A Canal Crawl in Pittsford

Friday, June 14, Day 53

We made a stop in Seneca Falls, home to the great Women's Suffrage Museums and institutions.  Seneca Falls is a small town where the Erie Canal provided a lot of prosperity.  Seneca Falls is believed to be the inspiration for the fictional town of Bedford Falls in the movie "It's a Wonderful Life."   The original falls were lost to the development of the Erie Canal, but provided water power for mills, distilleries, tanneries and other factories.  By the mid 19th century, it was the third largest flour milling center in the world. 

But Seneca Falls is known mostly for the 1848 Women's Rights Convention, with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and many other women who drafted an "Equal Rights Amendment" to the constitution.  (It has yet to be passed.)  The National Women's Hall of Fame is in Seneca Falls.  Yet the village's first women mayor was elected in 2004.  The wheels of history grind ever so slowly, it seems!

We headed on to Pittsford, which is near Rochester, NY, to catch up with our friend Marcie and her husband Don.  Knowing I have an interest in the Erie Canal, they took us on a little tour of the Erie Canal near their home.  Here they are at the canal near a canal house restaurant. It's turned out to be a beautiful day! 

There were lots of ducklings on the canal.  This one came right up to us.  They are really teenage ducks at this point! 

We counted 14 ducklings with this mother duck.  She either had babysitting duty, or she had a real problem on her hands!

Here they are practicing formation swimming.

Don took a picture of John and I alongside the canal.

And Marcie took us on a tour of the Richardson Tavern.  It was built in 1821.  The digging of the Erie Canal was particularly hard through here, and so work crews stayed in the area for a year and a half.  It was great for business!

A friend of Marcie's was responsible for the latest renovation of the inn.  It is charming with lots of small dining rooms and an outdoor patio.  A place where you could spend a lot of time.

Then we moved on to the Port of Pittsford.

Here they have preserved some old coal towers and granaries (which are now offices)

They have this boat which is exactly the size of the boats which plied the Erie Canal at the beginning.