Black River Canal

By Edward P. Fynmore and Harney J. Corwin

Black River Canal documents in images how a manmade river transformed a region. This upper New York State canal was an improbable engineering success. In 1825, DeWitt Clinton proposed construction of a canal that would link the Erie Canal at Rome with the Black River at Lyons Falls. The idea was well received, but the obstacles were great. The canal would have to run uphill. In the end, the 35-mile overland canal required a record 109 locks to negotiate a rise and fall of 1,079 feet. Construction was authorized in 1836, and against all odds, the Black River Canal was fully operational in 1855. The canal brought a measure of prosperity to an isolated region of the state and promoted development of a wood products industry that continues to this day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Jul 27, 2005
• ISBN: 9781439616208

Edward P. Fynmore

Edward P. Fynmore, a lifelong resident of Boonville, owns an art gallery and heads a group dedicated to building a Black River Canal museum. Harney J. Corwin, also a Boonville native, holds a doctorate in applied linguistics and sells antique nature prints. For Black River Canal, they selected photographs from private collections, the New York State Museum, local and county historical societies, and newspaper archives.

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Weseloh.

INTRODUCTION

With the Erie Canal completed in 1825, Gov. DeWitt Clinton proposed construction of a northern canal that would link the Erie with Lake Ontario. This canal was to make use of the Black River, which rises in the central Adirondacks and flows north, dividing the Tug Hill Plateau on the west from the Adirondacks on the east. Clinton argued that a Black River canal would serve two purposes. First, it would open up the sparsely populated North Country to commerce. It was widely recognized that this isolated region of New York possessed vast forests, iron deposits, and fertile lands ready for exploitation. Second, a Black River canal would tap the region’s abundant rivers and lakes. A reliable source of water would be essential for any expansion of the Erie Canal.

In 1836, the state legislature authorized work on the Black River Canal. Although the proposed canal would only be 35 miles long, its construction presented engineers with a daunting challenge. The channel was to proceed north from Rome along the Mohawk River to the junction of the Lansing Kill. The canal was then to proceed north through the rugged Lansing Kill Gorge, rising 693 feet to its summit at Boonville. This so-called alpine section of the canal would prove the most difficult. The canal had to be carved out of shale. This soft, brittle rock not only holds water poorly but also lends itself to the formation of sinkholes that might cause a wall or even the bottom of the canal to disappear. In places, the towpath, which formed one wall of the canal, had to be erected on precipitous hillsides high above the Lansing Kill. Here, freshets threatened to wash out the canal and landslides threatened to bury it. At other places, where the gorge was narrow, the canal and Lansing Kill ran side by side, separated only by the towpath. From Boonville, construction was somewhat less problematic. The canal would continue north to Lyons Falls on the Black River, descending 386 feet over a foundation of limestone and metamorphic rock. From Lyons Falls to its terminus at Carthage, a distance of some 42 miles, the Black River itself was to be improved for slack-water navigation. Beyond Carthage, the river was too rough for large boats.

Contracts for the entire canal had been let by 1840, but work was suspended between 1842 and 1847 when the legislature passed a Stop and Tax Law. Nonetheless, in the spring of 1850, the southern section of the canal between Rome and Boonville opened. In the following year, the canal was open as far as Port Leyden, and by 1855, the entire canal was operational. The Black River Canal was an engineering marvel. Though only 35 miles long, it required 109 locks to negotiate a rise and fall of 1,079 feet. The much longer Erie Canal stretched 363 miles but required only 83 locks over a rise and fall of 692 feet. Between Rome and Boonville—a distance of 25 miles—70 locks were built, and between Boonville and Lyons Falls—a distance of 10 miles—another 39 were constructed. Built largely by Irish immigrants, who were paid a paltry $17.50 for a quarter-year’s work, the locks were fashioned out of locally available limestone, much of it quarried at nearby Sugar River. Many of the locks are still extant today, including a five-lock flight in the Lansing Kill Gorge and two four-lock combinations just north of Boonville. Besides the locks, various dams, aqueducts, bridges, bulkheads, waste weirs, sluices, culverts, and lock houses had to be built.

As construction on the overland canal went forward, the Black River north of Lyons Falls was canalized—deepened and stabilized with dams, jetties, pilings, and two more locks. Whereas draft animals towed boats on the overland canal, side-wheel steamers were used to tow barges on the Black River. The completed canal cost $3.5 million, $1 million above the original estimate and nearly half of what the Erie Canal had cost. The final cost included a 10-mile feeder between Forestport and Boonville, which would supply water to both the Black River and Erie Canals. When this source of water proved inadequate, the state built an extensive impoundment system, damming nearly every river and lake in the region. This system had a holding capacity of four billion cubic feet of water.

The Black River Canal brought a wave of prosperity to the North Country. Canal towns suddenly had busy waterfronts with new businesses springing up to meet canallers’ needs. Boatbuilders and shipping agents were in demand. The state hired lock tenders, and it recruited maintenance crews to keep the canal in repair. For the first time, the vast forests of the western Adirondacks were