How have you gotten involved in the Erie canal, and what intrigues you most about it?
Well, I got involved because they were looking for an executive director, and I actually studied art history, but I have to say I thought I would work at an art museum, but what I like about history is that I feel like we could have a little more fun with interpretation with history in museums. I still love art, but you know. And what I like about the Erie Canal is that the Erie Canal was not only a transportation “highway” of sorts, but also linked communities and it transported ideas. I don’t know if you’ve studied in history already, all the incredible social movements that occurred in the 19th century. New York State was a radical place back then, I mean, the women’s movement, abolitionism, there were a lot of spiritual movements that went on, and many of those thinkers and ideas grew up around the canal. And I think that’s not an accident. I think it allowed people to leave their community and to meet other people from other communities. The Temperance movement, and out of the Temperance movement grew the women’s rights movement and the Abolitionist movement, it’s just a fascinating time. And yet, it transformed this area so quickly. We think about quick change as only occurring to us right now, you know, we talk about in the last five years phones have changed, and technology, but they saw rapid changes in a very short period of time because of the canal. And you know, it brought positives and negatives. It was an exciting time for sure.
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What is the significance of the Chittenango landing dry docks to the canal as a whole?
That’s a good question. I think I mentioned before that the dry docks complex is essentially like a thruway stop, a full service repair center, and everything you needed for your boat building or your boat for that matter, you could purchase here. It could be made, fixed, there’s also a canal-side store, a mule stable for your mules. So when you travelled the canal, they needed “service stations” all along, and there were actually many, at different times there were anywhere from 30 to 50 we think, at different periods of time, dispersed throughout the whole length of the canal. Right now, Chittenango Landing Canal Boat Museum is the only uncovered, and recreated dry dock complex, “service station,” along the canal system right now. It shows a slice of history, something that was common up and down the canal, but also, Chittenango Landing is just about in the center of the state, between Albany and Buffalo. We think that might’ve played a role in why. We know that this three bay dry dock is rare. We know other dry dock complexes up and down the canal that are still kind of buried, and not saved and restored, that they tend to be one or two bays. So you know that this is unique, the three bay is unique. And it was a commercial, it was an independent business. It was not state owned. You had to get permission from the state, but it was not state owned. This is a business that grew up on the canal, and we had permission from the canal authority.
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What was the significance of the canal to this community?
Well, like in Syracuse you probably heard, really the canal made most of the communities, this community was Manlius Village before the canal came through, but the growth of this actual community was directly due to the canal. There’s a story, there’s a small village in Onondaga County, about 10 miles from here called Manlius and that used to be the largest community in Central New York, before the canal came through. But this community is off the canal, it’s on route 20, which at that point was the main “turnpike” or main road at the time. Once the canal was built, and the canal is 10 or so miles north of the town of, or the village of Manlius. Syracuse was smaller than Manlius at the time of the canal, but because of the canal, Syracuse became a city. And you know, if you look at a map, you can see Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Rome, Utica, and Albany. Those are all major cities from upstate New York, and they all exist along the canal.
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On average, how long did a boat typically stay a place like Chittenango for repair?
Well we know that the most common repair here was to replace the oakum. Oakum was a material that you might’ve seen when you looked at our replica canal boat, between the cracks, the planks of the boat. Oakum is a natural material that was kind of hammered in the cracks, and then expanded so that water wouldn’t get in your boat or destroy your carriage. The pitch was also used on the bottom of the boat, pitch is a little bit different. Pitch was used on the bottom, but oakum was the most common repair, I think the oakum needed to be replaced more regularly. That could’ve been a fairly short repair, depending on how busy things were, could’ve been a couple days.
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How exactly does the dry dock work?
The dry docks work a bit like the lock system, where the bays are perpendicular to the canal. If a boat needed repair, it would approach the canal and we understand that it may have taken about an hour for a boat to get into the bay. But small, little doors on the larger gates would have opened allowing water to come into the bay. Once the water was equalized with the canal, they could then open the larger gate, bring the boat in, close the gates, and then open up sluice doors so that the water could be drained from the bays and into Chittenango Creek. Once the water drained, the gates were closed and the boat would settle on the weigh timbers. Then the boat could be repaired. Workmen could work on the floor of the dry docks, repair the boat, then reversed that process to get the boat back out. The deeper bay was used for the heavier boats.
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Were the deeper bays put in place only after the Erie Canal was enlarged?
Each of the bays were ideally suited to boats of different cargo weight. If you are travelling on the canal and you are a boat owner, you want your boat to be as full as possible. But, they may be stopping in Rome, dropping off something, and travelling to Syracuse to pick up something else. So, you may have your boat in a different weight. The light bay boat that was not very full, the medium bay for a boat that was partially full, and the deep bay for a boat that was completely full. They could all accommodate the same width and length, so it was about the weight of the cargo, which would make the boat sink further into the water.
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During what years was the landing in its operational prime?
This landing was operational between 1856 and we think somewhere in the 1920s. We also know that this portion of the canal, the historic ‘Old Erie’, which was the enlarged version, the second version of the canal, which was officially operational, it connected to the larger canal, anywhere in the 1850s, the period of time when it was enlarged. That enlargement period was completed in 1862, but we know it was used in the 1850s up until 1918, until World War I. That’s when they shifted all of the state resources, they shifted the route up to the barge canal. The barge canal didn’t use mules, it had powered boats, and they could use Onondaga, I’m sorry, Oneida Lake, just north of us.
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What went into determining the route of the canal?
Geology, geography went into determining the route. You probably know that there was a natural water system, the Mohawk River, and Oneida Lake, and then of course you have the Great Lakes, and there were some other streams and rivers. I think that the most important factor was the Appalachian Mountain chain. People like George Washington and other early founders of this country said ‘ We need to connect, to pull this country together, so that we’re not just a bunch of cities on the coastline’. At the time of the canal, most people lived along the coast. The biggest cities were Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and no, not New York. the Erie Canal made New York CIty the commercial and business capital of the world. Because all that traffic would go across the Erie Canal, then down the Hudson. So New York was not the commercial capital of the world until that time. So many people were looking for a canal route to what was then the west, what we call the midwest. There was no viable route, the mountains were just too difficult. There were many attempts made. And then of course New York State tried to get the federal government to pay for the canal system. The federal government said ‘No, we aren’t paying for that’. Then of course New York took that on. It was a very ambitious public works project, which was the most successful commercial canal in the country. It spawned a lot of other canals, which were not nearly as successful. It followed the route of the Mohawk River essentially. Decision makers had to decide whether to shift up and use Lake Ontario to get to Lake Erie. The War of 1812 really convinced them that they needed an inland, protected route. There were also other challenges to using that route. They wouldn’t have had to tow their boats in Lake Ontario, but the War of 1812 really convinced them that they needed an inland route.
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Why use drop gates for the shallow bays and not for the deep one?
I don’t know the answer to that. We think that the drop gates they switched to because it was easier for one person to raise and lower. I wonder if because the heavy bay is deeper, that a drop gate would have been that much bigger and heavier. But I don’t know the answer to that. We have unfortunately very few records of this site. We don’t know exactly when they turned two of of the miter gates into the drop gates. We know from an 1870 photo, which is in our hallway, showing the canal fully watered up to nearly the top. It shows all the bays filled with boats that are being repaired, and it shows three miter gates. So, we know that in the 1870s they had three miter gates. When they uncovered the site in the 1980s and 90s, they found remains of drop gates and the miter gate. So they reconstructed those gates based on what they found, the archaeological evidence.
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Did immigrants have an impact on this area because of the canal? And if so, then to what extent?
Immigrants were very involved in the digging of the canal. The enlarged version had a lot of Irish, and Italians who worked here, on the canal, in this area. We know there were other groups like Germans. We actually have a display here. People from other countries did help build it. We also know, in terms of immigrants, that the opening on the canal and what was then the western frontier allowed immigrants to move into the country and settle different portions of the country. A lot of Germans and Scandinavians settled in the upper midwest and a lot of Italians and Irish who moved into cities were the largest immigrant groups. There was a lot of tension between those groups in that time. I find that pretty interesting and as something that we should not forget today. There was actually an article that talked about a group of diggers on the canal, I think they were Irish and Italian. They went on strike and said ‘we want more money to do this work’, because it couldn’t have been very pleasant, especially in the hot weather. Apparently there was some kind of riot or skirmish and the article said it was between the whites and the Irish and Italians. So the politics of race were quite different, the Irish and Italians being the second wave of immigrants, being considered non-white. Some Americans on the canal told the Irish and Italians, ‘don’t settle here keep going west.'
Well, I got involved because they were looking for an executive director, and I actually studied art history, but I have to say I thought I would work at an art museum, but what I like about history is that I feel like we could have a little more fun with interpretation with history in museums. I still love art, but you know. And what I like about the Erie Canal is that the Erie Canal was not only a transportation “highway” of sorts, but also linked communities and it transported ideas. I don’t know if you’ve studied in history already, all the incredible social movements that occurred in the 19th century. New York State was a radical place back then, I mean, the women’s movement, abolitionism, there were a lot of spiritual movements that went on, and many of those thinkers and ideas grew up around the canal. And I think that’s not an accident. I think it allowed people to leave their community and to meet other people from other communities. The Temperance movement, and out of the Temperance movement grew the women’s rights movement and the Abolitionist movement, it’s just a fascinating time. And yet, it transformed this area so quickly. We think about quick change as only occurring to us right now, you know, we talk about in the last five years phones have changed, and technology, but they saw rapid changes in a very short period of time because of the canal. And you know, it brought positives and negatives. It was an exciting time for sure.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
What is the significance of the Chittenango landing dry docks to the canal as a whole?
That’s a good question. I think I mentioned before that the dry docks complex is essentially like a thruway stop, a full service repair center, and everything you needed for your boat building or your boat for that matter, you could purchase here. It could be made, fixed, there’s also a canal-side store, a mule stable for your mules. So when you travelled the canal, they needed “service stations” all along, and there were actually many, at different times there were anywhere from 30 to 50 we think, at different periods of time, dispersed throughout the whole length of the canal. Right now, Chittenango Landing Canal Boat Museum is the only uncovered, and recreated dry dock complex, “service station,” along the canal system right now. It shows a slice of history, something that was common up and down the canal, but also, Chittenango Landing is just about in the center of the state, between Albany and Buffalo. We think that might’ve played a role in why. We know that this three bay dry dock is rare. We know other dry dock complexes up and down the canal that are still kind of buried, and not saved and restored, that they tend to be one or two bays. So you know that this is unique, the three bay is unique. And it was a commercial, it was an independent business. It was not state owned. You had to get permission from the state, but it was not state owned. This is a business that grew up on the canal, and we had permission from the canal authority.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
What was the significance of the canal to this community?
Well, like in Syracuse you probably heard, really the canal made most of the communities, this community was Manlius Village before the canal came through, but the growth of this actual community was directly due to the canal. There’s a story, there’s a small village in Onondaga County, about 10 miles from here called Manlius and that used to be the largest community in Central New York, before the canal came through. But this community is off the canal, it’s on route 20, which at that point was the main “turnpike” or main road at the time. Once the canal was built, and the canal is 10 or so miles north of the town of, or the village of Manlius. Syracuse was smaller than Manlius at the time of the canal, but because of the canal, Syracuse became a city. And you know, if you look at a map, you can see Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Rome, Utica, and Albany. Those are all major cities from upstate New York, and they all exist along the canal.
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On average, how long did a boat typically stay a place like Chittenango for repair?
Well we know that the most common repair here was to replace the oakum. Oakum was a material that you might’ve seen when you looked at our replica canal boat, between the cracks, the planks of the boat. Oakum is a natural material that was kind of hammered in the cracks, and then expanded so that water wouldn’t get in your boat or destroy your carriage. The pitch was also used on the bottom of the boat, pitch is a little bit different. Pitch was used on the bottom, but oakum was the most common repair, I think the oakum needed to be replaced more regularly. That could’ve been a fairly short repair, depending on how busy things were, could’ve been a couple days.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
How exactly does the dry dock work?
The dry docks work a bit like the lock system, where the bays are perpendicular to the canal. If a boat needed repair, it would approach the canal and we understand that it may have taken about an hour for a boat to get into the bay. But small, little doors on the larger gates would have opened allowing water to come into the bay. Once the water was equalized with the canal, they could then open the larger gate, bring the boat in, close the gates, and then open up sluice doors so that the water could be drained from the bays and into Chittenango Creek. Once the water drained, the gates were closed and the boat would settle on the weigh timbers. Then the boat could be repaired. Workmen could work on the floor of the dry docks, repair the boat, then reversed that process to get the boat back out. The deeper bay was used for the heavier boats.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Were the deeper bays put in place only after the Erie Canal was enlarged?
Each of the bays were ideally suited to boats of different cargo weight. If you are travelling on the canal and you are a boat owner, you want your boat to be as full as possible. But, they may be stopping in Rome, dropping off something, and travelling to Syracuse to pick up something else. So, you may have your boat in a different weight. The light bay boat that was not very full, the medium bay for a boat that was partially full, and the deep bay for a boat that was completely full. They could all accommodate the same width and length, so it was about the weight of the cargo, which would make the boat sink further into the water.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
During what years was the landing in its operational prime?
This landing was operational between 1856 and we think somewhere in the 1920s. We also know that this portion of the canal, the historic ‘Old Erie’, which was the enlarged version, the second version of the canal, which was officially operational, it connected to the larger canal, anywhere in the 1850s, the period of time when it was enlarged. That enlargement period was completed in 1862, but we know it was used in the 1850s up until 1918, until World War I. That’s when they shifted all of the state resources, they shifted the route up to the barge canal. The barge canal didn’t use mules, it had powered boats, and they could use Onondaga, I’m sorry, Oneida Lake, just north of us.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
What went into determining the route of the canal?
Geology, geography went into determining the route. You probably know that there was a natural water system, the Mohawk River, and Oneida Lake, and then of course you have the Great Lakes, and there were some other streams and rivers. I think that the most important factor was the Appalachian Mountain chain. People like George Washington and other early founders of this country said ‘ We need to connect, to pull this country together, so that we’re not just a bunch of cities on the coastline’. At the time of the canal, most people lived along the coast. The biggest cities were Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and no, not New York. the Erie Canal made New York CIty the commercial and business capital of the world. Because all that traffic would go across the Erie Canal, then down the Hudson. So New York was not the commercial capital of the world until that time. So many people were looking for a canal route to what was then the west, what we call the midwest. There was no viable route, the mountains were just too difficult. There were many attempts made. And then of course New York State tried to get the federal government to pay for the canal system. The federal government said ‘No, we aren’t paying for that’. Then of course New York took that on. It was a very ambitious public works project, which was the most successful commercial canal in the country. It spawned a lot of other canals, which were not nearly as successful. It followed the route of the Mohawk River essentially. Decision makers had to decide whether to shift up and use Lake Ontario to get to Lake Erie. The War of 1812 really convinced them that they needed an inland, protected route. There were also other challenges to using that route. They wouldn’t have had to tow their boats in Lake Ontario, but the War of 1812 really convinced them that they needed an inland route.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Why use drop gates for the shallow bays and not for the deep one?
I don’t know the answer to that. We think that the drop gates they switched to because it was easier for one person to raise and lower. I wonder if because the heavy bay is deeper, that a drop gate would have been that much bigger and heavier. But I don’t know the answer to that. We have unfortunately very few records of this site. We don’t know exactly when they turned two of of the miter gates into the drop gates. We know from an 1870 photo, which is in our hallway, showing the canal fully watered up to nearly the top. It shows all the bays filled with boats that are being repaired, and it shows three miter gates. So, we know that in the 1870s they had three miter gates. When they uncovered the site in the 1980s and 90s, they found remains of drop gates and the miter gate. So they reconstructed those gates based on what they found, the archaeological evidence.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Did immigrants have an impact on this area because of the canal? And if so, then to what extent?
Immigrants were very involved in the digging of the canal. The enlarged version had a lot of Irish, and Italians who worked here, on the canal, in this area. We know there were other groups like Germans. We actually have a display here. People from other countries did help build it. We also know, in terms of immigrants, that the opening on the canal and what was then the western frontier allowed immigrants to move into the country and settle different portions of the country. A lot of Germans and Scandinavians settled in the upper midwest and a lot of Italians and Irish who moved into cities were the largest immigrant groups. There was a lot of tension between those groups in that time. I find that pretty interesting and as something that we should not forget today. There was actually an article that talked about a group of diggers on the canal, I think they were Irish and Italian. They went on strike and said ‘we want more money to do this work’, because it couldn’t have been very pleasant, especially in the hot weather. Apparently there was some kind of riot or skirmish and the article said it was between the whites and the Irish and Italians. So the politics of race were quite different, the Irish and Italians being the second wave of immigrants, being considered non-white. Some Americans on the canal told the Irish and Italians, ‘don’t settle here keep going west.'