On Board Fall River Line Steamer Priscilla — William Muller

The glittering steam ferry Pilgrim brightens a tranquil evening on Long Island Sound in William Muller’s oil-on-canvas scene, On Board Fall River Line Steamer Priscilla. In the painting, the stately Priscilla, a 440-foot queen of the line, dominates the view. She was one of the grandest of the so-called “floating palaces” that once plied the waters between New York and Boston during the steamers’ 19th-century heyday, and Muller captures that grandeur with careful attention to light, atmosphere and period detail.

Muller’s lifelong fascination with great vessels began in northern Manhattan, where he grew up in the 1940s with the Hudson River close at hand. Though the golden age of the great steamers had already passed by that time, the remaining harbor craft and occasional steam-powered ferries left a strong impression on the young artist. He recalls riding the Staten Island Ferry when it still ran on steam and standing on the foredeck on foggy days, listening to the chorus of whistles and the sounds of the harbor — impressions that would return repeatedly in his work.

That early immersion in working waterfront life went beyond observation. Later, Muller served as quartermaster on the excursion boat Alexander Hamilton, the last sidewheeler operating under the Hudson River Day Line banner. He remembers the practical, sensory details of that service: facing bow-out to the river to prepare logbooks for the day and warming the steam steering gears before departure. Those memories inform his paintings: the way steam lifts, the way light reflects off wet metal, and how passengers cluster on decks all read as lived experience rather than imaginative invention.

His technical approach mirrors this fidelity to experience. Painting in oil on canvas, Muller builds scenes that balance atmosphere with technical accuracy. He has long said, “I like to get it right,” and that intent shows in the rendering of hulls, rigging and the glow of electric lights. In Priscilla specifically, the glow from passenger lounges and the two-story grand saloon is portrayed with a sensitivity to how artificial light spills and softens in evening air, lending the ship a welcoming warmth against the cool tones of the Sound.

Viewed from the deck of Pilgrim as she passed, Priscilla would have been an imposing and elegant sight. She was equipped with electric lighting in passenger areas and had 360 staterooms to accommodate travelers. Contemporary observers praised her two-story grand saloon—with its tinted-glass chandelier and clerestory dome—as “one of the most elegantly appointed public rooms anywhere.” In the painting, passengers on deck seem to share in that experience of refinement and travel as an event in itself: conversation, movement, and the simple pleasure of watching the shoreline glide by.

For Muller, painting these vessels is more than historical recreation; it is an act of memory and affection. As he puts it, “It was a time of majesty afloat, and that’s what floats my boat.” His work invites viewers to step into that time: to imagine the hush of nightfall on the water, the patter of waves against a steel hull, and the distant cry of whistles. Even decades after those steamers were commonplace, Muller says he still hears the whistles in his head, and that echo animates his canvases.

Whether seen as maritime history, aesthetic study, or personal reminiscence, On Board Fall River Line Steamer Priscilla is a vivid testament to the era of grand steamers. It showcases both a specific ship—the venerable Priscilla—and the artist’s enduring connection to waterfront life, rendered in luminous oil paint with the clarity of someone who has known and loved these vessels firsthand.

This article originally appeared in the January 2017 issue.