Buffalo's Birthplace

Buffalo's Birthplace. Where the Erie Canal Joins the Commercial Slip. Buffalo’s Birthplace: Where the Erie Canal Joins the Commercial Slip , Look closely at this wonderful picture of Buffalo’s Waterfront in its heyday for evidence of life in those early days before the railroads took over the waterfront. Note particularly the different kinds of boats. Why is this place, where the canal met the lake, considered to be so important in Buffalo’s History? , How many hotels can you identify? How many stores? What did they sell? What different kinds of transport are visible? Can you see any evidence of manufacturing? Of entertainment? How about signs for how order was kept? , Here, Melinda Nowlin once gathered her skirts and her five children and climbed the flight of steps that led from the docks to the Canal District. For her, it was the end of the first stage of a hard journey from the Hudson Valley, and the “immigrant Steps” here marked a passage from a hard-scrabble existence that had driven her husband John away from the farms their families had settled after leaving Ireland. Now, he burned with “Michigan fever” and the lure of cheap fertile land to the west.