The Canal Boat Wrecks of Lake Champlain
During the heyday of the Champlain Canal, between 1823 and the early twentieth century, thousands of canal boats passed between Lake Champlain and the Hudson River, transporting raw materials and finished products, linking the farmers and merchants of the Champlain Valley with the rest of the world. Canal boats were by far the most common type of working craft to ply the waters of Lake Champlain. Here three standard (towed) canal boats lie alongside the entrance to the locks at Whitehall. These boxy vessels efficiently and inexpensively transported heavy cargoes, and at the same time served as home for canal boatmen and their families.
Because they traveled the lake in huge numbers, because they wore out like any other kind of wooden vessel, and because they were helpless in all kinds of rough weather, canal boats sank to the bottom of the lake in great numbers. They are the most common type of wreck encountered during surveys of the lake bottom.
In recent years an effort has been made to document the remains of Lake Champlain’s canal boats and canal era, especially since the invasion of zebra mussels threatens to obscure many details on these wrecks. Here Dr. Paul Johnston, Curator of Transportation at the Smithsonian Institution, records the bow construction of a canal boat sunk near Potash Point on the Vermont shore.
Lake Champlain was also home to a hybrid form of canal boat, the ‘sailing canal boat,’ a type of vessel that could pass through the locks and channels of the Champlain Canal and then sail the waters of the lake. Sailing was accomplished by stepping one or two masts in boxes (called ‘tabernacles’) on deck, and by lowering a centerboard through the bottom of the hull. The photograph shows a canal schooner, a version built after the enlargement of the canal locks in 1862.
The wreck of a sloop-rigged sailing canal boat in Cumberland Bay, New York, recorded in 1997. This vessel was built in a frame-less manner, with the sides composed of thick planks bolted together edge-to-edge by long iron rods. It appears to have worn out after a long career and was then purposely scuttled, but this is not certain. This type of sloop-rigged canal sloop was common in the period between 1840 and 1862.
The wreck of the 88-foot-long (26.8 m) canal schooner O. J. Walker in Burlington Bay, Vermont. Walker was built in 1862 and enjoyed a long career on the lake. It sank in 1895 while carrying a load of bricks and drain tile to Burlington. Both masts and several spars are still present on the wreck, but the bricks and tile were scattered about during the sinking.
Want to read more about Lake Champlain’s canal boat wrecks? See:
Arthur Cohn and Marshall True. "The Wreck of the General Butler and the Mystery of Lake Champlain’s Sailing Canal Boats," Vermont History, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1992.
Joseph Cozzi. "The North Beach Wreck: A Solid Wall of Timber," The INA Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 2, 1992.
Joseph Cozzi. "The Lake Champlain Sailing Canal Boat," Underwater Archaeology, Stephen R. James, Jr. and Camille Stanley, eds., Society for Historical Archaeology, 1996.