Wayne Sentinel, Palmyra
Friday, April 23, 1830
Canal Navigation.
The Canal opened on the 20th inst. and the packet and line-boats have commenced their regular trips. Business will now revive and our villages on the great Erie Canal will feel the beneficial effects of the opening of navigation. Already we perceive the change in our own village. Enterprise, bustle and activity are every where to be seen. The villages on the canal have a decided advantage over our inland villages, and are fast outstripping them in business and increasing population. In the village of Palmyra, as flourishing in as any between Albany and Buffalo, an astonishing change has taken place within a very few years. The location of the Wayne County Bank at this place, must be attended with the most happy consequences in regard to the future growth and respectable standing of this city of the desert.
The Erie Canal Advantage
Fatal Accident at Lockville
Wayne Sentinel, Palmyra
Tuesday, Dec. 6 1931
Melancholy and fatal accident.
Col. Daniel Hendee of Lockville*, in this county, and formerly of this village, was drowned in the canal or lock, at that place, on the night of the 29th ult. The circumstances were as follows: A boat had got entangled in the lock, at a late hour of the night, and Col. Hendee who had the charge of the lock, was assisting to extricate the boat.- He was suddenly missed, but no particular alarm was felt for is fate, until some minutes had elapsed, when a fruitless search was made for him both in the lock and through the neighborhood. The search was renewed early in the morning, when his lifeless body was found in the canal a short distance below the lock. The supposition is that he must have fallen into the lock while engaged as above stated, and drowned instantly- his body going out of the lock with the boat. Col Hendee has left a number of orphan children, and a large circle of friends and connexions to deplore his loss. His funeral was attended on Friday last.
*Newark
Termination of the Erie Canal
Wayne Sentinel, Palmyra
June 15,1825
Termination of the Erie Canal. On the evening of the 2nd inst. The gates at the foot of the Black Rock Harbor were opened, and Lake Erie, for the first time commenced feeding the western extremity of the Erie Canal, which is now open the whole distance to Albany, excepting the interruption at Lockport. On Friday, suitable arrangements were made for celebrating this event, and the following particulars we copy from the Black Rock Gazette:
"On Friday morning at 9 o’clock the committee of arrangements for Black Rock, accompanied by the canal commissioner (Mr. Bouck) the engineers (Messrs. Roberts, Hurd and Root,) and about 50 gentlemen and Ladies, embarked in the large boat Superior, which lay in the river on the outside of the harbour, and had been handsomely fitted up, decorated with flags and provided with music and refreshments. After passing ten miles down the river they entered the mouth of the Tonnewanta creek and at half past eleven while a salute was firing by the inhabitants of the Tonnewanta, ascended, through the lock at that place into the canal, when they were met and joined by the committees and other citizens from Lockport, Pendleton and Tonnewanta who had respectively provided themselves with Packet-Boats neatly fitted and decorated for the occasion. After interchanging congratulations and partaking of some refreshments, the whole party in five boats, got under way at half past one o’clock for Black Rock. At three o’clock they arrived at and entered the harbor where they were met and cheered by a large concourse of citizens formed in handsome order, along the bridge dam, and ship lock, and by four new Barges belonging to the Steam-Boats, filled with ladies and gentlemen. The whole of the boats then moved in handsome style about a mile up the beautiful harbor, under a national salute and reiterated cheerings from the people on shore and landed at N. Still’s wharf. A procession was her formed under the direction of J. L. Barton Esp. Marshall of the day, and marched to the Steam Boat Hotel where about 150 of them set down to a very handsome dinner, furnished by Mr. Thayer. The day was marked by great hilarity and good feeling, and not the least incident occurred to mar its pleasures.
This new line of canal which winds along the margin of the Niagara for nine miles between this and Tonnewanta is remarkably beautiful, having been laid out with great taste and judgment and faithfully executed. IT is wider and deeper than are the other sections, for the purpose of throwing forward from the lake into the basin formed by the bed of the Tonnewanta, an ample supply of water for the whole line west of Rochester.
Damage to the Northern Canal
Lyons Advertiser
Friday, July 26,1822
The Northern Canal- A singular fatality seems to attend the progress of the Northern Canal. Last year the destruction of the dam across the Hudson at Fort Edward, and an unaccountable error in determining some of the levels delayed its completion, and prevented its becoming useful for that season. By the following from the Albany Gazette it will be seen that the patience of Northern brethren is again most severely put to the test:
We extremely regret to learn that the late rains have done very great damage to the northern canal, by breaking its banks carrying away bridges &c, &c. and that the great dam construction in the Hudson river at Port Edward as a feeder has been again materially injured. Upwards of 70 person were on it at the time it gave way aiding and assisting in putting in a situation to resist life freshet. Fortunately and providentially, the part at which gave way moved only about six feet; had it been carried off, not one of the 70 would probably have escaped with his life. Many of the rafts which had remained in the canal since the spring, were broken up, and carried may rods on the land and otherwise damaged. The quantity of lumber in the canal, between Whitehall and Fort Ann was estimated to be worth 15 to 20,000 dollars, and upwards of 100 persons having the charge of it, have been encamped on the banks of the canal for nearly two months, waiting for a rise of water to enable them to raft it to market. All hopes of being enabled to do it the present season, we fear must now be abandoned.