During its 90 years years of operation, the Fall River Line had four owners:
Bordens - Two brothers, Richard and Jefferson Brothers,started the Fall River Line in 1847. Their plan was to make Fall River a link between Boston and New York. The Boston train delivered travelers to the steamboat. dock at the mouth of the Taunton River. Travelers could then embark on the steamboat to New York. The steamboats could also carry cotton bales into Fall River and transport finished cotton cloth to New York and markets further west.
The Borden brothers controlled Fall River in the 1840s. You had to use their steamboat Line or their railroad to enter or leave Fall River. They controlled most of the jobs because of they owned most of the cotton mills, their ownership of the Fall River Iron Works, the banks, the The Fall River Gas Company and the Fall River Gas Company.
Jim Fisk - stamped his style of opulence and luxury on the Fall River until it closed in 1937. He wore a Commodore's uniform and greeted passengers as they boarded the boat in New York. He was one of the biggest Robber Barons (Jay Gould and Daniel Drew were his partners) in the Gilded Age of the late 1800s. Came from a poor background in Vermont. "Jubilee Jim" died in 1872 after being shot. His spectacular funeral was a fitting coda to his spectacular life. Gold corner in the Grant administration.New Haven Railroad - After the death of Jim Fisk, the Fall River Line was reorganized as the \Old Colony The reorganized company achieved a near monopoly on railroad and steamboat traffic in and out of New England by the 1890s.
