By Capt. Bill McKelvey
The Erie Canal’s Bicentennial and the Recreated Voyage of the Erie Canal Boat SENECA CHIEF began on the morning of Wednesday, September 24, 2025, at the Buffalo Maritime Center. Their replica of the 1825 Erie Canal Boat SENECA CHIEF embarked on its Bicentennial Voyage, commemorating Governor DeWitt Clinton’s historic journey from Buffalo to New York Harbor 200 years ago. Five hundred delegates from the World Canals Conference plus many residents of Western New York cheered the vessel as it left Canalside in Buffalo. A Buffalo Maritime Center crew, comprised of staff and volunteers, navigated the 33-day voyage, departing from Buffalo’s Commercial Slip—the western terminus of the Erie Canal—and traveling to Pier 26 in New York City. Along the way, the boat docked at 28 ports along the Erie Canal and Hudson River before reaching New York City for the official commemoration of the canal’s opening. Some of the more important stops included Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, Schenectady, Albany, and Kingston, NY.
On Saturday night, October 25th, at 8:45 pm, on behalf of the Canal Society of New Jersey, Capt. Bill McKelvey welcomed and greeted the SENECA CHIEF and her crew to New Jersey and the Morris Canal Big Basin, which was formerly a major Lehigh Valley Railroad pier, warehouse and trans-shipping area. It is now the 520-slip Liberty Landing Marina (LLM) at Liberty State Park, and SENECA CHIEF, the replica of the 1825 wood canal boat which made the initial trip from Buffalo to NYC on the Erie Canal, tied up for the night at the head of Dock "H", with her escort tug, C. L. CHURCHILL. This was the southern-most point reached on their Bicentennial Voyage, and LLM was chosen for its security and calm water.
McKelvey presented Brian Trzeciak, Executive Director of the Buffalo Maritime Center (owner /operator of the SENECA CHIEF), with a copy of his 1978 Champlain to Chesapeake, A Canal Era Pictorial Cruise book and literature for the crew about the Canal Society of NJ, D & R Canal Watch, Liberty Historic Railway, and Liberty State Park. He also met Capt. Ann Loeding, wife of Gary Mathews, Chief Mechanical Officer for the Bel Del RR at Phillipsburg. She has been a tugboat captain / master for 30 years and piloted the C. L. CHURCHILL between Albany and the NJ – NY port area. Her first job was aboard the 1907 tugboat PEGASUS, which at the time was tied up at the old Rodermond’s Shipyard at the foot of Warren Street, Jersey City, right across from where the SENECA CHIEF docked. Ann has made many trips on the Erie Barge Canal with commercial tows, including with the tugboats CROW, CHEYENNE, and JAY BEE V. She currently works for NY State Marine Highway and makes regular trips on the Champlain Canal with the CHPExpress project as well as a regular run moving crushed stone from a quarry in Ft. Ann, NY south to the Hudson River. Capt. Ann has also landed many barges at NJ ports and often traversed NJ waters on the way to other ports.
SENECA CHIEF returned to Pier 25, NYC on Sunday morning, and was open to the public after noon. On Sunday evening they returned to Liberty Landing Marina and on Monday morning they began their long return trip to Buffalo. The SENECA CHIEF was constructed at Buffalo between 2020 and June 2024, primarily using volunteer workers. She is 73 feet long, 13 feet wide, 3 feet deep, and weighs 40 tons. The original Erie Canal locks the CHIEF was designed for were 90’ long by 15’ wide.
The tugboat which traveled alongside the SENECA CHIEF and provided the propulsion power was the C. L. CHURCHILL, a 33’ long wooden tugboat built in 1964 at Cohasset, MA. CHURCHILL was originally built for Chester L. Churchill as a steam powered pleasure cruiser. She was converted to diesel power with a 6-cylinder, 120 horsepower, Ford Lehman engine by the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, but retained her large smokestack. LCMM used her to tow their unpowered replica wooden sailing canalboat, LOIS McCLURE on several extensive excursions. She was purchased by the Buffalo Maritime Museum primarily for towing SENECA CHIEF, and they have upgraded her with a modern diesel.
Interestingly, in 2005, The Canal Society of NJ September 16 membership meeting was held aboard the new-build replica sailing canal schooner, LOIS McCLURE, from the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, at the Morris Canal Big Basin (now Liberty Landing Marina) at Liberty State Park, Jersey City. The journey was termed “The Grand Journey from the Green Mountains to Manhattan” which began at Burlington on May 1, visited numerous ports along Lake Champlain, the Champlain Canal and the Hudson River, including Greater New York, Liberty State Park, North Cove, Battery Park City, Kings Point and ending at Waterford, NY. The tugboat C. L. CHURCHILL towed the LOIS McCLURE on these trips. Lake Champlain canalboats are known to have used the Delaware & Raritan Canal. The replica canal schooner, LOIS McCLURE, 88 feet long and 14.5’ at beam was constructed over a four-year period from more than 20,000 board feet of white oak. White pine was used for the decks, while masts, booms and gaffs were hewn from white spruce. LOIS McCLURE has now been retired; donated to the Canal Society of New York, and is now a static exhibit on land at Port Byron, NY.
Note that Liberty State Park was once a sprawling railroad yard with more than 100 miles of track, roundhouses, McMyler coal dumpers, thawing sheds, coaling facilities, shops, control towers, float bridges, piers, a marine repair facility, an express / freight building, central boiler plant, etc. It was primarily a rail and ferry terminal for the Central Railroad of New Jersey but also served the Baltimore & Ohio and Reading Railroads as well as the Lehigh Valley Railroad. The Lehigh Valley Railroad also served the area at the south end of Liberty State Park now known as West Jetty, Center Jetty, East Jetty and South Lawn – this was Black Tom Island where the Black Tom explosion occurred in July, 1916. The humungous explosion, which involved stockpiled munitions in warehouses, railroad cars, barges and canalboats, awaiting shipment to Europe during WW 1, was determined to have been caused by German saboteurs.
References: (On the Level No. 91) (American Canals, Vol. 33, No. 4; Vol. 34, No. 1 & 4) (From the Green Mountains to Manhattan: The Grand Journey of the Canal Schooner Lois McClure 2005) (NJ Transport Heritage, Vol. 14, Nos. 2 & 6, Apr. & Dec. 2005) (Buffalo Maritime Center website) (Pier 19 film, about the McAllister Tug and Barge Drydocks – a former Central RR of NJ facility by Industrial Archeologist, Ed Rutsch) (The Big Little Railroad – a 1948 documentary film about the Central RR of NJ) (Assistant Dockmaster, Liberty Landing Martina, Maureen “Moochie” Corrado) (Brian Trzeciak) (Capt. Ann Loeding) (Plus various websites)