GPS- 43.044061, -76.038435
The canal divided communities; bridges connected them.
Bridges were important piece of the canal. Without them, getting from the north side of the canal to the south side of the canal would have been tricky...requiring ferries or fairies depending on how far from the next town you were😎. They were integral pieces of the canal that allowed commerce and daily living to go on with a ditch of water running straight through town.
There were several types of bridges. Some were only for foot traffic. Some were for light rural use. And yet others were were more complex: allowing trolleys and heavy local traffic through cities to cross. At the the confluence of the Fayetteville Feeder and the Canal, you can see the remnants of the ramp that led up to the footbridge that once crossed there.
and the other side where the stonework has fallen into the canal
In this postcard pic, you can see the footbridges on the towpath.
Initially, bridges were often simple and wooden; later, they would be made of more durable materials like metal and have gears to operate them. The original bridges only needed to be high enough off the canal to allow a packet boat to clear it. But as boats became larger and taller, the need for higher bridges, especially in cities.
Some of the first patented bridges to be constructed of more durable materials were the Whipple Truss Bridges. Squire Whipple designed a durable Bridge out of iron that could be cheaply duplicated and installed along the canal. Only a couple extant examples exist today. More about them here:
A later style of bridge would be the Cooper's Tubular Arch Bridge we see here. Designed by a canal engineer, the Tubular Arch Bridge would replace many of the Whipple ones along the canal. More about the Cooper's Tubular Arch Bridge. More about the bridge here:
This Cooper's Tubular Arch Bridge is to original to this spot. One of the easiest ways to spot this is that the stonework, upon closer inspection is just not quite right. This one originally crossed a creek in Canajoharie.
It was rescued, brought here, and restored. But the stonework just isn't the same as the old stuff, close, but not the same. They did reuse old pieces of dressed stone.
Here in this pic of Downtown Syracuse, you can see iron bridge crossing the canal in Clinton Square.
Other styles of bridges were built further west in Syracuse. One of the problems in a city was the "Low Bridge, Everybody Down" was a constant danger to canalers in cities where bridges could cross quite frequently along the canal. So the low bridge in Clinton Square was replaced with a swing bridge! It could be swung out of the way to allow boats to pass, then swung back into place to allow carriages and the trolley to pass.
This one was replaced with a Lift Bridge that could be lifted out of the way to allow taller boats to pass but also allow pedestrians to cross regardless of the bridges position.
And over on the Oswego Canal, about a block away, a Bascule Bridge was installed to keep traffic flowing. More about that style bridge.
But once the canal was abandoned. The bridges were removed. The ramps to the bridges were scraped down to street level, and almost all traces of the bridges that once connected communities were erased.
With bridges across the canal, people could get to where they needed to go---the unsung heroes of travel! When the Erie Canal was replaced with the Barge Canal, bridges were removed and ditches filled in, and at-grade crossings made it easier for cars to get to where they needed to go in an ever faster moving world. But the slow steady pace of our imaginary canal boat, as we go down the towpath, continues on to its next stop...
No comments:
Post a Comment