The Erie Canal boat ride opens today and we are going on the first boat ride of opening day. We are very excited! We had to drive about a ½ hour north from Niagara Falls to get to Lockport. Thankfully when we arrived it was not crowded even though it was opening day. Our boat was a cute little wooden boat about 20 feet long, with a open sides and a canvas covering.
The Erie Canal was built between 1817 and 1825 and became American’s most successful and influential public works project. It is 363 miles long and was the first all-water link between the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes. New York’s Governor, DeWitt Clinton tirelessly promoted the project even though New York thought he was crazy. Many skeptical people nick named it as “Clinton’s Ditch” because they thought it could never be done, but Clinton proved them wrong! It was 4 feet deep and 40 feet wide, cutting through fields, forests, rocks, cliffs, swamps, and it overcame hills with 83 lift locks. It was the engineering marvel of the 19th Century. When planning for the canal, there wasn’t a single school of engineering in the United States, so this massive project served as the nation’s first practical school of civil engineering. For eight long years the men battle the we, heat, and cold, as the cut down trees and dug mostly by hand and animal power, mile after mile. They created equipment to uproot trees and pull stumps and developed hydraulic cement that hardened under water. They used hand tools and black powder to blast rocks. The Erie Canal fulfilled Clinton’s ideas that New York would be America’s most prominent state, and would generate major wealth for itself and the nation. The Erie Canal carried more westbound immigrants than any other transportation system and these immigrants spread the nation with different languages, customs, practices, and religions.
Lake Erie is 570 feet higher than the Hudson River at Albany. The original Canal had 83 stone-walled locks that lifted and lowered boats in a staircase. Now the Canal has 35 locks. Sixteen locks were required to climb out of the deep Hudson Valley and then they climbed steadily until the final barrier west at Lockport where the twin, five-lock stair cases, called “the Lockport Flight” climbed the steep Niagara embankment, which is where we went on our boat trip. Finally a deep rock was cut and opened the water path to Lake Erie.
Our boat ride began at the town of Lockport and we immediately went into the 2 locks that replaced the “the Lockport Flight” of five.
It was fascinating watching the water flow into the lock and to see the boat rise up, in one lock and then the next. After going through the locks the captain told us information on the history of the locks and canal. After cruising for a while we went under a bridge that was 399 feet wide – the second widest bridge in the world . . . I’ve never seen anything like it.
The captain talked about the foot bridge where the donkeys would walk to pull the boats from 1825 to the 1860’s when they used steam. We went back through the lock, down the canal, and under 2 lift bridges (not draw bridges that split apart, but a bridge that lifts straight up for boats to go underneath. Today mostly recreational boats go through the canal and it will take at least a week to go from Lake Erie to the Hudson River camping along the way. It was a very fun experience to ride the boat & I’m so glad that we waited 2 days to do it.
Next we went to downtown Lockport to the visitor center where they had a fabulous hands on museum of the Erie Canal. The kids loved it! Next door they had the beautiful First Presbyterian Church with the famous original Tiffany stain glass windows. Unfortunately the church wasn’t open but we got to look from the outside.
In the visitors center, they had information about an Underground Railroad museum and we inquired about it since we were going to miss the one in Cincinnati (it’s closed on the Sunday that we were going to be there). It was on the way back to Niagara Falls so we decided to stop there. It was an adorable old farm called Murphy’s Orchard. It had a beautiful old colonial style brick house that was built in the 1840’s.
The bricks were all made on this farm. The owner, Mrs. Murphy, has now has turned the front parlor, living room, study, and dining area of the home into an adorable tea room. She also uses the land still to grow all kinds of fruits and vegetables and then she turns them into amazing preserves. We were in awe when we walked into the tea room and saw all the yummy choices of preserves.
The lady at the desk in the tea room took us to the barn where the Underground Railroad was and told us all about the history of this farm. It was a very small museum but it was the original site and was made a National Historical Site several years ago. They had a video for us to watch about the Underground Railroad and actual pictures from this spot, and the main thing that the kids learned was that the Underground Railroad was not underground and it was not a railroad. It was free men and women secretly helping the blacks escape from slavery. It was called underground because it was very secretive and the railroad represented the different types of transportation – on foot, by boat, by train, etc. The slaves hid in their cellar basement that had no windows and was barely a 10 x10 foot space, and they would stay there for months. Eventually they would escape into freedom. It was awesome to see a non-commercialized, free place to teach the kids about the Underground Railroad.
The other half of the barn was another area that Mrs. Murphy had turned into a little store for all her amazing preserves. She had combinations that I had never heard of so we just had to buy some . . . . watermelon jam, blueberry/raspberry jam, peach butter, kiwi jam, loganberry jam, pear spice butter. . . . we had a hard time choosing, but I think we bought one of something we had never tried before. What a wonderful treasure that we found this adorable farm.
When we left Murphy’s Orchard we drove straight north for about 5 minutes and we were at Lake Ontario. We had the kids get out on go out on the pier of the small park we stopped at to see how large it is! Now we can officially say the we have been at the four borders of the United States – Pacific Ocean, Mexico, Atlantic Ocean, and now Lake Ontario.
We drove back on the north, west route to Niagara Falls and passed through 2 adorable old historic towns, with beautiful houses right on Lake Ontario and the Niagara River. We were debating how much the houses might cost on the water, and our police friend, Jessie Mack, told us that they were about $250,000 – hard to believe they are so cheap, yet on water and beautiful!! Hummm . . . do I think I could live here??
We stopped at Old Fort Niagara which was an active military post built in 1726 by the French. Britain gained control of the Fort in 1759, during the French & Indian War, and held the post throughout the American Revolution. They were force, by a treaty, to yield it to the United States in 1796. It was recaptured by the British in 1813, and then surrendered to the United States for a second time in 1815, at the end of the war of 1812. Even though we were too late to go into the fort, it was beautiful on the outside, built to look like a French Castle.
We drove back to the police station by the Horseshoe Falls to find our police friend Jessie Mack to say goodbye and to give him some yummy jam that we bought at Murphy’s Orchid. When we got to the station, he was there, and the kids were thrilled to see him. He called us his ‘ Extended family” and was really happy to see us. He told us that he had to take the guy last night threatening to jump to the hospital and that he was safe – we were happy to hear that. He took us for another ride to the 3 sisters islands and we exchanged email information and then said goodbye. He was an awesome man and we were blessed to have met him!!
No comments:
Post a Comment