A Salty Occurrence: Barge Names Reveal A Bigger Story
A Salty Occurrence: Barge Names Reveal A Bigger Story
By: David Brooks
The International Salt Company was founded in 1901 and by 1934 it held several smaller salt companies and mines as subsidiaries. Throughout the 20th-Century it bought and sold several salt mines around the Great Lakes, particularly around Detroit, Michigan. Interestingly, the salt mined from them has primarily been used for de-icing of roads, making its connection to the Motor-City that much more interesting. The International Salt Company still sells products to the public though it now operates as a subsidiary of K + S Chile S.A. Their principle focus is still on winter weather products and Bloomberg states that the company continues to provide “deicing salt products that include Blizzard Wizard ice melt, a blended ice-melt formulation for use by snow-fighting professionals for melting ice and snow…”
What is also really interesting are the names of the barges in the article, the “George Bleistein” and “Col. J.H. Horton.” J.H. Horton of Buffalo served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the 141st Pennsylvania Infantry during the American Civil War and by 1900 had business as well as political interests in Michigan and Pennsylvania coal as well as various other enterprises such as the Buffalo based Wright Taper Bearing Company. He may have also had some connection to the Tionesta Valley Railroad Company in PA as a native of that state. His work with the Lehigh Valley Coal Company assuredly put him into connection with the Lehigh Valley Railroad.
As an active member of the Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R), the social and political organization of Civil War veterans and the Society of the Army of the Potomac, his network was certainly wide. During one particular G.A.R. Encampment Fundraiser he offered a free ton of coal to the highest seller of tickets and in 1896 he offered the same to any family who had a child younger than two years old who could most clearly pronounce Lehigh Valley Coal Company during the Tompkins County Fair Baby Contest.* He was also a speculator of gold in Alaska as an investor and president of the New York Metal and Reduction Company in 1902 during the Nome gold-rush.
The canal barge was not the only vessel named for the Colonel. A steamer out of Ithaca that provided passenger runs on Cayuga Lake was named for him and provided service for many years prior to its fiery end in April of 1925. The fire burned the vessel to the waterline as reported in The Jamestown Evening Journal. Not so surprisingly, a locomotive was also named in the honor of Horton. The South Bethlehem Star ran an article stating that “A locomotive notable for its high degree of ornamentation has just been placed on the Geneva and Sayre branch of the Lehigh Valley railroad. It has been numbered 526 and named Col. J. H. Horton. The engineer's cab is constructed in Queen Anne style, with stained glass windows. The cozy interior is decorated with French clocks and steel engravings, one of the latter being a portrait of Col. Horton. The metal work is nickel-plated. On the outside of the cab is the name of Col. Horton and another portrait. There is an abundance of external brass work and nickel plate. The locomotive is the pride of the road.”
Col. J. H Horton died at his home in Buffalo at the age of 73 on Sunday, August 3, 1916.
two years at a German parochial school before graduating from public school No. 15. When he was fourteen, Bleistein was hired as an office boy in the establishment of the Buffalo Courier Company. He eventually rose through the ranks to become the company president in 1884 upon the death of Charles W. McClune. George would go on to marry McClune’s widow. The Courier Printing Company was the official printer for Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show during the 1890s and published a leading Democratic newspaper in the City of Buffalo. As publisher, he was faced several times with suits of libel as well as injury damages – such as the case against him from Dr. Sargent who fell over a pile of lead on the sidewalk in front of the Courier Company building in 1899. Sargent was awarded $700 in that case.
Although, his most notable court case may be the one held before the Supreme Court of the United States. The Wallace Circus had employed the services of the Courier Company to create and print advertisements for their acts. Upon distributing their supply, the circus hired the Donaldson Lithography Co. to print new sheets using the same exact images; those created and printed by Courier. In Bleistein v. Donaldson Lithographing Co., 188 U.S. 239 (1903), the court held – as written by Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., that copyright law protects advertisements, “allowing a copyright to the ’author, designer, or proprietor . . . of any engraving, cut, print, . . . or chromo’ as affected by the act of 1874, c. 301, § 3, 18 Stat. 78, 79. And on complying with all the statutory requirements … the proprietors are entitled to the protection of the copyright laws.
Bleistein invested in several other diverse companies as well as held board positions and interests in several of them. He was elected president of the Home Rule Democracy of Erie County in 1893 and was a trustee of the city and county hall for seven years. He served as chairman of that board for four years and during that time faced some volatile political movements within the state. He was a Freemason, a member of the Buffalo, Country and Saturn Clubs of Buffalo, the Manhattan Club of New York city, and the wealthy elitist Jekyl Island Club off the coast of Georgia: he also served as president of the New York State Associated Press and a director of the United Press. Bleistein remained a prominent business and social figure in Buffalo, which lead to his serving on the board of directors for the Pan-American Exposition in 1901. Yes, that expo! where President William McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist, Leon Czolgosz, in September 1901. Bleistein was appointed as a U.S. customs collector for the port of Buffalo from 1914 until his death from an apoplectic stroke suffered while at his desk in the Federal Building that occurred in 1918.
Bleistein had also been a sporting man, who gave to Gov. Theodore Roosevelt a notably well embellished saddle and diligently worked as a charter member of the Erie County Conservation Society toward restocking pheasant and quail into the Genesee Valley in the late 1890’s after decades of intense hunting of the fowl caused alarm. As president of the Buffalo Kennel Club, he won awards for the breeding and training of pointer dogs from the Pointer Club of America. His wife was also heavily involved in the creation of the Green Lake Camp for the Girl Scouts of America in 1930.
The “George Bleistein” barge was evidently afloat as early as 1899 with notice of a canal clearance of just over four tons of wheat through Albany noted in the August 28th edition of the Buffalo Review newspaper.
A follow-up news article regarding the sinking appeared in the Amsterdam Evening Recorder on Saturday, June 12th indicates that the boat was raised late on that Friday evening by use of a steam pump and moved to the south side of the aqueduct to allow other barges to pass. A NY State Diver, Henry Crane, gave the opinion that a leak in the hull allowed water to mix with the cargo and thus made the vessel too heavy to stay buoyant. Captain Ray had the “Col. J.H. Horton” moved to the west of the Aqueduct and moored to await the repair and reloading of the “George Bleistein.” Both were anticipated to be set on course to New York City again, and the agent in charge of the original salt cargo was to attempt sale of any redeemable portion of it.
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| Unnamed NYS Diver, c. 1908 From the Collection of the NYS Canal Society |
Henry Crane worked professionally as a diver for over 30 years and by the 1922 drowning of a young woman in Cobleskill, he had reportedly recovered over three hundred bodies. Drownings and repairs were not his only source of work, as he also recovered lost cargo such as copper bars and beer. The Canal required constant maintenance work. Crane would repair leaks in barges under water and also conduct level surveys of canal structures such as locks and the prism.
In 1909, the Documents from the Assembly of NYS put Crane’s monthly wages at $41.59, but by 1911 a newspaper from his own City of Schenectady reported his wage at $75.00 per month as a State appointed canal employee. That 1909 rate, compared to his assistant diver, Blair McClellan at $18.00 per month, reflects not just the risk but his skill. By 1927, his son Henry had become his assistant.
It would seem that the actual George Bleistein and Col. Horton had connections through business within the Buffalo area, though no direct mentions of them both have appeared together during research for this article. An interesting string may be made between them however, on the fact that Col. Horton was a chairperson for a meeting of Coal “barons” who convened on the Pan-American Expedition in June of 1901. “CARBON PURVEYORS MEET AND GLADLY GREET FROM ALL THE LAND” was the headline in The Buffalo Courier newspaper of June 13th as coal company men sought to organize more closely to influence the “ethical” pricing within the market for their product.
There is however a Canal Clearance notice in the Syracuse Herald on Thursday, July 16, 1908, that mentions both barges, with the “Horton” headed to Buffalo and the “Bleistein” destined for New York City and described as “light.” These barges may have been “two passing ships in the night” but the overall connection that people, places, and yes even boats seem to have had because of the Erie Canal cannot be missed.
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* “won by Miss Ruth Bessier, the daughter of Mrs. Eugene Bessier, of No. 57 First street. She is twenty three months of age.” Ithaca Daily News, SEPTEMBER 10, 1896
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