Visit the CCA Cottage Museum
Visit the CCA Cottage Museum
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Chenango Canal Association is conveniently located in Bouckville, NY in Central New York State, right on Route 20, about 5 miles from the geographic center of New York State at the church in Pratt’s Hollow (Map). The Canal Museum Cottage is located at the corner of Canal Road and Route 20. Map to the Museum
Bouckville is about 40 miles East of Syracuse, 25 miles South of Utica, 100 miles West of Albany and 75 miles North of Binghamton.
Street address: 3472 Canal Rd, Bouckville, NY 13310.
Look for this landmark.
Our sign was dedicated at Route 20 and Canal Road on March 30, 2020.
Up until April 2020, the Louis J. Gale & Son, Inc. was the oldest continuously operating feed mill in New York State. (The Louis J. Gale & Son, Inc. sign has been removed.) The Bouckville Feed Mill was the original location of the Mott's apple cider mill.
Chenango Canal History
The people wanted a canal to bring coal from Pennsylvania to southern and central New York State. Construction started on the 97 mile long canal in 1834. Immigrant workers from Ireland and Scotland were lured here by a pay scale that was three times a common laborer’s wages: $11 per month. Skilled workers from the Erie Canal brought new inventions, such as an ingenious stump-puller, using oxen or mules for animal power. As many as 500 men stayed in each area, hand-digging the 97-mile canal through quicksand, swamp and rock, using pick axes and shovels.
At a time where there was no engineering school in the country, John Jervis was appointed Chief Engineer of the project and with Holmes Hutchingson, helped design 17 ½ miles of feeders, 116 locks, 19 aqueducts, 52 culverts, 162 bridges and 7 manmade or enhanced natural reservoirs to feed enough water without taking it from Oriskany and Oneida Creeks. Not using a river to feed the summit was never done in America before. They had to prove by timing a rain gauge with a weighted wooden ball in a sluice that there would be enough water retained from rainfall to keep replacing water lost through locks and damage on the summit (a 5-mile flat stretch from Bouckville to Hamilton). This canal would only succeed by getting almost 100 miles of water uphill from Binghamton with a 706’ incline, to the summit and back down a catastrophic decline of 303’ to the Erie Canal in Utica. The state-owned canal operated from 1837 – 1878.
Chenango Canal History Review by Diane Van Slyke
Low Bridge by Diane Van Slyke
The Chenango Canal by F.C. Soule
New York State Canal System in Madison County
An audio tour of the Museum and the Towpath Trail is available for smartphone users. Just scan a QR code at the museum or other locations to connect to a list of audio descriptions of 17 locations. You can preview the audio here so you can see what it's like, but it’s more meaningful to be on site. You can check your QR code scanner here.
Mott's
Mott's
Mott's® was founded in Bouckville, NY on the Chenango Canal. New York at that time was, and today remains a prime apple growing region.
The company was founded in 1842 by Samuel R. Mott in Bouckville, New York, where he made cider with the help of hitched horses that plodded in a circle, crushing apples between two large stone mill stones at the center of the 'sweep'. The crushed apples were shoveled into a crib with slatted sides, packed in straw and pressed by three men leaning on a lengthy lever that operated a jack screw. The golden juice ran off into a tank beneath and was ready for bottling.
Early 1900's Genesee Fruit Company (Duffy Mott Company)
Mott was very successful in Bouckville. The warehouse was located across the Chenango Canal from a bottling plant that operated until 2020 as the Bouckville Feed Mill, the longest-running feed mill in NYS. Mott originally made apple cider vinegar here. It was known as the bottling plant before the larger complex was built up the street on State Route 20, but destroyed by another fire.
S.R. Mott became the Railroad Commissioner and was instrumental in getting the railroad to cross his property on Route 20, next to his business. Across the street, he lived in a house that is still standing today.
Mott's cider and vinegar caught the fancy of his neighbors and, as demand grew, so did the size of his mill. Water power and steam replaced his horse and now, with a son to help him, he began enjoying distribution far beyond the local market. Long before the turn of the century, Clipper ships were carrying 1,000 case lots of Mott's champagne cider and casks of Mott's vinegar around Cape Horn to California.
Mott's successfully exhibited their products at world fairs in Paris and Brussels. They promoted their wares, too, at the Philadelphia Centennial of 1876 and the Chicago Columbian Exposition of 1893, picking up first prizes for quality.
The sign on the building states:
"THE HOME OF
DUFFY'S SPARKLING APPLE JUICE.
MOTT'S SPARKLING RUSSET CIDER.
M. & H. CHAMPAGNE CIDER"
For additional Mott's information: Company History & More About Us | Mott's®
*Mott's continues to donate Mott's apple juice and applesauce to the CCA student trail maintenance volunteers!
Painted wording on back building states:
"GENESEE FRUIT COMPANY
BOTTLING ..." (Unable to identify last word)
Fire at the Genesee Fruit Company April 20, 1910. Bouckville United Methodist Church steeple can be seen in the background.
History of the Chenango Canal Association
Revitalization of the Chenango Canal Summit Region began in 2001, when a Bouckville resident, on a walk with her grandchildren to feed the ducks on the water, discovered a stairway and footpath that were almost completely hidden by overgrowth. The stairway led to a hand-dug canal, built by the Irish and Scots from 1834-1837 and a towpath where the mules and horses walked while pulling the boats.
The Chenango Canal Cottage Museum was once a barbershop, but now serves as a tiny museum and meeting place. We have a handicapped-accessible fishing deck next to the museum on Route 20 in Bouckville, NY. See museum location.
The former barbershop was moved into the current location on Canal Road in 2012 and was renovated in 2024.
An all-volunteer 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
Publicly encouraging research for the preservation of the canal, surrounding waters and land,
while maintaining it as both a historic and public recreation site.
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