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Below is a
mock-up of a proposed Buffalo -
Erie Canal Foundation© webpage. It is one
person's vision of how such a site might look. |
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I envision a not-for-profit foundation which would collect,
organize, and digitize data on passengers who traveled West
on the Erie Canal. Because passenger records
were for domestic American travel, records of passengers
were kept only briefly. Such information is rare, and
in many cases family histories or other second-party
information may have to be researched.
For 1927-1929, there were actual Canal packet boat
passenger lists. Libraries and museums along the Canal as
well as in Western cities may harbor stories about travelers
on the Canal; and family bibles and documents, as well as
newspaper articles, hotel and Great Lakes passenger ship
records may exist that mention ancestors' routes West.
Some of the most
famous and influential travelers on the Erie Canal were
followers of Joseph Smith Jr., founder of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon). In early
1831, he and his wife Emma were in Kirtland, Ohio,
organizing a religious center there.
Later that spring, Smith’s mother
Lucy Mack Smith led the first of several hundred Smith
followers, on the Erie Canal from Palmyra to Buffalo. Here,
they were stalled in the Little Buffalo Creek (later to
become the Commercial Slip) because of heavy ice
buildup on Lake Erie. Then ‘Mother Smith’ exhorted
her followers to kneel and pray for a way out, and after
hearing “thunderous cracking”, a narrow channel opened in
the lake ice, and the group was able to steam out of
Buffalo, to Fairport Harbor in Ohio. This event is referred
to in Mormon histories as the ‘Miracle at Buffalo.’
Hundreds of other LDS
members followed Lucy Mack Smith's route along the Canal
through Buffalo, and in later years tens of thousands went
West, many on the Canal.
According to LDS Professor Fred E.
Woods, Joseph Smith Jr. himself traveled the Canal to
Buffalo, as later did his grandmother Mary Duty Smith and
his eventual successor, Brigham Young, who married Buffalo's
Harriet Folsom.
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WWW.ERIECANALHARBOR.COM
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Poster
courtesy of the
Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation
(Click poster to enlarge it.) |
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The LDS church may be a source of even more information about Erie Canal
travelers. All of these sources could be searched and collated to
form a list of Canal passengers. Descendants could
then search
for information on the Foundation's website or use
information from their own family histories to submit names for an "Erie Canal Wall of Honor",
at the same time adding to the Foundation's database. On-line, they
might also purchase copies of passenger lists, boat images
or other memorabilia associated with their pioneer
ancestors.
When Lee Iacocca began his "push" to re-establish Ellis Island as a national
treasure, he asked ordinary citizens to send in the names of their
ancestors to be placed on a "Wall of Immigrants" at Ellis Island. Many paid to join, and
their contributions helped fund the effort. The same approach could be used to start a data base of
Western pioneers
who passed through Buffalo on the Erie Canal.
A nationwide canvass of possible sources of Canal passenger
information could be initiated, with results funneled into
the data base in Buffalo's Erie Canal Museum. See the
sample "Search" for Lucy Mack Smith, below.
In addition to on-line activities, the
Buffalo - Erie Canal Foundation©
would include a
Family Heritage Library where
visitors from western states could research their families' travels,
with computer links to the Buffalo and Erie
County Historical
Society archives as well as those of
local universities. While in Buffalo, tourists could visit a
reproduction of a canal packet boat, see the
Erie Canal Wall of Honor, tour a re-creation of the infamous
"Canal Street" district, and
even travel though a lock on the present-day Canal. Mormon
visitors could see with their own eyes the site of the
"Miracle at Buffalo". The
Library's
Family History Gift Shop would offer
mementoes of the Canal and Buffalo memorabilia, as well as books,
photos, and engravings of the Canal era. |
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If
you're interested in lobbying for or working on such a site,
contact Angelo Coniglio at:
BuffaloErieCanal@aol.com
To see others'
comments about Buffalo's Erie Canal Redevelopment,
CLICK
HERE
Click here to see a YouTube video of the ECHDC Public Hearing of
February 25, 2009 |
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