This post is a serious whatzit, an attempt to find out more about a tugboat in the photo below. I use the photo courtesy of the Erie Canal Museum in Syracuse. If you have not been reading this blog very long, I spent five months last year working on a historic tug on the Erie Canal. Type erie canal into the search window and you’ll find hundreds of photos from then.
The photo appears to be taken in Rochester, nicknamed the Flower City, although as a kid, I had thought it was the “flour” city. I guess it’s both.
Anyone know more about this tugboat?
So I went to the Monroe County Library image search site here and used the search term “boat,” and found a lot of fascinating stuff–like excursion boats now derelict, steam ferries, a seized bootlegger boat, yachts from a century ago, docks, and canal barges. To whet your appetite, I include a few here. Go to the website to read captions on reverse. I know nothing more about Lorraine or Cowles Towing Line, but the “barge” it’s towing is currently known as Day-Peckinpaugh, which will gain some attention later this summer. Photo is said taken on June 13, 1921.
Taken on November 22, 1921, this is steam barge Albany, which raises more questions. Go to the MCLS site for the info on reverse of the print.
The photo below is also said taken on November 22, 1921 by Albert R. Stone. I’d like to know what the name of the darker tug alongside the starboard side of the end of this string of barges. So maybe these are the grain barges that broke away?
Again, a Stone photo, date uncertain, showing tug Henry Koerber Jr.
One more Stone photo, said 1918 . . . tug Laura Grace aground off Grand View Beach . . . Greece?
And all of this returns us to the mystery photo from the Erie Canal Museum . . . my guess is that it was taken by Albert R. Stone, but it was not included in the Monroe County local history photo database. Anyone help?
Many thanks to the Erie Canal Museum for passing this photo along.
If your appetite is really whetted, enjoy these unrelated old and new photos of Urger–ex-State of NY DPW tug–and Seneca, currently a NYS Canal tug but previously a US Navy tug.
Click here for an index of previous “whatzit” posts.
tugster: a waterblog 
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June 19, 2015 at 8:11 am
bowsprite
ah, beautiful gorgeous old steam tugs! photos of them in their prime!
I know the coal burning would make the air sooty, but how amazing these machines were. They were art, every aspect of them is art.
June 19, 2015 at 1:34 pm
William Lafferty
The Flower City was built at Buffalo in 1919 for the State of New York, nearly identical to the State of New York No. 2, built the same year and place. 50 x 15.5. x 4.9; 27 gt, 16 nt; 10″ x 10″ single cylinder HP steam engine, 80-ihp.
The Lorraine was built at Ashtabula, Ohio, in 1899 as the fish tug Sea Wing for John Monson of Cleveland. 69.5 x 16.5 x 5.8; 39 gt, 28 nt; single cylinder HP steam engine, 15″ x 16,” 200-ihp. Cowles and other operators at Buffalo and elsewhere along the canal bought quite a few lake tugs and fish tugs for towing in anticipation of the enlarged New York State Barge Canal, and Lorraine was one of these. In fact, every one of Cowles tugs back then had been built on the lakes. The Interwaterways Line Incorporated 101 suffered engine trouble on its first trip through the canal and the Lorraine towed it part of the way.
The Albany was one of a dozen identical steel steam barges built in 1920 at Long Island City, New York, for the United States Railway Administration, ordered during the war, to increase tonnage through the canal. Eight similar craft were built at Erie, Pennsylvania, the same year. Each powered barge was united with two steel barges. 146.3 x 20.2 x 10.9; 294 gt, 164 nt; double compound steam engine, 10″-24″ x 14,” 400-ihp. The New York Canal and Great Lakes Corporation (the “Green Fleet”) purchased them from the War Department in 1921 and ran them in opposition to the ILI boats. Much of the the fleet eventually became Munson Inland Water Lines, backed by the famous steamship company.
The Henry Koerber, Jr., was owned by the famous Fix Brothers of Buffalo. It was built there in 1902. 69.6 x 16.7 x 5.8; 84 gt, 67 nt.
The Laura Grace was a substantial wrecking tug back in the day, built 1901 at Collingwood, Ontario, by Robert Morrill for the Lake Superior Tug Co., Ltd., Port Arthur, Ontario. 76 x 16.5 x 11; 85 gt, 58 nt; steeple compound steam engine. On a trip from Kingston to Port Dalhousie the vessel capsized in a brutal storm on 5 December 1918 just off Greece, with no loss of life. A total wreck, what remains of it still resides in shallow water off Goodwin Park west of Rochester.