Research


Scope and Content Note

Bound folio volumes contain ink, wash and charcoal maps of the canal system in New York State.

The maps show: survey stations for measuring length of the canal; courses and distances (linked by red lines); canal right-of-way (blue line); locks; aqueducts; basins; other hydraulic structures; bridges; mill races; buildings; streams, ponds, and lakes; steep grades; and adjacent county, town, and property lines. The scale is not given.

Volumes include maps for: Erie Canal, 1834; Chemung Canal and Feeder, 1843; Crooked Lake Canal and Cayuga and Seneca Canal, 1834; Cayuga and Seneca Canal, n.d.; Chenango Canal, 1838; Seneca River Improvement, 1840; Champlain Canal, 1830; and Genesee Valley Canal, 1841, 1850, n.d. There is also a single volume of maps and several unbound maps depicting portions of the canal in Wayne County in accretion A0848-06.

These surveys were made pursuant to legislation of 1827 requiring a complete manuscript map and field notes of every canal to be completed.

A0848-17: This accretion consists of the following volumes duplicated from the original series: "Erie Canal No. 7. Jordan to Kirkville," (with pencil annotations of abandonments as late as 1985); "Erie Canal No. 8. Kirkville to Rome,"; "Cayuga & Seneca Canals Survey," with attached certification and signatures by the Canal Board, pages 1-34, surveys the existing route from Geneva to Montezuma; and "Oswego Canal in Onondaga County from Syracuse to Three River Point."