Colin Matthews took this video and then in response to a comment about it in Dispatches, he used 21st century digital humanities tools to overlay a soundscape in order to suggest an 1890s version of Lois Mcclure transiting the lock. Turn up the volume!

The CSNY archives contain images of canal schooners of the era loading cargoes on Cayuga Lake, like the following. L. H. Owen is mentioned in this text, pages 229 and 239.

Thanks to Bill Hecht, here is a “cleaned-up” version of the stereograph.

Here’s another stereograph of the same subject, this time credited to W. L. Hall.

Zooming in, you can make out almost a dozen people on the boats at L. H. Owen all seeming to be looking in the direction of the photographer.

If you need more images to imagine Lois McClure as a sailing vessel, click on the image below.

Many thanks to Colin and Bill for their work with these images.

It’s a new month and a new year; let me personally appeal to everyone reading to share images along the Canal corridor. In doing so, you as correspondents are helping create the archives of the future.