Waterways

Submitted by Richard Palmer.........P. 180, Centennial History of the Town of Nunda. (1908)

Commercial Enterprise. (Genesee River)

A Geneseo local announces under date of May 27, 1824, "the
passage by Geneseo, on the river of the canal boat "Hazard" from
Nunda on her way to Albany, loaded with pine lumber, ashes (pot and
pearl ashes), etc. The boat was owned by Sanford Hunt of the former
place." The boat was built at the Lower Falls, after the manner of
the Arks of Arkport that carried goods a quarter of a century before
this time. Such an enterprise would have been impossible before the
completion of the Erie Canal, which was opened for navigation in
1824. This was the first of famous shipments of lumber that was made
after the Erie Canal was in operation, and preceded by sixteen years
any shipment by canal from Mt. Morris or by 28 years by canal from
Nunda. Azel Fitch of Oakland, Fitch and Messenger, and later, John
F. Barber, utilized in springs floods this improvised canal - the
Genesee River - for transporting their surplus plus products to city
markets.

Steamboat Navigation on the Genesee (in 1824-26)
The Livingston Journal of July 28, 1824 has the following
interesting local: "We can congratulate the public on the arrival of
the steamboat 'Erie Canal,' Capt. Bottle, at our village last evening
from Utica; a more welcomed arrival could not have happened."
For two years this river was navigated by steam. The semi-
annual flood creating almost insurmountable obstacles to impede safe
and profitable navigation, drove the steamboats from the unmanageable
stream , and the scow, with poles until 1841 continued to bring the
most of the pioneers' goods up the river. Many of the later pioneers
from 1824 to the autumn of 1840 used this method of transportation.