Dispatches from the Samuel Center

Ithaca Image Arrives

On June 5, Canal Society President Craig Williams reported that “The ebay purchase from a friend of the Society just arrived and was scanned, downsized here to fit.    It’s an amazing image… count the number of boats, the number under construction…      I don’t see any Cornell University buildings on the far hill……

will van dorp
1–2 minutes

On June 5, Canal Society President Craig Williams reported that “The ebay purchase from a friend of the Society just arrived and was scanned, downsized here to fit.    It’s an amazing image… count the number of boats, the number under construction…      I don’t see any Cornell University buildings on the far hill… so that dates the photo at maybe 1865 or earlier.”

Here’s an interactive map of that inlet.

My questions upon looking at the image included these:  Where are the forests and sawmills used to build so many boats?  How was the wood–logs or cut lumber–transported to the shipyard?    Who were the shipwrights?  I could go on.

We love to hear your comments and questions.  Answers are maybe even more interesting.

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2 responses to “Ithaca Image Arrives”

  1. tugster Avatar
    tugster

    From private email exchange about this photo, let me [Will, site administrator] add this: “By 1865 in the Champlain Valley, there wasn’t much remaining of the original stands of lumber. just a few years later one commentator would write, “you couldn’t find a tree large enough to make a respectable fish-pole.” At the same time, Burlington was emerging as the 3rd largest lumber port in the US…almost all Canadian timber that was coming south on Canadian barges called pin-plats (or pin-flats). I presume the same was happening in the New York forests that were in the vicinity of the canal, and yet vast quantities of lumber were available in the vast regions of the Great Lakes via schooners leading to the Erie and Oswego canals. I presume this lumber was mostly carried by canal boats.” The caption you read on the right side card is all that was written on the cards.

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  2. tugster Avatar
    tugster

    Thanks to Linda Visscher Roorda, a relevant article from ithaca.com: https://www.ithaca.com/news/the-inlet-at-work-when-ithaca-had-a-working-waterfront/article_57c8d73a-bfa4-11e5-9744-5fe5efdcb8b8.html?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR02HHOSUF58b0gpduG-Q9gRR1mOUJgdeH0srnj5XIoIzoeGq8pGQ8f4pZM_aem_xPIZ4A_xVKnjsdKnH5TgiQ

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