I told a friend I was going to photograph Schoharie Crossing near Albany. He said “So, you’ve stopped taking pictures of Civil War sites.” No, I told him. Although train lines were beginning to replace canals. the Erie Canal got more use in 1862 than it had in any previous year. It was a key supply line in the Union during the Civil War.
2025 is the Bicentennial of the opening of the Erie Canal, so I wanted to present you with some pictures at one of its most scenic spots, Schoharie Crossing. The early Erie Canal was 363 miles long going from Buffalo to Albany. While the 1825 canal was largely replaced during several upgrades, you can still see 19th Century toll houses, warehouses, ruins of locks, and aqueducts that look like they were built by the Romans. There are several museums where you can learn about the history of the waterways and areas where you can hike the dried out bed of the canal.
The Erie Canal was hand dug by largely Irish immigrant workers in what was then forested areas of the state. Construction began on July 4, 1817 in Rome, New York. There is still a functioning part of the old canal where it started. The project was extremely difficult because the land rises 600 feet from Albany to Buffalo, which meant that a system of locks had to be built to raise and lower the canal boats. Fifty locks would have to be constructed along the route. In addition, where the canal crossed streams and creeks, aqueducts had to be constructed to carry canal boats over the threatening creeks. Much of the work in constructing these pieces of architecture was done by German immigrant stone masons.
I went to Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site at 129 Schoharie Street, Fort Hunter, NY 12069, just a short distance south of the New York Thruway and the Mohawk River.
At the edge of the east side parking lot, you can see the remains of the aqueduct. The aqueduct was not part of the original canal. Canal boats that reached Schoharie Creek exited the canal and were dragged across by rope where they reentered the canal. In 1841, during the first expansion of the Erie Canal, the aqueduct was finished and a faster and safer route across the creek was accomplished.
On both sides of the creek, you can see now-drained parts of the Erie Canal as they existed during the Civil War.
In the above photo you can see the ruins of the original dam built in the 1820s before the Aqueduct was built. This reduced the speed of the water, making it easier to transport boats across.
Below is a photo of Schoharie Crossing intact.
Along the banks of the canal you can still find debris from the 19th Century.
There are extensive signage and maps to help understand what happened here.
Signage also explains the technology used when the canal was constructed. Neither the engineers nor the immigrant workmen had any experience working on building a canal. They started off as amateurs, but after the project was finished they helped install canals in many other parts of America.
The canal was sort of like the Internet of its day. Communication spread so quickly that new movements sprang up along side it. For example, the first national women’s convection took place at Seneca Falls on a subsidiary of the Erie Canal in 1848. The Mormon religion was invented nearby.
This historic site was the first part of the 19th Century Erie Canal to be preserved by the State of New York. If you go on a weekday, it is easy to park and to walk to the different sites. On summer weekends, there are often festivals here, so try to arrive early to get a space.
Before the Civil War, the Erie Canal was used to populate the Midwest. The western terminus was in Buffalo and from there settlers could board ships to take them to Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois. Because most of the travelers on the Erie Canal came from New York, New Jersey, and New England, it gave a distinctly Northeastern population to those newly settled states. Canal boats coming east on the canal carried massive amounts of products from the “Old Northwest” tying those states to anti-slavery centers in the East.
Beginning in the 1830s, escaped slaves began using the canal as a route to freedom. Communities along the canal like Buffalo, Syracuse, and Rochester set up committees to helped these refugees from slavery. The fact that transportation was much quicker along the canal than in other places inland also meant that these communities could correspond and organize across cities and towns. Frederick Douglass settled in Rochester and Harriet Tubman settle in Auburn near the canal and both could travel on it to spread their messages.
According to the Erie Canalway:
Established ties, maintained by 35 years of commerce and migration along the Erie Canal, meant that residents of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota (a region historically called the “Old Northwest”) generally supported union rather than secession. If the Erie Canal had not been constructed, most of the commerce of the Midwest would have followed the Mississippi to and from New Orleans, and social, economic, and political sympathies might have taken a different form.
The Erie Canal also made New York City the predominant American city. After eastbound trips on the canal, boats unloaded trade goods from the Midwest onto Hudson River schooners which took the products down to New York. They could be exported to Europe or sold elsewhere in the United States. In 1820 when the canal was opening, there were only 123,000 people living in the city. In 1830 the population had grown to 202,000 and by 1840 it expanded to 312,000.
By the time of the Civil War, new rail lines were competing with the Canal. The B&O Railroad was carrying more produce from the Midwest back to the East by 1860. However, after war broke out, trains had to be redirected to carrying soldiers and the B&O was insecure because it was so close to the Confederacy. When the Confederate army invaded Maryland in 1862 and Pennsylvania in 1863, they threatened the B&O. The Erie Canal was three hundred miles further north and very safe.
The state runs this park and their is a visitor center there. Rangers organize talks, tours and living history events. You can find out about them here.
I took a walk east of the crossing along the old canal route where I could see the stone lain 170 years ago.
All through the land you can still see Clinton’s Ditch making its mark on the ground.
Note: All color photos in this post were taken by Patrick Young except as noted.
