Barge Canal Miscellany

My approach to reporting on the archives so far has been to sort the images there, as you noticed if you’ve been following along.  

This follows a different tack:  a set of photos I wasn’t sure where to sort.  First, a July 1920 photo showing excursion steamer Ossian Bedell and steamer/barge Saratoga in Buffalo Dry Dock on Ganson Street.  The 1901 Ossian Bedell was named for its owner, operated between Buffalo and Grand Island, where Bedell had a hotel.   More information on its ownership changes can be found here.  

Saratoga, according to Benson is described as follows:  “Saratoga was the first of the USRA steamers built at Erie, Pa. by Dravo.  She carried a crew of twelve in freight service, a homeport of Baltimore, Md, 400 hp, and a tonnage of 272 gross and 152 net. Her dimensions were 147.5′ x 20.1′ x 10.5′ Her first owner was the USRA, followed by the New York Canal and Great Lakes Corp. in June 1921.

William P. Palmer, 1910 to 1978, was a steel laker loading sugar here from a canal steamer and her consort barge.  Presumably, Palmer would then take that sugar elsewhere on the Great Lakes, and that it would have arrived by sea from the sugar lands, and  in NYC,  it was transshipped to these unnamed canal boats.

The large tug here is GLDD’s H. A. Meldrum;  working alongside are John Pearce and a third unidentified tugboat.   Meldrum was a 70′ x 20′ wooden tug built in Buffalo in 1899;  eventually she made her way to the sixth boro, sinking in Barnegat Inlet in March 1970.

GLDD currently has a cutterhead suction dredge New York, but this is likely not it.  Judging by the bollards and lamppost design, this was along the Barge Canal, but I can’t quite place the geography.  The date must be in the 1930s, given the automobile to the right.

Here’s a closer up of the center of the photo, showing the string of barges being towed.  Dog of New York is a classic name.

Supreme was a 1931 Sparrows Point MD tanker built for Gulf Refining.  She was 212′ x 37′ and propelled by a total of 700 hp.  

She appears to be eastbound shown here departing lock E-23.  In 1960, she was renamed Pacific, and in 1970, she was scrapped.  I know that names are just names, but I’d love to know if she ever transited the big canal into the Pacific.

I’ve no information on what is identified as steam tug V. R. Baldwin, headed northbound here in Albany with seven barges.  I love the carved eagle atop its wheelhouse.

All photos used courtesy of the Canal Society of New York.  Any errors  . . . WVD.