From the NYS Archives, a detailed survey of the Erie Canal from 1834. These are beautiful maps of ink, wash and charcoal. Click on them to see them in simple but glorious detail. This first one shows the beginning of the Erie Canal, and with the alignment of Lawrence Street we can see now that the lock was almost precisely at the southern end of today’s boat launch. (The historical marker for the canal is significantly closer to the Livingston Avenue Bridge; that and some other diagrams from the time could lead one to think the lock was nearer to Colonie Street. Clearly it wasn’t.) At this point, the canal had been open 11 years, but there is no sign of what would become the lumber district. There are only a few buildings in this part of the city at all, though a number are lined right up against the basin. Up at the corner of Lawrence and North Market (which wasn’t Broadway yet) is the State Arsenal that was built in 1799 and converted to School No. 13 in 1859. The lands above are all part of the Van Rensselaer estate.
There is some beautiful detail here, including the positioning of the lock, the location of the weigh lock, and the angle out of the basin into the canal itself. Later the weighlock would be moved up and parallel to the entry to the canal, as shown in this map of the Lumber District.
Further up the canal, the map gets a little confused, at least in terms of what it is mapping. It calls this stretch of Watervliet (the name of the town we now know as Colonie) by the name of “Washington. Formerly Gibbonsville.” But Phillip Schuyler named this area Washington in 1793; it was after it was purchased by James Gibbons that it became known as Gibbonsville. It was Gibbons who sold 12 acres of land to the United States for what was first known as the Arsenal at Gibbonsville. (Also confusingly, the left side of the map is properly read as the top of the right side.) All of this, of course, is now Watervliet the city (not Watervliet the town, which doesn’t exist anymore).
Still more northward, West Troy and Green Island. All the street names have changed. Union Street was just about where Watervliet’s 23rd Street is today and, interestingly, the basin there had a connection to the river. Later that pier in the river ran under the Congress Street Bridge (which connected to Genesee Street) and formed what was called the Lower Basin; above that was the State Basin, which was part of the south branch of the Mohawk River.
Helpful web site! My ancestors were located in West Troy. The Kershaw family. The eldest sons are shown on the 1850 census as “boatmen”. William, the father as “grocer”. Are you able to let me know the current location of the property they purchased in 1842. It was described as Lot 3 in Watervliet. It was described as “on the east by Erie Street, on the north by lot number four, on the west by an alley, on the south by lot number two and is twenty five feet wide in front and rear and ninety feet deep. At some point they leased Lot Four.
In April of 1852 the sold Lot Three for $500. That’s when they relocated to Wis.
I believe street names have changed–Erie St. now Second Ave?? Would the $500 sales price indicate that there was a home on the property? I am interested in seeing where this property is located now. Sorry this is so long. Len Ray, [email protected]
That one may be tough, as the maps that early don’t often have house details but let me see what I can find.