Hugh O’Donnell appeared in installment “I.” In fact, this photo might very well have been taken just seconds after the photo showing the string of barges following her. As for location, clearly it’s a part of the Canal with riprap along the banks.
Other than the name, Thos. R. Coyne, and the fact that the Coyne family was until recently still associated with the Barge Canal in its current iteration,
I can’t add much. There was a court case here. However, this photo gives a good view of the massive timbers used to construct the barges/scows that plied the Barge Canal. The photo was clearly taken from either the scrap barge–or another one–or a tugboat. I can’t make out what the illuminated surface inside the barge house lower right might be.
Desoto . . I presume. Sorry, I haven’t found any info on her. Given the low and short house, I wonder what and where the accommodations and galley might be. That must be the cook with his back to us.
This looks to be taken in one of the “land cuts” of the Barge Canal, and I’d guess that stretch west of Rome. Given the height of the scows, one can easily see the need for an “upper wheelhouse.” The name of the green tug and the photographer’s platform . . . I can’t help you.
There’s a name on the deeply laden fuel barge, Jemson No. 1, and it appears in court records then pushed by Cree. Note the deck structures ( I know they have a name, but I can’t come up with it.) below compared with
these. Also, since this was taken in lock E-24, compare the view of Baldwinsville when this photo was taken with the one in this link. The red building has been re-invented multiple times in its long existence. I don’t know the name of either tug or barge shown here eastbound.
George A. Keating is another puzzler. In the sources I have, I find nothing.
This eastbound tug appears tied up above lock E-10, waiting for the excursion vessel heading in the direction of Amsterdam. The iconic power plant is still a landmark in this location. For more on the McKim, Mead, and White-designed building, click here. More on that excursion vessel coming in another post.
And finally, here’s an unnamed tug with an unnamed barge full of grain. Above the life ring of the tug is a nameboard, but I can’t make it out. I also can’t tell for certain if the barge has just been filled or whether it’s just transited the Barge Canal, and the crew meeting there is preparing to oversee the discharge. My hunch, based partly on the terrain is the latter and that the photo was taken in Port of Albany. Astern of the tug (I think) is an interesting motorship that will be featured in an upcoming post in a Barge Canal motorship series.
I use these photos thanks to the Canal Society of New York, which will hold its Winter Symposium in Rochester in just under a month from now. More info here.
tugster: a waterblog 
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February 10, 2022 at 4:07 pm
William Lafferty
The Thomas R. Coyne is an oldie, built at Athens by Wentworth Allen as the James McAllister in 1904, and was later the Automatic for Tice Towing Line. Many of the Tice tugs had names ending in “ic,” for whatever reason. Powered by single cylinder, high pressure steam engine, 18” x 22,” and later Dieselized, 240-bhp, 72.6’ x 20.4’ x 9.6.’ It was dismantled in 1959.
The only viable Desoto I find is a wooden exploration vessel of fifty feet built in 1924 at Morgan City, Louisiana, home port Alexandria, Louisiana. I wonder if it is on its way to do some work on Lake Ontario when Canada was searching for natural gas deposits in the 1950s.
Jemson No. 1 was owned by Matton but chartered to Poling-Russell, Inc., for a good while, but that’s not the Cree pushing it.
The George R. Keating was built in 1910 as the W. P. Runyon at Perth Amboy by and for the Perth Amboy Dry Dock Company. It was named for the firm’s president. It was later Bradley, Perseverence for the Army Quartermaster Corps and in private ownership as such for the Hudson Transportation Company, Norfolk, Virginia, and ran for years as the Keating for the Glorio O. Towing Corporation, West New Brighton, New York. It was dismantled in 1950.
Will, your last “unidentified” is wonderful! It is one of the first two tugs Cargill had built to explore the possibility of hauling barges of grain from Oswego to Albany for foreign shipment, the Carbany built by JK Welding Company at Brooklyn in 1939 and sister Carswego the following year. Cargill’s Cargo Carriers, Inc., would operate a fleet of very odd and utilitarian push boats and barges on that route until 1962. The Carbany was paired with a unique notched barge, CC No. 3, shown clearly in the photograph. The tug had a large trap door atop the pilothouse so the pilot could navigate when the barges were light. I have a photograph of the first captain of the Carbany doing this. Behind the Carbany is a tow of a later Cargill innovation, articulated barges paired with a push boat that measured 22 feet long and 43 feet wide. Yes, you read that correctly. I think I sent you a photograph of that unusual configuration a few years ago. In the mid-1960s Carbany became the Missy for Sadler Towing Corporation of Norfolk, Virginia. It left documentation in 1975.