Research

Scope and Content Note

This series consists of traffic related forms maintained by the main Albany office of the New York State Canal Corporation and its predecessor agencies. A variety of traffic related forms and paperwork are maintained by lock employees for the purpose of creating a permanent record of the various activities at a lock. These records include: daily reports of passages, boats, and lockages; pool elevation recordings; special clearances for commercial floats; weekly reports of vessels detained at locks; navigators' reports of obstruction, hazardous physical condition, or collision; reports of incidents that may result in filing of a claim, and a reports of violations of the canal rules and regulations. The statistics derived from the forms become an historical reference used for budgeting, planning the future direction of the Canal, and determining staffing patterns.

Information in the reports generally includes location, date, climatic data, vessels, operating personnel or individuals involved in incidents, and narrative accounts of incidents.