By Cheryl Longyear, Town of Montezuma Historian
The Erie Canal was the longest human-made waterway and the greatest public works project in North America at the time it was built in the early 1820s. Now as we approach the 200th year commemoration in 2025, its being recognized as an engineering marvel and one of the country’s greatest technological achievements. The canal was so busy that it had to be enlarged and refined in the middle 1800s. One of the enlargement engineering marvels was the Richmond or Seneca River Aqueduct in Montezuma. Construction on the structure began on September 4, 1849 and it was in use by 1856. Now, 175 years later its remains as a testament to the ingenuity and innovation called for to accommodate the growing needs of the canal and expansion of our country.
By 1820, the first section of the Erie Canal was completed from Utica to the Seneca River and Cayuga Marshes in Montezuma. As the canal was built west, the builders were challenged by finding a way through the vast wetlands at the head of Cayuga Lake. The canal was connected to the river by way of locks, and boats crossed over two miles of open waters and wetland before it reaching the other side. A wooden bridge 1440 feet long was built that allowed the mules to continue pulling the boats across the river and wetlands. The problem with this crossing that it flooding during wet seasons and became very shallow in dry seasons. In times of high water, the land and canal were under water, and during the dry months, boats had to be “lightened up” to make it across the river. The State faced this problem for over 30 years, but a solution was finally proposed to build a water bridge carrying the canal waters over the river along with the new enlargement.
Van Rensselaer Richmond from Lyons, NY was the engineer in charge of the middle section of the canal. He made plans to radically change the canal by building a high embankment and aqueduct that would carry the canal over the river and wetlands, eliminating the troublesome crossing. The new embankment would raise the level of the canal to equal the elevation of the lock in Port Byron. This eliminated the need of four locks, saving time and construction dollars.
Engineer Richmond had to devise a method to support the heavy stone aqueduct where it crossed the river as the bottom of the river was black muck. Wooden pilings were driven up to 90 feet deep in an attempt to reach solid ground. A wooden floor was built on top of these and then the stone masons built the stone arches, piers and towpath. The arches were twenty-two feet wide and eleven feet tall and there were thirty-one in total crossing the river. Once the stonework was finished, the wooden trunk, containing over a million board feet of wood, was built. Engineer Richmond took what he learned on the canal and later went to work for the New York Central Railroad and built the railroad’s crossing of the marsh just north of the aqueduct at Fox Ridge. The building of the embankments, aqueduct, and bridges greatly changed the environment of the wetlands.
Across the state, thirty-two aqueducts of various sizes were constructed. Richmond’s aqueduct was the second longest on the Enlarged Erie Canal. Smaller aqueducts can be seen locally at Centerport, Jordan and Camillus where you can take a boat ride and experience what it was like to float across a stream. Sadly, the fate of Richmond’s aqueduct was sealed when the state decided to use the Seneca River as the new canal route and the middle section of the structure was removed in the winter of 1917. This left seven arches on the east bank.
These remains can be seen in the Montezuma Heritage Park, along with over 160 acres of preserved town-owned parkland. Come take a look while you enjoy the eleven nature trails picnic areas and other interpreted historic sites that includes the three canal eras and the lateral Cayuga-Seneca Canal.
For over twenty-five years, volunteers of the former Montezuma Historical Society/ Old Mentz Heritage Center have supported the Town of Montezuma in helping to plan, develop, preserve and maintain the Park. During the next year Old Mentz Heritage Center will be partnering with other Erie Canal sites along the Middle Canal region with a new Guidebook to showcase and feature events to celebrate the canal’s legacy today as a designated a National Historic Landmark.