Canal Life

Canals were a major part of the transportation industry until the railroads spread quickly across the country in the 19th century. However, they continued to be a part of the transportation network in many areas well into the 20th century. Even today some canals are still working however most have reverted back into the rivers they came from or slowly dried up as water was diverted elsewhere. Below is an article written in New Outlook, Vol. 47 originally published as The Christian Union in 1893.

How People Live
XVII.—On an Erie Canal-Boat
By P. A. Ellson
A pair of canal-boats tossing at an elevator dock, or lying along the tow-path at the back streets of a city, do not tempt the passer-by to envy the dwellers in their cabins. The sunbonneted women and roughly dressed men seen about their decks, and the disreputable crowd that haDgs over bridge railings and on stairways along the canal, rather suggest the question, "Is there any good here?"

Acquaintance shows that among these canal-boat cabins are comfortable homes. Each boat has one fair-sized living-room, well lighted and easily ventilated, berths in smaller rooms opening from this, and in the bow other cabins and berths for the men. Boats on this canal are usually run in pairs, and the cabins of both boats used as the family home.

In one corner of the living-room the kitchen range and its belongings may be shut from sight by sliding doors, while the endless cupboards, drawers, and boxes fitted about the sides of the room show how space may be utilized, and a housekeeper's work made more easy by convenient surroundings. The " dooryard" of these homes stretches across New York State.

One canal captain said of his wife, "She don't take no back seat makin' bread!" From our own experience we can add that this Mrs. Captain need not take the back seat in any class for common cookery. Many of these cabins are as neat as good housekeeping can make them, and the families have plenty of good food, neatly served.

A full crew for a pair of canal-boats consists of five men, including the captain; and most fortunate is a captain who can secure one reliable man to go with him during a season. If young lads belong to the family, they may take the place of drivers, and an older son or brother help in managing the boats. The steersman's wheel, or rudder, is never left while boats are in motion on the canal, and Erie boats run day and night; but during a "trip" nearly one-half the time is spent at city docks and in "the tow " on the Hudson River. Two, sometimes three, of a hired crew are left when boats leave the tow-path, at Albany, and others found to take their places when needed on the return.

There is a certain isolation in canal life, spite of the constant meeting of boats, traveling together in " the tow," and crowding into slips. With the canal-boat Lenox we came
into a slip at South Street, New York, just at nightfall Next our own boats lay a pair carrying cargoes of wheat. Two well-appearing, pleasant-spoken young men had charge of these boats, and with them was a young woman, ladylike in dress and bearing, and quiet in speech. Our captain had occasion to talk with the young men as they were arranging for the night, otherwise the people on our boats held no more communication with them than do dwellers on city streets with their neighbors, although we could step from our deck to theirs.

On the deck of a "light boat" beyond these, a matronly woman, clad in black silk, with elaborate jet trimmings, watched a pretty, fair-haired young girl who laughed and danced about with a pet rooster. The antics were very funny, and both chicken and child seemed to be happy. While smiling at the maneuvers of this pair we listened to the story of a grasshopper that went a whole "trip," content to eat cabbage-leaves and hide away in the wood rack to sleep, and we were assured that the entire crew missed Sir Grasshopper when he at last skipped away.

In another tier some acquaintances of our captain, an elderly couple, sat at the door of their cabin. Thty had been "boating" all their lives, were plain, common-sense people, and their son was a strong, honest, fine-looking man, such as one might meet at a well-to-do farm-house. Their boats were as neat and snug as any farm cottage. An awning stretched over each cabin, and a hammock swinging with the toss of the water, suggested hours of leisure and rest.

In some tiers we saw forlorn specimens of humanity, and boats and belongings that showed thriftless neglect. In the cabin of one scow a woman was fatally ill. Those who are accustomed to light steps, low-spoken words, and quiet surroundings in a sick-room can never understand what it means to die in a canal-boat cabin at a South Street dock. The husband of the dying woman looked "hard;" one wondered if she might not be as well dead and away from him as to be alive and stay by him.

Night shut out our view, and in early morning a tug towed the Lenox to Atlantic Basin; for three days she was moored alone, in the shadow of a Russian steamer, and her companions of the South Street slip were seen no more.

Floating on the canal, boats rarely meet or pass without a " Good-morning, captain," and a word about rates of freight. If the dwellers on the boats chance to be friends, the women come from their cabin, and, walking along the deck, visit fast, and exchange " news " as long as questions and answers can be heard. When boats lie at the same dock, there may be "calls" between the cabins, but no one can be sure when or where to find a canal-boat home. It floats away any hour—may steal up some creek or river, hide behind an elevator, or be crowded away from its moorings by a puffing freight steamer.

Days spent along the tow-path go by as steadily as the plod of the mules' feet, the monotony broken only by locks, an occasional halt at lock groceries to add to the stock of provisions, or the hurried visit with a passing friend. Each floating home is a little world of its own; children push their doll-carts about the decks, swing under the awnings, and chatter about their games. Mothers do the needful work as mothers do on land, and the men who are off duty sleep or gather about the steersman's wheel and tell boating stories.

A country friend once said, " I never knew any other time or place quite so lonesome as a farm-house about four o'clock on a hot afternoon, when the flies buzz, and the men and boys are all down in the back lot." That country friend might And an Erie canal-boat equally "lonesome " as it slowly floats; but to one who is weary of hurry and rush there is a charm in the free, careless life.

Some canal families live on their boats year after year, having no other home, and spend winters in New York, get work with their boats about the harbor, or lie in Erie Basin, at Staten Island, or in some slip. In these winter canal towns one may be as neighborly as one likes, or be quite independent. Other families winter in Buffalo or along the line of the canal wherever they may choose to "tie up." Those who have homes on shore close their abins as city people close their houses during summer outings.

Our acquaintance has shown one peculiarity among this boating people. We heard of women who had left one husband and found another without a Chicago divorce; we met a few who were widows; but the "spinster" is an unknown quantity in canal society. Among the wandering drivers and steersmen there may be bachelors, but many captains look upon this class merely as Tom, Jim, and Jack, asking no questions about family life, expecting to watch them enough to have their work done for the ten or twelve days as boats float between the large cities; then Tom and Jim join the crowd on bridge railings or disappear with Jack to "hunt for a job."

Hired boat-hands are often unreliable from their habit of drinking; but, as we have known them, canal-men, on the whole, do not drink more than other men. The drivers stop at saloons along the tow-path; a drinking steersman rarely drinks while at work. At the end of a " trip," in Buffalo, Albany, or New York, drunken boatmen gather for a carouse to last until their money is spent. The lack of home life undoubtedly has its effect on canal Toms and Jacks, as it has upon other vagabonds. At least one railroad official must have sympathy for a canal captain, judging from this telephone message recently received at an office at the end of a division, twenty-four hours after the departure of the pay car: "Can you send me one sober man? I have three men half-drunk; if I could get one, sober, to put into the crew, we might start out our train."
But during the last twenty years there has been as much gain among boatmen in the line of temperance as among any class of men. Civilization is reaching into the cabins as fast as into homes on land.

On the canal, most reliable men hire boats from firms or buy on mortgage and work for themselves; the worthless men hire out, and do their work in a worthless way. Not all hired canal-men are worthless. "Sam is one of us," was our introduction to one hired steersman; and, looking at Sam, we saw only an ungainly figure, slow in motion and silent. After weeks of boating with Sam at the wheel, we looked at his sad, quiet face, watched his slow motion that was always sure, and saw a man whom we were glad to call friend.

Sam is well connected; his grandfather was a graduate of Yale College, and he has relatives among scholars and wealthy men of the State. He owns a farm, has been captain of boats, and said, " I take no risks, and at present rates of freight I make as much money as the captain does. I began on the canal when I was a boy, and when summer comes I like the boat."

Sam's wife has spent many seasons with him on the canal, but she does not like the life. The women, generally, do not like boating as the men do. The woman has her daily round of cooking and work, and is less out-ofdoors; the men live on deck, often sleeping with only an awning between them and the sky. Then the feminine heart is strongly attached to a pretty chair, covered with a pretty tidy tied with a pretty ribbon bow, and there is little room for these things in the canal cabin.

The lines of aristocracy are as clearly drawn on the canal map as they are on the map of any town. The captain and captain's wife are superior to a steersman, and a steersman is a class above the driver. The latest I learned on this subject concerned a youth of whom his aunt said, "He is too proud to work on a horse boat; he never goes with anything but a canal steamer."

This life may tend to make people selfish; there cannot be neighborhood ties and the sympathetic help that those ties bring; but canal-boat men seem generally more polite to each other than other workingmen, and in a crowd or a " jam " they are, as a rule, readily helpful.

I need not say that canal people are not college-bred, but the newspaper and an occasional book or magazine find their way into their cabins. One must not look among these boats for the pleasant ways and speeches of "good society;" one may look for a certain kind consideration, and for qualities that make true men and women, and find them.