Sam Patch

“Let’s hope the boat don’t sink,” I said to no one in particular as we pulled away from our dock in Pittsford on the Erie Canal.
We were riding the Sam Patch, a reconstruction of a passenger canal packet, except steel (packets were wood), powered by a diesel engine, not a mule.
My brother from northern DE had come to visit. He got Sam Patch tickets online.
“Sure,” I’d said. “My sister and brother-from-Boston did the Sam Patch with me long ago, and you guys didn’t.”
The canal we were on was no longer the original canal, which was only four feet deep.
We were on what used to be called the “State Barge Canal,” the third improvement, now 17 feet deep and much wider.
The original canal went through Rochester, and crossed the Genesee (“jen-uh-SEE”) River on a heavy aqueduct. That aqueduct still exists with a street bridge atop it. Rochester’s subway used the old canal bed as its right-of-way.
That subway closed in 1956, and the canal bed east out of Rochester now holds an expressway.
You can see remnants of an old canal lock.
The original Erie Canal opened in 1825; Buffalo to the Hudson River at Albany.
The Erie Canal was a public work, dug at taxpayer expense. Many New Yorkers were aghast, and called it “Clinton’s Ditch” — the governor at that time was DeWitt Clinton.
As soon as it opened, shipping costs tumbled about 95%.
A feeder canal down Genesee Valley south of Rochester opened in 1840, so vast quantities of grain could be shipped to Rochester, then east on the Erie.
The Genesee Valley was our nation’s first breadbasket, and Rochester became known as the “flour city.”
It could be said New York City became the east coast’s premier port because of the Erie Canal.
The Erie Canal was a public work (dread!), but vastly succeeded.
The canal movement was quickly scotched by railroading, which was quicker and didn’t freeze. Now we have an Interstate Highway System, government subsidization of trucking.
But the Erie still exists, used primarily for recreational boating — including canal cruises like Sam Patch.
At first we headed for Lock 32. Lake Erie is almost 600 feet above the Hudson, so the canal is climbing.
The original canal had many more locks, since the average lift was 10-12 feet.
Lock 32 would raise us 25.1 feet.


Into the lock chamber. (The gates leak.)

We cruised into the lock, the rear gates closed, and the lock-chamber slowly filled with water from the upper level, raising us 25.1 feet.


On to the next lock.

Equalized to the higher level, the front gates opened, so we could cruise to the next lock, 1.13 nautical miles west.


Back east into Lock 32.

We turned right around to return down to the Pittsford level.
The original canal through Rochester diverted just east of Lock 32; it was marked by a buoy.
Through Pittsford we cruised east toward Bushnell’s Basin, a low area that had to be crossed  with the canal on a high fill.
Residential areas are beside the canal, but below it.
In 1974, a contractor digging a sewage tunnel under the canal  broke the canal embankment causing flooding in that residential area. Homes were damaged or lost entirely.


Control-gates.

Which happens to be why drop-gates were installed long ago. So parts of the canal could be blocked off and drained  for repairs.
Back toward Pittsford we cruised.



The bridge in the picture is State Route 31. A railroad once crossed the canal near the repair gates. You can see abutments.
Our cruise was about two hours; speed-limit 10 mph.
A train passed nearby doing about 50.
Railroads are what skonked canals.
And now we drive to the canal cruise, not horse-and-buggy.
We lucked out. Our cruise was at 2 p.m., but radar had rain coming. The 4 p.m. cruise would get drenched.
We rode the whole time outside in the front of the boat.
Driving home the skies parted: rain to the east, sun to the west. A strong rainbow appeared. I photographed it. That rainbow was only about 100 yards from my car.



• “Sam Patch” was  a long-ago local daredevil who twice jumped Niagara Falls. but lost his life trying to jump the High Falls of the Genesee River through Rochester.
• The “Genesee River” is a fairly large river that runs south-to-north across Western New York, runs through Rochester, including over falls, and empties into Lake Ontario.
• All photos are by BobbaLew with his dreaded iPhone camera. (I’m impressed.)