The 1918 Bayonne directory (external address omitted for offline reading) lists “Matthew S. Leahey, vessel capt” at 9 Cottage Street. It does not name his boat, employer, cargo or licence. “Captain” may bring an ocean liner to mind, but a Bayonne harbour captain was at least as likely to work on one of the smaller craft that made the port function: a tug, lighter, barge, scow, ferry or other local vessel.
New York Harbor was a waterborne freight network. Railroads ended at terminals on the New Jersey and New York shores, while ships berthed at piers scattered across islands and waterfronts. Freight therefore had to cross the water between boxcars, warehouses and ships. A New York City archaeological history describes a 1916 “railroad navy” of roughly 1,500 tugboats, car floats, lighters and related craft (external address omitted for offline reading). Bayonne sat directly on this system, with the Kill van Kull at its southern edge, railroad docks nearby and refinery piers at Constable Hook.
A lighter was a cargo vessel used to move goods around a harbour. Some were powered, but many were barges without engines. The surviving 1914 Lehigh Valley No. 79 was built to shuttle freight between New Jersey boxcars and ships or piers throughout the harbour. The Waterfront Museum’s history (external address omitted for offline reading) explains that even an unpowered lighter normally had a captain. He guarded the cargo, made sure it reached the right destination, maintained the vessel and handled its mooring lines; some captains lived aboard with their families while tugboats supplied the movement.
On a tug, the captain’s task was different. He piloted a compact, powerful vessel through tides, shoals, bridges and crowded channels, taking ships alongside piers or towing strings of barges and car floats. Knowledge of local water mattered as much as machinery. A captain had to anticipate current and wind, communicate with deckhands and other vessels, and avoid letting a tow sheer into traffic or a dock. Fog, darkness, winter ice, moving lines and steam equipment made routine work hazardous.
Matthew’s directory title cannot tell us which kind of captain he was. It does, however, place him above a generic deck-labour description and suggests responsibility for a vessel, cargo and crew or tow. No record yet connects him to Standard Oil simply because Bayonne had refineries. The sound historical picture is broader: from his Cottage Street home, Matthew belonged to the harbour workforce that joined Bayonne’s rails and factories to the busiest port in the country—one short trip across the water at a time.