Buffalo Maritime Center - Table of Contents
Erie Traveler -
Buffalo Maritime
Center
90 Arthur Street, Buffalo, New York
Buffalo
Maritime Center - Official Website
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Buffalo Maritime Center Announces New Community Boat Building Project Buffalo Rising, February 7, 2017  Endurance, a replica Durham Boat built in Ottawa in 1983 by Parks Canada and the National Capital Commission in Ottawa. It was said to be the only replica Durham boat in the world at the time. It was scrapped in 2006 except for the bow section which is still on display in the Rideau Canal Museum in Smiths Falls, Ontario. Durham Boat history Buffalo’s legacy as a ship building city is impressive. During its shipbuilding heyday, one of the boats that became a staple of the waterfront was a Durham Boat, first built in 1809. The boat was constructed at the Black Rock Shipyard, which was located approximately where the Scajaquada Creek meets the Black Rock Channel. In order to pay tribute to the shipyard, and the regions’s nautical/industrial legacy, the Buffalo Maritime Center (BMC) will be recreating one of these boats, not far from where they were first churned out. The Durham Boat was originally called a “salt boat” due to its exclusive use as a salt carrying vessel. The boat made voyages from Fort Schlosser (Niagara County) to Black Rock, carrying salt that was mined from the Syracuse region to Pittsburgh. It wasn’t until the Erie Canal was built that the man-powered river boat was made obsolete. From that point on, barges were pulled by mules down the Erie Canal. Before that time, the Durham Boat was a regular sight on our waterfront. Buffalo Maritime Center project Now, two centuries later, a 42-foot replica will be making an appearance once again.  Once complete, the boat will be used to travel the restored Lockport Flight of Five Locks in Lockport. The Buffalo Maritime Center and the Lockport Locks Heritage District Board will be heading up the project, with the help of community members. The boat will be built at BMC headquarters at 90 Arthur Street in the Black Rock. The boat building committee is hoping to have the boat finished in time for the July 4th, 2017 anniversary of the start of construction of the Erie Canal. ------------
According the the
BMC,
in 1810, one of these salt boats was upset and lost when it went over
the Falls with the loss of three lives. In that same year, De Witt Clinton had an opportunity to travel in one of these boats while on a survey trip for the Erie Canal. He wrote: “August 4th, [1810] Saturday. After breakfast we set out from Fort Schlosser, in a Durham salt boat, drawing two feet water, twenty-five tons burthen, and able to carry 150 bushels of salt, between seventy and eighty feet long, and seven and eight feet wide. She had six men, who pushed her up against the stream. But notwithstanding she had been lightened for our accommodation, our situation was unpleasant. The weather was uncommonly warm, and the captain being absent, the hands were very noisy, intemperate, and disorganizing. The current was sometimes three miles an hour – on average, two and a half. Despairing of reaching Black Rock with our disorderly fellows, we landed at a tavern about a mile above Tonawanda Creek, and took to our carriages. The disorderly spirit of our boatmen had extended itself to the driver, and I had to silence his importance.” |
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'Erie Traveler' taking shape in Buffalo BUFFALO: Flight of Five demo boat-in-progress has a name. By Joed Viera Niagara Gazette, Feb 5, 2017  Volunteer boat-builders work on the "Erie Traveler" at the Buffalo Maritime Center on Jan. 31. The Traveler is a Durham-style boat that is being constructed by 30 volunteers at the center. When finished, the boat will be placed in the water at Lockport's Flight of Five to demonstrate how the old locks worked. Joed Viera/Staff Photographer The Locks Heritage District Corporation’s new wooden boat has a name: “The Erie Traveler.” Last week dozens of volunteers from across Western New York continued work on the Traveler, a flat-bottomed, double-ended wooden boat being built at the Buffalo Maritime Center. The Traveler is a historically accurate Durham-style boat commissioned by the heritage district to demonstrate operation of the Flight of Five canal locks and attract visitors to the Lock City. “Wood boats are just one of those things, everyone just stops and looks,” volunteer and wooden boat enthusiast Phil Cummings said. Not having a blueprint for the Durham, maritime center personnel designed a version for volunteers to craft. Boats like the Traveler were used to carry freight in the mid 18th and early 19th centuries. Volunteers have been meeting at the maritime center twice a week since October. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, they have been busy shaping mostly yellow pine into pieces of the 42-foot watercraft. “I’m amazed at how it’s progressing. It looks different every time I come in here,” builder John Clauss observed while he planed wood planks. “This thing is made out lumber. In the 1820s there was no such thing as plywood.” “Most of this stuff was done with hand tools,” added Cummings as he hammered cotton into gaps in the blanks, while sitting atop an empty paint can. Volunteers hope to finish construction of the Erie Traveler by May. “I’ll see the end of it. I’ll be down at the locks when they drop it in,” Cummings promised. This year marks the 200th anniversary of the start of construction of the Erie Canal. The groundbreaking took place on July 4, 1817, at Rome, N.Y. |