CANAL STORE

Inscription

CANAL STORE
BUILT BY 1855. LATER OPERATED
BY HORACE WESCOTT AS GROCERY
AND CHANDLERY SUPPLYING BOATS
PASSING THROUGH LOCK 56
AKA POORHOUSE LOCK.
WILLIAM G. POMEROY FOUNDATION 2020

Requiring nearly a decade to build, the Erie Canal is an impressive feat of engineering. Spanning 363 miles, this artificial waterway featured locks, bridges, and aqueducts which traversed the diverse geography of New York and connected the East Coast to the Great Lakes. The Erie Canal not only offered a quick and affordable means of transporting goods and people, it also brought growth and prosperity to the communities through which it passed.

Horace Wescott’s canal store is one such example. Built by 1855 just outside of the Town of Lyons, it was situated along the canal by Lock 56, aka Poorhouse Lock, nicknamed for the County Poorhouse which stood nearby. The store was in the perfect location to serve passengers, as well as captains and their crew traveling on the canal. Years later, Wescott’s daughter, Nora Wescott Struder recalled the importance of her father’s store in a March 17, 1938 article from the Lyons Republican:

In canal stores, many things were kept which were not found in other stores. The wooden ware consisted of horse bridges, the lumber for these was spruce and shipped from north of Rome by boat most of the way. There were only a few made at other places.

Skilled as a carpenter Mr. Wescott manufactured a variety wood products to sell in his store for boats traveling on the canal, his daughter described as follows:

There were small inside bridges for the animals to go in an out, about an equal number of horse and mules. Father made wood racks, prys, pike poles, barrel racks, clothes poles, ice boxes, wood fenders, willow and oak fore and aft fender, also ice boards for balancing and protecting the side of a boat. Father sold wood, sawdust for bedding, ice, and baled hay. He kept 800 foot tow lines, deck pails, oiled cloth coats and hats which first were yellow, made of heavy cloth oiled. He also sold windlass bars, axe handles etc. Also, overalls, jackets, and some other clothing, and a good line of groceries.

As of 2021, the old store building still stands and serves as a private residence.