Can You Dig It?

By Don Rittner

Schenectady County and City Historian

Before 1825, Schenectady was a small city of 12,876 folks who lived out their lives performing a variety of jobs, many of which are no longer useful or even exist today. The city was well known for making brooms and a variety of bateaux (flat bottom boats) known as the “Schenectady Boat.” All that changed in 1825.

The Erie Canal, or as detractors called it, “Clinton’s Ditch,” after Governor Dewitt Clinton who promoted it, transformed Schenectady almost overnight. At first the city actually lost population – from 12, 876 in 1820 to 12,347 in 1830 – not a great drop, but nonetheless it took a while before the economic advantage of the canal was realized. New jobs sprung up replacing old professions. Ever hear of a fog-gang, jiggerboss, or Shipshape macaroni? I didn’t think so.

Call it serendipity or plain luck, but a few years earlier in 1819, the commercial district of Schenectady burned – some 160 buildings, along the Binnekill. Rather than rebuild there, many of the businesses decided to move up a few blocks to locate on this new transportation byway that was being built.

The Erie came into Schenectady via the Rexford Aquaduct and followed the river south, down what is now Erie Boulevard, making the bend to follow the Mohawk and turned west to leave Schenectady county at Princetown.

The many photographs of the canal during the 19th and early 20th centuries show a bustling commercial district lined with foundries, coal dealers, lumberyards and more. Hundreds of barges lined up along the “basin,” an area just south of State Street that was 100 feet wide, and which allowed “cannalers” to turn their boats around if need be. Special bridges had to be built to take people and goods over the canal, and the engineering feat of building the canal with blocks of stone and special design created an engineering nightmare that had to be overcome, and it was.

The canal made New York the Empire State for over a century. After the development of the Barge Canal system, which utilized the river system more, the inner canal that ran through the city became everyone’s garbage dump. By 1925, if you were a visitor to the city you would not have known it even existed- it was filled in and became Erie Boulevard, touted as the best lighted boulevard in the country.

All that will change this year. Starting this spring, you can join me in a special non-credit continuing education course called “Archeology of the Erie Canal.” The purpose of this course is to locate through documents, maps, and yes, even some digging, the entire length of the canal as it ran through the city. We will look for any vestiges of the canal system; its remaining artifacts, that we will then photograph, document, and as a final product nominate the entire find to the National Register of Historic Places.

There are designs being drawn up as you read this to completely redesign Erie Boulevard. We should attempt to honor the history of this transportation corridor by pointing out where we can see and appreciate the remaining vestiges of the Canal system. It is our hope that by using special signage and publications, and perhaps even some exposing of the canal buried features, the new Erie Boulevard will honor its past by incorporating it into its future.

If you want to join me on this project, you know what to do. The class size is restricted to 15 students.