The Canal Route Change of 1857

In the 1850’s, a battle of wills ensued in Port Byron over the route of the canal that led to great harm in the business district of the village. What is odd is that this battle seemed to be waged by local landowners with the support of State engineers. In the 1931 obituary of Mrs. Harriet Johnson, who died at the age of 102, the paper wrote, “[She] was 28 years of age when the Erie Canal was enlarged from 40 to 70 feet. She remembered the squabble that took place among the residents of her village about the enlargement of the waterway. Some advocated the enlargement along a circuitous route and others a new and direct route. The will of the latter finally prevailed and the channel was cut through the most beautiful part of the village.”

            When the State decided to enlarge the canal in the mid 1830’s, it was understood that many mistakes had been made in the original construction of the canal and that the enlargement of the canal would allow for many of these mistakes to be corrected. One of the biggest problems with the old canal was the winding nature of the construction. It seemed that any obstacle that the original builders faced was simply bypassed by going around it. So in places the canal turned in ninety degree bends. This made it difficult for mule teams to pull the boats as they went around the tight bends and even more importantly, the twists even made it difficult for the water to flow and refill the canal. It was a mess. The rebuilding would give the State the chance to remove these curves as they enlarged the canal from 40 to 70 feet in width. In the end, so many bends were straightened that the canal was shortened by fifteen miles by the time the enlargement was complete between Albany and Buffalo.

            Unfortunately for Port Byron, the village was located on a curve, and it seems that some in the community saw an opportunity to profit if they could convince the State Engineers to move the route of the canal from the business district to the “flats” slightly north of the settled area. This flew in the face of canal law, which forbade any movement of the canal away from business areas; even it meant leaving a problem area in place. The curve that Port Byron sat on was in reality quite small and if removed would only save about a third of a mile in distance. But some in the village wanted the canal moved and petitioned the State. They got Canal Commissioner Fitzhugh to agree to the change in the route even though it went against the canal law. The businessmen of the village, the men who needed the canal to keep the money flowing, protested and got the Canal Board to reverse this decision and put the route back to the old route. This move put the canal back in the business district. But then the contractors who were hired by the State to build the new route sued and got the route changed once again. After all was said and done, the new proponents of the new route won. To satisfy some in the community, mainly the large mill, a stub of the old canal was left intact, however, it was not enlarged. After the mill burned and no one used the stub, it was quickly abandoned and the businessmen were paid off for the loss of the canal.

It took eight years to settle this matter, and all through this time, shippers west of Syracuse had to continue to use the smaller “pre-enlargement” boats since the canal through Port Byron wasn’t deep or wide enough to use the bigger boats. Shippers then began to use the Oswego route, robbing businessmen from Port Byron west to Buffalo the chance to ship larger loads on the canal. Thus, the mess at Port Byron became a state wide concern as it dragged on through the years.

Once the enlarged canal was completed in 1858, the larger boats could be used to ship to Rochester and Buffalo, but they couldn’t reach the businesses of the village. The village didn’t die, but it was harmed by the loss.

This 1857 map shows the two routes along with the original canal, all laid over a image taken from Google Earth. We thank Bill Hecht for doing this.

How Port Byron Became Port Byron

While writing about John Beach and his Mill, I was reminded of the stories that credit Beach with changing the name of the village from Bucksville to Port Byron. Over the years, many people have chimed in on this fascinating story, the latest was as late as 2012, when historian Dawn Roe wrote an excellent article about the subject. Years ago, I had written an article about the subject for the InPort, and looking back on it, I found it needed more details. So here is the latest entry.

There is an issue with using first person sources as people tend to mis-remember as time goes by. What clouds the facts is the fairly large event that takes place when John Beach and his partners build their very large grist mill on the banks of the Erie Canal. There is also the building of the Canal in 1820, the Incorporation of the Village in 1837, and the enlargement of the Canal in the 1850’s. So mashed all together, the events and dates tend to run together in people’s recollections.

In an Chronicle article titled “How Port Byron Got It’s Name” written by E.H. Kerns, he says when he wrote his 1922 History of the Village of Port Byron and the Town of Mentz, he could not find any record or person who could tell him why the name was changed. He goes on to say that he later spoke with Albina Treat about the issue. Mrs. Treat, who was born in1841, tells Kerns that the name was changed in 1832 after Beach built his grist mill. Remember that this major event took place eleven years before she was born. As Ms. Roe points out, Kerns “facts” are quickly corrected by George Perkins, who uses actual dated letters to place the name change prior to 1826. Perkins writes; “The origin of the village name has been a controversy for many years, and, while the story of Lord Byron, who died in 1824, and the mill owner with aristocratic tendencies is alluring, I fear it is just another of those fables which crop up in all village histories.” Perkins then goes onto write a very accurate history of the mill.

So I wanted to see what documents were available on the web that could help point to the Bucksville / Port Byron name change.

Ms. Roe mentions this very interesting death notice for Sarah Buck of Bucksville, and Giles Landon of Port Byron from February 15, 1826.

How can we have both a Bucksville and a Port Byron? Good question. From even earlier, we have this Travelers Pocket Guide from 1825, which was written in the summer of 1824.

What is important to keep in the mind is that whatever you call it, Bucksville or Port Byron, it was what we would call today a hamlet, or an unincorporated village. The actual Village was not formally created until 1837. Further supporting documents can be found in form of notices from the Post Master, telling people to pick up their mail. From April of 1827, we find this notice. And as you look it over, notice the last name, Bingham Young, more likely Brigham Young.

Yet there are conflicting documents that I won't post here. A document in the NYS Assembly from January 27, 1825 says Bucksville, as does the 1829 Natural History of NY, and the 1831 Gazetter. But the register of Post Offices in 1828 says Port Byron, as does the Niles Register of 1827.

In 1830, John Beach purchases the water rights of the Outlet and builds his mill. This probably delighted Aholiab Buck who runs this ad in the Auburn Free Press in 1830.

However, just a year later, Buck and his wife sell all their remaining village lots to Beach and Company and his family moves west. The deed is very interesting as it lists all the people that Buck had sold lots to, and all the land that Beach would own. The amount of land, basically much of the village, can be seen in the canal map from 1834 as listed as owned by Beach and Company, or Beach and Others. You can also see a part of Beach's Mill. The road running from the top to bottom of the image is Utica Street.

So let's go back to the 1824/25 Pocket Guide, which is the earliest document I could find that used the name of Port Byron.

It clearly says Bucksville, Port Byron P.O. (post office). Looking at the register of post offices, you find a Bucksville in Bucks County in Pennsylvania, and other Bucksville’s in Tennessee and Alabama. Just as the name of the Town was changed in 1808 from Jefferson to Mentz because there was just too many Jefferson’s about, the decision to change the name of the Post Office may have been one of convenience. In fact, we don't have any indication that there was ever a post office with the name of Bucksville, or that Bucksville had a post office prior to 1824 and the coming of the canal boom. Once the name of the Post Office was in common use, it was likely inevitable that the whole community becomes known as Port Byron. Was Lord Byron and his famous writings a factor in the name change? It certainly makes sense as he died in 1824, about the same time the name “Port Byron” came into use. However, Ms. Roe gives a good alternative explanation of the origin of “Byron”.

Buck may have been happy to see the big mill come to town, but as can be seen in his ad, continued to fight the name change that was occurring. It might be why Sarah Buck is listed as dying in Bucksville, where Mr. Landon was listed as dying in Port Byron. I ask you, would Aholiab allow a Buck to die in Port Byron? And the name was well used ever before John Beach built his mill, although his purchase of all the land and the leaving of the Buck family likely settled the matter.

An update as of January 1, 2017

It was another one of those wonderful moments in history when a question about one topic led to a answer on another, quite unrelated topic. So for a little background, a few months ago I wrote about a program where the speaker thought he had, at the very least, nailed down the date that Bucksville became Port Byron, and maybe why. He suggested that both Bucksville and Port Byron were in use at the same time, with maybe Port Byron being the name of the post office. (We have the talk up on our YouTube page so you can hear the reasons why.) But a lot of the reasoning well simply that, well researched reasoning of what few facts were available. Well then a question came in about the age of housing in the village, and in my study I was reading a study about historical resources in Port Byron. A citation noted that a letter dated October 6, 1824 that made reference to the name change. This led me to the talents of Jessica in the County Historian’s Office, who quickly found the 1824 letter in the Cayuga Republican. The reason for the letter was that a Mr. B.B. Drake was protesting the way that his minutes of a meeting in the village were reported. The letter stated that he was the secretary at a meeting where it was decided to change the name of the post office from Mentz to “Port Byron”. (The name Bucksville was adopted in 1819, so why the name of the post office wasn’t Bucksville is not known.) Drake states that it was unlikely that the Post Master General would allow the name change, but if he did, then Port Byron would become the name of the village by use. But, Mr. Drake goes on, there was no reason why there couldn’t be both a Bucksville and the Port Byron. To cap this off, the Editor of the Republican posted a notice just below Drake’s letter stating that the Post Master General had indeed changed the name of the post office from Mentz to Port Byron.

The interesting thing was that Mr. Drake began his letter with; “In your last, an article purporting to be a copy of the proceedings...”. I asked Jessica to go back through the previous issues of the Republican thinking that we would find the first article, but no luck. Looking for avenues, I starting looking into B.B. Drake, and came up with very little on my own. So it was back to the County Historian’s office with the question, “Who is Drake?” Well, little was found on Drake, but a notice in the paper was found, stating that the village residents had held a meeting, and had voted to change the name of the village from Bucksville to Port Byron. Not the post office, but the village, and that B.B. Drake was the secretary. This article appears in the Free Press, dated September 13, 1824. A week later, the B.B. Drake letter appears in the September 29 Free Press, and a week later, the October 6 Cayuga Republican reprints the letter, word for word. This is why we couldn’t find the notice in the Republican.

Anyone who has done family research knows that the censuses before 1850 are greatly lacking in information,listing only the male head of household. So B.B. Drake is still a mystery. He lived in Weedsport, maybe Bucksville, maybe Skaneateles, and Waterloo. But we do know that he was there in the meeting when about 60 people decided to change the name of the village. And he must have opposed the action of the meeting, hence his letter to the paper, as he puts up his convoluted argument to keep Bucksville and still use Port Byron. There is more to do. Is the Roswell Beardsley mentioned in the newspaper a part of the Auburn Beardsley’s? And who was Peter Cook?

This must have been quite a blow to Aholiab Buck, who had given his name to the settlement, and his land to settlers who would move here. Much of the old history states that it was John Beach and his mill that changed the name of the village, but this notice places the change six years prior, and as a action of a large number of the residents. Buck did sell off the rest of his land to Beach in 1831 and then moved west. But up till then, he continued to advertise land for sale in Bucksville.

Main Street Garage

The caption for this photo says; "Harvey C. Ware, Main Street, PB". Below, the ad is from 1915.



Checking the papers, a couple articles are found that state that H.C. Ware and Nicholas Goss were the owners in 1915. But by 1920, Fred Clark is mentioned as the owner, and then in 1921, Graham and Pultz are shown as owners. In 1924, Pultz and VanDitto are owners.





The location of this business is unknown other then the fact that a newspaper article states that Ware put up signs at the corner of Rochester and Main to help people find the business.