Need advice on where to post "Help Wanted: Weary Grandparents Attempting to Hitchhike on Erie Canal" to raise CMV awareness. Plus, new fun on 750-mile Empire State Trail!
Jim and Lisa Saunders on Erie Canalway Trail/Empire State Trail off Warner's Rd, Camillus, in Jan., 2021.Dear Folks,
A small boating magazine is publishing our Erie Canal quest and desire to hitch a ride on the Canal. I didn't tell the editor how I abandoned ship on my last quest (as told in my book, Mystic Seafarer's Trail). I'm hoping to gain a new reputation as a fearless voyager. The editor liked the photos I submitted of us and thought we looked like an adventurous couple (perhaps Jim's cool hat gives that impression). Unlike the sea, canal travel is so slow and calm, I'm not likely to lose my mind imagining going down with the ship.
Jim wearing adventure hat. We are below the old Richmond Aqueduct next to the current Erie Canal in Montezuma Heritage Park. Although boating portions of the Erie Canal rather than walking is "cheating," some of the 360-mile trail is located directly on a busy road, which isn't fun for a walker. A couple flew east from the State of Washington to do what we are attempting to do and decided to cheat by taking car rides for some of the on-road portions. It took them 26 days to complete their journey (they camped along the way), and they noticed that unlike Washington with its frequent coffee offerings, pizza is the only fare found in Canal villages. You can see their photos and walking journal here: https://bellinghamwalks.com/2016/06/1...
If any of you have media suggestions for posting our "help wanted" blurb (print, online, Facebook), please let me know. Trying to appear adventurous, this is what I submitted for publication in the Feb. 2021 issue of Messing Around on Boats:
Help Wanted: Weary Grandparents Attempting to Hitchhike on the Erie Canal
by Lisa Saunders
Although my husband and I are trying to walk the entire 360-mile Erie Canalway Trail in New York for my latest writing venture, we would love to boat through and photograph the locks along the modern Erie Canal. I am the author of the book, Mystic Seafarer's Trail and you can "meet" me in the film, "Mystic Seafarers Trail" by Gregory Pettys, with undersea explorer Captain Bill Palmer on the Thunderfish. Captain Bill shares underwater footage on the wrecks he dives such as German U-boat, U-853. My current project is a book tentatively titled, "Walking the Erie Canal Trail: Secrets of the 8th Wonder of the World, CMV and Pandemic Pizza"...[then I summarize what our quest is and why--see below my signature].
If you live anywhere in New York or are willing to travel here, you may wish to start your own hiking/biking quest, especially now the Erie Canalway Trail is linked to the newly completed, 750-mile Empire State Trail (https://empiretrail.ny.gov/), which goes from Manhattan to Canada and west to Buffalo. It officially opened in December. Because the Empire State Trail gained access to parts of the old Erie Canal that runs through private property, last week Jim and I got to investigate overgrown Lock 50, known as Gere's Lock, near the intersection of Gere Lock and Horan Roads in Camillu (my great-grandmother Mary Sisson McDowell was born in Camillus). The Camillus Erie Canal Museum region is great place to view all kinds of structures on the original Erie Canal (referred to as Clinton's Ditch) and the expanded Old Erie Canal, such as the only restored, fully operational Nile Mile Creek Aqueduct.
According to NY's press release about the Empire State Trail, it is "the nation's longest multi-use state trail" and "spans 750-miles total, 75 percent of which is off-road trails ideal for cyclists, hikers, runners, cross-country skiers and snow-shoers. The new recreational trail, which runs from New York City through the Hudson and Champlain Valleys to Canada, and from Albany to Buffalo along the Erie Canal, will provide a safe and scenic pathway for New Yorkers...The Empire State Trail website provides quick and easy access to trail information including segment descriptions, access points, trail distances, parking areas, restrooms, and nearby amenities and attractions." Here is a map of the new part of the trail we are currently walking: https://empiretrail.ny.gov/rochester-syracuse/camillus-syracuse.
I keep this photo of my Aunt Rebecca found dead in the Erie Canal on my desk to remind me I owe it to her to investigate how she got there. I still haven't seen a coroner's report on my Aunt Rebecca to see if I agree with the suicide verdict, but last month, when reading a genealogy book on my family, I did find out that two of my ancestors were engineers on the expanded Erie Canal--Jacob Leach (my 4th great grandfather) and his son Augustus (my 3rd gg) of Lyons, NY. Jacob was responsible for the Canal portion near us in Jordan (we regularly eat at Jordan's Towpath Pizza). An 1840 article in the Onondaga Standard Extra covered Jacob's committee meeting: "Mr. Jacob Leach, was the resident engineer and in the presence of the chief engineer, strongly urged to press his work forwards faster than he was going on with it. He was directed to excavate 10,000 yards monthly and had increase the number of laborers and had erected 20 shanties"(10/24/1840).
In the 1850s, Jacob's son, Augustus, was employed by the corps of civil engineers and was promoted to overseeing the section from Syracuse to Buffalo. According to his 1901 obituary, Augustus "also invented and drafted plans for the drop gate for locks that were accepted by the state and have continued in use to the present time." There is a street and bridge named Leach Road in Lyons that crosses over the Erie Canal. (More info on Jacob and Augustus below my signature.)
When Jim and I are not overseeing Zoom school with our grandson or driving Mom to her appointments, I've been meeting with NY legislators over Zoom trying to get them to amend the current CMV law. I need to get public attention for this cause--especially if a new bill is submitted for voting on. One way to raise awareness is through publicizing Jim's and my Erie Canal quest!
I would love any advice you have on anything!
Sincerely,
Lisa Saunders
Baldwinsville, NY (Lock 24 on Erie Canal, near Syracuse)
Author of history and children's books
Summary of our quest:
"Walking the Erie Canal Trail: Secrets of the 8th Wonder of the World, CMV and Pandemic Pizza"
While searching for the 7 Wonders of the Old Erie Canal, itself considered the 8th Wonder of the World, an upstate New York plump baby boomer wonders if she’ll ever finish walking the entire 360-mile trail between Buffalo and Albany. So far, Lisa Saunders has endured swarms of mosquitoes, snakes, gunshots, violent wind cracking tree limbs above, aching feet and a dead possum. Will she find an outhouse in time? Will she uncover what truly happened to Aunt Rebecca whose body was found in a car submerged in the Canal? Lisa’s progress is continually interrupted as the global pandemic upends her life with demands from her regal mother held prisoner in assisted living, and by home-schooling two young grandchildren when her daughter leaves her job in a castle to work remotely. When deciding on the 7 Wonders, should she only consider the overgrown, stone aqueduct arches and locks hidden along the Old Erie Canal, or also the engineering marvels on the modern, fully operational Erie Canal?And, how will this latest writing project ever get Lisa thin and famous when the only food near the trail is pizza and ice-cream? Trekking alongside is her detail-oriented, rather fussy husband, Jim. They haven’t spent this much time together since their undergraduate days at Cornell. Now a retired Pfizer scientist, Jim is ready to share in Lisa’s latest adventure, hoping to combine their talents to raise awareness of another “C-virus” plaguing the country, cytomegalovirus (CMV). Will their fight for an amendment to the current CMV law in New York be as tough to pass as the legislation to fund the Erie Canal? Will they agree on what kind of pizza to order, find their “new normal” and overcome the obstacles along the Erie Canalway Trail to impact the world—much the same way the Erie Canal did?
Jacob and August Leach, engineers on the 19th century Erie Canal
Jacob Leach--Find a Grave:
Augustus Mortimer Leach--Find a Grave:
Jacob's son, Augustus Mortimer Leach, was educated at Geneva Academy, now Hobart College. Born the year the first Erie Canal opened, 1825, Augustus died in 1901, four years before construction began on the modern Erie Canal (once referred to as New York State Barge Canal). Augustus Leach's obituary tells of his career and states that Augustus "secured an early business training under his father Jacob in the milling business. In his college course he showed a natural talent for drafting and drawing, and after his graduation he worked as a draughtman for the corps of civil engineers engaged in plotting a new route for the Erie canal through [the Lyons] section. From them he acquired knowledge of civil engineering and he soon rose to a position of prominence in the department of state engineer and surveyor. In the early [18] fifties he was placed in charge of the engineering work on the western section of the Erie canal, having under his supervision the section extending from Syracuse to Buffalo. On the completion of this work he surveyed the Genesee Valley canal from Rochester to Olean [south and a little west of Rochester] and built a big storage dam at Cuba [near Olean]. During this period he also invented and drafted plans for the drop gate for locks that were accepted by the state and have continued in use to the present time [1901]. According to his obit: "From 1855 to 1857 [Augustus] was assistant state engineer under Van Rensselear Richmond of Lyons who was then state engineer and surveyor. During the latter park of that period, Mr. Leach lived in Rochester and Cuba, Allegany County. Later he became engaged in the milling business in Brooklyn together with his father-in-law and a Brooklyn miller under the firm name of Smith, Leach and Jewell. In a few years Mr. Leach, whose early training in the milling business under his father had adapted him for the work, bought out his partners and for ten years conduced the business alone. During the Civil War he had many contracts for furnishing supplies to the government, and both then and at its close his business was remarkably successful so that in 1870 he had amassed a fortune on which he was well able to retire... "
Augustus bought a massive house on a hill in Lyons when he returned from Brooklyn. Calling it Terrace Lawn, it still stands today at 27 Cherry Street. After his death, his son Francis (Frank) Leach lost the family fortune in a bad investment. The dwindling funds could no longer support Augustus's widow and Frank committed suicide in 1912.
Leach photos and information found in book, "The Sisson Family of Lyons, New York", pages 234-243, published 2005 by David Arne Sisson. See: https://www.worldcat.org/title/sisson-family-of-lyons-new-york-elisha-1763-1844-and-elizabeth-chappel-sisson-1763-1826-their-son-william-sisson-1787-1863-and-some-of-their-ancestors-and-descendants-and-those-of-betsey-gale-sisson-1790-1847-harriet-arne-sisson-1825-1902-polly-munro-arne-1794-1878-emma-leach-sisson-1860-1930-with-some-new-clues-to-the-lives-of-williams-sisters-elizabeth-sisson-ellis-and-hannah-burdick-sisson-churchill/oclc/865847739
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