- Chapter One - An Incorporated Village
- Chapter Two - Prelude to School
- Chapter Three - A Church Is Built
- Chapter Four - I Meet Sister Lucida
- Chapter Five - The Raleighs
- Chapter Six - Sister Emma
- Chapter Seven - Patriotism and Sister Florentia
- Chapter Eight - Fifth Grade Turning Points
- Chapter Nine - Seven, Eight and You're Out
- Chapter Ten - Epilogue
Farm and Village are central in the story at the left.
Technology is key in an e-book, "The Rochester I Knew."
more below, plus
on this page, a Macedon NY-Holley NY, and return, rwo couples record a 2013 Erie Canal boat trip; the party 'crosses' the Genesee River, at Rochester NY, twice.
Copyright 2014
Let me, Franklyn E. Dailey Jr., take a few lines here to introduce a new e-book, "The Rochester I Knew. I was born in that city in 1921, and lived and worked there, pre-war, and post-war. As a 20th Century observer, I had a view of Rochester in its peak of commercial activity. One context was a city along the main route of the New York Central Railroad, from New York City, to Albany, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, and Chicago. U.S. corporations made their headquarters in those cities and Rochester had its share.
(The price of the e-book , whose 'cover' is pictured below is $2.98 at Amazon.com. If you like the presentation, you may become interested in my three soft cover books covering education in a Parochial School, instrument flying, and World War II on a U.S. destroyer. These books are also available at Amazon.com, and at Barnes &Noble and other booksellers.)
An author who worked at Kodak 1936-39 and and with Xerox 1959-62 provides:
glimpses of a a technology century in the flower city
Click here to purchase e-book on Amazon.
In 2013, this author received an unexpected photo chronicle of places he had known and loved in his1920s youth. It reminds us of the lock tending, and liftbridge raising, labors that began in a still earlier entury.
2013 Boat Trip on the Erie Canal; a photo story that that brackets three centuries in U.S. life.
In the 1920s , I watched tug after tug pulling barge after barge, west and east on the Erie Canal. The barges were loaded with goods, the goods were topped by canvas, The inquiring mind of a young boy could only guess at cargos. In 2013, there is almost no commerce on the canal. The State of New York has set rules for, and encourages, pleasure boat traffiic on the Canal. The towns along the Canal way have responded with waterside parks and light commercial development. There is a bike path. There is attractive foliage and light forest. The banks of the Erie Canal were barren in the 1920s. Tow paths for the mules that pulled barges had become overgrown.)
In July 2013, my son, Philip Dailey, his wife Sally Dailey, along with a guest couple, embarked on a canal boat at Macedon, New York, then navigated the boat through the lock system westward to Holley, New York, and return to Macedon. For some number specifics as to elevation of the canal level at those locks, "The "Rochester I Knew," is an accurate source. There is an actual river crossing (two, one west and one east to be accurate) in this trip, that "The Rochester I Knew" forecast in error, as only a 'future' project.
Philip and Sally Dailey provide a picture record of their trip on this page. The couple enrolled in a training course in their home town of Houston ,Texas, and received additional training from the boat rental operators at Macedon , NY, before picking up their guests at Rochester Airport for the start of the canal journey.
Here now, their 640 x 480 pixel photo history, recorded with Sally Dailey's Canon Powershot digital camera ,during a July 2013 boat cruise on the Erie Canal.
A patio on Erie Canal at dusk in Newark New York, July 2013. (My maternal Grandfather, Harry Lasher,
had a fruit farm on Lake Ontario at North Wolcott NY. He sold his cherries and apples to
Comstock (canners) in Newark NY in the late 1920s and 1930s.)
Marker for Lock 60 at Macedon New York
Lock 60, Erie Canal, preserved. (New York Thruway drivers use abandoned canal locks travel markers.)
"Their conveyance is 'parked' by Lock 60. OK, Lock 60 on the Erie Canal. Everybody knows where that is."
'Lock'ed in, Sally Dailey peers, and smiles. Gov. Dewitt Clinton would have been pleased. His rivals jeered at 'Clinton's Ditch.'
The Lockmaster at Lock 33 on the Erie Canal peers at us, and we peer at him.
Approaching Lock 33 at Henrietta, NY, westbound ,on the Erie Canal.
The plaque that marks Lock 33 at Hennrietta NY on the Erie Canal.(Note the distance to the next lock, westbound.)
Approaching 'East Guard Gate 'on the Erie Canal that holds back the Genesee River when the latter floods.
Pedestrian crossing bridge over Erie Canal near Genesee River at Rochester New York
Just after crossing Genesee River on Erie Canal, westbound.
On the Erie Canal, approaching Brockport New York, still westbound.
Waterfall at Holley NY (Camera operator made this one 480 x 640). Here, party reversed course back to the East.
Lift Bridge at Brockport New York. (From my own youth, I recall Main Street lift bridge, and another at the extension of Park Ave..
A substantial boat in foreground, likely a tug is moored southside, bow to the east as I 'read' this photo: A Pause as we visit Brockport.
P-1. Boat Party took time out for a photo shoot in Brockport. The NYCRR passenger station, or a replica,
is shown here in this 2013 photo on the northeast side of the RR track/ Park Ave. intersection. In the 1920s,
that station was on the northwest side of the intersection.
P-2. Stull Lumber Co. of Brockport NY, located on west side of Park Avenue north of rail tracks. (Mr. Eugene Stull was my high school history teacher.)
Same location in this 2013 photo as the lumber company was in 1920s.Moore-Shafer Shoe Factory, not pictured, was nearby.
P-3. 2013 photo. These businesses occupy a site at SE corner of rail tracks/Park Ave. in Brockport NY. This site
was formerly occupied by the Dailey Coal and Produce Co. in the 1905-1935 period. See next photo.
P-4. Dailey Coal and Produce Co. as it looked in Brockport ,New York, about 1910. The large cylindrical coal storage tank which would be to the left on its own rail siding, may not have been a part of the business as early as 1910. The little wooden office had been replaced by a sandstone structure when I was being 'baby sat' there in 1925. By then, a Fairbanks platform scale has been introduced alongside the building, controlled from an office window.
When I was first there, horsedrawn coal wagons were weighed, before and after loading, with the same driver. Later, a fancy motorized coal truck, with a side-dumper feature, replaced the horse and wagon. I recall a scary nigth when Dad was called to the business. Fire took the stables building and the horses burned to death.
Now, to continue Phil and Sallly and Erie Canal Boat Tour contingent's stop in Brockport, NY, in July 2013, we take a look at photos they took of 52 South Avenue in Brockport, where this website's author spent the uears 1921-1935.
P-5. Copper Beech tree, at 52 South Avenue, Brockport New York, in a 2013 photo taken by Sally/Philip Dailey. This is on the property where this website author, Franklyn E. Dailey Jr. spent his early years 1921-1935. The Victorian home on the property had been razed and property rededicated as a small park by the village.
P-6. Philip Dailey stands under copper beech tree at 52 South Avenue, Brockport NY in July 2013.
P-7. Frank and Peggy Dailey stand close to the trunk of the copper beech tree at 52 South Avenue Brockport NY in 2006.
This pair of photos, P-7, can also be found at index.htm That page on this website contains an account of the events of the day the P-7 photos were taken. The photo-pair was taken during the ceremony that Mr. Canham, a resident in the apartments behind the property, planned and executed, as an encouragement to the village of Brockport NY to set the property aside as a public place; which was what the village did.Townsmen, townswomen, and town, all at their best! Dr. Michael Dailey, and his wife Maureen Dailey, a Registered Nurse, drove us from Wilbraham MA to Brockport for the ceremony. Mike or Maureen took these photos. I gave a short talk to the assembled group on a windy day, and Mike kept the sheets of paper on which the talk was printed from blowing away.
Phil and Sally Dailey also stopped at the Morgan Manning House during their 2013 visit to Brockport NY on their July canal boat trip. Peggy and I and Mike and Maureen Dailey met Eunice Chestnut at that same House in 2006, when the property at 52 South Avenue was rededicated as a small park.(See para above.)
Now, our boat party return to their boat, 'parked' downtown at Brockport NY.
Spencerport New York Lift Bridge over the Erie Canal, as seen from car or pedestrian on the street;
street traffic now blocked for boat passage to traverse the canal under the bridge. July 2013
Mark Henshaw of Hamlin, NY, took this photo of the preserved tug URGER, moored on the Erie Canal
at Sperncerport.NY (July 31, 2013 photo)
Homeward Bound: Dusk view, taken at Spencerport New York in July 2013; from 'our boat' moored on the Erie Canal
Sal reporting: "Port side to, looking east at Pittsford, New York. Stopped for wonderful crepes."
(This bridge floor is curved, marking it as newer than the flat bridges of my-Frank Dailey's- 1920s' youth..)
OKEECHOBEE out of Skaneatles "ties up"at Fairport, NY on the way home. (Can a canal-wall be called a 'seawall?')
Sally (Sal) Dailey finds a friend "Sal" in Fairport New York on the return trip.
we take a short break here for an insertion discovered by Philip Dailey who tells us what the other 'Sal' is all about
hit link and song will play; or go to the end of the canal trip a couple of photos down and come back to listen to song
http://www.eriecanalvillage.net/pages/song.html
and here are the words
Erie Canal Song
"Low Bridge, Everybody Down"
(Written by: Thomas Allen in 1905)
"I've got a mule, and her name is Sal,
Fif-teen miles on the Er-ie canal,
She's a good ol' worker and a good ol' pal,
Fifteen miles on the Er-ie can-al,
We've hauled some barges in our day,
Filled with lum-ber coal and hay,
And ev'ry inch of the way we know
From Al-ba-ny to Buff-a-lo OH
Chorus
"Low bridge ev'-ry bod-y down,
Low bridge for we're com-in to a town,
And you al-ways know your neighbor,
You'll always know your pal,
If you've ev-er navigated on the Er-ie can-al
Chorus
"We'd better look round for a job old gal,
Fif-teen miles - on the Er-ie can-al,
You bet your life I wouldn't part with Sal,
Fif-teen miles on the Er-ie can-al,
Giddap 'there gal we've passed that lock,
We'll make Rome fore six o'clock,
So, it's one more trip and then we'll go,
Right back home to Buff-a-lo OH
Chorus
"Oh, where would I be if I lost my pal?
Fif-teen miles on the Er-ie can-al.
Oh, I'd like to see a mule as good as Sal,
Fif-teen miles on the Er-ie can-al,
A friend of mine once got her sore,
Now he's got a busted jaw,
'Cause she let fly with her iron toe,
And kicked him in to Buff-a-lo OH
Chorus
"Don't have to call when I want my Sal,
Fif-teen miles on the Er-ie can-al,
She trots from her stall like a good old gal,
Fif-teen miles on the Er-ie can-al,
I eat my meals with Sal each day,
I eat beef and she eats hay,
And she ain't so slow if you want to know,
She put the "Buff" in Buff-a-lo OH"
Song was originally 15 'years' not 'miles' on Erie Canal; (mule life was 15 years, but now the mules were gone entirely)
"Right Back Where We Started From:" (Are the couples still on speaking terms?)
"Phil, you told us last winter that you were retiring, and invited us to come on your yacht for a few days in the summer. You said all we had to do was take a plane to the Rochester Airport and you would pick us up there."