Canal Canaries and Other Tough Old Birds

This fascinating family memoir chronicles the lives of a successful and hard-working New York State canal family, the Van Dervoorts. Author Russell W. D. Van Dervoort's family has worked the New York State waterways for two centuries -- since the dawn of steam technology and Robert Fulton's steamboat "Clermont". This work is richly illustrated with well over one hundred photographs, original documents, and diary entries from the Van Dervoort family. They captained tugboats on the Hudson River and Erie Canal, lived year-round on the water, and witnessed countless changes, from slow mule-driven tows to the massive diesel-powered barges of the twentieth century Champlain Barge Canal.