A Bridge for Boats

A Bridge for Boats. The Little Falls Aqueduct. The pile of rocks in front of you is all that is left of a massive 214-foot-long aqueduct that once carried water and canal boats across the Mohawk River, connecting the original Erie Canal to a boat basin on the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company canal (northeast of Canal Place today). Little Falls had developed on the north side of the river along that earlier canal, and local merchants lobbied heavily for a water connection to their businesses., "A Handsome Structure", Built in 1822 using local limestone, the aqueduct crossed the river in a single seventy-foot arch, with smaller arches at either end. It contained a sixteen-foot-wide waterway, four feet deep, with a wooden towpath along one side. The aqueduct was-deepened when the Erie Canal was enlarged in the 1840s. It was difficult to maintain, however, and used less frequently as time passed. New businesses located next to the canal and the railroad came to dominate the north shore the river. , By 1881, the aqueduct was abandoned and its water removed. The northern stone arch was dynamited to make way for an expansion of the Victor Knitting Mills and Paper Box Factory in 1891. (Look for the arched openings from that building's foundation.) The southern arch of the old aqueduct collapsed after 1928, but the graceful central arch remained standing until 1993. It fell down during high waters, over one hundred years after it was last maintained., The Little Falls Aqueduct was the best example of the aqueducts built for the original Erie Canal. You can still see the remains of later canal aqueducts at Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site and Rexford, both to the east on the NYS Canalway.