"You don't know what I mean about that job out there do you? I thought not. Well, it's this way. Down here in the towing, and ice and water supply business we have a great deal of competition. No, it is not friendly competition, I might almost say that those of us engaged in it are deadly enemies. The fact that I'm a woman doesn't make much difference. You see it's a matter of dollars and cents without a bit of sentiment or consideration."

So explained Captain Maude Jensen, who, in 1905, while only in her early 20s, became the first female licensed pilot of steam vessels “trusted to perform such duties upon the waters of the harbor of New York from Coney Island Point to Fort Washington Point, East River, and Long Island Sound to Captain's Island.”

Maude Jensen, as the newspapers of the day reported, took over the running of her father's tug, the Major Ulrich, when he fell ill. She had grown up by his side, and knew the harbor, the boat and the business. Wanting to support her parents and keep the family business alive, she studied and passed the pilots exam.

"Well, well, I never thought it would come to this. Piloting isn't no business for a woman. It is too hard.” The Sun reported an old sea-dog grumbling. The New York Press, said that President Theodore Roosevelt fought to a standstill the Master Pilots' Association in its efforts to take that license away. All accounts agreed, she was a more than capable pilot.

As Captain Maude put it, she had to be good: "Accidents would never do. They would say: 'Oh. well, she's only a girl, what else can you expect? I don't think they'll have a chance to say that soon, though." “If I get mixed up with any other boat they will say it is all my fault and they will surely sue me because I am a girl. The men are always against a woman. I have to be so careful."

The tug Major Ulrich had a two person crew: Captain Maude and her engineer MacDonald. They had no office dispatching jobs but would start at dawn each day cruising around the harbor looking for work.

Erie Basin, the hospital for sick and disabled craft, was the next point visited. Around in it she steamed, sometimes asking if water was wanted when passing yachts. Always the reply was the same. Nothing was needed. - The Sun, May 28, 1905

In 1910, newspapers reported her marriage to Gustav A. Gubitz and noted that she had sold the tug after running it successfully for two years.

Below, in full, are two accounts of ride alongs with Captain Maude Jensen, one by a presumably male reporter writing for The Sun, May 28, 1905, and one by Nina Carter Marbourg, published by the The Buffalo Courrier, June 25, 1905. They tell her story differently but, both praise her, and both capture what it was like for boats working in the waters off Red Hook (and the rest of New York Harbor) at the beginning of the 1900s.

The Sun, May 28, 1905
THE GIRL WHO RUNS A TUGBOAT: A Day's Cruise with Capt. Maude Jensen who has Just Received a Pilot License.

Maude Jensen is the only woman who is a skipper of a tugboat in this harbor: The other day she got a certificate from Capt. Seeley of the United States Steamboat Inspection service, which says:

"She is a skilled pilot of steam vessels and can be trusted to perform such duties upon the waters of the harbor of New York from Coney Island Point to Fort Washington Point, East River, and Long Island Sound to Captain's Island; and she is hereby licensed to act as a second class pilot on steam vessels of twenty-five-gross tons for the term of five years."

Capt. Maude, is not captain only, but also pilot and deckhand of the Major Ulrich, a tug or water boat of fifteen tons burden that carries water and ice to shipping in the harbor, tows anything she can pull and tests boilers. The Ulrich's crew consists of one man, Engineer MacDonald, a white haired veteran of the sea, who has been in turn on different boats cook, captain and engineer.

A SUN reporter went on a cruise with Capt. Jensen one day last week. At first sight Captain Maude looks like a child in her short, skirt. little jacket and wide brimmed hat. She confesses to 21, but looks not a day over 16.

Her features are small, her expression, being that of the child rather than a woman. Her figure is slim and childlike. Black eyes, black hair, full red lips, rosy cheeks and a skin tanned a rich olive, good teeth and a pleasant smile give one the impression that she is just a nice little girl out on a lark.

But that impression changed very quickly. In the first place, the captain carried a little bag such as a physician uses for surgical instruments. In it was her luncheon, and her money, for she pays cash and trusts no one. That gives her a business air. In the second place her troubles began as soon as she started to take the tug out of the slip and no man could have handled them better.

Once on deck, the captain slid out of her jacket and into a woolen jersey, which made her look more like a child than ever; and replaced her hat with a white yachting cap set on jauntily by the aid of a mirror which she brought forth from a hiding place.

"Don't let the men on that yacht see that looking glass," she said, nodding toward, a vessel alongside "They would laugh at me. They think mirrors have no place on board a tug. I always hide it."

Yes, I like the white yachting cap myself. It belonged to one of the Vanderbilts. A friendly yachtsman gave it to me for luck.

Ready for work, she began fitting over the boat, inspecting every nook and corner and chatted with the men on a big white yacht, which lay alongside about the weather and trade. The sailors watched her curiously, some with amusement, others with admiration in their eyes; as they saw how deftly she worked.

The tag was in a very narrow slip, and had to be backed and turned almost in a circle before it could start out of the narrow quarters. Capt. Maude showed that her mind works quickly and that she has nerve.

Blowing the whistle and handling the wheel, seemingly both ways at once, so I quickly did she have to reverse it to get out of the narrow corner, she was creeping carefully out between the pier and the big sand suckers which lay on the other side of her thirty foot wide pathway. A shrill whistle, and a big tug cut across the bow of the Uirich. That, gave the first thrill to the visitor. To the inexperienced eye a collision seemed certain.

But the Ulrich glided past the stern safely. A long breath of relief was hardly drawn by the reporter when Capt. Maude was pulling the whistle; and ringing the bell. Another and bigger tug was coming straight at the Ulrich.

The girl ejaculated something stronger than the exclamations supposed to be sufficient to express a woman's emotions, and took a fresh grip on the wheel. The big tug answered her signal with another to keep starboard. But in the instant between those whistles while she awaited the answer and could not tell which way to steer, her cheeks were flaming and every muscle tense. It was all over in much less time than it takes to write how the trick was done.

This peril past, the Ulrich's way seemed blocked. On the left an ocean going freighter of large size towered above her, moored there. Directly in front an impertinent tug was towing another big freight steamer right across her bow. It towered away above the little tug.

It traveled very slowly, but as the tide running as it was, the girl did not try to pass in front of it. Go somewhere she must, and at its stern there was just enough room for the little tug to pass between the two big vessels, providing her pilot steered carefully.

All this explanation came afterward. The little captain set her red lips firmly, and the color again flamed over her face. With alert eyes she steered for the narrow bit of water between the steamships. The tide swept her close and closer, despite all efforts at the wheel to the moving vessel. The tug poked her nose against the steamship.

A man aboard stood at the bow of the tug and pushed against the big vessel . That helped, and with a few more turns at the wheel the tug was past. Her captain breathed a sigh of relief.

"Well done little girl!" said the man aboard. And she flushed with pleasure at the compliment.

Now the Ulrich was out in the freer waters of the bay, but tugs were moving in every direction. All were trying to emulate the early bird. All were doing what the Major Ulrich was doing, looking for trade.

Just when the water in front seemed free, three tugs, all bigger than the Ulrich, seemed to be coming straight at her. If you want to know how big a tug can look and how fast it can seem to be traveling get aboard a very small tugboat which carries you down close to the water. Every boat coming your way will look like a mountain and seem to be traveling at express train speed.

"That is the trouble on the water." says Capt. Maude, "When things happen they happen so quick. There is no time for second thought. I hope those three tugs don't all whistle to me at once."

One veered far to starboard. That cut it out. Two were coming straight at the Ulrich. One whistled "Port side." Capt. Maude replied "To starboard" with her whistle.

Instantly the signal followed from the other tug. She went to starboard. They opened, a way and the Major passed between.

It sounds very simple, but one little blunder in signals, one instants deliberation on the part of the girl pilot as to what to do, would have meant a collision.

"I have to be so careful, because I will get sued if I blunder," she explained. "A tug has no rights that anybody is bound to respect. She must get out of the way of everybody.

"But that is not all. If I get mixed up with any other boat they will say it is all my fault and they will surely sue me because I am a girl. The men are always against a woman. I have to be so careful. "

"Chief, there is the Revirea," she called to her engineer, pointing to a big white yacht riding at anchor in the bay. "Maybe she wants water. We will see."

She sent the Ulrich circling birdlike around the yacht, keeping a respectful distance.

"You don't dare to go too close," she explained. "If you put one little scratch as long as your finger on one of their yachts they will tell you what they think of you in language that is something awful.

"I always give them back a bit of my mind. I let them see, quick, that I will not take any impudence. If I did not talk to them the way they talk to me they would think I was no good at all.

"One just has to treat them as they, treat you, to live at all. I don't mind their language half so much as the fact that if they get angry they won't give me any more business. One scratch, and never a gallon of water would I sell."

At this instant, the Ulrich swung around the bow of the yacht ready to round the other side, and her captain discovered that she was steaming straight at another tug that was towing four fishing steamers.

"God" ejaculated the little captain between her shut teeth.

She had learned more than how to pilot a vessel while on her father's tug and strong language alone seemed to fit at this critical moment. At the same instant Capt. Maude pulled the jingle "full speed ahead" so hard that the big screw holding it snapped off, putting it out of commission.

The little tug, bounded forward, cutting the water angrily, and cleared, the bow of the stranger, which, in another instant would either have collided with the Ulrich or else have shut her in between the string of tows and the yacht. So narrow was the space that in either event the story of the day would have been different from this.

After that there was, no more talking to the pilot unless there was not a boat anywhere in sight, and all took good care to keep a lookout in every direction.

The Revirea did not want water. Capt. Maude was gloomy over the prospect for the day. "I'll not make my expenses. It costs $10 a day to keep the tug in commission," she said.

Up and down and around she steamed looking for trade. She went into Tebo's yacht basin and gingerly across the black waters of Red Hook Flats, because there it is possible to run aground if the tide is not high. Then into narrow Gowanus Creek, alive with craft of all kinds, narrow, tortuous, hard to get into, harder to get out of.

The supply of water was short so water was taken on. Capt. Maude threw her ropes, both bow and stern, pulled like a man until she swung the tug into place and then tightened and made them fast.

A young man awkwardly volunteered to help her make fast one rope. She accepted the favor gracefully, and quickly all her comrades on the canal boat lying beside the tug mocked and jeered at him. For he had helped a woman captain, and if she intended to do a man's work it was right and proper to let her do it, they said. He chased the the bunch of jeering men to cover with the bushy end of a broom.

Capt. Maude tried to appear as if she did not see the bit of by-play but her cheeks burned with anger. Plucky always, she wants to be treated as a man. To be compelled always to feel that she is a woman fills her with rage.

"I just hate men sometimes," she declared wrathfully, and then turned to help with the hose.

While 35.000 gallons of water was pumped into the hold she stood on the throbbing hose to prevent it from jumping out of the hole in the deck; stood until she was trembling, and at last had to kneel and hold it in place with her hands. It was the work of a strong man.

Looking on were the men of the pumping station and the sailors of the nearby boats. Some sneered, some laughed. But in the end there was genuine admiration for the plucky girl in their eyes.

Water was taken aboard, she was again at the wheel, and so skillfully as to win pleased smiles from the sailors. She backed, turned, kept out of the way of another tug and got out of the dangerous little corner at the pumping station.

Erie Basin, the hospital for sick and disabled craft, was the next point visited. Around in it she steamed, sometimes asking if water was wanted when passing yachts. Always the reply was the same. Nothing was needed.

She climbed up the piling of one of the piers like a cat and started along its length, looking for trade. Next she crossed the basin and took on two tons of coal. Again she proved that, slight as she was, her muscle was that of a man.

"I cannot afford a deckhand," she explained. "Father is ill. He and mother must live. I am the only child. That is why I am working like this. It is a good cause. That sustains me."

The coal aboard, two men asked her to test the boilers of a yacht. They proposed to pay her $20 for three boilers and to take $5 apiece of this money for themselves for getting her the job. The regular price is $10 a boiler. She was wrathful.

"You think because I am a girl jou can get the best of me. But you just can't. Oh, I am on to your curves," she said. She dickered until the price rose to $25 and then accepted the job.

"Will I give the men the rebate they ask?" she said to the reporter, repeating his question. "Not much. They are grafters. But you just have to give something to men to men who bring you trade. If you don't they will starve you out of business."

From the pier, she started for Bay Ridge to find somebody who wanted water, ice — anything worth money.

A big white yacht far down the bay was singled out as a possible customer. It was impossible to read the name, and Capt. Maude could not recognize the yacht until the Ulrich swung around her stern. The gold laced yacht captain and a crowd of sailors were beckoning to the tug. but it was supposed they were trying to flirt, and the little tug captain was afraid to notice their signals. Suddenly she saw the Indian brave on the bow and read the name "Tuscarora."

"Oh I am sorry I came," she cried. "That captain would never give my father any business, and our bitter rival always supplied him. How they must be laughing at me for coming."

She was almost crying with mortification when the captain leaned over the rail, put up his hands to help carry his words, and called:

"Can you give me a ton of ice at 1o'clock?" Radiant, she replied she could. She was so surprised she could hardly handle the wheel. Off she started for the ice, one moment singing, the next dancing as she steered, and bursting forth into exclamations as to what the hated rival would say when he learned that she had gotten the Tuscarora for a customer.

She rang the jingle, for she wanted her ice at once, but the engineer, would not hurry. Then she imperiously called the "Chief" to come to her. The old man stood in the door.

"Gosh hang it, why can't you hurry" she demanded.

"Oh, say, give a good curse," retorted the old man.

"Say damn. Why can't-you let me alone? I can't hurry."

"But you must," she ordered, and he retreated.

"Now what do you think of that?" she exclaimed. "He hates to do as I tell him because I am only a girl."

The ice was carried to the yacht. Capt. Maude stood by with her ice ax, ready to chop the ice, and with the tongs ready to put it on board the yacht. But the yacht captain waved her away. To him she was a woman, as well as a captain. His sailors came aboard the tug and transfered the ice to their yacht.

"It all depends on the captain whether I do the work or not," she said. "The last ice I sold was two tons. I had to cut it all up so that the pieces would fit in the ice box of the yacht. And I loaded every bit of ice on the yacht.

Capt. Maude sold the Tuscarora some water also, so that she got a return of $21, which she counted gleefully.

"I tell you this is exciting business," she said, as she steered to the pumping station for more water. "It's just like betting on the horses. It was the excitement of it that wore my father out."

Capt. Maude sold water to various other boats. One customer was a big-barge. The slatternly wife of the barge's skipper looked down at Capt. Maude scornfully as the water was transferred.

"Your water is pizened," she said. "It is dirty, We don't want no more of it. You ought to be ashamed of yourself; a girl like you doing a man's work. Go along with you! We don't want no more of your water."

Then Capt. Maude made a speech to the bargeman's wife, crisp enough to make her hair curl. "I just have to talk to them so that they would understand," she explained apologetically.

A pert little tug steamed alongside, and the veteran pilot looked the Ulrich over critically.

"Got a deckhand now" he asked.

"No, that is a reporter," explained the girl.

Then the old seadog came aboard.

"Where is that girl's license? I just want to see it," he said.

He was shown the precious thing framed and tacked against the roof of the pilot house.

"Well, well, I never thought it would come to this. Piloting isn't no business for a woman. It is too hard. But Capt Seeley always was a ladies man."

"Capt. Seeley gave me a license because I passed the examination," declared the girl, indignantly.

"But I didn t think a woman could ever get a license. Capt. Seeley is a powerful ladies man" insisted the pilot.

The the pilot took himself off.

---

The Buffalo Currier, June 25, 1905
"A Day With the Only Woman Sea Pilot in the World: Capt. Maude A. Jensen Is Pilot Aboard an Ocean-going Tug." 
By NINA CARTER MARBOURG.

"If you are afraid, just give me your hand and I'll help you aboard."

Had I been trembling with fear I would not have admitted it. Such a thing was hardly possible as I looked down from the dock and saw the bright eyes of a young girl captain smiling quizzically up at me.

I had reached the deck of the boat and was standing opposite Miss Jensen, when she looked at me with her big brown eyes and queried:

"Ever seasick?" I shook my head. "Do you get tired easily?" Again I said no. "Catch cold if your feet get wet? Because if you do," she added, "you'd better put on these rubbers."

With this Capt. Maude of the Maj. Ulrich, the only licensed woman pilot In the world, pulled a pair of rubbers from under the little bench in the pilot house.

'Now, you'd better take off your hat; pin up your skirts, and make yourself comfortable.

I say chief," she looked out of the door of the pilot house and addressed this remark to Engineer McDonald, who was oiling some part of the machinery. "If you are ready, suppose we pull out of here, for we've get to make that job on the big boat by half past seven or those other people will be there."

"Aye, aye, Capt. Maude," resounded the jovial engineer. Capt. Maude took her place at the wheel, pulled the bell rope by her side, jerked the whistle line and we moved away from the dock.

"You don't know what I mean about that job out there do you? I thought not. Well, it's this way. Down here in the towing, and ice and water supply business we have a great deal of competition. No, it is not friendly competition, I might almost say that those of us engaged in it are deadly enemies. The fact that I'm a woman doesn't make much difference. You see it's a matter of dollars and cents without a bit of sentiment or consideration."

Toot-toot, went the sharp whistle, signaling to a tug coming in our direction. Toot-toot went the other tug.

"Hold on tight, now," called Capt. Maude. "That boat is coming very near us, and you'll get awfully wet. No. I don't mind it, but perhaps you will." Sure enough the tug did come very close to us and I did get "awfully wet," and Capt. Maude laughed heartily as she saw me put my hand up to ward off a little of the briny spray.

"Oh, that spray is just jolly. You'd like it after a while. But about this job. That's the boat over there, the big white one. She takes a great deal of ice and water and its those big pieces of work that are worth getting up early and hurrying after. You see there's another line, and last year papa got the business away from them. Do you think I'm going to let them have it back? Not much."

I must say that had I the least inclination to think that she would let the work slip from her grasp, such an idea quickly dissipated, for her determined eyes were even more determined in expression than before. We were chugging peacefully along, Capt. Maude giving the wheel an occasional turn, and chatting first with me and then with her engineer, when she suddenly leaned over, her forehead filled with frowning lines.

"Chief, chief," she called most excitedly, "that other boat has come over too, and lies closer than we do. I say, it means a race for it. Can you do it, Chief?"

"Aye, aye," answered the Chief, and Capt. Maude leaped forward as though the very force of her mind and body would hurry the tug.

The engineer put on more steam, and soon we were making good time, but so was the other boat, which steamed up very close to our tug. Capt. Maude looked a bit worried, as she gained on us and gave a triumphant toot of her whistle that was just about all Capt. Maude could stand.

"Chief McDonald," she cried out, "do you want to lose your reputation as a good engineer, and have me lose mine as one who is first on the ground, and do you want us to lose the job?"

No, Capt. Maude, but—"

"Now Chief, that won't get the job." A moment later she exclaimed, "There, that's a good Chief, you've put us ahead of that boat. Now let the good work go on."

Sure enough we were now ahead of the other tug and it was her turn to bear the ignominy of complete defeat. Best of all. over on the boat that constituted our goal, the boatmen stood at the bow, watching the race and when the Maj. Ulrich steamed up along-side of the vessel, they cheered in a manner that would have done any one's heart good.

But Capt. Maude's danger was not yet over. She is decidedly a woman of business, and even now the other boat might get its hose aboard first, bringing all our efforts to naught, for there are courtesies in this work as in everything. The Chief was a busy man for a minute. He whisked the hose aboard and the men put It in the tank. Then the engineer turned the water on, and Capt. Maude standing in the pilot house door smiled at the land lubber and remarked nonchalantly:

"Got it. didn't we?" We finished giving the boat water delivered ice, and sounding a parting salute, Capt. Maude took her wheel again and the tug chugged out into the wide expanse of water.

"Afraid? Why should I be afraid. I suppose you ask that because it is rather unusual to see a woman doing this sort of work, and because—well, because most people think woman ought, in the nature of things, to be a little timid. I think it is just vice versa, because when a woman does a man's work she executes it as well, if not better, than he can."

"Now, to show you that I am not afraid I will tell you, but not for vanity's sake what I did once. One night, two years ago, that was before I had command, you know, a man wanted us to take him over to the Jersey City Flats from Brooklyn. It was a wild night and all the elements seemed to be engaged in a magnificent war. It rained, thundered and lightened, and father said he would not risk the trip in such a storm. The man offered us $50. At last. I could not bear to see that fifty go, so I just said I'd take him over, and I did.

It was bad weather, the boats were whistling on the water in a maddening way, and between that noise and that of the storm I might have become confused, but if one's brains are not to serve in time of peril, what's the use of having any?"

"Yes, I can test boilers. That doesn't mean I'm a boilermaker—that's what one woman said I was once, and it made me laugh. A testing job brings from $15 to $20, and it's Government work. I do all sorts of work down here to make money. I'm here for that purpose. The other day I towed an immense ship down the bay. I get up at 4 o'clock in the morning."

"Do you mean to say," I exclaimed, looking at the short-skirted, sweaterclad girl, "that you get up at 4 o'clock?"

"Indeed I do, and at 3, many a time. Sometimes I don't get home until 8, 9 or 10 o'clock. It's hard work, you see, but—but I love it," and she looked out over the water with an eager expression that I once saw in a great commander's eyes as he looked at the soldiers in front of him and made the same remark.

"Splicing," she answered in response to an inquiry. "I do all my own splicing. When the boat needs painting, the Chief and I do that."

"I don't have much time to clean up or to fix the pilot house. You'd expect to find it decorated with pictures because a woman runs it, wouldn't you? Well, if you knew how little time I have for that work you wouldn't be surprised to find it as plain as it is."

In the afternoon we made the rounds of certain boats that had their water sign, a bucket at the masthead, out. We won another race, were tossed on the swell of an ocean liner, got good and wet, but not one of us lost our good graces or spirits.

"A big ferry boat steamed past us, and the passengers seeing a woman at the wheel, 'rubbered.' That's what Capt. Maude called it, and that's just what it was.

"Now, that's what I hate. Why do people have to be so curious? It is dreadful. I feel as though I were looking down the bore of a double-barreled shotgun when one of those boats pass. The women look at me so—just as though I were a curiosity instead of just an ordinary girl."

I wanted to correct Miss Jensen on this point, but she saw my intention and waved me aside, remarking:

"Every one has to work. You choose one way, I another. That's all."

"Bless me," she turned her head on one side and listened intently. "Why there it goes again."

I knew it couldn't be an exploding boiler or the chief jumping overboard.

"Why—why. they're saluting me. Why"—and she gave three sharp whistles, a return salute, "that's the best ever. Why"—she gasped, her eyes fairly dancing with pleasure, "that's an honor very few captains pay—and they did it twice. Chief, doesn't that just tickle you—er?"

"Aye, aye, captain—and you deserve it. too."

It was now about 4 o'clock and as we steamed into the yacht basin, the captain remarked that the day's work was done and she would tie up for the night. We sat on the deck of the little boat for about an hour, chatting in a desultory sort of fashion, but in a way that one always enjoys after a long stretch of work.

"No. I don't care to read. I don't know why, but I don't. There is no chance to read here, anyway. I always know what is going on, but sometimes my life is monotonous. Oh, very, very monotonous. But then I love it all the same. Perhaps it is not monotonous after ail. It may be that I am only tired—er, chief?"

"It means," said the chief, puffing at his pipe, "Capt. Maude, that because you're a woman, and a brave woman in many ways, you are not different than all women. This work gets monotonous because you need more pleasure— that's all—I know," and he smoked away and winked knowingly.

Capt. Maude said she would stay aboard the boat and do some work, and so the engineer and the captain assisted me to the dock. I looked down at the little brown face and the big brown eyes smiled a good-bye to me. Then I heard a sweet voice singing the "Merry, Merry Maiden and the Tar."

Such is the life of the only woman pilot of an ocean going tug in the world. It is through her care for details that she has always been able to avoid accidents, and, as she remarks: "Accidents would never do. They would say: 'Oh. well, she's only a girl, what else can you expect? I don't think they'll have a chance to say that soon, though." And one who had spent a day with Capt. Maude would agree with her.