Today's canal crosses the carrying place as an arrow-straight waterway taking us over the highest point of our New York canal trip. From the Federal lock at Troy on the Hudson we had climbed 420 feet to this summit of our route.
Down-locking 50 ft we entered Lake Oneida at Sylvan Beach where my family would take us for summer swims - and in my case, a near summer drowming.
Favored by good weather, Nano comfortably skimmed along the 20 mile length of the lake to its outflow and down the Oneida river to its junction with the Seneca river. Of course the original Erie canal had to bypass the lake and its ouflowing river because there could be no towpath for the mules.
Turning up the Seneca river, we took a sidecut into Onondaga lake where the original canal did run along its eastern shore to the "Salt City" of Syracuse.
Since Jesuit explorers first reported the salt springs at Lake Onondaga in 1654, the abundant salt in this region has been a much exploited resource. During the 19th century most of the salt consumed in the U.S. came from Syracuse and it was a huge business for the region and the Erie canal. An interesting factoid is that Syracuse salt helped the north win the Civil War. The south was so devoid of salt used for leather tanning that their troops were issued wooden shoes!
When the Syacuse salt industry finally closed in 1917 nearly 12 million tons of refined salt had been produced from the springs and wells around Lake Onondaga.
A trip to the Erie canal museum capped off our stay at Syracuse. Housed in an original weigh station is a complete history of the canal including a scale used to weigh each barge for determining its toll
charge.
A striking feature of downtown Syracuse is the stone buildings erected in its heyday. With the completion of the canal, the stonemasons who helped build it turned their skills to builing the towns that canal prosperity created.
