Most baby-boomers still have vivid recollections of watching barges and other large boats laden with cargo as they plied the water of the Erie Barge Canal in the 1940s and ’50s. As a youth, I can recall looking at the boats and wondering where the boats were going and what were they carrying.
Here in Lockport, we have the answers to a few of those questions in the form of navigation reports kept by the chief operator of Locks 34 and 35. The chart below gives a little idea of the number of boats that used the locks during its cargo heydays and the kinds of commodities that were carried. The information was reported in 1948 by George J. Eddy, chief operator in Lockport.
• Tugboats — 582.
• Light Barges — 67.
• Light Tankers — 229.
• Fuel oil and kerosene — 165.
• Gas — 63.
• Molasses — 64.
• Wheat — 62.
• Corn — three.
• Scrap iron — 95.
• Newsprint — 14.
• Ammonia — six.
• Sand — six..
• Peanuts — two.
• Tar — five.
• Pig iron — six.
• Yachts — 371.
• Other boats — 87.
• Total boats —1,842.
Chief Eddy’s report also added that 914 boats were traveling westbound and the balance of 928 were headed east. The lock tenders also reported that they operated the locks 1,035 times during the 1948 navigational season, which opened April 12 and closed Dec. 4. Comparing the total number of boats with the total number of lockings, it appears that on about half the occasions, more than one boat was being locked through at a time. It must have been a pretty busy and interesting sight to see.
The commercial importance of the Erie Canal began to erode from these numbers once the St. Lawrence Seaway project was completed in 1959. New York State had determined that they would not adapt the Erie Canal to allow the largest ocean going vessels to travel the canal. As a result, most of the commerce that had been using the canal switched to the Seaway. The same phenomenon sounded a death knoll for Buffalo as a great gateway city for transshipping.
Doug Farley is director of the Erie Canal Discovery Center. Contact him at 434-7433. The Erie Canal Discovery Center is open every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
