Page "Chenango Canal" Paragraph 19

“ When I was five, I began driving canal boat teams on the towpath pulling the boats.

Such work was common to boys of that age.

I can remember driving a team hour after hour up the towpath for 20 miles when I was five.

When I was tired, I ’ d rest part of my weight on the towrope ; it seemed to rest me.

My father was at the helm.

But when I became 10, I took my turn at the helm and a younger brother drove the teams.

Whole families lived on the canal boats.

I was the oldest of 21 children.

We ’ d go to Oswego to load lumber for Bartlett ’ s Mill in Binghamton.

Hamilton was the highest point and where the canal froze up first in the fall.

Often in the fall as many as 82 boats loaded with lumber would be tied up.

When the freeze was just beginning, Bartlett would bring up several teams, hitch them to a bunch of stumps and drag through the canal to break the ice so boats could get lumber to his mill.

Canalling was a varied business.

For instance, we ’ d take a lot of firkins and get them filled along the way with butter for the merchants.

We ’ d boat grain up to the big stills at Hamilton, Pecksport, Bouckville and Solsville and bring back loads of whiskey which the merchants sold or shipped away.

We only did the boating.

Whiskey then sold for 25 cents a gallon.

It was a busy canal in those days.

Three years before the canal closed, about 50 years ago ( from 1927 ), 120 boats carried coal .”