Canal program shines light on life of a hoggee
Children walked with mules pulling boats in canal’s boom days
Photos by Tom Rivers
ALBION – Graham Kirby, 10, of Albion served as a hoggee on Saturday in a boat captained by Veronica Morgan of Albion.
Morgan put together a program, “I was a hoggee on the Erie Canal.” She wanted to spotlight the role of hoggees, who were children who walked with mules that pulled boats on the canal.
The Orleans County Historical Association assisted Morgan with the event that included activities at the Gaines Basin cobblestone schoolhouse as well as the boat rides from the canal, going from near the Gaines Basin Road bridge to near the lift bridge in Eagle Harbor.
Graham Kirby looks to the boat captain to see if he is needed for any task. The hoggees would get the captain food and be sent for other chores on the boat when they weren’t outside walking with mules.
Bill Lattin, retired Orleans County historian, was in the canal boat and shared stories and history of the canal in Gaines and Eagle Harbor during the 40-minute boat ride. Lattin is also Graham Kirby’s grandfather.
Lattin said Eagle Harbor is largely a “ghost town” now compared to the 1800s and early 1900s when it had its own grocery store, and other merchants who were coopers and blacksmiths.
Eagle Harbor also had the third golf course in the United States, a 6-hole course north of the canal that operated from 1898 to about 1940.
Lattin shared how Gaines has the northernmost point of the canal, endured a big flood in 1927 when there was a breach on the waterway. The section also has a widewaters east of Eagle Harbor where boats could turn around. The widewaters was especially needed in the early days of the canal when it was only 40 feet wide and difficult for boats to change directions.
Arthur Barnes does a pen and ink drawing of the a log cabin behind the Gaines Basin Schoolhouse on Saturday.
The schoolhouse was open for people to relax and tour on Saturday. The school was built in 1832 and is among the oldest cobblestone structures in the region.
It served as a school until 1942. Bill Lattin said there used to be 144 schools in the county. After decentralization, the number of school districts dropped to five.
Veronica Morgan captains the boat. She steered it about 65 miles from Macedon for the event on Saturday.
She wants to offer the hoggee program again in 2025, on the 200th anniversary of the Erie Canal and also Orleans County.
Morgan works as a lift bridge operator in Brockport.
The Genesee-Orleans Regional Arts Council supported the hoggee program on Saturday, covering the cost for the boat rides and other entertainers.
The boat approaches the lift bridge in Eagle Harbor. The boat rides on Saturday were for about 40 minutes, from Gaines Basin to Eagle Harbor and then back.
Graham Kirby sounds a horn, which hoggees did to let the lift bridge operator know a boat was approaching. The horn is in the schoolhouse’s collection of artifacts.
