Chapter 11- The River
Crossover Dam to Oriskany
Discovery: Animals and Artifacts Along the Old Mohawk
May 2, 2000, 50 degrees, Cloudy
The sun was breaking through the clouds and a great blue heron flew
at tree top level down river as we launched the canoes just below the Erie
Canal/Mohawk River cross-over dam. It was 9 a.m.
I had planned this trip months ago. It was to be
the first in a series of canoeing adventures on the "old" Mohawk;
the 30-mile section of river that runs from Rome to Frankfort and is separate
from the canal. For the most part, this stretch of river is much like it
was hundreds of years ago --- old and wild.
For this trip I asked Jim DeRuby, Ron Gugnacki and Bob
McNitt to join me. I met Jim a few years ago while researching a magazine
article on hunting from a canoe. In recent years he has used his hunting
skills and some modern technology to find historical artifacts.
Ron Gugnacki and I have canoed, hunted and fished together
for many years throughout New York State. He is one of the most observant
woodsman I know and one of the best fishermen.
River bateaux camps to Bob McNitt and Ron Gugnacki.
After we parked a vehicle at the mouth of Oriskany Creek, Jim led us on a back country road that ran along railroad tracks and across abandoned farmfields to the launch site four miles downstream from Rome. He has hunted and explored this area for more than a decade; taken a deer every year and a turkey every season . . . and recently discovered the sites of 18th Century bateaux camps.
While Bob and Jim went downriver to set up for turkeys, Ron and I fished below the falls; an excellent place to pick up a big brown trout. Ron's third cast with a Mepps spinner produced a 3-pound northern pike. That wasn't our heaviest catch at the dam however.
Just downstream, a partially submerged tree had snagged a backpack. Soaking wet, it weighed about 50 pounds. After dragging it to shore, we discovered it was full of college books.
Saint John Fisher College was imprinted on the note books, but there was no other name. A disgruntled student perhaps? We spread the books out to dry and returned to the river.
At 10 a.m. we caught up to Bob and Jim. They interrupted calling turkeys long enough for Jim to tell us where to stop for lunch and wait for them.
A half-mile downstream we came to one of the few log jams on this part of the river. Trees, logs and other floating debris blocked the river from bank to bank. We had to carry the canoe around; no easy job on this high mud-banked stretch of river.
The grey and brown landscape was colored by shoreline patches of skunk cabbage, early grasses, budding trees and white shad blossoms. Huge grapevines hung from some of the budding trees. The predominant species in this wet environment are willow, silver maple and box alder, with a few oak, pine, hemlock, spruce and scrub elm mixed in. We saw a number of grey squirrels; the area is loaded with them.
It was 10:45 when we approached a sharp bend in the river. Three deer were standing among the trees watching us, and didn't bound away until we were almost upon them.
Just beyond this bend was the spot where Jim had told us to stop for lunch. It was, we noted, one of the few places we could actually beach the canoe and step ashore, and not have to climb up a muddy bank. We were, in fact, standing on a 6-mile long island that runs between the river and the canal. It seemed far from civilization, but we could hear the traffic on Route 49 on the other side of the canal.
When Jim and Bob arrived, Jim took us to an area where he had found 18th century artifacts. He explained that after he joined the local EARTH (Electronic Archaeological Recovery & Treasure Hunters) Club, he learned through diaries and other writings that there were a number of campsites used by the men who poled flat-bottomed boats up the river from Schnectady to Fort Stanwix. With some of his metal detector friends, he had discovered a couple of these bateaux camps between Rome and Oriskany and had unearthed buttons, buckles, musket balls, rusted knives, nails and other 18th and 19th century artifacts. One of them was a button from a uniform of the 5th New York Regiment; a regiment that fought in the Revolutionary War.
I had asked Jim to bring along some of the items, so I could take photos where he had found them. That request seemed like a good idea when Jim discovered he forgot his trowel, making it impossible to dig through a foot of soil where most of the artifacts were found.
Bob to the rescue. A walk along the river bank produced a square plastic flower pot; not good enough to dig deep, but good enough to scrape away a few inches of soft dirt. After a brief look around, Jim directed his metal detector sweeps to a depression created by a highwater branch of the river.
We
were astounded. In a half-hour he found a handful of rusty square nails,
two musket balls, one a 72 caliber; two buttons, a buckle . . . and a Jews
Harp; the first he had ever found. I didn't need props for photos.
While we were eating lunch, Ron noticed that a nearby, narrow strip
of "stagnant" ground water was actually flowing. It was flowing from
a spring beneath the fallen tree. Further investigation revealed that a
nearby "groundwater" pool was another spring. Plenty of water for a bateaux
camp.
