UPDATED August 12, 2021 (twice), with more information on Orange Dibble’s derrick, illustrated below. See my reply to the question from reader Chester T. Hartwell in Comments, below.

UPDATED July 29, 2021, to include some new general information and details about several of the images sent by reader Robert Randall, second vice-president of the Camillus Canal Society. For Mr. Randall’s full message, see Comments, below. For more on the society’s Camillus Erie Canal Park, click here.

How the early settlers came to Mequon, c. 1835-1850 (part 3)

Our series of “How’d they get here?” posts is written—in part—to help our education team put together a Clark House Museum educational activity. The idea is to illustrate the nuts and bolts of how our early Mequon pioneers travelled from their original homes or ports of arrival in North America, to the newly opened federal lands in Wisconsin Territory, circa 1835-1850. (If you missed ’em, the previous parts are here and here, with a bonus image, here.)

Erie Canal images – 1825!

Finally!! For years, I’ve been searching for images of the unique, low-draft, narrow-sided, low-height, lock-length boats designed for and used in the earliest years of the Erie and Champlain canals (c. 1825-1840). And year after year, I had no luck finding such images…until this week.

You might be thinking, “hasn’t Clark House Historian already spent quite a bit of time on the Erie Canal?,” and you’d be correct. But it’s hard to overstate the national and international importance of the Erie Canal on world trade and American westward expansion in the decades after its opening in 1825. And while we have used maps to illustrate the migration routes of some Mequon settlers (such as the Turck, Gay, Bonniwell, and Woodworth families), I wasn’t able to adequately illustrate the details of how they travelled in the early days of the canal era. Until now.

Today’s treasure trove of early canal images is from Cadwalleder Colden, et. al., Memoir…at the Completion of the New York Canals, New York, 1825. Many of these images are from the “extra-illustrated” edition in New York Public Library Digital Collections; you can download and enjoy a scanned copy of the standard edition of the book via GoogleBooks. Yes, these images are a bit early for our generally 1835-1850 “How’d they get there?” timeframe. But these are, by far, the best visual representations of early New York canal travel that I have seen. Even though Jonathan M. Clark, and the Woodworth and Bonniwell families and other Mequon settlers did not travel on the canals until the 1830s, these images depict scenes they would have experienced along the Champlain and Erie canals.

Please take a close look at each image for the “big picture,” then click on each and zoom in on the details. All the images can be clicked on to open as a larger, downloadable, image in a new window. All images are believed to be in the public domain, and I encourage you to enjoy, download, save, share and use them as you see fit.

Canal Boats

Here is an excellent view of a group of the new canal boats, loading freight and soliciting business at the North [i.e., Hudson] River docks, New York City, before heading up the Hudson to Albany and the canals:

Canal boats on the north river, New York, in Cadwallader Colden, et. al., Memoir…at the Completion of the New York Canals, New York, 1825. Image from “extra-illustrated” edition in New York Public Library Digital Collections, scanned copy of standard edition of book via GoogleBooks.

Canal boats are designed to be towed. They are the short, boxy ships in the foreground, without masts. (Note that the “mast” on the Rising Star is actually a temporary mast-style crane with block and tackle at the top, used to load the boat’s cargo, in this case a barrel.) There is a pile of lumber on the far left, presumably ready to make more of the boxy shipping crates lined up along the wharf. The man on the left is holding a brush and paint pot, presumably labeling the crates. In this era, the standard unit of shipping is the barrel, many of which have already been loaded on the Phelps and the unnamed boat to its right. Banners in the distance advertise shippers and destinations to prospective customers. And it appears that the two-wheeled horse cart is a common way to move large barrels and crates on and off of the pier.

Hudson River Steamboats

[Steamboats North America and Albany on the Hudson River], in Cadwallader Colden, et. al., Memoir…at the Completion of the New York Canals, New York, 1825. Image from “extra-illustrated” edition in New York Public Library Digital Collections, scanned copy of standard edition of book via GoogleBooks. Click to open larger image in new window.

Here’s an image that would have been familiar to the Turck and Gay families and their kin along the Hudson River. These two side-paddlewheel steamboats, the North America and the Albany traveled the Hudson, connecting the eastern end of the Erie Canal at Albany to the great port city of New York. The Peter Turck family (1820s), and the Bonniwells and Woodworths (1830s) probably traveled on similar ships as they made the occasional trip up or down the Hudson and, eventually, to Albany and the Erie Canal.

Both ships appear to be shallow-draft river steamboats. These two ships appear smaller, and lack the cabins, saloons, and other amenities of the Mississippi River and Great Lakes steamers of the 1830s and 1840s. They are, in essence, the “commuter rail” of the 1820s Hudson River valley, shuttling back and forth from New York City to Albany and, presumably, many stops in between.

Traveling on the Erie Canal

Traveling on the Erie Canal, in Cadwallader Colden, et. al., Memoir…at the Completion of the New York Canals, New York, 1825. Image from “extra-illustrated” edition in New York Public Library Digital Collections, scanned copy of standard edition of book via GoogleBooks. Click to open larger image in new window.

In early days, New York canal boats were occasionally pushed along the canals with long poles wielded by the boatmen. Most often, the boats were pulled by men, mules, or horses walking along the adjacent towpath. In this image, you need to zoom in to see that the pair of horses on the right (and their guide/rider) is pulling another boat (not shown, beyond the lower margin of the engraving). The canal boat in the foreground is presumably being towed by the pair of horses farther along the right towpath.

Update, July 29, 2021: Indeed, this seems to be the case…

The picture of the boat with 2 sets of horses appears to me to depict one (the one not shown) passing the one shown. Since only the north Bank was used as a towpath, the west bound or overtaking boat proceeded normally, and the eastbound or boat being passed moved to the south side (as depicted) while it’s horses (or mules) moved to the north side of the towpath and stopped, letting the towline go slack and sink so the overtaking boat and horses could pass over it. I’ve not seen this depicted before!⁵

The Erie Canal follows the Mohawk River valley for much of its length. In this picture, the Mohawk River is below and to the left of this mountainous portion of the canal. Erie Canal trips could be quite leisurely. In this picture you can see six passengers on deck and atop the boat, enjoying the valley view.

Lockport, NY

The town of Lockport, New York, is located near the western end of the canal, not far from Buffalo. As you might have guessed, it gets its name from this famous flight of five adjacent locks. When they were built, they were admired as one of the great engineering and construction events of the day. (As well they should be; the locks had to be blasted out and dug by hand from the hard Lockport dolomite of the Niagara escarpment.)

Northeastern view of the locks at Lockport, in Cadwallader Colden, et. al., Memoir…at the Completion of the New York Canals, New York, 1825. Image from “extra-illustrated” edition in New York Public Library Digital Collections, scanned copy of standard edition of book via GoogleBooks. Click to open larger image in new window.

This view is from the northeast, looking southwest, as the locks rise toward their final destination of Buffalo and Lake Erie. The flight of five locks rises along the right side of the image. In the far lower-right corner, a boatman is shown riding one of a pair of horses as they pull a canal boat out of the lowest lock. The turning basin to the left of this boat holds another canal boat with a man astern, at the tiller, and another man on the roof of the boat’s cabin, rowing or pushing the boat with a long oar or pole. Nearby floats a log raft. What looks like an empty barge is pulled up on shore.

View from the top of the locks

This view looks back to the northeast, from the top of the flight of five locks at Lockport, New York. The top lock is full of water, ready to admit incoming boats from Buffalo and begin lowering them down the Niagara escarpment via the locks.

Lockport, Erie Canal, in Cadwallader Colden, et. al., Memoir…at the Completion of the New York Canals, New York, 1825. Image from “extra-illustrated” edition in New York Public Library Digital Collections, scanned copy of standard edition of book via GoogleBooks. Click to open larger image in new window.

One of the lock operators is seen relaxing, leaning against a large horizontal wooden beam; this beam is the lever that opens and closes the large lock door for the left side of the chamber. He does not need to lean on this to keep the door closed; when the lock is full, water pressure will insure that the doors remain shut. His colleague appears on the platform above and behind the closed lock doors, observing the goings-on below.

Deep Cutting, Lockport

As it travels westward, the Erie Canal traverses a wide variety of changing terrain and elevations. From its start in Albany, to its terminus in Buffalo, the canal gains almost 600 feet in total elevation. Some of these changes in elevation only required the construction of locks, but at this one, particular, seven-mile-long stretch near the end of the route, the builders found it necessary to make a 25-foot-deep “cut” through too-high terrain, three miles of which were through hard rock.

Deep Cutting, Lockport, in Cadwallader Colden, et. al., Memoir…at the Completion of the New York Canals, New York, 1825. Image from “extra-illustrated” edition in New York Public Library Digital Collections, scanned copy of standard edition of book via GoogleBooks. Click to open larger image in new window.

If you click and enlarge this engraving, you’ll note that the roof of the near boat, the Seneca Chief, is crowded with almost a dozen standing passengers wearing tall top hats. The Seneca Chief was the “first boat to transit the full length of the Erie Canal, carrying Governor DeWitt Clinton and a party of dignitaries from Buffalo to New York Harbor for the ‘Wedding of the Waters’ ceremony in the fall 1825.” This image appears to be a representation of that inaugural trip.¹

The towpath for this stretch of the canal has been dug into the right side of this deep cut. The nearest pair of tow horses is, once again, pulling another boat, closer to the viewer and out of the picture. The horses towing the Seneca Chief are visible a bit farther along the towpath.

How’d they do that?

The New York canal project was—as we would say today—a huge, taxpayer-funded, public works infrastructure project. It was begun in 1817. The Champlain Canal was completed in 1823, and the first version of the Erie Canal was finished in 1825. The Erie Canal ran 363 miles, passed through 83 locks, and rose 571 feet from Albany to Buffalo. It cost $7,143,789 to build, in 1825 dollars, a massive expenditure for a state government.²

Initially dubbed “Clinton’s Folly,” after its champion, New York governor DeWitt Clinton, the canal instantly proved successful. The original 1825 Erie Canal was 4 feet deep, 40 feet wide, and had locks that were 90 feet long. By 1862, Erie Canal traffic had increased so much the canal had to be enlarged to almost twice its original width and depth. So, in the age before dynamite, tower cranes and internal combustion engines, how did they dig the canal? They used black powder, hand tools, horses, and lots of hardworking men, many of them low-paid immigrants.³

Progress of Excavation, Lockport, in Cadwallader Colden, et. al., Memoir…at the Completion of the New York Canals, New York, 1825. Image from “extra-illustrated” edition in New York Public Library Digital Collections, scanned copy of standard edition of book via GoogleBooks. Click to open larger image in new window.

This view of the Process of Excavation, Lockport, is an earlier, “under construction” view of the Deep Cutting, Lockport of the previous image. This view suggests a very large number of men in the bottom of the cut, using hand tools to dig and level the bottom of the future waterway. For this backbreaking work, canal laborers were paid an average of 80 cents to $1.00 per day.

Above, on the edges of the cut, men can be seen prying and levering slabs of rock out of the way. There is a supervisor in top hat and frock coat near the bottom center. And there are at least seven wooden cranes in the picture. The crane in the right foreground is powered by a horse walking around a rotating drum; the horse-powered crane has hoisted a large boulder to a great height, so that it can be dumped on top of the debris pile. The crane was invented by one of the canal engineers, Orringh (Orange) Dibble, for this exact place and purpose.⁴

More information, added July 29, 2021:

Clinton’s ditch [constructed 1817-1825] was dug mostly by locals, the state wanted to put money in the hands of the locals for goodwill and economic reasons, so hired local farmers who could contract to dig as little as 1/10 of a mile. The enlargement [1835-1862] was dug mostly by Irish immigrants, as it coincided with the potato famine.⁵

Western End of the Erie Canal

This bird’s-eye view of a long, straight section of the Erie Canal contains many of the characteristic features of the original canal and its operation. The lower center of the picture shows a horse and rider towing a single canal boat toward the viewer. They are about to pass a canal-side warehouse of some sort. There are two men—or perhaps a man and a woman—riding on top of the boat’s cabin.

Western End of the Erie Canal, in Cadwallader Colden, et. al., Memoir…at the Completion of the New York Canals, New York, 1825. Image from “extra-illustrated” edition in New York Public Library Digital Collections, scanned copy of standard edition of book via GoogleBooks. Click to open larger image in new window.

Behind the featured boat appears to be a single lock; the drawing is not clear about this. There is a bridge above this lock. This may be an example of a “change bridge,” a feature on the canal that allowed tow horses to change from one side of the canal to the other without stopping or untying from their boats.

Update, July 29, 2021: it’s probably not a change bridge…

The Bridge in the west end picture is likely so the lock tenders could get to both sides as the gates were opened manually, as well as local traffic.⁵

There are three more canal boats farther down the canal behind this one; oddly, none of them display obvious signs of towing, poling or rowing.

It’s not clear exactly where this view of the “western end of the Erie Canal” is located. Is it supposed to be between the top of the Lockport Locks and Buffalo? The terrain is open and flat, so this could be the final stretch of the canal before it meets Tonawanda Creek and flows into Lake Erie. But that part of the canal did not, I believe, have any locks.

In any case, this is almost the end of the line for westbound Erie Canal passengers and crew. Next stop for travelers and blog readers? Buffalo’s waterfront and the Great Lakes, with a lavishly illustrated look at all kinds of Great Lakes ships from the early Clark House era.

See you soon.

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NOTES:

1. For the source of this quote, and a related discussion of the effect of the canal system on the Native American tribes living in upstate New York, see https://eriecanalway.org/learn/history-culture/native-americans
   
   
2. For a nice summary of these and other 1825 canal facts, follow this link to the National Parks Service’s Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor site.
   
   
3. I have not yet found a reliable source with information on the numbers of various ethnic groups that built the New York canals; accurate data may never have existed. I have seen mention of German and British laborers, and several sources repeat the assertion that “3000 Irish” helped build the canals. The NPS site mentions Irish laborers as canal workers, but states that the majority of 1825 canal builders were native-born.
   
   
4. The locks of the Erie Canal rely on the force of gravity as the water of Lake Erie flows downhill from Buffalo, through the successive locks, until arriving at Albany and the Hudson River. Unfortunately for the canal builders, the land rises up higher than Lake Erie’s level for a seven-mile-long penultimate segment of the canal near Pendleton, New York, between Lockport and Buffalo. Since water does not flow uphill, the builders had to make the 40-foot-deep Deep Cut in the dolomitic limestone between Lockport and Buffalo.
   
   These facts, and more information on the Deep Cut and its geography, come from eriecanalvideos.com and the Lockport Union-Sun & Journal online. Be sure to view the interesting, short, YouTube video from Low Bridge Productions explaining the Deep Cut. The details of the length and depth of the cut were found in Cadwallader Colden, et. al., Memoir…at the Completion of the New York Canals, New York, 1825, page 65.
   
   
5. These new comments dated July 29, 2021, are from CHH reader Robert Randall, second vice-president of the Camillus Canal Society. For Mr. Randall’s full message, see Comments, below.
   

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And one final note: can we give (yet another) round of applause to our public and academic libraries, archives, historical societies and museums? The research I do, and publish here, would be impossible if I had to travel to each institution that had the detailed, specific, and sometimes very obscure, information, documents, maps or other images that I—and thousands of other amateur and professional researchers and scholars—depend on daily.

If you are a regular reader, you know that I use a lot of public domain resources from the collections of the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution, among others. Today’s post would not be possible without the high-quality scanned images found online at the New York Public Library’s Digital Collections. The NYPL has digitized almost one million images, and made them available to the world, for no charge. My thanks to the NYPL staff, and the people of New York that support their work.

If you can, find a way to support your local libraries, archives, historical societies and museums. They’re doing great work, but often with limited resources. When you can, volunteer some time, make a donation, or support the next referendum. Keep history alive.