Tales from the Towpath: salt

Showing posts with label salt. Show all posts

Saturday, April 29, 2023

Stop 17- Solvay/Geddes Townline: James Geddes, Rock, and Salt

GPS- 43.064734, -76.217098

Now that the Empire Trail and the Erie Canal meet up once again,

What DOES...

Does this spot have to do with the Erie Canal?

First the name of Geddes is etched into the land, quite literally and figuratively...

...but so does the industry that changed the landscape:

combining salt and rock and making the Solvay Process

a profitable industry for over 100 years.

Lets Start with James Geddes, for without whom, the route, that we know duall as

"Clinton's Ditch" and Erie Canal,

might have taken a different course.

And in case you are wondering, over the years the pronunciation of his name Geddes (pronounced "Ged-dis" today around here) has morphed. In his day it was pronounced like Gettys (think the battlefield Gettysburg). He is related to those Gettys.

Spelling didn't matter much back then, just penmanship.

When the military plots were divvied out,

James Geddes built his house in what is now the town of Camillus.

Even the location around this spot was named for him, Geddesburgh.

The Erie Canal brought commerce to the area and his settling here was worthy of honoring.

Even today a the Town and Geddes, Geddes St, and Geddes Brook still retain his name.

More about James Geddes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Geddes_(engineer)?fbclid=IwAR0PWi1dzJvGsAbefXebomTeHErrkSw57t8XfX0n9j5eDBTrcY_2LehO5C8

And he was quite the successful businessman like Robert Gere

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/17040117/james-geddes?fbclid=IwAR3c-75Crhz4TLn0BjGqB_Mi2fwerFus0tARadeuxB4zruCSvnFHQt690ok

But the canal only tells part of his story, he also started some salt works along the canal. His son carried on the business and others his father had started including his hand in the local salt industry that once surrounded Onondaga Lake

The salt produced here along with the other salt produced around the lake could be then loaded on barges to points west in Lake Erie or east, eventually landing in NYC

The second important commodity of the area was rock, limestone to be specific. Limestone of good quality could be cut nearby at what would become Split Rock to build and enlarge the canal...this aqueduct over Onondaga Creek used Limestone from Split Rock

But how did it get from the hills to the canal...enter Midler, Burnet, Elliott, Putnam (recognize the street names?) and others who built a shortline railroad that ended at the canal in Geddes by Harbor Brook...more about their endeavor...

an early railroad!

https://cnymod.blogspot.com/2013/12/railroad-hauled-stone-for-erie-canal.html?fbclid=IwAR1vKG0qrxwhfEoHFKrezeyAzAJ6cxsS5ExbL0ROJu_eGhinO9DGBOQklWQ

Then Split Rock became a quarry for a larger endeavor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_Rock,_New_York?fbclid=IwAR16zp_2d35kp40J2q_BAwS0WPQJPsKQMXaOAkG_Cl0cD0C02A74P7T_wrU

Enter the Solvay Process, which eventually lent its name to the area surrounding the plant...it needed Limestone and Salt and water to make Soda Ash

more about the Solvay Process:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solvay_process?fbclid=IwAR18K9CoDHLbkvvkBAxWyXBHYTmzWvriO79V0nw1Di9CALnr9vdhcvB5cvM

The Erie Canal went right through the middle of the Solvay Process plant!

It's still visible in the the layout of the compound today.

A biproduct of the Solvay Process was Baking Soda,

produced nearby at Church and Dwight.

This became a staple found in most kitchens under the name

"Arm and Hammer"

Solvay Process and Church and Dwight were steady industries that

provided generations with good paying jobs.

However their legacy is quite murky due to dumping their industrial wasted in such large quantities it formed the hills where the parking lots are for the NY State Fair.

They, along with many other industries, dumped their waste in Onondaga Lake.

When the canal close, they filled in the sections up to the Syracuse city line with industrial waste. They filled in the canal west of the plant with waste.

It has been an ongoing process bringing

this land and its lake back from the brink and restoring the habitat.

With the collaborative work of scientists, engineers, and politicians,

the cleanup work has made Onondaga Lake cleaner

than it has been in over 150 years!

And after many years, the eagles have returned!

While the Erie Canal here can never come back, the land and the lake can!

This are is proof we can learn from our mistakes

and work together to fix them for the next generation.

But we can't linger here much longer, we're just passing through with our load. As we give a nod to the Geddes-man himself, without whom we wouldn't be on this waterway, we press on from here to our next stop...

Friday, April 28, 2023

Stop 13- Oswego Canal Confluence: Getting to Port

GPS- 43.050933, -76.149480

While it looks like an ordinary intersection today, this intersection was integral to the Erie Canal.

It didn't take long to realize that to get goods to port more easily, lateral canals connecting to the main Erie Canal would be a great way to even more efficiently move goods...

Enter: The Oswego Canal! Quite Literally around this curve!

In this photo you can see a boat exiting the Weighlock Building

and angling to enter the Oswego Canal.

Because Oswego is roughly northwest of Syracuse, the course of the canal heads in that direction. It also followed the curve of the land in Syracuse around a hill, next to marshlands, along side Onondaga Lake, connection to the Seneca River before following, nearly parallel, the Oswego River to port. From there boats could off-load cargo before and restock before heading back to Syracuse. On this map, the Erie Canal is green and the Oswego Canal is magenta.

Why didn't boats just use the rivers?

First, when canals were first proposed, boats were not mechanized and needed an exterior source such as wind, oars or animals to move a boat along.

Second, most rivers were not navigable due to the topography of NY. The Mohawk was navigable by small boat to Rome, but needed a "bateaux carry" to Wood Creek to head west. Not a great way to transport goods. Many rivers like the Seneca and Oswego had rapids that were not navigable. Canals became the next logical choice in shipping by boat.

In this pic, you can see the Oswego Canal next to the Seneca River.

So back to Syracuse...when this triangle of a land was created by making the Oswego Canal connect with an entrance angled east and one angled west. Canal boats could not turn easily and this angle allowed them to easily head in the direction they were going with less maneuvering.

This area in 1834, just before the enlargements of the canal began.

A side note, the area labeled "basin" along the bottom edge is where City Hall is today.

Bridges, we have already discussed, connected the towpath for the mules and driver.

As time went on, the area changed as well

By 1850, the Weighlock Building extant today, was in place at the corner of Montgomery and Water Streets. In this birds-eye map from 1868, we can clearly see the Oswego Canal and its confluence with the Erie Canal...and a canal boat on it!

By 1874, commerce all along the Erie Canal and Oswego Canal is in full swing. Boat captains were commissioned with taking goods to ships that could sail Lake Ontario and the St Lawrence via the Oswego Canal.

(A winter view when nothing was moving along the Erie Canal)

Goods, in turn, could arrive on ship and fill the shops all along the canal.

Lateral canals were a win-win economically.

The canal also went along the east side of the salt flats where boiling down salt water in "boiling blocks" were slowly giving way

to the more profitable "solar salt" sheds in what is now the Inner Harbor.

Barrels of salt could be loaded up and either head to Albany and the ports of NYC or to Buffalo and head to the regions beyond the Great Lakes or it could head to port, destined for places in Canada or Overseas.