Going Places, Near & Far: Cycle the Erie

Karen Rubin

(Our eight-day, 400-mile Buffalo to Albany Cycle the Erie Bike Tour with Parks & Trails NY  continues from the 9/11, 9/18, 9/25, 10/2, 10/9, 10/16, 10/23 columns.)

It is Day 6 of our eight-day, 400-mile bike tour from Buffalo to Albany following the Erie Canal trail except where it no longer exists. This is the 17th annual Cycle the Erie bike tour offered by Parks & Trails NY, which uses it as its major fundraiser to raise funds as well as awareness to finish the trail, presently about 70 percent complete. Once finished, the Erie Canalway would become one of the longest multi-purpose trails in the country. 

Over the course of the trail, you go from city (Buffalo), to tiny industrial canal towns that owe their existence to the creation of the Erie Canal (like Lockport), through some of the prettiest farmland and countryside anywhere (this is New York!), and at this point in our ride, back to the bigger, older cities and into neighborhoods a visitor would be unlikely to encounter otherwise. What an opportunity to experience “The Real America.” 

Today’s ride is the longest, at 62.5 miles, from Rome to Canajoharie (and the end is the steepest hill which we are told few first-timers can make without walking). 

This section of our ride is really for discovery, to connect with heritage – it’s amazing how being where history happens gives you much better appreciation, understanding and connection to today’s experience. 

Half-way through, at the 30 mile mark, is the Remington Gun Factory which has a Museum we are invited to visit. Normally the museum is closed for lunch time (exactly when I arrive), but it stays open today to accommodate the 600 cyclists. 

It is a sprawling, imposing 19th century brick structure with an humongous American flag draped on its side. It is emblematic of the kinds of factories that developed here in New York State, largely because of the Erie Canal. It tells the story of the Industrial Revolution. 

I make a “mistake” of entering the front gate rather than riding around to the side to visit the Museum, just as scores of men are leaving, perhaps for lunch, perhaps for the end of a shift.  

Remington was founded in 1816 and its success was founded on the significant innovation it made, as well as the reliability of its guns. And oh yes, government contracts.

I make some quick notes:

1830s-1870s: Percussion Ignition system – power and ball loaded separately

1842-1860s: Major government contracts allowed Remington to develop production line procedures. Reliable system – one of few that manufactured for both military and civilians

Mid 1800s: Remington plant became an armory of national and international importance.

Civil War: was when Remington Factory (and the town of Ilion) exploded, with government contracts, and transitioned from the single-shot muzzle loader to the breech-loader. 

While “Remington” is now one of the most famous brands ever devised, less recognized is what an innovator Remington was in marketing, promotion and branding including what may be the first instance of “celebrity” branding: The exhibit about Annie Oakley, for example, notes that she was known for using the Model 12 Remington Rifle and incidentally, that Annie Oakley’s husband, Frank Butler, is identified as “an employee of Remington Arms Co.” (but I wonder if he was an actual employee or paid an incentive for Oakley to use the Remington rifle so prominently). 

You can sit and watch a glitsy, MTV-style video of modern gun-making with pounding beat – how they use robots to put the metal-barrel through a heat process. (I’m thinking so they could easily do microstamping, rather than threaten to leave New York State and shut the factory if the state passes a new regulation). 

And for that matter, instead of blocking safety measures on guns, why wouldn’t Remington be on the forefront of a regulation for child-safety locks and “smart-guns” that would mean that only the registered user could unlock it, like a Smart-phone. You would think this would give them a bonanza to sell 300 million gun replacements for the 300 million guns that are now in circulation, in the same way that Apple gets users to trade up their phones every few years. 

What I did not realize before this visit, is how many other items Remington invented, innovated and manufactured in an effort to prosper in peacetime: the famous Remington typewriter, of course, but there was also Remington cutlery, cash register, sewing machine, even iron bridges (1870s) and street lighting systems. Remington Agricultural Works manufactured a horse drawn plow, a steam car, a cotton gin, and the Whipple Patented iron bridge. 

And yet, with all these innovations, Remington was on the brink of financial disaster. 

“Only one of these new attempts to stem the tide became successful, the typewriter. One authority states that, ‘It was expensive to build necessary machinery; there had been heavy losses in other enterprises; $350,000 went into the Agricultural Works; the Scattergood Cotton Gin was a financial failure; the Sewing machine lost about $1,000,000; an enterprise for making electric-lighting plants was unsuccessful; large gifts to charity and education had lowered their resources; and finally they were led to disaster by helping a false friend’,” notes an article, Ilion in the War, Remington Armory and E. Remington & Sons 

I ask the receptionist (who has been none too accommodating) where the military-style semi-assault guns are displayed, and after hedging, am first told that Remington doesn’t manufacture these, and then another man tells me that some exhibits went to the NRA Museum in Colorado. Still a non-committal answer.  

I ask how many people work at the Remington Factory and the receptionist doesn’t answer, but then begrudging says there are 1000 employees here in the 1 million sq. ft. factory. 

I come away with a catalog: “No one equips women for success like Remington”. “For the prepared, ‘Luck’ is a four-letter word.” “As many advanced ways to drop them [ducks] as there are to cook them.” “Engineering a lethal new breed of predator.” “No one knows how to reach out and wreck Tom’s day like Remington.” “Travel-weary migrators: Your final destination. Ruling the flyway with lethal authority, year in and year out.” 

(Remington Firearms Museum, Catherine Street off Route 5S, Ilion, NY 13357, 315-895-3200, 800-243-0700, www.remington.com).

Now I understand the “Repeal SAFE Act” signs we have seen on some of the lawns, a protest against the stringent gun control law that New York State passed soon after the massacre at the Sandy Hook school in Connecticut, and another massacre, an ambush of two firefighters shot to death by a man who had been convicted of killing his grandmother and never should have had any kind of access to a gun, that took place not far from here in Webster.

I come upon Historic Fort Herkimer Church, built around 1767 which is thought to be the second-oldest surviving church. Now I understand who General Herkimer was from my earlier visit to Fort Stanwix – Herkimer was “the most important hero of the American Revolution that few have heard of” – and later, (at Mile 43.4),  we pass directly in front of Herkimer’s mansion home that is literally along the Erie Canal Trail, so I take a few minutes to walk the grounds before continuing on my way.

We pass German Flatts town park. In Fort Stanwix, I had learned that German Flatts had been burned to the ground by Loyalists, part of the scorched-earth strategy waged by both sides in the Revolutionary War.  

In Little Falls, we can explore the glacial potholes of Moss Island, a National Natural Landmark and Lock 17, the highest lift lock on the Erie Canal. The geology here is most impressive: Moss Island trails let you see prehistoric potholes, extensive growth of mosses and lichens and some of the oldest rocks in North America. The Mohawk River Valley, the marker says, is the only horizontal break in the Appalachian mountain chain, which is what made it possible for the Erie Canal to be built and provide a water route west for trade and settlement of the United States interior. 

At Mile 52.1, we are offered a route alternative for the last ten miles. But I miss the turn and am too far along to go back. But this route would have taken me to historic sites: Nellie Tavern, built in 1767, which before the construction of the Erie Canal, served those traveling along the King’s Highway and the Mohawk River (and from what I have learned at other sites, particularly Strawbery Banke in Portsmouth, NH), the taverns were where political discourse took place and would have catered either to Loyalists or Patriots, so I imagine that happened here, as well); Fort Klock, built in the 18th century, includes a 1750 farmhouse (the fortified home was used as a refuge during the French and Indian War and the American Revolution), Dutch barn, schoolhouse and blacksmith shop; the Palentine Church, built in 1770 by Palatine Lutherans. 

They also offer us a self-guided cue sheet for visiting Utica, where we can visit the Saranac Brewery and The Munson-Williams-Proctor Museum. 

The endpoint of today’s ride (have I mentioned it’s 62 miles?) is the Canajoharie High School, which is set at the very, very tippy top of an enormous hill. I opt to push my bike up the hill. 

For dinner tonight, we are being hosted at the Arkell Art Museum – a surprising jewel of such quality and sophistication for such a small town, and the school we are camping at is state-of-the-art. How can they afford it? Because of an industrialist who made a fortune here.

“Bartlett Arkell, the founder and first president of the Beech-Nut Packing Company, built the original Canajoharie Gallery in 1927 based on galleries he had experienced in his travels to Europe. A museum designed by Ann Beha and DesignLAB Architects was added in 2007 to the existing Canajoharie Library and Art Gallery to provide inspiring new space for exhibitions and programs,” the literature notes.

“Almost all of the paintings in the permanent collection were purchased by Bartlett Arkell for the people of Canajoharie. The American painting collection includes 21 works by Winslow Homer, and significant paintings by many distinguished artists, including George Inness, William M. Chase, Childe Hassam, Mary Cassatt, Georgia O’Keeffe, Robert Henri, and other members of The Eight. Permanent and changing exhibitions also feature selections from the museum’s Mohawk Valley History collection as well as the Beech-Nut as the Beech-Nut archives of early twentieth-century advertising material.” (The Arkell Museum ,2 Erie Blvd., Canajoharie, NY 13317, 518 673 2314, info@arkellmuseum.org, arkellmuseum.org)

From the village center, we see the old high school up on another hill, a cold, gothic style structure. 

We are invited to enjoy the concert underway in the village – Parks & Trails NY has arranged shuttle buses (the school is at the top of a very, very steep hill, so we are grateful for having the lift). 

The 18th Annual Cycle the Erie Canal ride is scheduled July 10-17, 2016 (www.ptny.org/canaltour). In the meantime, you can cycle the trail on your own – detailed info and interactive map is at the ptny.org site (www.ptny.org/bikecanal), including suggested lodgings. For more information on Cycle the Erie Canal, contact Parks & Trails New York at 518-434-1583 or visit www.ptny.org

Information is also available from the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor, Waterford, NY 12188, 518-237-7000, www.eriecanalway.org

Next: 400 Miles and 400 Years of History, Cycle the Erie Bike Tour Crosses Finish at Albany

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