95 Perry Street, Suite 500
Buffalo, NY 14203-303

    I am a former Civil Engineer with the Corps of Engineers, specializing in the hydrology of the Great Lakes and local waterways.  I also taught hydraulics and hydrology for twenty-five years at the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Buffalo.   After learning that my family had lived on Peacock Street from about 1921-1925, I was moved to re-read the wonderful book about Buffalo's Canal District, "America's Crossroads", by Mike Vogel, Edward Patton and Paul Redding.   Quotes that I read in the foreword by Dr. Marvin Rapp struck a chord with me.

    He wrote: "more immigrants passed through these streets . . . than passed through Ellis Island."    Rapp also somewhat wistfully wrote: "Would that today, in 1993, a canal packet, vintage lake freighter or passenger steamer be docked permanently in the Buffalo Harbor to remind us of the days when America marched through the streets of the great Port of Buffalo.  Remember, this city was once the largest inland immigrant port of America.  But where is Buffalo's Ellis Island-type museum? Maybe someday these things will be represented."

    Among all the promulgated plans for Canal District redevelopment, I have seen very little to give hope that Rapp's dreams will be realized. Plans should be underway to develop a Buffalo Erie Canal Museum with artifacts of Canal Street days, a Canal-oriented gift shop, an Erie Canal Wall of Honor, and a database that can be accessed at the museum or on-line, by the millions of western Americans who can say "My ancestors came through Buffalo and the Erie Canal."

    I have written often to city, county, state and federal officials and politicians; to local librarians and educators, and to The Buffalo News, trying to get support for the idea of an "Ellis Island-type museum" in the Canal District.  Although The News included the idea a few years ago in "Twenty Good Ideas for Buffalo", l usually get no response, or polite comments about how "this is not the same" as Ellis Island.  Ellis Island and Buffalo were this nation’s two great nexuses of immigration.  The world knows about Ellis Island:  it is time for it to recognize Buffalo.  I wonder if anyone involved with Erie Canal redevelopment has read Vogel’s book, or recognizes the wealth of tourist dollars that could be attracted to Buffalo with such a museum/genealogy/history center.

    Some who have responded to me state that because there is so little official information about the intra-national travel on the Canal, such an undertaking would be difficult or impossible.  I cite the fact that when Lee Iacocca began to revitalize Ellis Island, one of the first things he did was write to ordinary Americans, asking them if they knew of ancestors who arrived at Ellis Island, and offering (for a price) a place on the "Immigrant Wall of Honor", as well as plaques and certificates stating our ancestors' arrivals, etc. 

    My own family purchased nine framed Ellis Island certificates at $100 each, with no documentation other than what we sent in.  Enclosed is a copy of that certificate, with a mock-up of a Canal certificate and Passenger Record.  We also received certificates recognizing us as founders of the Ellis Island-Statue of Liberty Foundation.   Ever since the EllisIsland.org data base site has been up and running, the site offers paid memberships and opportunities to purchase ship manifests, photos, and other documents.

    I believe a data base (though admittedly nowhere near as detailed as Ellis Island's) could be constructed for a "Buffalo Erie Canal Foundation" museum, with information gathered from around the country, from family histories and bibles, hotel registers, newspaper accounts and obituaries, library records, university records, etc.  These could be added to the admittedly sparse New York State Archives Canal passenger records from 1827-1829.  Such a database could be self-perpetuating and grow from input by people who, searching for one relative, might add information for another, or for the acquaintances of another.  I have learned from contacts with the LDS Church that numbers of records do exist, describing Erie Canal travel by its members.

    There could be an "Erie Canal Wall of Honor" with the names of persons who helped build, or who worked on, lived near, or passed through the Erie Canal at Buffalo.  My guess is that at a peak of 5,500 immigrants passing through Buffalo per week, there must be millions of Americans from Erie, PA to Seattle Washington whose ancestors rode a Canal packet and transferred to a wagon, a train, or a lake vessel to continue west.  Why not give those people a place to visit, in person, and on-line, to add to Buffalo's social and economic status?

            Please see a mockup of a possible Buffalo-Erie Canal Foundation website modeled on EllisIsland.org, at http://www.conigliofamily.com/BuffaloErieCanalFoundation.htm.  Though many of the links are conceptual only, it does contain some examples of certificates in which Canal passengers' descendants might be interested.  I also refer you to my page at http://www.conigliofamily.com/Buffalo.htm which describes some of my own family's experiences in the Canal District, as well as showing maps of "then and now", a feature I believe any Buffalo Erie Canal Museum should emulate.

            Buffalo was the true and only Western Terminus of the Erie Canal.  Buffalo is where the "wedding of the waters" took place.  Other ideas I feel should be considered for the Commercial Slip include: a statue of Buffalo Judge ad future Mayor Samuel Wilkeson pouring Atlantic Ocean water into the Buffalo River from a cask (an internal pump could make real water flow from the cask); the proposed "traveling play" tours should originate in Buffalo at the Commercial Slip; and other Canal tour operators should be encouraged to start from and return to the Commercial Slip.   

     In summary, my proposed Buffalo Erie Canal Museum at Canal Side would include the following, either as physical attributes of the museum or as activities managed by it:

·        Displays showing the history of the planning, design, alignment and construction of the Erie Canal, using photographs, drawings and film/video.

·        Physical models of Canal elements including working models of locks, and a full-size reproduction of an early Canal packet boat, fitted out so that visitors may walk through it.

·        A scale model of the “Canal District” in its heyday, showing locations of famous buildings, streets and waterways.

·        Walking tours of the present site of the Canal District, at Canal Side and in the nearby Marine Drive and Naval Park area, appropriately marked with descriptive signs or displays; and acknowledgement of the village of the Seneca Nation, directly adjacent to the original Canal District.

·        Maintenance of signage at major land, water, and air entries to Buffalo, proclaiming “BUFFALO ~ Western Terminus of the Erie Canal”.

·        Management of water-based tours of the Erie Canal, starting at the Commercial Slip, exiting to Buffalo Creek and the Inner Harbor, following the Black Rock Channel and the Niagara River to Tonawanda, and the present New York State Barge Canal to Lockport, Henrietta, Albany, etc. and return.

·        Maintenance of signage and statuary outside the Canal but in the Commercial Slip, commemorating events such as the “Wedding of the Waters” and the Mormon “Miracle at Buffalo”.

·        An Erie Canal Wall of Honor showing names of those who built, traveled on, and lived near the Erie Canal in Buffalo.

·        A Buffalo Erie Canal Library dedicated to the history of the Western Terminus, and recording the names of those associated with it.

·        A compilation of names of builders of, travelers on and neighbors of the Canal, in computerized format, developed by a not-for-profit Foundation from research into public and private records from Western New York and around the nation.

·          A Buffalo Erie Canal Foundation website which would permit descendants of those associated with Canal or Canal District construction, travel or residency to research their ancestors’ Canal-related activity.

·           A gift shop where items for sale would include: models and mementoes of the Canal era: packet boats, longshoremen’s hooks, descriptive books; and plaques and certificates commemorating ancestors’ association with the Canal or Canal District.

      In short, the Buffalo Erie Canal Museum would be the Ellis Island-class facility envisioned sixteen years ago, by Dr. Marvin Rapp.    The Buffalo and Erie County Public Library, as well as  LDS Church historians have expressed interest in these proposals.