In her first few years of operation, Santa Claus saw service on a number of different Hudson River routes, most notably between Albany and New York City.

A highlight of her career occurred in 1852, when she had the honor of conveying the remains of American statesman Henry Clay from New York City to Albany en route to their final resting place.

Santa Claus was then converted into a towboat, in which capacity she would continue to serve the Cornell company on the Hudson River to the end of her career.

[2] Santa Claus was powered by a single-cylinder vertical beam steam engine with bore of 42 inches (110 cm) and stroke of 10 feet (3.0 m), built by the West Street Foundry of Brooklyn, New York.

[5] According to a newspaper notice placed by the steamer's owners, her two[1] boilers were originally built for the steamboat Rip Van Winkle, but proving too small for that vessel, were acquired by the company and installed in Santa Claus instead.

[5][22] Way landings on these trips included Rhinebeck, New Palz, Hyde Park, Poughkeepsie, Milton, New Hamburg, Fishkill, Newburgh, Cornwall, Cold Spring, West Point and Peekskill.

[22] This daily service quickly proved too frequent for the available patronage and was discontinued before year's end, with Santa Claus finishing the season alone.

This schedule was soon changed to a daily service running Mondays through Saturdays, with the steamer leaving Wilbur at 6 am, while the departure time at New York stayed at 3 pm.

[8] Following the termination of the daily service from Wilbur in early 1846, Santa Claus was placed by Fitch under the management of the People's Line, for operation as a night boat between Albany and New York.

[8] On a southbound trip from Albany in bad weather on the night of June 5, 1846, Santa Claus was involved in a collision with the Philadelphia-bound iron-hulled screw steamer Ocean.

In September, she returned to night boat duty between Albany and New York—this time running in opposition to the People's Line—but maintained her Sunday morning New York–to–Wilbur service.

[29] The steamer's operations in 1849, if any, are not known, but near the opening of the season, a writer for a Poughkeepsie newspaper expressed the hope that "we may not again be afflicted with such craft as the Santa Claus or Admiral", indicating that the former—still barely four years old—had already lost favor with the public.

[16][38] On Wednesday, June 30, she made a rare double excursion—a fishing expedition in the morning, and a "grand moonlight excursion and cotilon party" the same evening.

[39] On July 5, 1852, Santa Claus had the honor of conveying the remains of distinguished American statesman Henry Clay from New York City to Albany, on their way to his burial place in Lexington Cemetery, Kentucky.

[e] From Albany, Clay's remains were conveyed to Buffalo, New York, where they were taken via torchlight procession to the wharves and placed aboard the steamer Buckeye State to continue their journey.

[40] By 1853, Fitch had reversed his original business strategy, and was employing Santa Claus as a towboat only, running three round trips per week between Rondout and New York.

Then in August and September 1853, he organized two excursions for Santa Claus, firstly for three Rondout military companies, and secondly for the local firefighters, with Cornell on both occasions taking great pains to ensure the satisfaction of his clients.

[43] In late April 1854, heavy snows caused a major freshet in Rondout Creek, endangering the steamboats harboring there, which attempted to quickly raise steam to get to safety.

Santa Claus was one of the last boats to operate from Rondout that year, making her final trip of the season on December 20, amid severe ice conditions.

[46] Cornell accordingly had Santa Claus cut down for towboat service,[46] a process involving the removal of her passenger accommodations, deck houses and other extraneous fittings.

B. Valentine was shifted to the Rondout—Albany route,[48] as she reportedly lacked the power to haul the increasingly large tows, sometimes consisting of 100 boats or more, coming from New York.

B. Valentine was sold for wrecking to J. H. Gregory of Perth Amboy, New Jersey; by coincidence, her namesake, a fifty-year veteran of the Cornell Steamboat Company, died the same day.