http://youtu.be/R4-Jxf8-aos The Middlesex Canal was a 27-mile canal connecting the Charles River with the Port of Boston with the Merrimack River flowing into the Atlantic Ocean at Newburyport, Mass., a center of shipbuilding and great wealth during the Industrial Revolution. The canal revolution began in America as a result of poor roads and the high [...]
Month: November 2014
Celebrating Thanksgiving Aboard Union Ironclads, James River, 1864
In November 1864 a number of Union Ironclads were to be found on the James River in Virginia, supporting Federal ground operations there.A large number of the men on board the vessels of the James River Flotilla were Irish; indeed they made up an estimated 20% of all Union sailors. How did they and their comrades celebrate Thanksgiving 150 years ago?
Officers on the deck of the U.S.S. Onondaga with their dogs. The identity of the Irish correspondent, ‘Garryowen’, has not been established (National Archives).
We are fortunate that one of them has left us an account. He was a sailor on the U.S.S. Onondaga, one of the Union monitors on the James. Corresponding under the pen-name ‘Garryowen’, he wrote frequently to the New York Irish-American newspaper, who regularly published his letters. His account tells how the ‘sturdy sons of Neptune’ began their day by dispatching some unfortunate…
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Santee-Cooper River Locks (South Carolina) three (3) – minute video
http://youtu.be/b9SMUe0mheM These modern locks service the transition from the Santee River to the Cooper River for recreational boating in South Carolina. Completed in 1800, the 22-mile long Santee Canal, with three wooden locks, was the first canal built in America. Lifting boats to the Cooper River, the canal locks served commercial vessels in the transit [...]
Eighty-seven-year-old Trent-Severn Inland Canal (Peterborough lock)
http://youtu.be/qUFv-jWEFIU Once used for industrial and transportation purposes, the nearly one hundred year old Canadian canal is now used exclusively for recreational purposes. The Waterway connects the Great Lakes Ontario and Huron. The route essentially follows the waters from Georgian Bay to the Bay of Quinte, which Samuel Champlain used to travel with the Indians [...]
The Rideau Canal of Canada (1832)
http://youtu.be/xNjWVOdu2Eg Built in 1832, the Rideau Canal links the city of Ottawa on the Ottawa River to the city of Kingston, Ontario, on Lake Ontario, a distance of over 126 miles. Designed by architect John By, the Canal was constructed in the event of war with the United States. Here, a short film of the [...]
The Falkirk Wheel of Central Scotland: reconnecting Glasgow and Edinburgh
http://youtu.be/_tBH9SE-Kw8 Designed by Scottish architect Tony Kettle, the Falkirkwheel is one of the most unusually designed rotating boat lifts and systems in the world. Employing Archimedes principle and a 22-horsepower motor, the wheel lifts narrow or canal boats a distance of 79 feet from the Forth and Clyde Canal to the Union Canal. Opening in [...]
5 minute time lapse video of a 61 foot yacht locking in and out on the Erie Canal
http://youtu.be/S7_Hr3iCPls Built between 1817 and 1825, the Erie Canal was a wildly successful financial event, setting off the first "Canal Era" in the United States. Canals like the Chesapeake and Ohio, the Dismal Swamp, and Chesapeake and Delaware Canals followed, hoping to duplicate the Erie Canal's success. To some degree each man-made canal did but [...]
A short film about living aboard a canal (narrow or packet) boat near London
http://youtu.be/BT1kt13MBNA The earliest travel by inland waterway appears to have been in France and England on packet or narrow boats as early as the 1700s. The first were pulled by horses ambling along paths paralleling the canal. When the first steam engines came along, self propulsion allowed more boats to safely pass slower boats or [...]
“FLORIDA,” a poem written by Florida’s Poet Laureate
Skellings died in 2012. Florida Governor Bob Graham conferred the lifetime title upon Skellings in 1980. Tap on the following line twice in PDF (Acrobat): http://skellingsda.lib.fit.edu/cgi-bin/showfile.exe?CISOrrrROOT=/Poetry&CISOPTR=1389&filename=1376.pdf It is three pages long, including a photograph of Florida from space. Tap on the "X" to return to the blog.
Florida’s Big Dig 