11/19/2024
The December issue of Brightwork is in its final editing and should be in your mailbox sometime in early December (Thanksgiving, being a bit late this year, might push the mailbox arrival a few days later).
In this issue, we have a lot of interesting stories. Among them, a story on some very historic ships of the United States. Among them: The Day Peckinpaugh. A picture is attached. Details on the ship are here, if you care to keep reading. The article in Brightwork talks about a few others.
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In 2021, John Callaghan of Waterford wrote a history of the Day Peckinpaugh. The Peckinpaugh had been launched 100 years earlier and while John is not that old, he was the last real captain of the boat as it traveled the canal system, Lake Champlain and the Hudson River (all the way to New York) as part of the anniversary of the ship’s launching.
You see, the Peckinpaugh is one of those Antique Boats we, as an organization, are duty-bound to protect. It was nabbed from the jaws of the scrap-yard in the 11th hour in 2004 by the Canal Society of New York State (CSNYS).
Just before being scrapped in Erie, PA, the boat was towed to Tonawanda, adopted by the Canal Society and then started making its way to Waterford. It was then an old boat, last commercially used about ten years earlier by the Erie Navigation Company to haul cement from Oswego to Rome throughout the navigation season the canal system. In the 1980’s, it had been retired from hauling cement from Kingston, Ontario to Rome across Lake Ontario and through the canals.
John wrote for the Canal Society Newsletter, Bottoming Out:
“The year was 1921, and Julius Barnes saw opportunity. The former United States Grain Commissioner saw the inherent potential in the new Barge Canal, the 524-mile network and third iteration of New York’s iconic Erie Canal which was barely three years old. But in those years, the Canal had been under the care of the federal government as part of the war effort and the State of New York had just been able to wrest control back. Under federal control, specifically the railroad administration, the canal had languished. Mule-drawn canal era wooden canal boats still plied its waters, towed by steam tugs, not coming close to the greater carrying capacity that the new canal’s depth and dimensions afforded. Even casual observers could conclude that the railroad administration, indifferent (at best) at the canal’s prospects, had not made any effort to make full use of the nascent waterway. In fact, three years after the Barge Canal opened on May 15, 1918, nary a boat designed to travel the system had been built. Enter Mr. Barnes. As one long familiar with the Great Lakes grain trade, having entered the business at the age of 13 and having made quite a fortune subsequently, and through his service during the Great War overseeing the Grain Corporation on behalf of the U.S. Government, he immediately appreciated the role the new canal could play in the shipping of goods - grain in particular - from the Midwest to the eastern seaboard. He also appreciated that no fleet purpose-built for the role existed - one would have to be built. Enter Scottish-born Captain and ship designer Alexander McDougall (and he built a low-slung “laker”, with a wheelhouse forward and the ending room aft with cargo in between. It was a perfect for what Barnes had in mind, use on the canals, rivers and even the Great Lakes).
“In 1921, five hulls splashed down the ways of McDougall-Duluth shipyard. These were the ILI 101-105, for Interwaterways Lines Incorporated, as Barnes had named the new venture. More than a hundred similar vessels would eventually ply the waters of New York’s 20th-century canal system but, for now, the ILI 101 was the star of the show. A contemporary description painted a “strictly business” picture of the new craft - “At first glance this new craft presents a rather odd appearance, having no towering superstructure, but on examination her utility and efficiency are seen recognized. She is 254 feet overall, with a 36-foot beam and molded depth of 14 feet.” Finally, Canal officials received the word they had been waiting for. A telegram arriving in Albany on June 6, 1921 announced that the ILI 101 would enter the Barge Canal at Tonawanda the following day (See Figure 1.). The first of a new generation of canal boat had been born, and she was carrying 3,000 bushels of oats at a rate sixty percent below the railroad cost.”
Eventually, this boat went through an iteration of names, including Julius Barnes and Day Peckinpaugh. It was re-configured a number of times to carry at first grains, but also cars, other dry-goods, liquids and finally – cement.
This boat was not only the first of its kind, it became the last. All of its sister ships were retired, sold, taken out of service and as far as we know, eventually scrapped.
CSNYS saved the boat to, simply, save it. Because of its historic value and because of the interest and the financial means of the NYS Museum, papers were signed in the next couple of years to transfer ownership to the museum. The museum promised to preserve this ship, making it a museum, a traveling classroom and a museum of its own accord. The canal society and the museum both contributed thousands of hours of time, both volunteer and professional at millions of dollars in cost to stabilize the ship.
And then – it sat. Today, it still sits, paint peeling and pumps spewing during the canal navigation season and then forlornly in the mud of the “flight” of locks in Waterford, NY.
In late October, just months before the NYS Canal System’s bicentennial celebration of an incredibly successful waterway, this incredibly successful boat was sold for scrap at auction – for $5,200. Specific plans aren’t known at this time, but the new owner will be responsible for moving the boat from its current location, not allowing it to sink, and maintaining it until it is removed from the water for either scrap or other.
