They drink success to the Black Ball Line,

Hurrah for the Black Ball Line!

Their ships are good, their men are fine.

Hurrah for the Black Ball Line!

In the Black Ball Line I served my time,

Hurrah for the Black Ball Line!

—Traditional

A remarkably simple innovation took place in New York in the winter of 1817. With minimal fanfare, a little idea helped establish New York as a mecca of trade and commerce. A new company, the Black Ball Line, announced that it would be sailing a ship to Liverpool on a specific day at a specific time. Uh-huh. They would do this on a regular schedule, twice a month. Okay.

You see, previously, the shipping business hadn’t entertained schedules or deadlines. Ships left when the captain gave the word, but more often than not, the captain was too drunk to say anything. Merchants suffered, cargo spoiled, and supply only knew demand as a casual acquaintance.

Conceived by Jeremiah Thompson, an English merchant trying to take his bite out of the Big Apple, the Black Ball Line was something entirely new. Rain or shine, with or without the entire load of cargo, the crew of “pack rats” took to the sea and reached their destination on time. The English were impressed. With productivity and profitability rising, the Black Ball Line helped the New York economy soar, breeding competition and eventually creating a market for human transport. People wanted to come to New York and Liverpool was a primary port of departure. Black Ball carried waves of immigrants into the city. Between 1820 and 1835, the population of Manhattan more than doubled to 270,000. Yet, after a while, schedules became, well, routine. In the 1880s, with another innovation, the steamboat, coming online, the mighty fleet of the Black Ball Line devolved into a mundane ferry service.

—written by Jeremy Sewell, originally published in The L Magazine.