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T minus 23 days, that is, for all of us who remember the early days of NASA . . . 23 days until the NYS Canals open soon after sunrise on May 21. If you have the opportunity, get yourself to one of the portals and see the excitement.
At several intervals before then, I will post countdown photos of NYS Canals boats; all photos of old boats they are, ones that require lots of maintenance, but many folks find them beautiful and desire they be kept in some functioning condition, like old horses put out to clover, not the glue factory. All these photos I took during the 2014 season, when I worked on the canal. I won’t include a lot of text here; besides time constraints, I’ve already included such info in previous posts and years. Also, let me introduce a new archive, an ongoing project by a young, active Great Lakes mariner. See it here, and the root site is here.
June 2014 in Little Falls, day one of my employment, I waited on the wall for the 1901 Urger. That’s a Quarters Barge #14 (QB14) to the right, a lodging afloat for canal workers assigned to projects far from home. I slept in the quarters on Urger.
Seneca escorted a tender across Oneida Lake and has arrived at the east end, Sylvan Beach.
Urger here passes Governor Cleveland in a previously unpublished photo.
Syracuse here near the Oswego portal illustrates
the NYS Canals connection with the Great Lakes. This can be and is a portal to the Gulfs of Mexico and Saint Lawrence, and thence to all the watery parts of the planet.
Derrick Barge (DB) 4 here transfers dredge spoils from a scow to a bank needing bolstering; in the distance you can see the beauty of rural Mohawk Valley.
Tender #6, here near Albion, can no longer be seen unless you’re breathing air from a regulator 80′ down 2.5 miles off Shinnecock, a very distant corner of NYS.
Heading for the western end of the canal in Tonawanda, the aptly named DeWitt Clinton chugs along with purpose between Medina and Middleport.
Pittsford here stands by an ancient scow on another bank near the Rochester suburb of . . . Pittsford.
All photos, WVD, who has many more to share before the canal opens. I’ll avoid replication as best I can.
If you want to see more of the canal now, check out my April 2020 covid project, a virtual tour, here.
Lock E-34 and E-35 are twins in several ways: both have a lift/descent of 24.5′ and the top gate of E-34 is actually the bottom gate of E-35, as you can see here. Tug DeWitt Clinton is about waiting to exit the bottom of E-34.
About a quarter mile downstream, we look back at E-34, as the heritage train is about the cross the “Upside Down Bridge,” which some will argue is not really upside down.
Remember I mentioned “rubble” in the last post, the rock that was painstakingly removed from the cut through the Niagara escarpment? It made cheap building material, as seen in the 1840s canalside building once used to build block/tackle and other gear for canal boats. Now it’s a museum operated by Lockport Locks and Erie Canal Cruises.
There are a number of other stone buildings downstream constructed with “canal rock” and rock from local quarries.
Six miles to the east, we arrive at Gasport, where a sign says the population is “just right;” by numbers that means about 1200 people.
The town was named by two canal travelers doing a scientific expedition in 1826. They saw flammable coal gas (burning, I presume) in the area, and named the town. It stuck. The expeditionists were Amos Eaton, professor at Rensselaer School and Joseph Henry, who went on to be first secretary of the Smithsonian Institute.
Middleport, population possibly just right too and under 2000, features one of the 15 lift bridges in the western part of the Canal. These are as unique to this section of the canal as moveable dams are to the east. Boaters radio ahead, and a bridge tender will respond.
Five miles east of Middleport, we arrive in Medina. Note the large apple sculpture to the right of the photo. Contrary to appearance, the fire department there was not trying to sink or fete the 1925 DeWitt Clinton.
Orleans County is not NYS’s largest producer of apples, but the fact that so many orchards line the canal makes an impression, especially when you look down at pickers working on ladders in the trees. Click here for a photo from about 100 years ago of apples around an applesauce plant north of Medina.
The chief feature about the canal through Medina is the curving aqueduct that to this day carries the canal. Some of that is captured by this “bird’s eye” view (scroll) from Arch Merrill, who wrote popular histories about this part of NYS. Here‘s an aerial that shows the the canal carried over Oak Orchard Creek.
This NYS Archives photo is looking east over the curve, and the kids are doing what they’d never be allowed today.
Medina is known for its stone, shipped to projects near and far along the canal. In fact, Medina is home to the Sandstone Hall of Fame, one of many “must see” sights in western NYS. Medina was also home to a very young First Lady of the US, 27 years younger than her husband. More info here. Another interesting stop in town is the Medina Railroad Museum, housed in a 1905-built New York Central freight house.
Urger here is tied up at the west end of the curve.
At the east end of the curve, Oak Orchard Creek flows through a very large culvert and then over a waterfall to the right, and then eventually into Lake Ontario.
A few miles east of Medina is another culvert. Urger, the blue/gold tug is moving through the canal above Culvert Road.
This is the view of Culvert Road from the boat.
It’s the open cultivated land that makes the “western canal” so different from the eastern half.
Between Knowlesville, above, and Eagle Harbor, this widening is the canal may have been a barge harbor.
Eagle Harbor UMC is clearly below canal level, as is much of the land in the area. Check it out on a google map.
Here’s what looking south down Main Street [Albion] looks like when you’re passing under the raised lift bridge. Less than a quarter mile down that street is Pullman Memorial Universalist Church, named for a hometown legend, George Pullman. Before his name became synonymous with luxury train travel, he and his father were known as the “go-to guys” for moving buildings that stood in the way of the project to widen the canal. One can speculate about the influence the packet boats he saw passing had on his quest to create more comfortable train cars.
Since we’re here, it’s worth noting that less than three miles north just off N. Main onto Route 104 east is the Cobblestone Museum, a type of house material found elsewhere also but not with the frequency it is along the Lake Ontario/canal corridor. The menu for the database is here.
East of town when I passed here in 2014 was this gem, Tender #6, dating from the 1920s. I’ll allow you to guess what transformation the #6 has seen; answer at the end of the post.
In fall, as I’ve mentioned before, a lot of boats want to clear out of the Great Lakes and get to warm salt water via the canal for the winter.
Hulberton is another one of those canal towns you’ve not heard of, unless you grew up around here.
These guard gates west of Holley are among the 22 sets in the system.
We’re now approaching Brockport, quiet on the canal during rush hour on the bike trail.
SUNY Brockport follows on a tradition of higher ed at this location since 1841.
And we’ll tie up for the night in Brockport. Some things to know about the town include the fact that the first 100 mechanized reapers were built by Globe Iron Works here for Cyrus McCormick. The town’s connection with the canal is celebrated in a mural in town; murals depicting canal and community history are increasingly common.
By the way, if you know the importance of of General Isaac Brock on this part of the country and what side he was on, you might wonder why this town appears to be named for him. It’s not. It’s named for Hiel Brockway, a passenger vessel entrepreneur, founder of the Red Bird Packet Boat Line.
Sad story about Tender #6. She’s about 80′ down and attracting fish south of Shinnecock.
More photos from this section of the canal, including a 1941 restored Richardson yacht, can be seen here.
Following on the photos from April 29 and May 19, here is finale for Tender 6 and Reliable of Utica. As of this posting, they are 2.5 nautical miles off Shinnecock and 80′ down, precisely placed and not sunk. My guess is that soon this section of this chart will be updated.
Here is the last daylight for
Tender 6.
Here’s the final journey
for Reliable
of Utica.
Thanks for use of these photos to a generous gentleman. More photos can be seen here.
By now, many of you have read about the governor’s April 17 decision to use “33 barges of Tappan Zee Bridge recycled materials and 30 vessels” to build reefs at six locations north and south of Long Island. Well, an expeditious eight days later, the first two vessels were already on the Hudson headed south. Glenn Raymo and I positioned ourselves to document this first shipment.
Glenn positioned himself at the Walkway, where the tugs/barges were soon after daybreak.
Brian Nicholas led the procession with Witte 1405. The Canal tender–aka Tender #6–seemed like a toy on the barge. For photos of some off the tenders, including T6 from four years ago, click here.
Here’s a great shot of the stripped, decapitated, and “environmentally clean” tender.
Rebecca Ann followed pushing a dump scow. A source says that Tender #6 dates from the 1920s, and I’d guess that the dump scow vintage is similar. To put this in context, check out this video of a 1928 Mack dump truck.
If you’ve never been on the Walkway, it’s a repurposed rail bridge with a “walk way.” To catch the tow on the south side of the walkway, Glenn just stepped about 20 feet and got the next two shots.
Four and a half hours later, the day was bright, sun having burnt off the fog, and the tow was approaching Bear Mountain Bridge. Walkways exist on either side of the Bridge, but one needs to cross three lanes of traffic to get from one side to the other, so I opted to take photos from the upstream side only.
Given the size of Witte 1405 relative to the single tender, I’m wondering why the urgency. More fodder for the reef could have fit.
Note the chains used to
open the dump doors.
Many thanks to Glenn for use of his photos. All other by Will Van Dorp, who’s thinking that if the governor holds to his word, 28 more Erie/Barge Canal vessels will descend the Hudson as part of the Reef Express.
If there exists a need for someone to document the final journey–ie, sixth boro to an actual reef location, I’d gladly step forward.
For interior shots–and more–of Tender #6 not that long ago, click here, thanks to Tug44.
Besides larger tugboats like Urger, the Canal has a fleet of nearly identical smaller ones called dredge tenders, or usually just “tenders” like the unidentified one to the left in the photo below.
Here’s a set: Tender #1
Tender #3 stern and
bow and
at work moving Urger out of dry dock.
Tender #4 in February 2014, and
tender #4 after being electrified, and
at work in Utica this summer.
Tender #6.
Tender #7 summer and
bow in winter, with an unidentified tender (registry at MB 5900??) and tender 4 in the distance.
Tender #9 profile and
three fourths.
Tender #10 on the hard and
assisting a dredge.
Tender with identifier ending in 0209,
. .. 0308
. . . 0313 aka Dana?
Dana again.
Again, I need to dig into the history of this class of Canal vessel. What number was this?
and why is it here? How many others are there?
All photos by Will Van Dorp.
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