Erie Canal Village in Rome, NY

Erie Canal Village
5789 Rome New London Road
Rome, New York 13440
315-337-3999

T he Erie Canal Village is an assembly of restored buildings and artifacts collected from the region surrounding Rome, NY. The village is located right on the banks of the Erie Canal, and there is a small museum and an orientation video dedicated to the canal specifically, but many of the things to see and do there have no direct relation to the Erie Canal!

That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t bother to visit, however. You can take a short float trip on a horse drawn Packet Boat, take a walk through the 1850s Bennett’s Tavern, see the Harden Museum’s collection of horse drawn vehicles, or watch a demonstration in the 1860 Blacksmith Shop. You can also tour a couple of private residences from the same period. Those houses were transferred to the Erie Canal Village, restored and furnished with artifacts similar to those that would have been used by the original inhabitants. By bringing together a such diverse collection, the Erie Canal Village gives you an opportunity to learn about the many facets of daily life in a 19th century Mohawk River Valley village.

In the satellite photo to your right I marked the spot where the Packet Boat trip starts and ends. The ticket office / gift shop is directly to its north, and on the opposite side of the short footbridge is where most of the restored buildings are located.

I wrote about the Erie Canal in the previous blog entry, so today I’ll just go directly to the photos.

Packet boats got their name from their original function – the regularly scheduled delivery of mail and other cargo along rivers and canals. The opening of the Erie Canal enabled travelers to get from New York City to Buffalo in ten days, and these boats were used to handle passenger traffic. Some people just wanted to see the Erie Canal and the surrounding landscapes, while thousands of others used the canal to emigrate to Ohio and other parts of the Midwest.

The second photo was taken inside the Erie Canal Museum building (one of a handful of museums at the site). You’re looking at a representation of what the men’s cabin would have looked like, from the vantage point of the woman’s cabin. At the left you see a nighttime arrangement, and on the right is a daytime arrangement – side benches with lockers underneath. When mealtime arrived a steward placed food on two narrow, collapsible tables extending down the length of the cabin.

Built in 1801, this farm house is the oldest structure in the restored village, and is typical of those found in canal towns of the late 1700’s and early 1800’s. Attached to a central chimney were two large fireplaces. One was in the parlor and the other was in the kitchen – used for both heating and cooking. Before 1800, most food preparation was done either outside or in a separate building. Around the time this house was built many tasks were beginning to be done in small workrooms, such as the one shown in the third photo. These rooms were sometimes called butteries or milkrooms.

Bennet’s Tavern served meals in the dining room, at appointed hours. The long tables were at times probably crowded, and the menu probably did not vary much. Men would often meet in the bar, where they could catch up on the latest news and politics. The parlor was a quiet place, used by guests of the tavern and by local women.