Oswego Postcript

Here‘s the post that prompts this one.  The Ships of the Sea model exhibit in the William Scarborough House by far exceeded my expectations.  Reaction to one of my Virtual Tour of the Erie Canal posts suggests I do this post.  Someone could likely confirm the date of this unattributed photo.  I can tell you the place . . . lock E-12, upbound. *

I believe this is the 1939 Sheila Moran.

If you read Birk’s summary of the Sheila, she became the Catherine in 1947, right after Moran acquired her,  and worked by that name until 1960. Might this have been Sheila‘s first and maybe only trip up?  I’d love to know how many tug/fuel barge units Moran operated on the canal.  Here’s a model I saw in the H. Lee White Maritime Museum a few years ago of her as Catherine.  Given her location in the canal corridor, her USN name might have been more appropriate, Canasetego.

Here’s the label that goes with the model.

Re-reading this, I decided to look up William H. Leighton, the model maker.  Unfortunately, Mr. Leighton died in 2017.

I’m putting this post up to follow on yesterday’s end of the first of two virtual Erie Canal tours.  I’m hoping to hear from more folks who were paying attention to canal traffic long before I was. Maybe someone from the H. Lee White?   The painful irony for me is that I lived near the canal from the mid-1950s until the late 1960s, but somehow my eyes were directed elsewhere until the late 1990s, when I first traveled on it.

*Group sourcing . . . it’s a thing!  Four different readers have already corrected me.  Thx all.   It’s lock E-8 and the unit’s downbound.  Furthermore, credit goes to the Gayer Collection, another great source for vintage NYS photos.