Two hundred years after Governor DeWitt Clinton’s historic “wedding of the waters,” a hand-built replica of his vessel, the Seneca Chief, is once again tracing the Erie Canal from Buffalo to New York City. The voyage marks the bicentennial of the canal that connected the Great Lakes region to the Atlantic ocean transforming New York into a commercial and cultural powerhouse.
The replicated Seneca Chief stretches 73 feet and was built entirely by hand over the past decade. More than 200 volunteers worked together under the direction of Master Boat Builder Roger Allen. The project, he said, represents the same spirit of collaboration that built the canal two centuries ago.
“We had rocket scientists, we had policemen, firemen, plumbers, housekeepers," Allen recalled of the crew's diversity, "lots of teachers, engineers who knew nothing about wooden boat building."
The vessel launched from Buffalo back on September 24 to remind New Yorkers of the canal's original mission.
“The Seneca Chief’s job is to unite the communities all along the canal that were created by the canal when it opened in 1825 and before," Allen explained.
At each of its 28 planned stops, the Seneca Chief’s crew is collecting a cup of canal water and planting an Eastern White Pine, the species revered by the Haudenosaunee as the Great Tree of Peace.
“We want our great-great-grandchildren to go see the tree that we planted, and remember this journey was a little bit different and we have different values than we did 200 years ago,” said the Seneca Chief's Captain Chelsea Moore.
When docked, the boat will transform into a floating museum, open to the public. Visitors can step aboard to learn how the canal revolutionized transportation, trade, and migration in the early 19th century.
Allen reminded this passenger as we were sailing from the town of Lyons to the village of Clyde, “This body of water that you are now sailing upon tied the United States together and helped send the American idea out into the world that brought in those immigrants who made America.”
Traveling at about six miles per hour, the Seneca Chief docked Saturday, October 4 at Onondaga Lake Park in Syracuse and opened the floating museum until 6 p.m. It will remain through Sunday with visiting hours from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
From there it continues east with stops this week in Brewerton, Sylvan Beach, Rome, Utica, and Herkimer. To check for times when the floating museum is open to the public visit the Bicentennial Guide Book.
There are 17 remaning stops along its route. The Seneca Chief will complete its voyage at New York City's Pier 26 on October 26, exactly 200 years after the original Seneca Chief docked there in 1825.
