Tribeca Is Last Stop for Replica Boat Commemorating an Historic Voyage

The Seneca Chief arrives at Pier 26 in Tribeca, its last stop on a 33-day journey from Buffalo via the Erie Canal and Hudson River. The boat is a replica of the original Seneca Chief on which Gov. DeWitt Clinton travelled the same waterways 200 years ago. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

Last stop, Lower Manhattan!

Tribeca’s Pier 26 was the final destination of a 33-day journey of the Seneca Chief, a full-scale replica of the boat that navigated New York’s newly opened Erie Canal exactly 200 years ago on Oct. 26. New York’s sixth Governor, DeWitt Clinton, had led that voyage from Buffalo to New York Harbor. 

The state’s 57th governor, Kathy Hochul, headlined a ceremony on Pier 25 celebrating the canal’s bicentennial and the arrival of the replica, docked behind her. 

“I started watching the building of this in 2020 all the way through the spring of 2024 because it’s literally five minutes from my house,” said the Governor. “So when I wanted to take a walk or ride my bike, I was always peeking in the windows of the building where it was literally opened up to the public to share in this experience.”

Organized by the Buffalo Maritime Center [1] and sponsored by M&T Bank, the boat left Buffalo on Sept. 24. It then stopped at 28 ports [2] along the Erie Canal and Hudson River, drawing enthusiastic crowds all along the way to its docking in Hudson River Park.

“We were approached about being the final stop on this epic journey about a year ago,” said Noreen Doyle, the president and CEO of the Hudson River Park Trust. “We immediately embraced it because while Hudson River Park is rightly known as being a hugely popular public park, maritime history and environmental history are part of our mission just as much as everything else.” 

The boat remained at the pier until late Sunday afternoon, when it began its journey back to Buffalo. 

Roger Allen, a master boat builder with the Buffalo Maritime Center, supervised 220 volunteers in constructing the 73-foot replica. He was proud to note that “the whole project from beginning to end was about building community.”

That includes the Indigenous community. The building of the Erie Canal displaced the six nation [3]s of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy [3] from their land and disrupted the Indigenous people’s traditions. 

As the non-profit Maritime Center planned to celebrate the bicentennial, they consulted members of the Haudenosaunee community to gauge not only their response to the overall project, but to the boat’s name: Seneca Chief. They raised no objections to using the name of the Western New York tribe, Allen said, but emphasized that it is not a celebration for them, because it cost them “a whole big chunk” of their civilization. 

The builder said the community wanted to join the project, but urged that the full story of the Erie Canal be told: “The good and the bad. The true history of it. And the history includes our loss.”

“If you make a decision that affects your whole community, you should think about its impact seven generations out,” said Melissa Parker Leonard, a descendant of the displaced peoples and founder of 7th Gen Cultural Resources [4], an organization dedicated to preserving and promoting Indigenous history. 

As a Haudenosaunee symbol of unity, wisdom and strength, a white pine sapling was planted on the pier after the ceremony. It was the last of those planted at every stop on the Seneca Chief’s voyage.

“And as we plant this final tree,” said Parker Leonard, “we need to ask: what will those who come after us inherit from the choices we make today?” White pines can live 200 years, the equivalent of approximately seven generations.

Upon Clinton’s 1825 arrival in New York City, he famously poured a keg of Lake Erie water into the Atlantic Ocean, a symbolic gesture to unite the two waterways.

To honor that tradition, a similar ritual, called “the gathering of the waters,” was held at each of the boat’s 28 stops. Hochul, along with several others, including DeWitt Clinton’s fifth generation grandson DeWitt Silber, held a long-handled ladle and emptied water into a barrel that now contained water from all over the state. The contents were used to water the newly planted tree at Pier 25.

After the ceremony, visitors were invited to step into the boat’s interior, housing several bunks for the crew and an array of replicas of tools that would have been used on the original voyage.

The Erie Canal, which stretches from Buffalo to Albany, changed the course of history, not just for New York, but for the nation. It was a feat of engineering that sped the transportation of goods between America’s East and Midwest, connecting the country like never before. Hochul praised her early predecessor for standing up to “haters” who were highly critical of his vision for the canal. Prior to its building, Hochul explained, the longest canal in the country was only 27 miles long. This is 363 miles. 

“How ambitious. How audacious,” she said, “to even dream this.”