Program

Historic Transportation

Subject

Site, Transportation

Location

10 E Genesee St, Baldwinsville, NY 13027, USA

Lat/Long

43.158351, -76.331751

Grant Recipient

Erie Canal Museum

In 1809, Jonas C. Baldwin, namesake of the village of Baldwinsville, New York, built a canal, lock, and dam across the Seneca River. Known as the Baldwin Canal, it was built for the express purpose of improving navigation by allowing passage around what was commonly referred to as McHarry’s Rift, an approximately eight-mile stretch of shallow, rocky rapids. Before Baldwin’s improvements, this section of the river was difficult and expensive to pass. With the canal, the rift was replaced with comparatively still and easy to navigate water, improving the river route to the Finger Lakes.

The completion of the Baldwin Canal helped the village industrialize, with mills established along the canal and nearby rural communities growing around the improved transportation route. In 1850, the New York State Canal Board acquired the canal. By the twentieth century, however, it had fallen into disuse. After decades of public calls to fill it, the village acquired portions of the canal from the state in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1965, the village was able to finally fill the full length of the former canal.

As of 2026, a grassy embankment running along the parking lot of Baldwin Canal Square is all the remains of the former north bank of the Baldwin Canal. Additional canal remnants just west of the square are visible in the underpass below the Oswego Street Bridge.