Bank or Canal?

by Susan Zehnder, Education Director

This summer, groups of local students visited the Chemung Valley History Museum. They looked for museum artifacts and documents on a scavenger hunt; heard the true story of the building’s exploding vault (see The Exploding Vault published January 11, 2016); and toured our new exhibit Getting Around: Transportation in Chemung County. They also challenged their engineering skills by designing, building, and testing simple canal boats.

Sometimes an unexpected question or answer gives us to pause and think about history from a different perspective. One of those moments came as we talked about canal boats. When students heard Chemung Canal, many thought we were talking about the bank. But I’ll bet you back in the 1800s, every kid in the area knew about the Chemung Canal.

 

Drawing of Elmira including canal and boats

  

Brief history of the Canal

Inspired by the robust success of the Erie Canal to the north, plans were made to build a canal between Elmira and Watkins Glen. This would connect Elmira’s Chemung River to the Erie Canal, and tap into the growing wealth and prosperity the canal was beginning to bring to western New York. Supporters of the Chemung Canal petitioned the state legislature who granted them the  go-ahead in 1829. Construction on the canal began July 4, 1830. A fairly modest sum of $300,000 was allocated for the project, which in today’s money would be close to 9 million dollars. The proposed canal would be the least expensive canal to date.

 

Photograph of canal construction

It took three years for construction crews to dig the 20-mile canal. Like other canals, it was shaped like the letter ‘u’ and only four feet deep. It reached twenty-six feet across at the base or bottom of the canal and spanned forty-two feet across at the surface. Canals didn’t need to be deep, because traffic on them consisted of canal barges or flat-bottomed boats. Canals were also fairly narrow because tethered humans, horses or working mules pulled them on towpaths along shore. Initial cargo consisted of lumber and agricultural products from the area until increasing demand for Pennsylvania coal dictated the canal be deepened to accommodate larger boats. To do this, workman simply raised the side banks another two feet. Navigating the Chemung Canal took boats two and a half days. They had to travel through the forty-nine locks situated from Elmira to Watkins Glen.

Chemung canal pathway on right side of map

When active, the canal brought prosperity to the area. However, yearly rains damaged the canal, and by 1878 it fell into disrepair. While the canal had been one of the least expensive to build, it had become one of the most costly to maintain. By this time railroads were shipping goods and moving things faster and farther. The Chemung Canal was abandoned and parts of its rights-of-way sold off.

Barge boats at dock along Chemung Canal

Today, parts of the Catharine Valley Trail follow some of the original Chemung Canal towpaths, and the Clemens Center Parkway navigates another part of the canal’s pathway. Unlike the better known Erie Canal to the north, little physical evidence is left of the 20-mile long canal that started in Elmira. 

This summer and fall various Erie Canal events are taking place. The Erie Canal challenge https://eriecanalway.org/explore/challenge is promoting biking, hiking and walking along the pathway at distances of 15, 90, 180, and 360 miles. Although they don’t mention the Chemung Canal, their website does include where to rent kayaks and places to explore near Watkins Glen and Montour Falls. At both places you can see short parts of the Chemung Canal still visible. Mostly the Chemung Canal is a memory.

https://fingerlakessum.wordpress.com/2012/05/13/catherine-valley-trail-bike-from-watkins-glen-to-horseheads/

This map of the Catharine Valley Trail and link share more Chemung Canal hiking and biking opportunities in the area to explore yourself.

The Bank

The Chemung Canal Bank Company started operations in 1833, the same year the nearby canal opened. The very first bank statement issued ten days after opening showed the bank had assets of $318,525 and deposits of over $10,000. A year later, the bank moved into its first permanent home, on East Water Street, now the site of the Chemung Valley History Museum. One of the bank’s founders, an entrepreneur and financier by the name of John Arnot, had emigrated from Scotland and settled in Elmira. He took over as bank president in 1852, and the bank changed its name to the Chemung Canal Trust Company in 1903.

Former Chemung Canal Bank, now home of The Chemung Valley History Museum

It’s easy to assume everyone knows these things, but for people new to the area-which if we think about it includes young students, history needs to be shared. Keeping that memory fresh is what we do here at the Museum.

Steaming Up the Chemung

by Erin Doane, Curator

In the 1890s, a steam-powered sternwheeler named Bertha Taylor would cruise up and down the Chemung River ferrying passengers from a small dock at the foot of Columbia Street in Elmira to Rorick’s Glen and Hoffman Island. On July 4, 1891, the boat made the trip every two hours starting at 9 o’clock in the morning. The cost of the roundtrip fare was just 20 cents.

The steamer Bertha Taylor on the Chemung River

Bertha Taylor was owned and operated by Isaac Rood Taylor (b. April 16, 1851 - d. December 2, 1921). He named the steamer after his oldest daughter, Bertha, who was born around 1883. It was not a very large boat at only 20 feet long, but the shallow river would not have been able to accommodate a bigger craft. Taylor was captain, purser, engineer, mate, and pilot of the boat, and was fondly referred to as “Captain Taylor,” “Admiral Taylor,” and even “Commodore Taylor.” 

Bertha Taylor just below Mount Zoar’s Mosquito Glen

The little steamer was mentioned in the Star-Gazette on July 23, 1892. A party of about 15 young men and women had planned to take a moonlight cruise up the river, but when they arrived at the dock to board the boat, storm clouds were rolling in. Instead of going out on the river, they decided to hop on the local electric streetcar and take a ride. At about 9 o’clock in the evening, the storm came crashing down on them with lightning and torrential rain. It knocked out the power to the trolley line and the young people found themselves stranded near Eldridge Park for nearly an hour. Their mothers, thinking they were out on the Bertha Taylor during the tremendous storm, “suffered all the terrible suspense that only mothers can experience.”

Bertha Taylor towing a line of flat-bottomed boats

Bertha Taylor made it into the newspaper again on September 16, 1892. This time, it was reported that the steamer had sunk in about five feet of water between Columbia and Davis Streets. It was easy enough to salvage the small boat from the shallow river, but the limited depth of the water was sometimes a problem for Taylor. When the weather was particularly dry, his boat would occasionally get stuck. The men on board would either have to climb out and wade to the shore or help push the small craft into deeper waters. 

Bertha Taylor

Taylor kept operating his steamer on the Chemung River until the enterprise stopped being profitable. Then it is said that he “gave the boat to a man he had a grudge against.” I wasn’t able to find the exact date that he stopped running the Bertha Taylor, but by 1910, an article in the Star-Gazette was asking if people remembered when Rood Taylor had his small boat on the river.