Lock Tender's House and Canal Store Ruin
Encyclopedia
The Lock Tender's House and Canal Store Ruin is located on Canal Road in High Falls
, New York, United States. It is a complex along the former route of the Delaware and Hudson Canal
built in the middle of the 19th century.
The Lock Tender's House is one of the few surviving such structures along the length of the canal in New York or Pennsylvania. The store ruins are also one of the few remnants of the canal's ancillary buildings. Both can be seen from a nearby public trail along the canal bed. In 1998 the property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
.
on the north side of Canal 0.1 mile (150 m) west of Mohonk Road (Ulster County
Route 6A), a short distance south of downtown High Falls
. The property slopes down from the road slightly towards the dry bed of the former canal, a National Historic Landmark
for its entire length. It is extensively landscaped
, with mowed lawns, terraced gardens and 25 mature black locust trees.
Some canal facilities remain, including two snubbing posts used to tie up barges in the lock that are considered contributing resources
to the National Register listing. The publicly-owned Five Locks Walk runs along the other side of the canal, allowing a view of the property. West of the canal bed and walk the area remains wooded and undeveloped. There is another house, and the High Falls firehouse, a short distance down Canal on the same side; across it are woodlot
s buffering a field.
frame
structure on a stone foundation
with a gable
d roof shingled
in asphalt. Aluminum siding covers the original clapboard
on the exterior. On the west (front) elevation is an enclosed porch with concrete deck. A screened shed-roofed porch is on the west side with a hip-roofed
bay window
on the east. On the south is a bulkhead entrance to the cellar with unpainted board-and-batten
doors.
Inside the main entrance, a paired Dutch door
with original hardware, is a large main room with a smaller kitchen and dining room. The main room has beaded chair rail and baseboard
and windows with original camlocks. Two original paneled doors with thumb latches lead into the other rooms. All are finished with the original 7 to 9 in (17.8 to 22.9 cm) tongue and groove
pine flooring and wall and ceiling plaster. The dining room floor has a tin strip patch.
An original wooden stair along the east leads to the upstairs. It has a similar plan, with a large master bedroom complemented by two smaller chambers. As with the first floor, much of the trim is original, with pine flooring and plaster walls throughout and chair rail in the master bedroom. The bedroom doors have original hardware; antique locks were added to the bathroom and closet doors. The original chimney, cut off at the roof line, is also visible on this floor. A small wood hatch leads to the attic, where the sawn rafters of the roof have skip sheathing and no ridge pole.
From the first floor, the same stairs lead down to the basement. It has a concrete floor and single pane windows on the north and south. A mortise and tenon
frame surrounds a board-and-batten door to the stone steps that lead to the outside bulkhead entrance.
for the canal-operated general store
building is to the west of the house and downhill, at the northwest corner of the property. It is 33 by, made of stone walls two feet (61 cm) thick. Two window openings face the canal, with bluestone
sills still in place. There are remains of sand mold bricks and brick walls along two sides along with some of the original lintels in the debris. Directly across the canal bed is the stone foundation of the store's former warehouse.
The site has a partial brick floor. It is currently used by the owners as a freestanding patio
, with a small set of furnishings.
from the mines
of Northeastern Pennsylvania
to New York City via the Hudson River
at what is now Kingston
.
This expansion of capacity required an extensive rerouting at High Falls, taking the canal directly up the slope south of the hamlet. Six new locks, Nos. 15–20, would be necessary to take it up 70 vertical feet (21.3 m) in a quarter-mile (400 m). The small parcel was necessary to build and expand the canal. The company had an easement
allowing unlimited access to the property during the construction, and also permitting it to dispose of debris and waste from that work on neighboring properties. A line of leftover scree
from that time remains along the canal bed near the house and ruin today.
Once the expansion was finished, the land was deeded back to the Robinsons with the exception of the new canal alignment, its towpath
(part of which is today the Five Locks Walk) and a half-acre meant to be used as housing for the lock tender. It first appears on the local tax
rolls as a "lock house" in 1849, suggesting it was complete and occupied by then.
The lock tender's job was to take barges through the locks and maintain their water level. His salary, based on an 1880 census form, was $576 ($ in contemporary dollars) Since the former could take a long time, and barges could come through as early as 5 a.m. and as late as 10 p.m., two years after the house was built a general store
and warehouse were constructed on either side of the canal, allowing barge crews to stock up on provisions for the remainder of a journey that often took two weeks.
Sarah Robinson sold her property, which included the warehouse and store, to her sons in 1853. They in turn sold it to Jacob Hasbrouck two years later, and then in 1860 he sold it to Charles Hardenbergh, a farmer and merchant who lived in another nearby Canal Road house. He remained the owner and operator of the store until 1892.
At the end of the 19th century, the canal, by then a relic of an earlier, pre-industrial age, ceased operations. At that time Esther van Wagenen, an heiress of the Robinsons, bought the half-acre with the lock tender's cottage. Ten years later, her sister Mary inherited the house. She added the bay window to the dining room during the 1920s, and bequeathed the property upon her death in 1936 to another family member, Cynthia van Wagenen. She bought the store property in 1943, bringing the lot to its present size.
Cynthia van Wagenen installed modern forced-air
heating in the house in the 1950s, but did not add modern plumbing. After her death in 1961, the house was used as a rental property by her estate
for several years and then sold. Subsequent owners drilled a well and added indoor plumbing. One, an avid lock collector, added several period locks to the doors upstairs.
The house and ruin, still privately owned, have remained part of the historical attraction of the nearby Five Locks Walk, which follows the towpath. An estimated 4,000 people see it annually. It features on the walking tour
of High Falls sponsored by the nearby Delaware and Hudson Canal Museum
.
High Falls, New York
High Falls is a hamlet in Ulster County, New York, United States. The population was 627 at the 2000 census.High Falls is located in Marbletown, near the town boundary with Rosendale.-Geography:...
, New York, United States. It is a complex along the former route of the Delaware and Hudson Canal
Delaware and Hudson Canal
The Delaware and Hudson Canal was the first venture of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, which later developed the Delaware and Hudson Railway...
built in the middle of the 19th century.
The Lock Tender's House is one of the few surviving such structures along the length of the canal in New York or Pennsylvania. The store ruins are also one of the few remnants of the canal's ancillary buildings. Both can be seen from a nearby public trail along the canal bed. In 1998 the property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
.
Property
The house and ruin are located on a wooded half-acre lotLot (real estate)
In real estate, a lot or plot is a tract or parcel of land owned or meant to be owned by some owner. A lot is essentially considered a parcel of real property in some countries or immovable property in other countries...
on the north side of Canal 0.1 mile (150 m) west of Mohonk Road (Ulster County
Ulster County, New York
Ulster County is a county located in the state of New York, USA. It sits in the state's Mid-Hudson Region of the Hudson Valley. As of the 2010 census, the population was 182,493. Recent population estimates completed by the United States Census Bureau for the 12-month period ending July 1 are at...
Route 6A), a short distance south of downtown High Falls
High Falls Historic District
The High Falls Historic District corresponds roughly to the downtown section of the hamlet of that name in Marbletown, New York, United States. It is a area around the intersection of state highway NY 213, Main Street, Mohonk Road The High Falls Historic District corresponds roughly to the...
. The property slopes down from the road slightly towards the dry bed of the former canal, a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
for its entire length. It is extensively landscaped
Landscaping
Landscaping refers to any activity that modifies the visible features of an area of land, including:# living elements, such as flora or fauna; or what is commonly referred to as gardening, the art and craft of growing plants with a goal of creating a beautiful environment within the landscape.#...
, with mowed lawns, terraced gardens and 25 mature black locust trees.
Some canal facilities remain, including two snubbing posts used to tie up barges in the lock that are considered contributing resources
Contributing property
In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing resource or contributing property is any building, structure, or object which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic district, listed locally or federally, significant...
to the National Register listing. The publicly-owned Five Locks Walk runs along the other side of the canal, allowing a view of the property. West of the canal bed and walk the area remains wooded and undeveloped. There is another house, and the High Falls firehouse, a short distance down Canal on the same side; across it are woodlot
Woodlot
A woodlot is a term used in North America to refer to a segment of a woodland or forest capable of small-scale production of forest products such as wood fuel, sap for maple syrup, sawlogs, as well as recreational uses like bird watching, bushwalking, and wildflower appreciation...
s buffering a field.
House
The house itself is set 15 feet (4.6 m) back from the road. It is a small two-story two-by-two-bayBay (architecture)
A bay is a unit of form in architecture. This unit is defined as the zone between the outer edges of an engaged column, pilaster, or post; or within a window frame, doorframe, or vertical 'bas relief' wall form.-Defining elements:...
frame
Framing (construction)
Framing, in construction known as light-frame construction, is a building technique based around structural members, usually called studs, which provide a stable frame to which interior and exterior wall coverings are attached, and covered by a roof comprising horizontal ceiling joists and sloping...
structure on a stone foundation
Foundation (architecture)
A foundation is the lowest and supporting layer of a structure. Foundations are generally divided into two categories: shallow foundations and deep foundations.-Shallow foundations:...
with a gable
Gable
A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of a sloping roof. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system being used and aesthetic concerns. Thus the type of roof enclosing the volume dictates the shape of the gable...
d roof shingled
Roof shingle
Roof shingles are a roof covering consisting of individual overlapping elements. These elements are typically flat rectangular shapes laid in rows from the bottom edge of the roof up, with each successive higher row overlapping the joints in the row below...
in asphalt. Aluminum siding covers the original clapboard
Clapboard (architecture)
Clapboard, also known as bevel siding or lap siding or weather-board , is a board used typically for exterior horizontal siding that has one edge thicker than the other and where the board above laps over the one below...
on the exterior. On the west (front) elevation is an enclosed porch with concrete deck. A screened shed-roofed porch is on the west side with a hip-roofed
Hip roof
A hip roof, or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope. Thus it is a house with no gables or other vertical sides to the roof. A square hip roof is shaped like a pyramid. Hip roofs on the houses could have two triangular side...
bay window
Bay window
A bay window is a window space projecting outward from the main walls of a building and forming a bay in a room, either square or polygonal in plan. The angles most commonly used on the inside corners of the bay are 90, 135 and 150 degrees. Bay windows are often associated with Victorian architecture...
on the east. On the south is a bulkhead entrance to the cellar with unpainted board-and-batten
Batten
A batten is a thin strip of solid material, typically made from wood, plastic or metal. Battens are used in building construction and various other fields as both structural and purely cosmetic elements...
doors.
Inside the main entrance, a paired Dutch door
Dutch door
A Dutch door , or stable door , or half door , is a door divided horizontally in such a fashion that the bottom half may remain shut while the top half opens...
with original hardware, is a large main room with a smaller kitchen and dining room. The main room has beaded chair rail and baseboard
Baseboard
In architecture, a baseboard is a board covering the lowest part of an interior wall...
and windows with original camlocks. Two original paneled doors with thumb latches lead into the other rooms. All are finished with the original 7 to 9 in (17.8 to 22.9 cm) tongue and groove
Tongue and groove
A strong joint, the tongue and groove joint is widely used for re-entrant angles. The effect of wood shrinkage is concealed when the joint is beaded or otherwise moulded...
pine flooring and wall and ceiling plaster. The dining room floor has a tin strip patch.
An original wooden stair along the east leads to the upstairs. It has a similar plan, with a large master bedroom complemented by two smaller chambers. As with the first floor, much of the trim is original, with pine flooring and plaster walls throughout and chair rail in the master bedroom. The bedroom doors have original hardware; antique locks were added to the bathroom and closet doors. The original chimney, cut off at the roof line, is also visible on this floor. A small wood hatch leads to the attic, where the sawn rafters of the roof have skip sheathing and no ridge pole.
From the first floor, the same stairs lead down to the basement. It has a concrete floor and single pane windows on the north and south. A mortise and tenon
Mortise and tenon
The mortise and tenon joint has been used for thousands of years by woodworkers around the world to join pieces of wood, mainly when the adjoining pieces connect at an angle of 90°. In its basic form it is both simple and strong. Although there are many joint variations, the basic mortise and tenon...
frame surrounds a board-and-batten door to the stone steps that lead to the outside bulkhead entrance.
Store ruin
The stone foundationFoundation (architecture)
A foundation is the lowest and supporting layer of a structure. Foundations are generally divided into two categories: shallow foundations and deep foundations.-Shallow foundations:...
for the canal-operated general store
General store
A general store, general merchandise store, or village shop is a rural or small town store that carries a general line of merchandise. It carries a broad selection of merchandise, sometimes in a small space, where people from the town and surrounding rural areas come to purchase all their general...
building is to the west of the house and downhill, at the northwest corner of the property. It is 33 by, made of stone walls two feet (61 cm) thick. Two window openings face the canal, with bluestone
Bluestone
Bluestone is a cultural or commercial name for a number of dimension or building stone varieties, including:*a feldspathic sandstone in the U.S. and Canada;*limestone in the Shenandoah Valley in the U.S...
sills still in place. There are remains of sand mold bricks and brick walls along two sides along with some of the original lintels in the debris. Directly across the canal bed is the stone foundation of the store's former warehouse.
The site has a partial brick floor. It is currently used by the owners as a freestanding patio
Patio
A patio is an outdoor space generally used for dining or recreation that adjoins a residence and is typically paved. It may refer to a roofless inner courtyard of the sort found in Spanish-style dwellings or a paved area between a residence and a garden....
, with a small set of furnishings.
History
In 1828, the year of the canal's opening, local landowner Simeon DePuy (owner of the nearby stone house now used as a restaurant), granted the 93 acres (37.6 ha) including the grounds of the future house to his daughter Maria Dewitt. Twenty years later, she sold 21.5 of those acres (8.6 ha) to her sister, Sarah Robinson, and her husband Abraham, for $2,250 ($ in contemporary dollars). As part of the same transaction, 5.3 acres (2.1 ha) were sold to the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company for an ongoing expansion of the canal to accommodate larger barges and compete more effectively with railroads, which had not existed when the canal was built to ship anthracite coalAnthracite coal
Anthracite is a hard, compact variety of mineral coal that has a high luster...
from the mines
Coal mining
The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...
of Northeastern Pennsylvania
Northeastern Pennsylvania
Northeastern Pennsylvania is a geographic region of Pennsylvania that includes the Pocono Mountains, the Endless Mountains and the industrial cities of Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Pittston, Hazleton and Carbondale....
to New York City via the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
at what is now Kingston
Kingston, New York
Kingston is a city in and the county seat of Ulster County, New York, USA. It is north of New York City and south of Albany. It became New York's first capital in 1777, and was burned by the British Oct. 16, 1777, after the Battles of Saratoga...
.
This expansion of capacity required an extensive rerouting at High Falls, taking the canal directly up the slope south of the hamlet. Six new locks, Nos. 15–20, would be necessary to take it up 70 vertical feet (21.3 m) in a quarter-mile (400 m). The small parcel was necessary to build and expand the canal. The company had an easement
Easement
An easement is a certain right to use the real property of another without possessing it.Easements are helpful for providing pathways across two or more pieces of property or allowing an individual to fish in a privately owned pond...
allowing unlimited access to the property during the construction, and also permitting it to dispose of debris and waste from that work on neighboring properties. A line of leftover scree
Scree
Scree, also called talus, is a term given to an accumulation of broken rock fragments at the base of crags, mountain cliffs, or valley shoulders. Landforms associated with these materials are sometimes called scree slopes or talus piles...
from that time remains along the canal bed near the house and ruin today.
Once the expansion was finished, the land was deeded back to the Robinsons with the exception of the new canal alignment, its towpath
Towpath
A towpath is a road or trail on the bank of a river, canal, or other inland waterway. The purpose of a towpath is to allow a land vehicle, beasts of burden, or a team of human pullers to tow a boat, often a barge...
(part of which is today the Five Locks Walk) and a half-acre meant to be used as housing for the lock tender. It first appears on the local tax
Property tax
A property tax is an ad valorem levy on the value of property that the owner is required to pay. The tax is levied by the governing authority of the jurisdiction in which the property is located; it may be paid to a national government, a federated state or a municipality...
rolls as a "lock house" in 1849, suggesting it was complete and occupied by then.
The lock tender's job was to take barges through the locks and maintain their water level. His salary, based on an 1880 census form, was $576 ($ in contemporary dollars) Since the former could take a long time, and barges could come through as early as 5 a.m. and as late as 10 p.m., two years after the house was built a general store
General store
A general store, general merchandise store, or village shop is a rural or small town store that carries a general line of merchandise. It carries a broad selection of merchandise, sometimes in a small space, where people from the town and surrounding rural areas come to purchase all their general...
and warehouse were constructed on either side of the canal, allowing barge crews to stock up on provisions for the remainder of a journey that often took two weeks.
Sarah Robinson sold her property, which included the warehouse and store, to her sons in 1853. They in turn sold it to Jacob Hasbrouck two years later, and then in 1860 he sold it to Charles Hardenbergh, a farmer and merchant who lived in another nearby Canal Road house. He remained the owner and operator of the store until 1892.
At the end of the 19th century, the canal, by then a relic of an earlier, pre-industrial age, ceased operations. At that time Esther van Wagenen, an heiress of the Robinsons, bought the half-acre with the lock tender's cottage. Ten years later, her sister Mary inherited the house. She added the bay window to the dining room during the 1920s, and bequeathed the property upon her death in 1936 to another family member, Cynthia van Wagenen. She bought the store property in 1943, bringing the lot to its present size.
Cynthia van Wagenen installed modern forced-air
Forced-air
A forced-air system is one which uses air as its heat transfer medium. These systems rely on ductwork, vents, and plenums as means of air distribution, separate from the actual heating and air conditioning systems. The return plenum carries the air from several large return grills to a central...
heating in the house in the 1950s, but did not add modern plumbing. After her death in 1961, the house was used as a rental property by her estate
Estate (law)
An estate is the net worth of a person at any point in time. It is the sum of a person's assets - legal rights, interests and entitlements to property of any kind - less all liabilities at that time. The issue is of special legal significance on a question of bankruptcy and death of the person...
for several years and then sold. Subsequent owners drilled a well and added indoor plumbing. One, an avid lock collector, added several period locks to the doors upstairs.
The house and ruin, still privately owned, have remained part of the historical attraction of the nearby Five Locks Walk, which follows the towpath. An estimated 4,000 people see it annually. It features on the walking tour
Walking tour
Walking tour may be defined has having one or more of the following characteristics:* A full or partial-day tour of one or more tourist destinations, which can be led by a tour guide, an escort, or be self-guided....
of High Falls sponsored by the nearby Delaware and Hudson Canal Museum
Delaware and Hudson Canal Museum
The Delaware and Hudson Canal Museum is a museum in High Falls, New York, United States specializing in the history and culture of the Delaware and Hudson Canal. It is located in a Gothic Revival chapel built in 1885 which was purchased by the Delaware & Hudson Canal Historical Society in 1975...
.