Clark Kent and the Erie Canal

 Clark Kent and the Erie Canal

   The connection between DC Comics and the Erie Canal lies in the  established family history of Superman, where it is revealed that his ancestors navigated the waterway in the early 19th century. Welp, sorta… his adoptive family, the Kent’s of Smallville, Kansas ended up in the mid-west because of circumstances and the gateway of the Erie  Canal.

     In Action Comics #132 (published in 1949), DC Comics explored the backstory and historical lineage of Clark Kent's adoptive family. The family records detail that Captain Joshua Kent was an ancestor of Superman's Earth-Two grandfather, Hiram Kent. In those records it is revealed that Joshua Kent owned and operated an Erie Canal barge in the year 1824. Hiram was an inventor and the father of John Kent, the adoptive father of Clark Kent. John and his wife Mary, passed away when Clark was a young adult, shortly before he adopted the moniker “Superman”.

     To dive deeper into the full family tree of the Man of Steel, you can lift your glasses and read the synopsis for Action Comics #132 by visiting the DC Database Kent Family page or the DC Database Action Comics #132 page online with a quick Google Search. Several websites have family tree’s outlined for the Kents.  While that family isn't blood relations of Clark Kent, Kal-El was raised and loved by John and Mary.

     According to Fandom online, “The direct family line of Jonathan Kent is traced as far back as the late 18th to early 19th century. The American Kents originally hailed from Boston, Massachusetts where print-shop owner Silas Kent lived with his wife Abigail. The two sired eight children, all of whom were born in the Kent's Boston home. In 1854, Silas Kent joined the Emigrant Aid Society* and decided to relocate his printing press to Lawrence, Kansas to promote his abolitionist ideals. He brought his two oldest sons, Nate and Jeb along with him and they arrived in Lawrence in the summer of 1854” (The Kents #1, 1997). We can gather from real history, that this was an extremely violent time and the fictional Kent family must’ve managed to last in Kansas.

   Of course, this all gets a little more complicated depending on which version of Earth. But maybe that is for a different time…

* In 1854, Boston abolitionists established the New England Emigrant Aid Company (originally the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Society) as a direct response to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Because the new law allowed Kansans to vote on the legality of slavery, the organization actively recruited and supported anti-slavery Northerners moving to the territory. Their efforts successfully tilted the political balance and laid the groundwork for important Kansas towns such as Lawrence, Topeka, and Manhattan.