June 14, 2008: Whitehall, NY

Whitehall, NY
We spent last night tied up at the Fort Edward Lock after clearing it around 7:30 pm. It is so nice that it is light so late. We are really in the country now. Last night we could hear the chirping of crickets and the twitter of little birds, sounds very different than the call of seagulls. The still water is green with the reflection of the lush overhanging trees. This morning, as we set off north of Lock C7 we are checking at every bridge for height to make sure we can pass under. This means I drive and Tom stands in the back looking over the canopy to make sure we won’t hit the bridge as we creep under it. There are fifteen low fixed bridges in our path today. When we came to Lock C9 it was the first lock that we have come to that steps down; so you drive into it full and ride down. This means that we have passed their “continental divide”, and now all raindrops that fall flow north instead of south.
We passed a new commercial dock with huge bummers and cleats being built where the river converged with the railroad. The lock master told us that it is for barges and dredging vessels being brought in to clean up the river. Apparently, during the 1970s companies in the area regularly dumped PCB’s in the river. This is an oil chemical compound now known to cause cancer. They will dredge the river and come back to these docks to off load the sludge onto train cars to carry off. I hope they are careful about where they carry that stuff off to.
As we approach Whitehall, we are noticing that the forest is changing. There are more, hemlock, cedar, short and long leaf pines. Also, the hardwoods are different with varieties with tiny leaves. We are also passing pastures and a couple of exciting spotting of cows by the river. Some cows were enclosed by the water on a pasture on a peninsula and only closed at the tiny land link. Others were actually cooling it in the water with only woods behind them.
Our destination today is Whitehall. Whitehall lies on the southeast bay of Lake Champlain at the mouth of the Hudson River and is the place that claims to be the birthplace of the US Navy. This seems like a pretty weird claim for a place 200 miles inland on a narrow river maybe 100 feet wide. The story starts in the summer of 1776 just as the Continental Congress who had just named a general for her Army, had any thoughts of a Navy. Benedict Arnold (who had the potential to be a great hero of the Revolution) went into Canada as a General of the American Army and captured two British schooners (two-masted sailing vessels) and a British sloop (a single-masted vessel) and brought them back to Lake Champlain. At Whitehall, he had 8 vessels (the size to be rowed by 45 men) built to increase his flotilla and to be prepared to protect Albany from an attack from the north. When he engaged in battle in Oct, 1776, he was defeated. However, he is credited from discouraging the British from coming south until the following year when the US forces at Saratoga had grown and been trained leading to the American victory there. I did check around on the internet so see if this was actually acknowledged by the Navy. Apparently there are lots of cities who claim this honor. The Navy, however, points out that the act authorizing an official U.S. Navy was approved in Philadelphia on October 13, 1775 and that the first four ships commissioned under that act were outfitted in Philadelphia. In its official history, it notes October 13 as its birthday but diplomatically declines to designate any particular town or city as its birthplace, noting merely that many communities contributed to U.S. naval tradition and deserve recognition for their efforts – befitting Whitehall’s glory as the place where ships were first built to defend our country.

We are docked at the Lock12 Marina where the price of diesel fuel is $6.19 a gallon. We decided to wait to purchase until we get to Lake Champlain hoping it might be cheaper there. We have gotten some wonderful email from home so it is very nice to catch up with friends from a distance. We are praying for the needs we hear from Tom’s Sunday School class and the choir prayer lists. It is also great to get our pastor’s first thoughts on his sermon for Sunday to keep us connected.