The story this week is part two of the personal experiences of Edith Kohler who was born on the Erie Canal and lived to be over 100 years old in Lockport. These remembrances were told to others during the waning years of her life.
During the winter when the canal was closed, the boats were all docked, usually at a selected place in Brooklyn. The boats were all tied together in one area. There were a few times when the weather closed in early and the boats had to dock in Buffalo for the winter. Sometimes Edith’s family would leave the boat in Brooklyn and return to this area to spend the winter, but Edith’s mother enjoyed spending the winter on the boat in Brooklyn more so than returning here. Her mother was originally from the Rapids area, which explained why the family returned to settle in the Lockport area.
In 1919, Dan Kill (Edith’s father) bought a house on Walnut Street in Lockport and the family spent time living there. At one point he decided to leave the canal and bought a gas station and garage in Lockport located on Elm and Pearl streets. However, after only one month, he decided that was not the life for him so he rented the garage out to another person to operate. The gas station stayed in the family until it was demolished through urban renewal. Dan Kill finally gave up the canal life in 1928. After his retirement, Edith’s brother took over the boat and when he died, his brother’s wife and her son continued to operate the William Hengerer for a few more years.
Edith recalled that sickness was sometimes a problem on board the boat. The sick person would have to wait until the boat could dock at a town where a doctor was available. When Edith was 7 years old she became very ill with typhoid and pleural pneumonia and was not expected to live. She was operated on aboard the William Hengerer when it was docked in New York City. An inch was cut off of two of her ribs to allow her to breathe. (Edith recalls that her mother said she found the pieces of her rib while sweeping the floor of the boat the next day!) Edith had a tube inserted in her side and had to leave the canal and stay with another family until she was better.
Attending school was difficult for the children of a traveling canal family. Edith never had an opportunity to get a high school diploma. However, she lived with her grandmother Laura Hawley in Rapids during the winter and attended school there. She did graduate from the eighth grade.
Even though the canal was fairly well protected in comparison to large bodies of water, there were times when the boats would have to dock and wait out the weather. Oneida Lake was one of the places where bad weather could mean a delay. Edith remembers at least one boat that sank in the lake and the entire family was lost.
Opportunities for Edith to date were few while living on the canal. During the winter, a friendship could be built, but having to leave for the entire summer could mark the end of a romance. However, Edith did marry a man she had met during the winter layover in Lockport. She said she finally found a man that would wait for her to return at the end of the summer. She and Clayton Kohler were married in 1925, a few years before her father decided to leave the canal. Edith and Clayton had one child, a daughter, Elaine Ginty.
The William Hengerer came to an abrupt end during the winter of 1938, the same year the ice crushed the International Bridge in Niagara Falls. Lynn Richardson, stepson of Edith’s brother, was the pilot of the boat at that time. He had docked the boat in North Tonawanda and the tremendous ice build-up at the docks crushed the William Hengerer. The wreckage had to be pulled from the canal with a crane.
The Kills were no strangers to tragedy. One of their sons was found dead in the engine room of their boat. Another son drowned when he was only 9 years old after some boys pushed him off a dock. Edith’s parents had five children and buried four, all but her. One of the worst years in the Edith Kohler’s life occurred in 1936. Her brother, Dan Kill Jr., died in December; her father died the following May; and the next September her nephew, Erwin Kill, died. Edith’s mother lived for seven years after her father died. Clayton Kohler died in 1985, and Edith lived a long life and passed away on January 15, 2002, shortly after her 100th birthday. Up to that time, she was a conscientious member of the Plymouth Congregational Church and an active citizen of Lockport.
Doug Farley is director of the Erie Canal Discovery Center. Contact him at 434-7433. The Discovery Center is closed for the season. Call for arrangements to visit.
Erie Canal Discovery
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Discussion
March 25, 2008
FARLEY: The story of Edith Kohler — Part 2
- Erie Canal Discovery
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FARLEY: The Erie Canal gun telegraph
The following communication was first published by the Buffalo Historical Society on April 7, 1863.
- FARLEY: The ice house on the canal The history of the Erie Canal is filled with information that doesn’t seem to fit into a typical category. One such item was gleaned from the life of Paul Murphy, born in Hartland in 1892.
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FARLEY: Railroads along the canal — Part 2
By 1860, with passenger travel settled in favor of the railroads, the next course of business lay in the transportation of freight. New York state had a vested interest in protecting its state owned Erie Canal.
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FARLEY: Railroads — Part 1
Vastly different, yet still very similar, the Erie Canal and the American railroads left their own marks on history. The Erie Canal traces its beginning to 1807 and the writings of Jesse Hawley, who wrote an early description of a canal which would join the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean.
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FARLEY: The life and times of an Erie Canal cook
We have learned much about life on the Erie Canal from one of its best friends, Richard Garrity of the Tonawanda’s. His remembrances of growing up on the canal help us to picture the scene in our minds eye. The following narrative is graciously attributed to Mr. Garrity.
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FARLEY: Recollections from an early settler
The owners of the first log home near what is now the Lockport Locks was acknowledged to be Dr. Isaac Smith and his wife, Edna Deane Smith. The couple operated an infirmary out of their cabin. Anyone who was hurt as a result of work on the Erie Canal would most likely have been taken to the Smith home. Mrs. Smith, a Quaker, affectionately known as Aunt Edna, served as a nurse for her husband.
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FARLEY: Life on the Erie Canal
Life on the Erie Canal represented a culture all its own, a way of existence that included its own vocabulary, its own laws, its own dangers and its own beauty. For some, it was a hard, demanding life. No doubt it was for many of the thousands whose livelihood depended on it during the canal’s peak years. Yet it offered special rewards that people found irresistible. The world of the canal was an escape from the ordinary and had its own special excitement.
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FARLEY: The story of Edith Kohler — Part 2
The story this week is part two of the personal experiences of Edith Kohler who was born on the Erie Canal and lived to be over 100 years old in Lockport. These remembrances were told to others during the waning years of her life.
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CANAL DISCOVERY: The experiences of Edith Kohler — part one
Many stories are told about the workers who built the Erie Canal. Other stories focus on the men, women and children that lived and worked on the canal. Lockport is fortunate to have a plethora of stories that have been passed down by a grand lady who grew up on a canal boat.
- CANAL DISCOVERY: Bridges over the canal The history of the Erie Canal contains quite a few stories of men and women who received an “up-close and personal” understanding of the term “low bridge.” Many of the stories pertain to the poor souls who failed to heed a captain’s shout of “down on deck” or “bridge.”
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