Canal Boatman: My Life on Upstate Waterways

Richard Garrity grew up on his father’s boats on the Erie Canal in the early years of this century. From 1905 until 1916, when his father operated boats first in the lumber trade and later for gravel hauling, he was surrounded by the busy life of a now-bygone era in canal boating in Upstate New York. When the Barge Canal System opened in 1918, Garrity began a career that lasted until his retirement as a tug engineer in 1970.

This story is chock full of Americana that is not only significant and authentic but engagingly written. Garrity’s life
and work have been intimately bound up with the famed Big Ditch, which has been referred to in more romantic literature as the ＂shining ribbon of water.＂ It was a hard but happy life on the waterways of Upstate New York as seen in the text and dozens of illustrations included in this book.

Richard Garrity began writing his story as a supplement to the Erie Canal lore in the files of the Historical Society of the Tonawandas, of which he is a charter member. The book grew in scope as it brought back to him memories of a fascinating and happy boyhood spent on the Erie Canal.