Two hundred years after Governor DeWitt Clinton’s historic “wedding of the waters,” a hand-built replica of his vessel, the Seneca Chief, is once again tracing the Erie Canal from Buffalo to New York City. The voyage marks the bicentennial of the canal that connected the Great Lakes region to the Atlantic ocean transforming New York into a commercial and cultural powerhouse.
The replicated Seneca Chief stretches 73 feet and was built entirely by hand over the past decade. More than 200 volunteers worked together under the direction of Master Boat Builder Roger Allen. The project, he said, represents the same spirit of collaboration that built the canal two centuries ago.
“We had rocket scientists, we had policemen, firemen, plumbers, housekeepers,” Allen recalled of the crew’s diversity, “lots of teachers, engineers who knew nothing about wooden boat building.”
The vessel launched from Buffalo back on September 24 to remind New Yorkers of the canal’s original mission…