The Erie Canal Transformed New York State into the
Empire State
By Harold Merton
The hopes of a dreamer and quite possibly the future of a nation flowed
through a watery path four feet deep and 40 feet wide cut through the
wilderness. Most influential people in the early 1800s thought DeWitt
Clinton, who was a New York governor, championed the idea of a canal across
New York state to link the west with the Atlantic Ocean was crazy. They
called the plan "Clinton's ditch!
Completed on October 26, 1825, the Erie Canal opened the United States
to commerce and transformed New York into the Empire State. At one point
nearly 75 percent of New York's residents lived within two miles of the
Erie Canal.
About 40 miles of the 363 mile canal traverses Monroe County, including
the city of Rochester, New York. The original waterway has changed over
the years. The course has been shifted, the channel dug deeper and for
a while it was called the Barge Canal.
Nearly two centuries later, the canal still is an integral park of New
York life and lore, even though it has a different role. Recreation has
replaced trade as bicyclists, walkers, hikers and roller bladers travel
the Erie Canalway Trail on a towpath where mules once pulled fully loaded
barges. One can bike, ride or walk their way along any portion
of the canal.
Starting in Brockport, about 20 miles from Rochester and the westernmost
canal town in Monroe County, there are two liftbridges 900 feet apart.
On an afternoon, the main attraction is watching the bridge keeper hustle
between the bridges on Main Street and Park Avenue as he climbs the flight
of iron stairs, raises the steel deck bridge, lets boats pass and then
lowers the bridge. Then you can watch as he repeats the process at the
next bridge just a few hundred feet away. There's no need to watch all
this from the path though, as the walkways on the west side of the Mains
Street bridge rise along with the deck, giving pedestrians a bridge operator's
view of the canal and the boats.
If there aren't any boats in sight when you arrive at the bridges, pass
the time in one of the cafes or pizza places in this college town. Most
are housed in mid to late 19th century buildings in the three block downtown
on the south side of the canal.
As you travel east along the canal, civilization is never more than eight
or ten miles down the patch, but it seems farther away as you travel past
areas that sill are thickly wooded. Imagine what it was like nearly 200
years ago when hundreds of men were cutting their way through this area.
While the canal diggers saw the forests as obstacles, the settlers likely
saw them as opportunities. This at least was the case in Adams Basin,
a hamlet between Brockport and Spencerport. According to accounts in the
exquisitely photographed "The Erie Canal Legacy: Architectural Treasures
of the Empire State" (The Landmark Society of Western New York) sawmills
provided enough lumber for homes as well as structures farther along the
canal.
But the canal made farming an attractive industry as well. The land was
fertile and the waterway gave farmers a way to get their crops to market.
Daniel Spencer, who heard the canal was going to come right through his
farm, divvied up his spread and created the village of SpencerportThe
canal was like a main street and shops sprung up on its banks. Modern
version - a tavern, a grocery store, and hardware store and a tailer -
still do a brisk business with visitors who dock for the night. If you
did spend too much time browsing in Brockport, you have another chance
at watching a liftbridge in action. This one is on Union street, the main
drag.
The trip from Spencerport towards Greece takes you pas some rich farmland.
For being about 10 miles from the city of Rochester, the area is quite
rural. On one side are the fields while on the other is the canal. With
a speed limit of 10 miles an hour on the waterway walkers and bicyclists
can sometimes keep pace with the boat traffic.
Heading east you follow the downward slope of the canal which drops more
than 500 feet over its length, but your legs won't notice the difference
on this flat stretch.
The city of Rochester owes much of its early growth to the canal. The
watery highway flowed over an aqueduct through the middle of today's
downtown and allowed the millers along the Genesee River to ship their
flour to markets throughout the expanding country, and the world. Rochester,
known as the Flour City, became the United State's first boomtown.
Today the aqueduct is the Broad Street bridge and it carries cars, not
barges. The modern canal flows about three miles south of the downtown,
although it is connect by a trail from Genesee Valley Park that also winds
past the University of Rochester.
Genesee Valley Park is close to the halfway point on the journey through
Monroe County. About five miles further east sits one of the main attractions
of the canal. While a liftbridge in operation is an interesting thing
to see, the signature even of a day at the can is watching boats lock
through. Nearly within shouting distance of each other are the only modern
locks in Monroe County.
Lock 33 is at the intersection of Edgewood Avenue near the Brighton
Henrietta line and Lock 32, with an observation deck that affords a better
view, is just over a mile away at Clover Street in Pittsford. The locks
are 300 feet long and just over 43 feet wide. Depending on the size of
the craft, it takes between 15 and 20 minutes to fill the 40 foot deep
channel for a boat going upstream. In as little as five minutes a boat
can be on its way downstream. If you happen upon a lock between boats,
the lock operators will often take the time to explain how it all works.
To imagine what it looked like in the 1800s take a side trip north on
Clover Street to Monroe Avenue (Route 31), then head east to the entrance
to Wegmans Pittsford Plaza supermarket. Up a slope at the back of the
parking lot in the encroaching woods sits Lock 62, a remnant of the original
canal. Its massive stones, meticulously laid to form a razor's edge, are
a contrast to the smooth concrete sides of the modern locks.
Another place where past and present meet is along Schoen Place in the
village of Pittsford. Settled by Revolutionary War veterans in 1789, the
village had several Monroe County firsts - first school, first doctor,
first library and first lawyer.
Even before the canal came through, the community bustled with traders,
and today, shopping remains an important part of the Pittsford experience.
Boutiques, specialty shops and restaurants line the street where potatoes,
whiskey and gravel were loaded onto barges. The old coal tower is now
a family restaurant.
One of the big attractions for children along this stretch is feeding
the
ducks that live near the dock. For a dollar you can buy a bag of duck
food at Naples Creek Leather. Then the kids can spend an enjoyable time
feeding them. It is just a short six miles to the village of Fairport.
About a mile out of Pittsford is the Great Embankment. The 70 foot high,
one mile long embankment was built in 1822 to span the Irondequoit Creek.
From here it is easy to see that any leak in the canal would be disastrous.
Just such a catastrophe happened in October of 1974, when the embankment
ruptured and sent a wall of water eight feet high into the valley. Workers
who had been digging near the canal warned residents in the nick of time,
sparing lives, but dozens of homes were wiped out.
Between Pittsford and Fairport lies Bushnell's Basin, which for a while
was the western end of the canal. Richardson's Canal House, a landmark
restaurant in the Rochester area, is the oldest original Erie Canal inn
still in its original location.
You can end your journey in Fairport a town that owes it existence to
the
canal.The waterway dried up the swamps, which had relegated the area to
a backwater, even by 19th century standards. But there was good farmland
and a fresh entrepreneurial spirit and all of this made the village a
"fair port" for travellers and today its unique shops and restaurants
still attract visitors and residents alike.
You could continue east for miles and enjoy more small hamlets and
picturesque parks but that can be saved for another day.
The Erie Canal is a mix of both history and entertainment and as such
makes a good day's visit.
Greater Rochester Visitors Association
45 East Avenue, Suite 400
Rochester, NY 14604-2294
1.800.677.7282
http://www.visitrochester.com
email: grva@frontiernet.net
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