer South America. Chauncey Vibbards captain, Dave Hitchcock, still hoped for an opportunity to establish a new outright record. It came in early 1876, when Chauncey Vibbard was scheduled to be sent to Albany for repainting prior to the opening of the regular season, allowing for a direct passage from New York uninterrupted by way-landings. Chauncey Vibbard accordingly departed New York at 5:20 am on April 18, bearing a party of excursionists who had been promised the fastest steamboat ride they had ever experienced. They were not to be disappointed; in spite of less than ideal conditions, Chauncey Vibbard arrived at her Albany pier at 11:40 am, setting a new record time of 6 hours 20 minutes, eclipsing her own previous record of 6 hours 42 minutes, set a dozen years earlier, by no less than 22 minutes. Accidents Chauncey Vibbards 26-year career on the Hudson was to remain remarkably free of accidents. The steamer was involved in a tragedy in 1876 however, when on August 30, while entering the slip at the foot of 24th Street, North River, about 6 pm, she collided with a small boat which crossed her bows. The two young men in the boat were thrown into the water, and one of them, an 18-year-old named William Koster, went missing and was presumed drowned. Chauncey Vibbard suffered