Renovations Update at Schoharie Crossing

We wanted to share these images of the work being done inside the Schoharie Crossing Visitor Center.

These are from a couple weeks ago but you can see the progress being made from our last update.  The floor has been covered to protect it as work continues.  Since these photos were taken: painting has been done and molding, as well as new baseboard heating casements, light fixtures, and switches installed.  Fixtures in the bathrooms have also been installed – along with a real snazzy wainscoting. 

As you can see, the first floor layout has changed dramatically.  We will welcome guests with a new traffic pattern, as well as a new exhibit and visitor experience.  The space is scheduled to re-open with the art exhibit Views & Vistas: the Natural and Build Environment of Schoharie Crossing on July 8^th during our annual Canal Days weekend.  In September, installation and opening of our new Erie Canal exhibit will occur.  More details soon on that!

Thank you to everyone in the Friends group, NYS Parks, Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor, and NYS Council on the Humanities for their work, their funds and their inspirational participation on this project!

Hope you can join us at several of our terrific events and programs scheduled for the 2017 season.  Follow us on Facebook and check out our NYS Parks Page for the most up to date information.

Take the wander through:

Revisioning the Present with an Old Lens: Tin Type Photography

Craig Murphy of Glens Falls Art has been developing something amazing the last few years!

As a photographer and artist, Murphy has started a mobile studio that he uses to keep alive the process of wet plate tintype photography.  More about this experience can be found on their website: www.glensfallsart.com

Here is a time-lapsed video of Murphy creating a tin type at the Yankee Hill Lock location of Schoharie Crossing on April 22nd, 2017. 




We are pretty excited that Glens Falls Arts has visited the site several times in the last few months to take images in this "old style" and bring to life the way the site looks now through a historic lens - literally. While the site has a collection of images dating to the 1860's of portions of what is now Schoharie Crossing, being able to revision the way the features look today is remarkable.

Our Wonderful Winter 2017 Newletter!

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Click to enlarge:

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Check out Schoharie Crossing Historical Site on Yelp

An Old Canawler on Packet Boat Luxury

   While looking into another subject, an article in The Daily Leader newspaper from October 2nd, 1897 sprang up.  The Daily Leader was a newspaper that served the Gloversville, Fulton County, NY area from 1887-1898. And while Gloversville was known globally for its fine leather and – of all things – gloves, republished articles of interest from all over are commonly seen in its pages.  The article that popped out was one such reprint; from the Rochester Post-Express.

   A reporter documents tales of the old Erie Canal from a locktender who had worked the canal for fifty years - first as a driver then as a tender.  The locktender of Lock 65 in Rochester, Daniel Hibbard, recalls the luxury of Packet Boat travel. 

(click to enlarge images for clearer reading)

Found in the Documents of the Assembly of the State of New York, Volume 6 from 1887, Hibbard was making a fine salary of $45 per month* in the decade before this article ran.

Not much else has been uncovered about this Dan Hibbard at the moment, but his recollections on Packet Boats of the Erie Canal are nonetheless pretty interesting as well as exciting!

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As a side note, Hibbard referenced the Wagner Car - another tie to local history as the former Webster Wagner House (as it was known) stood in Palatine Bridge, Montgomery County, NY. Just down Rt 5 in the Mohawk Valley from Schoharie Crossing.
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Lock No 65 north wall of the north -towpath- chamber alongside I-490 west in Rochester NY
-- Photograph by Fred Wehner August 2007:   Sourced from: www.eriecanal.org

*Estimated rate of conversion to value in 2017 dollars -   $1,105.