Mohawk River

You’re looking at the Cohoes Falls, about two miles upstream from where the Mohawk River joins the Hudson River. The falls’ name in the Mohawk language translates roughly as “a canoe falling”—a bit of dark humor there! The graphite and watercolor drawing here is undated but probably was created before 1831, when the river was dammed for manufacturing purposes. Once those firms went bankrupt in the Great Depression a century later, the dam was converted to hydroelectric generation and the flow of water over Cohoes Falls has been severely diminished, except during spring flooding.

Not many people travel to see this site because often the falls are completely dry and there’s not much tourist infrastructure. But they were spectacular in their scale: wider than the American Falls at Niagara, and nearly as high. As you’ll read in the gazetteer below they were considered mesmerizing throughout the seasons. The falls presented a major obstacle when planning the Erie Canal, requiring a series of 27 separate locks to circumnavigate them between Albany and Schenectady—a grueling all-day trip. Are you impressed, yet?

Very often the history and re-routing of water is invisible to us. Rivers are dammed and aqueducts built for New York City, as with the Delaware. Water is extracted for agricultural or industrial uses, then returned at sewage treatment plants. And formerly “wild” rivers are dammed for what still is deemed sustainable energy. The environmental organization American Rivers argues, however, that we’re long overdue for a careful rethinking about the effects of dams upon ecosystem health and even whether original structures still are serving their intended purpose. As we look at Cohoes Falls, there’s also something inspiring to be regained. You can view a map of dams removed in New York state by following this hyperlink.

John William Hill was only 17 years old when he painted this watercolor of the Erie Canal in 1829. We see a packet boat with wealthy travelers crossing paths with a stone-laden barge; along the towpath a "hoggee" drives mules. In the foreground a farmer drives pigs from one field to another over a bridge. Hill's somewhat idealized scene shows diverse social classes and uses of the canal blending together harmoniously.

From the Gazetteer: "From the Mohawk the highlands rise toward the s. in a series of hills, the declivities of which are steep and their summits 500 to 1,000 ft. high. North of the river the surface gradually rises to a height of 1,000 to 1,500 ft., where it spreads out into a rocky and broken plateau region, the highest summits being 2,500 to 3,000 ft. above tide. Mohawk River breaks through a mountain ridge at Little Falls, the valley forming a natural channel of communication between Lake Ontario and Hudson River. At this place the mountains on each side of the river are masses of naked rock rising nearly perpendicular to a height of 500 to 600 ft. An intervale, with an average width of 2 mi., extends along the river w. of the pass, and from it the land rises on each side in gradual slopes. East of this point the Mohawk flows for some distance through a valley bordered by steep and nearly perpendicular hills....[At Cohoes Falls], the river is seen gliding over a granitic rock, smoothed by its own operations, and bordered with rocky banks, supporting a sterile soil and a stinted growth of pine, hemlock, cedar and other evergreens, till it arrive at the fall, down which it pours at high water, in one sheet of near 70 feet: but at low water, descends, in excavated courses, some in cataracts, and some in oblique or zig-zag precipices, affording a most sublime and picturesque combination of bold force and violence” (French 340; Spafford 170). Major Tributaries: Schoharie Creek, West Canada Creek, East Canada Creek. Major Lakes: Hinkley Reservoir, Delta Reservoir. Highest Point: Hunter Mountain (4,043 ft). Area: 3,460 square miles in New York state.

"The Raging Canal," an Erie Canal folk song ca. 1845

The Mohawk Valley encompasses arguably the most iconic stretch of the Erie Canal, starting at Rome and then tracking alongside the river through Utica, Herkimer, Canajoharie, Amsterdam, and Schenectady until it joins the Hudson River at Albany. Any person who attended grade school in New York probably knows the song “Low Bridge, Everybody Down,” published by Thomas S. Allen in 1913. But there were uncountable others, many of them less suitable for children! “The Raging Canal” dates to the 1840s and is one of the most famous; there are many different versions, including an adaptation written by Mark Twain. As you read the ballad—or listen to it sung at this hyperlink—keep in mind that the original canal was about four feet in depth, and that captains of mule-towed boats often were mocked by seafaring sailors who didn’t consider such work authentic. How would you interpret this song as a “mock epic,” which is to say humorously inflated in its descriptions and language?

Come listen to my story, ye landsmen one and all
I'll sing to you the dangers of that raging canal.
For I am one of many who expects a watery grave,
For I've been at the mercy of the wind and of the wave.

I left Albany harbor about the break of day,
And if I rightly remember 'twas the second day of May
We trusted to our driver, altho' he was but small
For he knew all the windings of that raging canal.

It seemed as if the Devil had his work in hand that night,
For all our oil was gone, and our lamps they gave no light,
The clouds began to gather and the rain began to fall
And I wished myself off of that raging canal.

The captain told his driver to hurry with all speed,
And his orders were obeyed, for he soon cracked up his lead;
With the fastest kind of driving, we allowed by twelve o'clock
We'd be on old Schenectady right bang against the dock.

But sad was the fate of our poor devoted bark,
For the rain kept on pouring and the night it grew dark;
The horses gave a stumble and the driver gave squall
And they tumbled head over heels into the raging canal.

The Captain came on deck, with a voice so clear and sound,
Saying, "Cut the horses loose, my boys, or else we'll all be drowned
The driver swam to shore, altho' he was but small
While the horses sank to rise no more in the raging canal.

The cook she wrung her hands, and she came upon the deck
Saying, "Alas, what will become of us, our boat it is a wreck?"
The steersman knocked her over, for he was a man of sense
And the bowsman jumped ashore and he lashed her to a fence.

The Captain came on deck with a spy glass in his hand
But the night it was so dark he could not discover land;
He said to us with a faltering voice, while tears began to fall
Prepare to meet your death this night on the raging canal.

The sky was rent asunder, the lighting it did flash
The thunder rattled up above, just like eternal smash
The clouds were all upsot, and the rigging it did fall
And we scudded under bare poles on that raging canal.

We took the old cook's pettycoat, for want of better dress
And rigged it out upon the pole as a signal of distress
We pledged ourselves hand to hand aboard the boat to bide
And not to quit the deck while a plank hung to her side.

At last that horrid night cut dirt from the sky,
The storm it did abate, and a boat came passing by,
It soon espied our signal as each on his knees did fall
Thankful we escaped a grave on the raging canal.

We each of us took a nip and signed the pledge anew
And wonderful as danger ceased, how up our courage grew,
The craft in sight bore down on us and quickly was 'long side
And we all jumped aboard, and for Buffalo did ride.

Now, if I live a thousand years, the horrors of that night
Will ever in my memory be a spot most burning bright;
For nothing in this whole wide world will ever raise my gall
Except the thoughts of my voyage on the raging canal.

Albert Bierstadt, Mohawk River, New York (1864). Despite its geographical title, all the elements of this painting seem inclined toward the otherworldly. We appear to be somewhere on the upper Mohawk River, given its slight volume, beholding four cattle drinking waters that are almost impossibly still: trees are reflected on its surface at the same time we see rocky shoals. Bierstadt deploys a technique called “luminism” that uses atmospheric perspective and moist air to create a sort of timeless glow to the whole scene.

At the left side of the painting is a white cow (or bull) standing apart from the rest and illuminated by a strategically placed sunbeam! It’s not totally clear what mythological reference Bierstadt might be evoking, but in Greek mythology Io was transformed into a white cow by an angry Hera after Zeus fell in love with the young woman. In another story, Zeus turns himself into a white bull so as to rape the beautiful Europa. Probably Bierstadt doesn’t intend such a strict correspondence; rather, his aesthetic appears to be one of heightening the mythic power of American wilderness, which until the 19^th century usually had been associated with “wild beasts and wild men,” as a Puritan writer put it.

Bierstadt and other “second-generation” painters of the Hudson River School created impossibly beautiful works of Western New York and the wildneress extending to California. It’s possible that you’ve already seen some of his paintings without realizing it: Oregon Trail (1867-1869) or Among the Sierra Nevada, California (1868) from about this same period. How would you describe such landscapes? It doesn’t seem as though they’re hideous and in need of human development! If not, what are settlers doing there; what are their motivations? What connects locations in New York with many other such mythical places across the continent?

Works Consulted

—American Rivers website.

—French, J. H. Gazeteer of the State of New York. Ira J. Friedman, 1860.

—Hullfish, Bill. The Erie Canal Sings: A Musical History of New York's Grand Waterway. The History Press, 2019.

—Spafford, Horatio Gates. A Gazetteer of the State of New York. H.C. Southwick, 1813.