|
22 May 2025 — “Hands-on, Mind-on”—The Buffalo Maritime Center, Community Boatbuilding, and the Replica Seneca Chief
On 26 October 1825, New Yorkers were in a celebratory mood. The Erie Canal, begun in 1817, was finally complete. The honor of being the first boat to traverse the “new path from the Lakes to the ocean,” was the canalboat Seneca Chief. On board were Governor DeWitt Clinton, the politician still most closely associated with the project to this day, along with New York Lt. Governor Tallmadge, canal commissioners and engineers, and other noteworthies. The boat carried potash from around the Great Lakes, whitefish from Lake Erie, flour and butter, and bird’s eye maple and cedar wood for making boxes for medals commemorating the voyage; it also carried a canoe crafted by the Indigenous people from the shores of Lake Superior. Two small kegs stored water from Lake Erie, which would be poured into the ocean at their destination, New York Harbor, in a ceremony dubbed the “Wedding of the Waters.” Once Seneca Chief reached Albany, her team of four grey horses was replaced with the steamboat Chancellor Livingston; she traveled in company with the boats Young Lion of the West, Niagara of Black Rock, the Constellation, the Swiftsure, the Richmond, the Barge Matilda, and the Saratoga tender to the fleet. Charles Rhind, in charge of the “aquatic display,” reported that “these vessels were all splendidly adorned with flags and streamers, and amply supplied with bands of martial music.”
| The BMC's annual student boat launch is an opportunity for students to get out on the water at Hoyt Lake with the 6-Hour Canoes, Olmsted Skiffs, and St. Ayles Skiffs they have spent the year building. Photo courtesy Buffalo Maritime Center. | Fast forward to 2025. The State of New York is commemorating the bicentennial of the Erie Canal, with farmer’s markets, festivals, races, hikes, kayak and bicycling events, and much more. The Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor has composed a “Bicentennial Bucket List” of activities to inspire us to connect with the historic waterway. The 2025 World Canals Conference will be held this September in Buffalo, the city that, thanks to its function as terminus of the Erie Canal, became the gateway from the American Northeast to the Great Lakes and the western frontier of our expanding country. The story of “Clinton’s Ditch” will be woven into conference offerings, including a screening of a new Erie Canal documentary, and on Wednesday, 24 September, conferencegoers will have the opportunity, along with the local population, to witness the departure of a replica of the Seneca Chief, built by the people of Buffalo, to make the journey anew down into New York Harbor with a keg pulled from Lake Erie for what could be called an “anniversary vow renewal of the waters.” | The people of Buffalo came out to celebrate the launch of Seneca Chief last year. Photo courtesy Buffalo Maritime Center. | |
The replica Seneca Chief is the product of the Buffalo Maritime Center, an organization that has been getting the community—young, old, and anywhere in between—involved in building boats and getting out on the water. Its roots trace back to a Design Department initiative at SUNY Buffalo State in the 1980s. Prof. John Montague, one of the founders of the initiative, says of that program, the Center for Watercraft Studies:
The basic concept was, to use boat building as a vehicle for studying design in general—form, function, problem solving, cultural context etc. At the same time, we discovered that there were enormous benefits to these initiatives for students on multiple levels across numerous disciplines, especially through our “Hands On, Minds On” programs which allowed us to find opportunities in the designing /building process to open access to more theoretical and abstract disciplines.
Prof. Montague continued:
While we pursued our academic programs, we not only developed youth outreach programs but also invited in adult learners. This group grew very rapidly into a core of skilled volunteers who allowed us to take on larger and more sophisticated projects—restoring donated historic boats, taking lines off historic craft from the region, and building replicas of boats which grew out of our local traditions.
| | No matter their age or expertise, the BMC team found tasks for all of the volunteers, often teaching them new skills. Photo courtesy Buffalo Maritime Center. | | |
Prof. Montague’s retirement in 2006 was followed by the founding of the Buffalo Maritime Center, a 501(c)(3), with the mission to “inspire meaningful connections and life lessons through community boatbuilding, preserving maritime culture, and exploring the waterways of Western New York.” Under the program, people have built personal craft and worked on boats inspired by historic vessels and vessel types, such as the Buffalo Harbor Ferry, the Lake Erie shallop Scajaquada, and the electric launch White Electra.
At 73 feet, the Seneca Chief is the largest of the boats produced by the BMC. Coming up with a design for the boat, with no photographic record or design plans, was an exercise in detective work, requiring consulting hundreds of paintings, drawings, illustrations and crude sketches to approximate the look and construction of the original. The harbor registry of 1825 provided the first Seneca Chief’s exact length and width. The color scheme was chosen based on the popular colors of the day, as well as which paints were commonly used. The construction was carried out in the Longshed, a space created just for this project. Over the course of four years, more than 200 volunteers varying in age, boatbuilding skills, and experience but united in enthusiasm and community spirit, had a hand in building Seneca Chief, under the leadership of Master Boatbuilder Roger Allen and Boatbuilding Programs Director Greg Dudley. Volunteers even forged all of the bolts used in the backbone structure in BMC’s machine shop. She was launched just over a year ago, on 7 May. Now, the Buffalo Maritime Center crew is preparing the boat for her big day. Just like her namesake, Seneca Chief has no motor, so she depends on her escort, the tug C. L. Churchill and a push boat, Buffalo Sal, for propulsion and maneuvers.
| | Buffalo Maritime Center's outreach includes going to local events and getting folks involved in what they call “hands-on, minds-on” experiences. Here, three youngsters try their hand at paddle shaping at a Juneteenth festival. Photo courtesy Buffalo Maritime Center. | | The original Seneca Chief was pulled along by a team of gray horses on the Canal route, then a tugboat when she transited the Hudson River. On her bicentennial voyage the replica will be assisted by the tug C. L. Churchill (pictured here in the foreground) and the push boat Buffalo Sal. Photo: Stephanie Trzeciak. | | |
The 33-day bicentennial voyage will feature 28 stops along the Canal and the Hudson arriving on 26 October. The BMC crews will be conducting educational programs to promote better understanding of Canal history, craftsmanship, and environmental impact. The boat’s interior will be fitted out with exhibits on canal boat cargo, crew and passenger accommodations, and Erie Canal history. The ceremonial planting of Eastern White Pine trees at each port stop will be carried out as a tribute to the Haudenosaunee people, whose displacement was solidified by the construction of the Canal and the urban growth that followed it. Port towns will have the opportunity to contribute water from their portion of the Canal to a barrel, which will be used to water the final tree, in a symbolic act of remembrance, connection, and renewal. If you are in the area, it would be well worth the visit to see her in person, a floating reminder of an era when the Erie Canal was the hopeful new connection between our young country’s early states and the developing West.
Extra Credit
“The Six-Hour Canoe,” by Roger Allen
“The Story of the Buffalo Maritime Center and the Seneca Chief Erie Canal Boat!”
Sea History Today is written by Shelley Reid, NMHS senior staff writer. Past issues can be read online by clicking here.
| | | | |
