Cherry Valley Erie Canal Lock
— — a stone chamber the water still remembers.
Not only on a wall.
“A stone lock chamber on the line of the old Erie Canal, in the Mohawk Valley north of the hill village of Cherry Valley. The original canal opened in 1825 and was replaced piece by piece by the Enlarged Canal and later the Barge Canal, so the surviving locks in this stretch are mostly cut limestone fragments held back from the river by trees. Moss settles along the upper courses. In summer the towpath line is a walking trail; in winter the stone goes pale and the water below holds still. — from the studio
Cherry Valley Erie Canal Lock, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Erie Canal, opened in 1825, ran 363 miles from Albany on the Hudson to Buffalo on Lake Erie and passed through the Mohawk Valley to the north of the village of Cherry Valley. The original canal had 83 lift locks built mostly of cut limestone. It was widened twice — as the Enlarged Erie between 1836 and 1862, and again as the New York State Barge Canal between 1905 and 1918 — so most of the original 1825 locks were superseded. Surviving sections of the old stone work lie along the river corridor in Herkimer, Montgomery, and Otsego counties, often as ruins beside the modern channel.
The old lock chambers were built of cut limestone block, quarried locally along the Mohawk corridor and trimmed to a tight fit without mortar at the visible faces. The chambers measured roughly 90 feet long by 15 feet wide on the 1825 canal, sized for the long, narrow boats of the period. Where the stone was left after the canal was abandoned, the upper courses now carry moss and lichen, and small trees have rooted into the gaps. The lower courses, kept damp by the river and the springs that fed the canal, hold the original tool marks under the green.
The village of Cherry Valley sits on Route 166 in Otsego County, about 55 miles west of Albany. The nearest active stretches of the modern Erie Canalway and its trail run through Canajoharie and Fort Plain, roughly 15 miles north along the Mohawk River. The Empire State Trail follows the canal line through this section and is open for walking and cycling from spring through autumn; in winter the trail is unmaintained. Historic-lock fragments along the trail are unmarked in places, and the older stone chambers are best read with a copy of the New York State Canal Corporation's heritage maps in hand.