John A. Roosevelt's scrapbook

John A. Roosevelt

John Aspinwall Roosevelt, FDR’s uncle, was an avid ice yachtsman and a competitive sailor. From his early days as a founding member of the Poughkeepsie Ice Yacht Club in 1861 (he was just 21 then), his ice yachts were named Icicle. He had Jacob Buckhout build many fine ice yachts for him, including the largest one of all – (Icicle, of course) which was 68’ 10” in length and carried a sail spread of 1070 sq ft.

The largest Icicle at 68' in length!

He was a founding member, in 1885, of the Hudson River Ice Yacht Club and its first Commodore. A later version of Icicle (50’ in length, 750 sq ft sail area) won the Ice Yacht Challenge Pennant of America four times.

John A. Roosevelt, at the helm of Icicle.

Two of his “later” boats continue to be sailed regularly today : Vixen and Kriss.
JAR also kept a large collection of all things ice boating. You can look through the collection at the FDR Library in Hyde Park

. His nephew Franklin was keen on preserving ice boating material for inclusion in his Library and museum, including his uncle's ice boating scrapbook. Until roughly 15 years ago, both his uncle’s boat Icicle and FDR’s own Hawk were on display in the museum (subject of a future post…) It is fascinating and informative to spend a day looking through the materials in the library at the FDR museum and library in Hyde Park. Here are a few clippings from the book that I will add to over time.