Day 8 Syracuse

 

Rest day today in Syracuse. 

 I went to the Erie Canal Museum; I’ll try to keep it brief.  Clinton’s Big Ditch, named for Governor DeWitt Clinton and completed in1825, was the world’s longest artificial waterway.  The canal’s architects were not trained as engineers, so they borrowed ideas and techniques from European canals. Many of the laborers who built the canal, mostly by hand, were Irish and Italian immigrants.

 The banking industry expanded because New York had a policy of depositing tolls in local banks.  The bankers then lent the money to new business in the  farming, warehouse and retail industries. 

The museum is a weighlock building.  The boats floated in and the lock was drained until the boat rested on a scale and the toll was calculated.

The passengers rode on packet boats which had some pretty tight quarters, but took 2 days in contrast to 2 weeks on a stage coach to travel the 383 miles from Albany to Buffalo.

Tipperary Hill is the old Irish neighborhood in Syracuse. The Irishmen here are at least twice as nuts as anybody from Baltimore.  They got irritated that the green is always on the bottom of traffic lights so… they changed it.

 It’s the only one in the country. 

Had a great time hanging out with Ellen.  Thanks for lunch!