Published: October 12, 2008 09:44 pm            

CANAL DISCOVERY: Erie Canal politics

After nearly two years of campaigning, our nation will soon elect a new president. By now, most everyone has grown tired of all of the negativity, political infighting and shenanigans that have become daily occurrences. It has been said that there is nothing new under the sun, and that adage seems to apply to the political realm, too. Historians tell us that high-spirited politics was the order of business in Niagara County in the 1840s when William Henry Harrison and John Tyler, “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too,” were nominees for president and vice president on the Whig party ticket.

The principle opposition to the Whigs was a group of Democrats calling themselves “Locofocos.” This political party had its beginnings in 1835 as an opposition to Tammany Hall, the regular Democratic Party in New York City. Some detractors to this group blew out the lanterns in the hall in an attempt to silence the boisterous minority. The fledgling party re-lit the lanterns with relatively new friction matches that were called locofocos. This moniker stuck and was used thereafter to refer to this radical political group.

Bringing this story back to the Erie Canal, it would seem that in 1840, Lockport and the canal was the scene of a bitter political battle between the Whig delegates and the Locofocos. A boatload of Whig delegates was making a campaign swing across the state using the Erie Canal as their “information superhighway.” The delegates from Buffalo, Black Rock and Tonawanda were greeted by the Lockport delegation. It would seem that this political canal boat had more to worry about than just low bridges. Once onboard, the entire Whig assemblage was bombarded with a frantic fusillade of stones thrown by Lockport Locofocos as the boat was passing through the Lockport locks. Newspapers reported that no formal casualties resulted, but, as you can well imagine, a lot of bitter feelings and ill-will were engendered.

This was not the first political misstep that played out in the Lock City. Martin Van Buren, a Democrat seeking reelection as president, visited Lockport in 1839. On his approach to the city on the young Strap Railroad, Van Buren suffered the ignominy of tumbling from his rail car when the engine of the train overturned, taking the rest of the cars with it. Fortunately, the president was not hurt and he and the other passengers righted the rail cars and set the train back on the tracks. News reports of this amazing story played out from then to Election Day.

While in Lockport, Van Buren was the guest of Erie Canal land agent, Washington Hunt. The success of the Erie Canal and its accompanying land boom, also made Hunt very successful. Later, with the help of Van Buren, Washington Hunt went on to be the governor of New York, the only man from Niagara County to ever hold that position.

Doug Farley is director of the Erie Canal Discovery Center in Lockport. Contact him at 434-7433.

        

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