On The Discovery of Rosendale Cement

The Century House Historical Society proudly celebrates and interprets the history of the Rosendale  Cement industry. The cement produced locally was hydraulic cement, given that name because it sets  even when submerged in water. The area’s limestone deposits supplied more than half of North  America’s cement needs in the second half of the nineteenth century, so this industry was immensely  important to the development of the United States. It was used in the construction of the US Capital,  the Croton Aqueduct and Dam, the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, the  Starrucca Viaduct, Roebling’s Delaware Aqueduct, the NYS Thruway, and many other structures.1 

There are many erroneous accounts of the discovery of Rosendale Cement widely disseminated in the secondary sources. What follows is a brief account of what is known concerning the discovery of  natural cement in Ulster County in the nineteenth century, relying heavily on primary sources. The  hope is to clear up the confusion so many later accounts have propagated.  

Rosendale cement is a natural cement, made from a very specific rock: clay-rich dolostone, which is essentially a variant of limestone, but contains additional elements, mainly magnesium (found in the mineral dolomite) and aluminum and silicon (contributed by the clay). When fired properly, it becomes calcined, which is to say, chemically transformed. It is then ground to a fine powder that, when combined with water, eventually hardens to produce a very durable man-made stone that has many applications. (Concrete is cement combined with aggregate, usually stones but also with reinforcement such as rebar.) Natural cement is made from rock that already contains all the necessary chemical compounds in the right proportion, as found in the ground, whereas Portland cement, the product that has largely supplanted natural cement, is made by bringing together and combining limestone (its chief component) with the other necessary ingredients from multiple separate sources. The limestone that natural cement  is made from is called dolomite or dolostone. 

The Romans made a version of hydraulic cement that is so enduring that many of the structures that  they constructed with it are extant today, over two millennia later. In addition to limestone (calcined to  lime), Roman cement incorporated a specific kind of volcanic ash, known as pozzolana. This product  was a hydraulic cement but obviously not natural. The knowledge necessary to produce this cement  was lost after the fall of Rome but rediscovered and used by the Dutch in the seventeenth and  eighteenth centuries, and by English engineers at the end of the eighteenth century (2). 

Canals were a vital transportation mode in North America in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth  centuries, as the railroads that eventually supplanted them developed. The Erie Canal, constructed by  the State of New York between 1817 and 1825, taught Americans that they could build canals  successfully, and became the training ground for early civil engineers. Indeed, its Chief Engineer,  Benjamin Wright, was subsequently dubbed “The Father of American Civil Engineering”. Men who  worked for him on the Erie Canal’s construction learned civil engineering and then went on to  construct many of America’s other canals, civil engineers such as Canvass White, John Bloomfield  Jervis, and James McEntee. This was the only way to learn engineering at the time, as the first civil  engineering college degrees in America were not given until the early 1840s.

Canvass White (pictured) studied the cement being made in England when he was sent there by the state to investigate canal technology in 1817. He was convinced that limestone suitable for making cement could be found in North America. Upon his return to New York to work on the construction of  the canal, he discovered dolostone “...on the land of T. Clark  in Chittenango”, in 1818 (3). He then worked out the process of turning it into hydraulic cement, for which he was awarded a patent in 1820. His “White’s Patent Hydraulick Cement” was used in the Erie Canal’s construction, albeit mostly by other local producers violating his patent. (White was eventually awarded $10,000 by the State of New York as compensation that he may or may not have actually received. Nathaniel Sylvester’s 1880 history claims it was $20,000.) The engineers had already dismissed the idea of importing hydraulic cement from England as being too expensive, so had planned to employ regular limestone mortar, which is not watertight and does not set underwater.  One can only speculate about how that would have turned out. A now removed NYS historic marker  credited Nathaniel Bruce with making the discovery in High Falls, NY in 1818 but only the year is  correct. He did make natural cement in High Falls but not until after the discovery was made by  someone else.

The War of 1812 created a fuel shortage in America. The heavily settled East Coast had insufficient timber resources by that time, two centuries after settlement, and coal could only be affordable supplied, from Virginia and England, by shipping it on the Atlantic Ocean. The British blockaded the east coast during that war, cutting off those supplies. In consequence, the anthracite coal fields in north east Pennsylvania, where three quarters of all the world’s anthracite are found, were developed. In 1825, a new company was incorporated as “The President, Managers and Company of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company” (D&H). It constructed a 108 mile long canal to transport anthracite coal from its mines in Carbondale, Pennsylvania to the Hudson River. That required  hydraulic cement, primarily for its 110 locks and 19 aqueducts. The nascent D&H Company hired  Benjamin Wright as its first Chief Engineer, who brought both Jervis and McEntee from the Erie to  work on the construction of the canal. He planned to get cement from Chittenango but, aware of  White’s discovery there, the D&H thought they might find similar limestone along its route from Honesdale, Pennsylvania to Rondout, New York. In this, they were proven correct. The earliest  primary source we have for the discovery of Rosendale cement is the D&H Canal Company’s very first annual report, for 1825, published in March of 1826. It says that “The stone of which water cement is  made has been found in great abundance by a Geologist, who was specially employed for that purpose  and the quality is ascertained to be equal at least to that used in constructing the Locks on the Erie  Canal.” Note that it was discovered by a geologist who was hired expressly to look for potential  mineral resources.

The first detail concerning the discovery that is in dispute is the location where the dolostone was originally found. Many sources say it was on Snyder’s property, part of which is now the Century  House Historical Society site. Nathaniel Sylvester’s 1880 History of Ulster County New York is the next primary source for information and the one that Dietrich Werner and Gayle Grunwald relied on extensively when they wrote the historic narrative of the Rosendale Cement historic district for its designation as a National Historic Landmark in 1992. Sylvester wrote that the discovery was made during construction of the D&H Canal in High Falls, New York. He continues, “The first specimens of  rock were burned in a blacksmith’s forge at High Falls…It was found to be of excellent quality, and it was at once decided that no further purchases from Chittenango would be necessary.” Subsequently, Mr. John Littlejohn was contracted to furnish cement for the canal’s construction. He built a kiln in High Falls a short distance from Simeon DePuy’s flour mill. The fired material was transported there, where it was ground into cement. Sylvester continues the story of this important discovery by detailing how James McEntee, “...was thus familiar with all the details of the discovery and the manufacture. He was then boarding at Simon De Puy’s, and knew about the contract to grind.” McEntee was the resident engineer for the initial construction of the first 20 miles of the D&H Canal from Rondout south. This brings us to the second fact that is in dispute, who made the discovery. Somehow, the fact that McEntee was (possibly) present when dolostone was discovered in High Falls led to his being credited  or that discovery, despite the fact that he was not a geologist. Sylvester included a full page biography of McEntee in another section of his book that does not even mention this discovery. Interestingly, Sylvester mentioned that his account relied on articles concerning the discovery written by McEntee’s son and published in the Rondout Freeman “...a few years since”. Unfortunately, I am yet to find copies of those articles. Sylvester says that once Littlejohn finished supplying to the D&H, he shut down his operation (4).

In 1910, the historical journal Olde Ulster published an account from 1878 that was in the possession of the contributor, Chaplin Roswell Randall Hoes U.S.N., who attested that it was in the handwriting of James McEntee’s son, the artist Jervis McEntee (named for James’ friend and fellow engineer John Jervis). This document is his father’s recollection, over fifty years after the fact, of the construction of the D&H Canal. In it, he related the names of many of the property owners the canal was built through, along with anecdotes. As to the discovery of Rosendale cement, he simply states that “Cement was first found in the county by engineers of the canal” (5). Not what you would expect had he been the actual discoverer!

Where did the claim that it was discovered on A.J. Snyder’s property in Rosendale come from? Sylvester’s detailed history makes it clear that that occurred subsequent to the discovery in High Falls. “No one was manufacturing for the general market. The first man to revive the business and manufacture for shipment was Judge Lucas Elmendorf, the man from whom the Lucas Turnpike takes its name. He commenced quarrying and burning cement where the village of Lawrenceville is now located, and the grinding was done in the old Snyder mill.” He continues with a discussion of how there was confusion as to the discovery even at that time and includes an 1878 letter to an unknown recipient from John B. Jervis, who was Assistant Chief Engineer for the D&H then, that states “By your letter and the documents with it I find an inquiry as to who first discovered cement in Ulster County, James McEntee claiming that it was by the agents of the Delaware and Hudson Company…The canal was commenced in the spring of 1825 and the cement was discovered during that summer. As to the claim that Ulster County hydraulic cement was manufactured and used before the want of it was felt by the Delaware and Hudson Canal, in my opinion has no just basis in fact.” This further invalidates the spurious claim that  Nathaniel Bruce made the discovery in High Falls in 1818. Jervis’ letter gives details of the discovery  of a magnesium lime that had also been discovered in the same time period, a product that made a  strong mortar with a “...lightly cement quality, but it is quite different from what is known as hydraulic  cement.” He credits this fact with confusion that already existed at that time (6).

In conclusion, Rosendale Cement was discovered in High Falls, N.Y. in the summer of 1825 by an  unnamed geologist hired by the D&H Canal Company specifically to look for it, not by James  McEntee, not by Nathaniel Bruce, and not by A.J. Snyder, despite what has been subsequently written.  It was discovered along the line of the canal in High Falls, not on the Snyder property in Rosendale. It  is probably too much to hope that this will put to rest the many incorrect versions of the story of this  important discovery that exist in many secondary sources. 

The author thanks Laurel Mutti for her help with the geology. 

Bill Merchant

Deputy Director for Collections, Historian & Curator

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1) Werner, Dietrich & Burmeister, Kurtis, An Overview of the History and Economic Geology of the Natural Cement  Industry at Rosendale, Ulster County, New York, Journal of ATSM International, Vol. 4, No. 6, 2007.

2) Bastoni, Gerald, Episodes From The Life of Canvass White Pioneer American Civil Engineer, Proceedings of the Canal History and Technology Symposium, Vol.1, January 30, 1982, The Center for Canal History and Technology, page 76.

3) Howe, Dennis, The Industrial Archaeology of a Rosendale Cement Works at Whiteport, Whiteport Press, Kingston, NY, 2009, page 7.

4) Sylvester, Nathaniel Bartlett, History of Ulster County New York, Everts & Peck, Philadelphia, 1880, Part 2, page 240.

5) Olde Ulster, James McEntee’s Story of the Canal, October 1910, No. 10, Benjamin Myer Brink, Kingston, NY, 1910.

6) Sylvester, Part 2, pages 240-1.

Bill Merchant Receives MANY Award of Distinction

D&H Canal Historical Society was the recipient of one of fourteen awards made by the Museum Association of New York (MANY) in 2023 that celebrate unique leadership, dedicated community service, transformational visitor experiences, community engagement, and innovative programs that use collections to tell stories of everyone who calls New York home.

The award honors long-time Society staff member, Bill Merchant, Deputy Director for Collections, Historian & Curator, in the Individual Achievement category. The Individual Achievement Award honors a dedicated museum professional or volunteer that played a significant role in advancing their organizations. Award winners are selected for their valuable contributions to expanding audience reach, increasing the number and types of staff, successful campaigns for endowment or capital projects, or instilling financial stability at their organization. Nominations are accepted for a museum staff person or a museum trustee or volunteer.

Bill Merchant has been a mainstay at the D&H Canal Historical Society for over 12 years. He started out as a volunteer trustee, served as Board President, and then over six years ago moved into a staff role as Deputy Director for Collections. His efforts, knowledge, and skills have led the Society from an all-volunteer organization to one with 2 full-time and 5 part-time staff. In addition to expanding audiences through outreach and virtual programs, his foresight, guidance, and sweat equity brought the Society to its new home in the DePuy Tavern. Over 10 years ago, Bill encouraged the Society to consider the acquisition of the DePuy Tavern, a National Historic Landmark building constructed in 1797 and located along the updated route of the D&H Canal in High Falls. It sits next to Lock 16, which is the beginning of the Society's Five Locks Walk, a walking trail that follows the towpath of the Canal after it was re-routed in 1850 and features 5 partially restored locks.

Since that original idea came about, Bill has tirelessly worked in his various roles to support the acquisition of the building through a grant from The Open Space Institute and New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation. In addition, he was instrumental in the renovation of the building from the former Canal House Restaurant to the new location for the D&H Canal Museum and Mid-Hudson Visitor Center. Merchant also played a significant role in coordinating with the exhibits consultants to develop text, determine interpretive themes, and even installing the exhibits. Bill has stewarded the Society's collection to ensure that all items are properly catalogued and preserved.

He helped the Society receive a Greater Hudson Heritage Network Conservation Grant to purchase two environmental monitors. He is continually on the lookout for new collections items. The most recent acquisition that he secured was an oil painting, titled “Moonlight, The Lock, High Falls, 1856” by William Rikarby Miller, that is set in High Falls and depicts the DePuy Tavern. Merchant has been focused on highlighting the stories of historically marginalized populations that were significant to the success of the D&H Canal. In 2019, he was awarded a grant from The Community Foundation of the Hudson Valley to conduct this research, which has resulted in an article published in the Hudson River Valley Review, 4 hour long presentations that can be viewed on the Society's YouTube channel, D&H TV, and numerous guest presentations in partnership with other organizations.

Bill has further broadened the reach of the Society through his work on the Society's YouTube channel, D&H TV, which features over 100 videos sharing the history of the D&H Canal (https://www.youtube.com/@DandHTV). This engaging content includes a "Where is Our Historian" series that features Merchant's travels along the 108-mile route of the Canal to explore existing remains and sites that might be lesser known to the public. So far, the channel has received almost 20,000 views since it was launched in spring 2020.

The most recent initiative that Merchant has been significantly involved in, is the preservation of the collectors and telegraph office. Acquired last fall by the Society, it may be one of the few original telegraph offices in the country. Built in 1850 and enlarged in 1868, it is located next to NY Lock 15 of the Delaware & Hudson Canal in High Falls. The building and lock are just south of where the Canal crossed the Rondout Creek, using a Roebling suspension aqueduct, one of four built by Roebling for the Canal. With Bill's guidance, the building has been secured from the elements and the area has been cleared of overgrowth. He has conducted research on the building and is coordinating with the Society's Vice President and a local architect to develop plans for restoring the building to make it safe and accessible to the public.

D&H Canal Historical Society and Bill Merchant will be recognized at the Museum Association of New York 2023 annual conference “Finding Center: Access, Inclusion, Participation, and Engagement” in Syracuse, New York on Monday, April 17 from 12:30 - 1:30 PM at the Syracuse Marriott Downtown.

“New York’s museums and museum professionals are reimagining and reinventing their roles within their communities, how they interpret their stories and collections, and the visitor experience,” said Natalie Stetson, Executive Director of the Erie Canal Museum and MANY Program Committee Co-Chair. “This year’s award winners are outstanding examples for the museum field.” 

“We were incredibly impressed with the quality and quantity of award nominations this year, which made the review process highly competitive,” said Clifford Laube, Public Programs Specialist at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum and MANY Program Committee Co-Chair. “Museums and museum staff across the state are demonstrating creative thinking and are inspiring institutional change.”

“Bill Merchant is one of those rare individuals whose professional competency extends well beyond the parameters of his job description and who willingly takes on with great delight an extraordinary number of tasks usually performed by staff, consultants, or contractors,” commended Jack Braunlein, Executive Director of the D&H Canal Historical Society. “Despite the seemingly impossible workload, Bill always presents a refreshingly positive attitude and cheerful demeanor that makes working with him a true pleasure.”

Learn more about MANY’s 2023 Awards of Distinction and the annual conference here: https://nysmuseums.org/awardsofdistinction.

Makers of History Lecture Series

Celebrating the Hudson Valley

The D&H Canal Historical Society has inaugurated a series of presentations in its Mid-Hudson Regional Visitor Center entitled "Makers of History". It features people working and living in our area whose work is of national, and even international importance. The Society believes that the region is rapidly developing into a major center of scholarship and excellence and that it should play a role in showcasing leaders in many fields who are our neighbors.

Talks are held in the Canal Society's Visitor Center on Fridays at 7 PM each month except December. Attendance at these talks will be free. We suggest a donation of $15 per person if guests wish to help support the Canal Society and its mission.

 Each guest lecturer event will be posted on our Events page. A printable version of the full event schedule can be accessed through our website by clicking the button below. We hope to see you there!

A New Discovery

Image courtesy of the Ellenville Public Library and Museum

Do you see what we see?

At the D&H Canal Museum, we are always researching relevant topics, people, and endeavors related to the D&H Canal. One area of interest has been the role of women on the canal, as they were greatly underrepresented and not documented. Up until now we only knew of one picture of a girl hoggee along the D&H, but recently that all changed.

In July, our Historian and Curator, Bill and I (Visitor Center Director and Assistant Curator Courtney) went to visit our friends at the Ellenville Public Library and Museum to look through their lengthy collection of D&H Canal photos. We spent close to an hour browsing through four thick binders of photographs. Coincidentally, one topic of conversation with our colleagues at the Ellenville Library was the representation of women along the D&H. It seemed to be a sing of what was to come. While browsing through one of the albums, I spotted something in one of the photos that caught my attention-a skirt. Upon closer inspection we had unearthed something we didn't think existed, a second photo of a girl hoggee! Take a close look at the image and see for yourself. Up until this point, we only knew of one photograph taken by LeGrand Botsford that inspired the painting "On the Towpath" by E.L. Henry. We are thrilled with this recent discovery. Many thanks to our friends at the Ellenville Public Library and Museum for letting us share this incredible photo!

A zoomed in version of the photo, showing the female hoggee more closely.

High Falls Collector & Telegraph House Update

Last year, the D&H Canal Historical Society was fortunate enough to acquire the 1850 High Falls Toll Collector and Telegraph Office. It is adjacent to “new” Lock 15, just across route 213 from the DePuy Tavern. From an examination of its basements, it is clear that there is an initial structure that was subsequently added on to. So here is what appears to have occurred- In 1850, the Canal underwent its final enlargement, when it was rebuilt to accommodate longer and wider boats. In High Falls, this required rerouting for about 2 miles as there were locks so close together that the rerouting was necessary. This new route placed the Canal directly in front of the DePuy Tavern (it had been 50’ or so to the north of the building before that). But there were many businesses along that old route that still needed the Canal to transport their products. Some of them asked the D&H Canal Company to keep water in the old section closest to the falls so as to allow them to continue to transport their products on it. So the original Collector’s Office was built in 1850, as an office for the clerk collecting tolls from those users. The 1854 survey maps of the D&H Company denotes a collector’s office at that site corresponding to the approximately 20’ by 15’ original structure.

In 1862, the D&H ran a telegraph line on its entire towpath in NY. A smaller 10’ by 15’ section was added on the north side of the toll collector’s office in consequence. The two sections are connected on the first floor but the basements make it clear it is two sections. When emptying the building recently, the inscription “WJ 1868” was discovered in two places in the basement of that north addition, making this the probable date that it was added. Presumably, it was cramped having both the toll collector and the telegraph operator in what had been sufficient for just the toll collector previously, and so an addition was appended to it six years later. The map of High Falls in the 1875 Beers atlas of Ulster County shows the building, a longer structure than seen in the company map, and denotes it as a Telegraph Office. An oral history about the D&H in the early 20th century in our collections said that the telegraph was only for the D&H, but research has determined that originally all the D&H telegraph offices were available to the general public. This may be the oldest extant telegraph office in America.

The acquisition of this historic structure has garnered a lot of attention in our local community. A retired local school teacher has offered to donate period telegraph keys to us, with the caveat that we let children interact with them. We have a c1887 D&H Canal Company telegraph key in our collections that will be on display in the new museum but shouldn’t be handled, so are looking forward to developing programs with these other keys that can teach children (and adults) about the very important and world-changing technology of the telegraph, which ushered in the modern era of immediate global communication. Prior to that, it would take weeks or months to communicate with anyone outside one’s immediate area. We also have a desk that was in the building and look forward to eventually bringing it back to its original home.

The Rondout Esopus Land Conservancy has generously granted us $12,500 to use towards the project of restoring this building. We are extremely grateful for their support. We are also fortunate that local resident Dick Stokes Sr. offered the use of his time, dumpsters, and heavy equipment to assist us, by clearing what had become a local eyesore. In four days, he had filled the dumpster multiple times with the trailer, van, and other detritus that had littered the site! We cannot thank him enough. The substantially cleared site enabled a volunteer crew to fill another dumpster with the contents of the building. Although we will need the volunteers and dumpster one more time to complete the task, it is empty enough that we could get Scan2Plan, which offers advanced measurement and BIM/CAD modeling services for the architecture, engineering and construction industries, in to digitally scan the entire building. Our thanks to our architect and High Falls resident Rick Alfandre for getting them to do this for us, and at a reduced rate. The scans they generate will enable Rick to easily complete plans for the restoration of this historic gem. Then we can start to get quotes for the restoration work that we can then use to obtain the funding required to finish this important project. 

The scans indicate that the roof is still viable enough that it has kept the interior relatively dry, despite the fact that all the windows have been broken. The clapboard needs serious attention and a lot of the interior plaster needs restoration. There is a sill plate that will need to be replaced, too. And the roof will also need to be replaced sooner rather than later. We have our work cut out for us!

We are proud the Society is able to move this project along, with the help of community financial support and volunteer labor, despite the fact that our main focus is getting the new Museum and Mid-Hudson Visitor Center ready for opening day on June 18. There is never a dull moment! 

Do you want to help? Your financial contributions, large and small, are vital to our continued success. If you want to volunteer your time or expertise, please email us at info@canalmuseum.org or call us at 845-687-2000. We welcome any and all assistance you can give us.

(Our thanks to our volunteers (L-R)- D&HCHS Trustee Dave Kime, Flynn O’Connor, D&CHS Trustees Steve Schneider and Matt Berlin, D&HCHS Handy Man Robert Becker and his daughter, Nicole, and D&HCHS Historian & Curator, Bill Merchant. Not pictured, Richard O. Stokes, Sr.)

Bill Merchant

Bill Merchant, Deputy Director for Collections, Historian & Curator for the D&H Canal Historical Society.

D&H Canal Lock Stone in High Falls

All of the locks on the National Historic Landmark Five Locks Walk the D&H Canal Historical Society maintains and interprets in High Falls, NY are missing some of the topmost layers of stone. These locks are fairly unique for the D&H Canal, having been made of fitted dry-laid stone rather than the usual composite construction used for most of the 108 locks. (Composite construction locks are made of unfitted field stone with a 2” white oak lining applied to the interior to make it water-tight.) The closer to a means of transportation the locks are, the more stone is missing. It appears that people re-purposed the cut stones once the locks were no longer in service. Or so I thought, but then I read an old newspaper account.

Reclaimed D&H lock stone at the Marbletown transfer station, to be used in Grady Park and the Five Locks Walk.

Historian Dorothy Sanderson worked at the Ellenville Library in the mid-twentieth century and extensively researched newspaper archives from the 19th century for stories about the Canal. The work resulted in one of the best secondary source histories of the D&H Canal, her The Delaware & Hudson Canalway. The much expanded hardcover second edition was published in 1974. A collection of her research notes on the D&H Canal wound up at the Wallenpaupack Historical Society, resulting in that institution’s 2013 publication, The Raging Canal- Newspaper Accounts of the Delaware and Hudson Canal, 1870-1902. (Water from Lake Wallenpaupack fed the D&H Canal in Pennsylvania, but the Canal itself passed a mile or two to the west.) This compilation is an excellent primary source of stories about the D&H Canal, since it consists entirely of period newspaper accounts. This was in the pre-internet era, so Ms. Sanderson viewed them on microfilm. I marvel at her hard work and diligence- these two sources contain an astounding number of press accounts.

In 19th century newspapers, regional papers often printed items from other newspapers, in the earliest days of news syndication. According to The Raging Canal, on December 18, 1873, the Wayne County Herald reprinted the following story-

“A WORK THAT WAS NEVER FINISHED

Any one who has been at High Falls on the Del & Hud [sic] Canal, says the Middletown Mercury, may have noticed lying there in [sic] an immense quantity of splendid building stone, much of it dressed and ready for use, but apparently lying valueless. About 50 men found employment for several years in getting out and dressing these stones. The work was commenced by the Canal Co. under the superintendency of the late R. F. Lord, Esq., the stone being intended for the masonry in doubling several of the locks in the canal, it being necessary to increase its capacity. The work was still continued when Coe. F. Young assumed control. Shortly after Thomas Dickson was elected President, he and Mr. Young were making an inspection tour of the canal. Asher M. Atkinson, now General Superintendent of the canal, was then a Division Superintendent. Accompanying the above officers to High Falls, he learned for the first time-that point being out of his jurisdiction-that certain locks were to be made double. He demonstrated to the satisfaction of both Mr. Young and Mr. Dickson, that the locks then arranged were capable of passing 2,000,000 tons of coal annually, and the proposed enlargement of the locks was to be made to admit the transportation of 1,500,000. The work was immediately discontinued, and over $100,000 saved to the company.”

(My thanks to Sally Talaga and the Wayne County Historical Society in Honesdale, PA, for the image of the article.)

It happens that the D&H Canal Company peak year for coal production was in 1870, when it produced over 2,000,000 tons, but by that time the Company owned or controlled rail lines from NYC to Montreal, so the Canal carried less than that- the amount of D&H coal shipped on the Canal peaked in 1872 at 1,409,628 tons. R. F. Lord died in 1867 and had stepped down as chief engineer in 1862, so the work of roughing out that stone spanned many years.

A D&H Canal lock stone at the Rest Plaus Rail Trail parking lot.

I have seen a lot of dressed lock stone around the area, most notably by the High Falls train station and in the masonry of the NYO&W trestle in Stone Ridge (on the Rail Trail between Leggett and Cottekill Roads). Some can be found where it has recently been relocated in the Rail Trail’s Rest Plaus Road parking area, and more will probably be used in the new Grady Park- this stone had been previously repurposed, used to buttress the walls to the loading area at the Transfer Station. I always assumed these stones were removed from the local locks, as most are missing at least some stone and at least one is missing a whole side, but since discovering this account, it is clear there was a significant quantity of dressed local Shawangunk conglomerate stone available in the area in 1873, long before the Canal ceased holding water, which was in 1901 in High Falls. (The Canal was still in operation from the Rosendale section of High Falls to Rondout through 1917, carrying in coal from the Hudson River for the cement kilns still in operation and shipping Rosendale cement out.) The Canal Company undoubtedly sold off this valuable commodity when they were convinced they no longer needed it, despite this account saying it was “...apparently lying valueless.” 

Pictured to the left is stone used for a viaduct in 1901 for the NYO&W Rail Road- could it be from the D&H Canal?

In 2020, the D&H Canal Society was awarded a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Studies in conjunction with the Museum Association of New York to further train staff on the use of digital media. The second project for this 2 year grant requires partnering with a Library. We decided that this story would be perfect for that collaboration and have partnered with Sandy Marsh, Digital Archivist at the Ellenville Public Library & Museum and Nicole Sorbara, Museum Manager of the Terwilliger House, the Museum adjacent to the Ellenville Library. Look for the finished video on D&H TV later this year!

Bill Merchant

Bill Merchant, Deputy Director for Collections, Historian & Curator for the D&H Canal Historical Society.

in her words: life on the canal in the eyes of a hoggee

The primary work of the Society is to tell the story of the D&H Canal. What exactly does that entail? Through our various means of education, we have covered topics ranging from construction and engineering, finances, immigration, and more. For the last ten months, the staff has been working on highly anticipated project. Follow along as we unravel the story of a woman named Catherine Huftill.

The Grant Project
Last Fall, our museum was selected to be a part of a two-year grant program hosted by the Museum Association of New York (MANY) and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Part of the program is to create a program to “virtually deliver to their audiences, focusing on developing programs from stories found in their collections that reveal cultural and racial diversity in their communities”. Our inspiration was to focus on marginalized communities that worked on the canal. Specifically, female hoggees. Hoggee was the name given to the children who led the mule teams that pulled canal boats. We decided to create a short film geared towards younger audiences to educate and introduce them to life along the canal through the eyes of a hoggee. 

Our Inspiration
What was our inspiration? The painting On the towpath by E.L. Henry is the ONLY image that we have found that features a female hoggee working on the canal. Our goal was to bring this unnamed woman’s story to life. As we continued to source material for the film, we discovered that there is a photograph taken by LeGrand Botsford that was used as the inspiration for the painting. Having a visual source for our story was a great start, but we hoped to find a woman from history whose story we could tell.

Henry, EL. (1891). On the towpath [Oil on Canvas].

A Dead End
Our first source material was an excerpt from Dorothy H. Sanderson’s book “The Delaware & Hudson Canalway.” There was mention of a woman named “Mrs. James McDermott” as a person who worked on the D&H Canal as a young girl. Copious genealogical and local research could not positively identify the woman or her husband, so that was a dead end. During Women’s History Month we posted on the museum’s Facebook page about our search for a female hoggee. Our friend Sarah Wassberg-Johnson at the Hudson River Maritime Museum responded, saying they had a 1956 New York Canal Society oral history interview of a woman named Catherine Huftill who worked on her father’s boat on the D&H Canal. We found our source! (The only reason this exists is because she married an Erie Canal boatman, whom the NY Canal Society was interviewing.)

Her Story
While we don’t want to give too much away, what we can tell you is that Catherine Huftill worked as a mule driver on her father’s boat from 1893 to 1896 from the ages of 7 to 10. The video will feature scripted narration and excerpts from the recorded interview with Catherine in 1956. Below is an excerpt from the script for our video:

“Hi friends, my name is Courtney. I’m going to teach you about life along a canal. Do you know what a canal is? Let me explain it to you. Over 100 years ago, before the common use of cars, trains, railroads, and even permanent roadways, there were canals which helped transport people and goods to other towns and across states. Instead of a system of roads, there was a system of waterways, or a water highway if you will, where people traveled on canal boats. These boats didn’t have sails or engines, they were pulled by mules! Quite often, young children (probably around your age) were in charge of leading the mules along so the boat would keep moving. Now, I want you to close your eyes and imagine with me: you’re walking outside leading two mules along with a rope, and there’s a boat full of coal behind you. There were no cell phones or internet at that time, and you spent your entire day walking outside. Do you think you could do it? Well, as you keep watching this video you’re going to learn what it was like to work on a canal. In this video you’re going to hear parts of an interview with a very special woman named Catherine Huftill. She worked as a mule driver on her father’s boat for three years from the ages of 7 to 10….”

Spring updates

Renderings by Avery Zucker

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At this time next year, the D&H Canal Historical Society will be opening the new D&H Canal Museum and Mid-Hudson Visitor Center in the historic 1797 DePuy Canal House on Main Street in High Falls. In anticipation of this event, the board, staff, and consultants have been engaged in research, planning, and design of the new facility, with careful attention being paid to maintaining the historic integrity of the building. The Society opted to take advantage of the extraordinary real estate market and sold the old Museum building this past January after inventorying and moving all their collections to the new storage area of the “new” building.

The new roof was finished in 2018, the north addition was rebuilt in 2019, and, in the last year and a half, we have been concentrating on the interior spaces. All new electric and HVAC installations are in process and the transformation of the 20th century kitchen addition includes new bathrooms, floor, and lighting to accommodate the Visitor Center. The first floor of the 1797 and 1827 sections of the historic building are being gently restored, and will serve as the major exhibit space under plans being developed by the well-respected exhibit design team of Christina Ferwerda and Paul Orselli. Our exciting and engaging plan employs interactive, hands-on displays to tell this important story in a clear and concise manner and will reward repeat visits by offering opportunities to dig deeper into this fascinating history. 

Staff have taken advantage of the Covid shut-down to initiate D&H TV, which has become our primary way to provide programming over the past year. Over 70 videos are available, including guided tours of the old Museum, behind-the-scenes video of the move and construction, Powerpoint presentations by our Historian, and tours of publicly accessible extant D&H Canal sites. You can even view the virtual wine tasting event by Advisory Board member Kevin Zraly. This season, the museum will not be open but a monthly Sunday Afternoon With Our Historian will offer both in-person and virtual access to the D&H Canal history and our collections. In addition, our Historian, Bill Merchant, will be a guest guide every other Sunday on the Hudson River Maritime Museum’s solar-powered boat, Solaris. 

When we open, the site will become an attraction for tourists and eco-tourists, and Museum visitors seeking to learn about the D&H Canal, how it operated, and its links to American history. The new Mid-Hudson Visitor Center will enlighten travelers to the many cultural attractions, parks, hiking trails, and other recreational opportunities, as well as the bounty of area culinary sites. There are many wineries, cider mills, distilleries, and micro-breweries to be enjoyed in the region. The National Historic Landmark Five Locks Walk now connects to the NYO&W Rail Trail and High Falls is only 3 miles from the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail, a part of the NYS Empire State Trail. The Visitor Center will also host pop-up events from some of these many attractions, as well as the D&HCHS lecture and film series. 

We hope to see you all at the grand opening next year!

Jack Braunlein

Executive Director

Women Worked on the D&H Canal

“...both the small boats on the old canal, and the large boats on the new canal, substitute women and girls for men and boys, and we often find them the best boatmen." 

D&H employee Lorenzo Sykes, in his 1858 court testimony

Florence, Philip, and Ralph DeGroodt and their D&H Canal boat waiting to enter a Roebling aqueduct c1895.

Conducting research into the lives of marginalized workers on the D&H Canal is difficult, and the hardest group to find information on is women, though their work was necessary to run the Canal. In his study of the workers digging the early North American canals, Common Labor, Peter Way wrote, “Women rarely figure in the primary sources that have survived, having been, even more so than male workers, silenced by history”. Yet they were an important component of the overall workforce. “Women worked on the periphery of canal construction, serving men as cooks, cleaners and laundresses in the shanty camps, usually in the pay of contractors at wages considerably below those of men.”  What was true of women during construction continued throughout the entire canal era. Way continues “...their secondary status in patriarchal society meant they could be more fully exploited than men... they were always treated as second-class producers solely because of their gender…” They were prevalent- at least a third of the population in canal settlements. “As canallers were not paid enough to support a family, wives and children had to work to survive.” Women and children were employed because they accepted lower pay than the other marginalized workers, immigrants and people of color.

Mule driving didn’t require much manual skill beyond the ability to walk, no faster than three mph, for long stretches of time, and was a position almost solely filled by children, male and female. Steering a boat required more brains than brawn- pictures from the last quarter of the 19th century frequently show women at the tiller of what was usually their family’s canal boat. In the last quarter century of operation, the D&H Canal boat crews were often whole families, whose pooled labor allowed them to subsist on the meager pay. The price paid to the boatmen fell to a low of $.60 a ton in 1878 after having paid a dollar a ton in 1871. When asked what work his wife did on board his Canal boat, captain Alpheus Galloway testified that, “She used to cook and tend to the things on the boat which had to be done, cleaning &c., steering the boat occasionally to spell us when required, and in watching the boat when we were lying still.” 

Women often had a hard time finding work. On October 19, 1876, the Honesdale Citizen reported  that a woman was discovered on a D&H Canal boat dressed as a man and “...regularly employed as part of the crew.” Unfortunately this is all we know- you wonder if she kept working. Peter Way wrote “Two nameless Irishwomen dressed in men’s clothing to work as quarriers on the Chesapeake and Delaware line, but quickly left when they discovered the lack of accommodations for workers there.” Some women resorted to impersonating men, presumably to get better pay.

Women were not just found on the Canal boats but were also employed at various businesses along the entire route. On April 25, 1878, The Honesdale Citizen reported on an altercation at Langendorfer’s Hall in Texas Township, PA, with some 40 or 50 participants. One side “...rallied under the leadership of a woman, armed with a hammer, every blow of which fell with telling effect on the canallers, causing many a bloody nose and sore head.”  There was no indication of the cause of the fight nor further information on the outcome! 

(We’d like to recognize and thank the Ulster County Community Grants Fund of the Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley for their initial funding for this research.)

Bill Merchant

Deputy Director for Collections, Historian, and Curator

History Alliance of Kingston: Our New Project

In a time when people are spending more time apart, the History Alliance of Kingston (HAK) is working to bring historical societies and museums together. Their mission is “To bring local history to life for people of all ages through events and activities that reflect and promote a deeper understanding of the diverse social and cultural history of the Hudson Valley.” The D&H Canal Historical Society is one of the founding members of HAK, greatly contributing towards the group's growing success. The Canal Society is largely involved with HAK’s newest project, the Black History of the Hudson Valley Collaborative Research Project and is looking forward to sharing it with our community.

Learn more in the below article shared to the Kingston Wire.

The History Alliance of Kingston (HAK) is pleased to announce its first event of 2021! HAK will introduce to the public our newest project: the Black History of the Hudson Valley Collaborative Research Project in a Zoom presentation as part of Black History Month Kingston on Monday, February 22, 2021 at 7:00 p.m. 

Black History is woven into the fabric of our region’s past, but where can we go to learn about it? The History Alliance of Kingston is designing a digital guide to compile existing Black History of the Hudson Valley resources and collect new ones for researchers and the general public alike. This effort builds on work done by and with the region’s Black community for a long time, including Dr. A.J. Williams-Myers’s research, the creation of the African Roots Center, the Conference on Black History in the Hudson Valley, and many more community projects.

We are working to right a serious wrong. Too little has been written about the Black history of our region, and our institutions did not consciously collect or catalogue items focused on these stories. Now, as our member institutions independently undertake Black history research projects and respond to requests from researchers who are eager to learn more, we decided to pool our resources in an effort to share the source materials that can help tell a more complete story. Our goal is to make these resources -- and stories-- more accessible for researchers and the general public. 

At this public program, HAK members will share an early draft of our Black History of the Hudson Valley Collaborative Research Project, a collection of resources (both published and not) that we have compiled with the help of scholars in the field. We will also share several research projects currently in-progress and invite the broader community to contribute their knowledge. The aim of this session is to introduce this project, and to invite the broader community to help us identify existing resources for inclusion in this guide-- including personal and family stories and collections. Whether or not you can attend, we invite you to contribute your research and collections to it, and to spread the word about it!

The event will be held on Monday, February 22nd, from 7-8pm on Zoom. Advance registration is required to attend the event. To get the link and register, you can find the event on our Facebook page.

Members: Taylor Bruck; Nancy Chando; Troy Ellen Dixon; Christine Ferwerda; Laurie Hancock; Bill Knowles; Sarah Litvin; Henry Lowengard; Courtney McNamara; Bill Merchant; Sarah Wassberg Johnson

Member Organizations: AJ Williams-Myers African Roots Center; Century House Historical Society; D & H Canal Historical Society; Friends of Historic Kingston; Hudson River Maritime Museum; Reher Center for Immigrant Culture and History; Senate House State Historic Site; Theatre on the Road; Ulster County Clerk’s Office; Ulster County Historical Society; Volunteer Fireman’s Hall and Museum of Kingston

The History Alliance of Kingston is working to bring local history to life for people of all ages through events and activities that reflect and promote a deeper understanding of the diverse social and cultural history of the Hudson Valley.

Visit our website for more information about HAK, our member organizations, and our work. If you are interested in participating in our work, complete the contact form here.

Courtney McNamara

Collections Assistant

Hiking and biking the D&H Canal

Photo courtesy of @HBTrails on Instagram

In the time of social distancing and online interactions, it is our goal to maintain and grow new connections with our audience, and canal enthusiasts, through our social media presence. Over the last few months one Instagram account has stood out to us with their continued support of the museum. Whether it’s sharing our posts to their Instagram story, or tagging our account when they share footage and photos of the local canal areas they’ve explored, we’ve got their interest. I’d like to introduce to you HB Trails, a local duo who enjoys hiking and biking around the local trails, and has a fondness for the D&H Canal. I reached out to them asking if they would be interested in being interviewed for our blog as a way of thanking them for their continued support, and they happily obliged. 

Let’s get to know you! Introduce yourselves and what brought you to the Hudson Valley.
We are Nihad Mustafic and Amra Hajric, from Queens, NY. We’ve been hiking together since we met, 14 years ago. We moved to Wurtsboro seven years ago in order to enjoy a quieter life with our cats, leaving the traffic-life behind, and to hike and bike as often as we can while working from home. We used to have to rent a car just to go hiking in Carmel, NY and now we can drive down the road and jump on a trail. 

Tell us the goal behind your Instagram account.
We created our Instagram account in order to share our adventures and meet like-minded people. We’ve been talking about this for years and finally did it! Our goal is to inspire people to be more active outdoors and learn a few things ourselves, along the way. We love the history behind each trail and to imagine how it all looked back in the day. We now have something of our own history to look back on, to see what trails we did and accomplished. A 100 years from now someone else might look at our pictures and compare the trails and scenery. 

What sections of the D&H Canal trail have you hiked/biked? What sections do you have left?
So far, we’ve only completed the D&H Canal from Phillipsport to Cuddbackville. We’ve done the sections in Wurtsboro multiple times and we’ve kayaked and hiked around other areas where the canal used to run such as the Rondout Creek. We hope to continue the canal trail into Pennsylvania soon; we just need to find the walkable sections and plan our trip. 

Did you have a favorite section of the canal trail?
Since we haven’t completed the whole section I can’t say that we have a favorite, but we walk the trail in Wurtsboro often. You can start from the museum at 209 Bova Rd, cross the street and walk the path all the way to town, eat a gyro at the diner, and walk back. There is still some evidence of history that used to be around the canal path. You can also jump on the old rail trails that used to run alongside the canal to explore the Shawangunk Ridge Trails. When we want to do more miles we walk from the canal and jump on the rail trail to check out the old mines. We ended up finding an old glass Listerine bottle in the woods, perhaps from one of the miners? 😃

Have you visited our Five Locks Walk in High Falls?
Sadly, we have not explored that area yet, but it’s on our list. We like to do longer walks and hikes so when we do come we plan on hiking as much as we can around the area.

What do you know about the D&H Canal history? What would you like to know?
What we know about D&H Canal history is what we’ve learned through your feed and the plagues and information along the canal. We also know that Maurice Wurts, along with his brother, started the D&H canal and rail so we feel proud to live in this area which bears his name! Another fun but sad fact we learned is that donkeys were used to help pull the boats, since they die easier than horses. 
We truly enjoy watching the live streams and learning more about the D&H canal. We still can’t believe that Canada gets to enjoy the maps instead of us. We would love to see more videos and then-and-now photos. It’s incredible to see how the scenery has changed over the years and what used to be standing is no longer there. 

What areas of history are you interested in?
You can say that we’ve become documentary snobs and love just about any part of history we can find. We love to learn about the old timers and how they lived. We’re always wondering how life was back in the day and how it must have looked 100 years ago and how it will look 100 years from now. It’s wonderful to be able to look at pictures and videos in order to get a glimpse into the past but also to hear stories and learn something new that they don’t teach in school. 

What other trails in the area have you hiked/biked that you would recommend to our followers?So many great places, but if you are walking the D & H canal you have to do the Rails to Trails as well. They go hand in hand and have a great history. We’ve biked through some of it, including starting from our house and going down to Mountain Dale, NY all the way to Hurleyville. The O&W Rail Trail is a must, whether you walk or bike it. We’ve gone from Accord to Kingston and Hurley a few times, during different seasons, and it’s beautiful every time.   

You can follow Nihad and Amra’s adventures on Instagram @hbtrails and on their website www.hbtrails.com.

Courtney McNamara

Curatorial Assistant

UPDATING THE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES

The National Park Service announced this month that $50,000 has been secured and allocated to update the 1968 National Historic Landmark nomination for the Delaware and Hudson Canal. The firm of Richard Grubb and Associates of Cranbury, NJ has been awarded the contract, and work will begin soon. The process is expected to take 3 years. 

The entire Canal was put on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1968, just after the Register was created, when then Secretary of the Interior, Stewart Udall, flew over the entire Canal route and proclaimed it worthy of inclusion. Five areas were specifically mentioned because they were well preserved and best represented what the Canal had been like in the era, including the D&H Canal Historical Society’s Five Locks Walk and the DePuy Tavern, which is now being converted to a new D&H Canal Museum and Mid-Hudson Visitor Center.

This exciting news will keep me quite busy. The update was initiated by the Delaware and Hudson Transportation Heritage Council (DHTHC) when member organization The Neversink Valley Museum of Technology and Innovation applied for a Federal grant to renovate an historic, Canal-side and era building, only to find that they didn’t qualify because it wasn’t mentioned in the listing. When the National Park Service (NPS) reviewed the listing, it was discovered that, typical of the early entries, it was nowhere near as detailed as current ones, and therefore in need of an update.

I am the Chair of the DHTHC and we have been meeting with the NPS from the beginning and will be an important contributor, as virtually all the cultural organizations who celebrate the D&H’s story are DHTHC members. In addition, I have been hired by Grubb & Associates to work in the field with them, as I am well acquainted with the extant Canal, having visited 95% of the it in the last decade, and much of it this year, videoing our Where is Our Historian? segments for D&H TV. In fact, I will be back out in the field soon, when the leaves are down, to video more segments for our audience. I will be well prepared when field work begins next year. 

This update of the D&H Canal listing in the NRHP will help all of us who love the Canal by recognizing all of its extant features so we can we continue to protect them, to better tell the stories of this seminal important American enterprise. I love my job!

Bill Merchant

Deputy Director for Collections, Historian & Curator