October 26, 1825 Erie Canal Opens

Today’s Snippet is another in the vein of op-ed rather than direct history.

There are many ways to learn about history and each person has their own preference. Sitting in a classroom, at any age, would seem to be the main teaching method. But, it doesn’t have to be. A well written historical fiction piece may be the stepping stone to learning more about an event, a time, a person.

Perhaps a visit to a museum, a living history event, or a public program will be the jump start.

We can listen to all the lectures about the men who worked to create the Erie Canal in the early years of the 1800s. How much more history will be learned with a visit to the Erie Canal Museum (https://eriecanalmuseum.org/https://eriecanalmuseum.org/), or the Flight of Five in Lockport? (http://www.newyorkcanals.org/preservation_lockport_locks.htmhttp://www.newyorkcanals.org/preservation_lockport_locks.htm)

Both of these are wonderful ways to get children and youth into history. They don’t have to just sit and listen, they can touch, walk along the pathways, hear the sounds of life in that earlier time.

At the 200 Years of Transportation event hosted by the Town of Covert Bicentennial Committee and the Interlaken Historical Society, children’s author Dorothy Stacy talked about the Erie Canal. When she first wrote Erie Canal Cousins it was not intended to be a series.

Cover, book 1 in the Erie Canal series

The five books, written at the grade school level, tell of travel on the canal in 1841. Interspersed are items about family life, friendships and much more.

Author Dorothy Stacy at the TOC200 Transportation event,  September 9, 2017
Photo by Grace Hunt

Today, travel on the canal is much easier and can make an enjoyable vacation. For an adventure, one retired school teacher began a canoe journey in Buffalo and paddled his way to Albany. Others have used the whole canal system to travel from Cayuga Lake going west to Chicago, or possibility east and down the Hudson River to New York City.

However history is explored, it should be experienced with joy and shared with others, especially those who create the history of the future.

Dewitt’s Diary, Monday, October 26, 1925

Edna cleaned the dining room today.

I husked some corn in the field

I have a fine field of corn if I can only have the weather to husk it.