MOHAWK - Discovering the Valley of the Crystals Copyright 2003
Chapter 10 - The Canals
New York's First Canal 
A Mohawk River bateau was 30 feet long, 5 feet wide, and carried some
3,000 pounds of cargo and crew of three. Poling upstream was hard work,
and making sharp turns was extremely difficult. Meander loops in the relatively
flat flood plain at the western end of the valley were especially frustrating.
They added miles to the river and their sharp bends collected piles of
logs and branches.
One meander loop about five miles east of Oriskany
Creek and a mile or so west of the mouth of Sauquoit Creek was so long,
its neck so narrow, switchback turns so sharp, that its neck was "digged
through" way back in 1730. That was more than 25 years before the French
and Indian War, 46 years before the Revolutionary War and almost 100 years
before the Erie Canal. Indeed, this cut was New York's first canal.
A section of the 1772 Kitchin Map.
Over the years the river has changed course, creating
new meanders and old oxbows. In the early 1900s this area was "adjusted"
during the construction of the Barge Canal; likewise in the 1950s with
the construction of the New York State Thruway Bridge. Consequently, pinpointing
the exact location of the old meander and the canal was no easy task.
Phil Lord to the rescue. Thanks to his relentless
study of documents, maps, aerial photographs and on site fieldwork, the
history and location of this first ever New York canal was resurrected.
In one of his many publications about the history of navigation on the
Mohawk River, he notes:
"The natural streams and lakes of the Mohawk/Oneida
waterway served as an inland corridor for European exploration and military
expansion for a century before becoming a vital transportation link for
the new Nation between the Hudson River and the Great Lakes.
"During this time there was little effort, nor
need, to undertake major improvements in this network of waterways; foremost
among them being the great Mohawk River. The age of canals and the era
of artificial channel development was not to begin until a decade after
the end of the American Revolution
"Yet half a century earlier, in 1730, a small
cut was excavated across a narrow neck of land in a meander of the Mohawk
near the present City of Utica. This was the first artificial channel for
navigation created in what would become New York State and it symbolizes
the beginning of the Canal Age."
of Museum Services for the New York State Museum
(For in-depth information about the re-discovery of New York's First
Canal see:
http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/research_collections/research/history/neck/index.html
)
This Historic Marker is located near the Barge Canal Bridge on Mohawk
Street just north of the village of Whitesboro.
(Bateau illustration and historical maps courtesy of New York State Museum.)
See also:
Discovery:
A
Good Start Where It All Began - Barge Canal
Way Trail
Discovery: There
Are Always Surprises - Oriskany To Whitesboro
