Floating time capsule: Replica boat retraces historic Erie Canal journey 200 years later

GLENVILLE, N.Y. (AP) — Two centuries after New York Gov. DeWitt Clinton opened the Erie Canal with a triumphant boat trip from Buffalo to New York City, a brightly painted replica of the vessel is slowly retracing the historic journey through the waterway and down the Hudson River.

A few things have changed since 1825.

The replica Seneca Chief is being helped along by a tugboat, not by horses or mules. The once chest-deep waterway between Albany and Buffalo has been enlarged. Much of the original route has been changed. And barges have largely given way to pleasure boats and kayaks.

But the 73-foot (22-meter) wooden boat is a floating reminder of a time when the Erie Canal helped hasten westward expansion in the United States. The Seneca Chief has made more than two dozen stops in the past month to welcome visitors aboard.

“When you step on this boat, you’re really going to be transported to a time when these boats ran all throughout these waters,” Buffalo Maritime Center executive director Brian Trzeciak said during a recent break at a lock near Schenectady.

“There are people that weren’t even sure if the Erie Canal still exists that are now seeing this boat and asking more questions about our history. So those moments are the best when we pull into those ports.”

More than 200 volunteers helped the Maritime Center construct the boat, which cleared the canal last week. The Seneca Chief is heading south on the Hudson River with plans to dock in Manhattan this weekend.

Clinton was the driving force behind the construction of the 363-mile (584-kilometer) canal between Albany and Buffalo. The massive project took eight years and was derided by critics as “Clinton’s Folly.” But the Erie Canal proved its worth almost immediately. It dramatically cut down travel time for passengers to the Great Lakes. Shipping costs for lumber, wheat and flour plummeted, and sleepy settlements along the route grew into thriving cities.

The original Seneca Chief led a flotilla of boats out of Buffalo on Oct. 26, 1825. The publicity savvy governor ended the trip Nov. 4 by pouring a keg of Lake Erie water into the Atlantic Ocean, creating a “wedding of the waters.”

Inspired by Clinton, the contemporary Seneca Chief crew is gathering water from stops along the canal and the Hudson River. The crew is also planting white pine trees along the way in a symbolic tribute to the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois, who lived in the region long before white settlers arrived.

The water is being stored in a barrel on the Seneca Chief and will be used the nourish the last tree planted in Manhattan.