Everyone has heard the brief history of concrete. The Romans used it and after the fall of the Roman Empire, the use was “forgotten” for about1500 years. The rebirth of concrete as a building material came back in the late 1600s and but was not heavily used until the invention of Portland Cement in 1824. The terms cement and concrete are often used as replacements for one another, however, cement is an ingredient in concrete. Concrete is a mix of cement, aggregates (stone and or sand), and water. The material is then poured into some type of form until it sets. Reinforcing materials are added to strengthen the structure. The recipe used in the mixing of the cement, stone, and water can vary the strength of the concrete. The use of concrete exploded in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and the methods used in the mixing, pouring, and curing, were widely studied and reported on by engineering journals. For our study of canals, we must note that the rock cutters of the Enlarged Canal were replaced by the concrete workers of the Barge Canal. So there is your primer on concrete.
When the World War broke out, the need for barges and ships increased at a time when the shortage of metal forced builders to look to other methods of construction. The Emergency Fleet Corporation “floated” the idea of concrete barges and ships, for both on the inland waterways and on the open seas. It was pointed out that a concrete boat had been in use on the Welland Canal for a number of years. The Portland Cement Association jumped at the chance to promote their product into wider use. Thus the era of the concrete barge was born.
In the spring of 1918, the Concrete Ship Section of the Emergency Fleet Corporation designed a concrete barge for use on the Barge Canal. The barge was 150 feet long, 21 feet wide and had a depth of 12 feet. The cargo carrying capacity was to be 500 tons with a draft of 10 feet. The barge was divided into three sections and designed along the lines of the old Enlarged Erie canal boats, with a forward 15 foot section for storage and crew quarters; a cargo area of 115 feet; and a rear well appointed captains quarters of 20 feet. The captain’s quarters had a galley, living room, bed room, and wardrobe.
Four yards were chosen to build the barges;
- The Grayhaven Shipbuilding Company, operated by Thomas Currie of Detroit Michigan and built in Michigan. (Five barges- U.S.101 to 105);
- The Holler – Flood and Davis Company of Fort Edward, NY and built in Fort Edward (eight barges – U.S. 106 to 113);
- The Cummins Structural Concrete Company of Philadelphia, and built in Ithaca, NY (four barges- U.S. 114 to 117);
- The Caldwell Marshall Company of Columbus, Indiana, and built in Tonawanda, NY (four barges- U.S. 118 to 121);
A total of 21 barges were built and launched throughout 1918 and 1919. All the barges were to be identical, although the methods of construction varied, with each yard adapting to the landscape and available machinery. This gave the engineers a chance to review and improve the way concrete was handled and used. These methods were widely reported on in the concrete industry newspapers.
With the exception of the interior decoration of the living quarters, the boats were made entirely of reinforced concrete. The hull was three inches thick in the middle and four to four and a half for the bow and stern. The deck was three inches thick except where the deck hatches attached.
Wood forms were designed and built that would give the boat its shape. The outer form was constructed and then reinforcing bars were laced together that followed the shape of the forms. An inner form then created the space that was filled with the concrete. The bow and stern of the barges had some degree of curvature, so the skills of the men were tested as they bent the bars to fit into the three to four inch space available between the forms.
Once the form was set, it was coated with some type of release agent that would allow the forms to be removed without harming the concrete. The boats were to be poured in one process. One hundred and twenty yards of cement, aggregate, and water was then mixed to a point that was flowable, but not liquid. As the mix was poured into the mold, air hammers vibrated the sides of the form to help the concrete fill the voids in and around the reinforcing bars. It was a demanding process that took between forty to fifty hours. Once the concrete had set, the forms were removed and reused on the next boat.
The boats were problematic from the start. We are fortunate that Richard Garrity wrote about his memories of the concrete barges in his book, Canal Boatman. According to Garrity, the boats were not well suited to the canal and were quick to puncture. Even when empty, the boats would sit draft lower then the wood barges. This is also apparent in a review of the newspapers of the period, with many mentions of sunken concrete barges. It wasn’t that the concrete barges did not float; it was that they had no give or bounce when they bumped into dock walls and bridge abutments. Wood and steel barges had some elastic abilities that the concrete lacked. The concrete simply would puncture. Garrity writes that the Munson Company did not take the concrete barges when it purchased the government fleet, although he doesn’t mention the New York Canal and Great Lakes Corporation, who first purchased the boats.
In a twist of history, the New York Department of Public Works took a step that “saved” the concrete barges, so we can still see them today. The barges were purchased and then filled with stone and soil, towed to various locks along the Mohawk River and then sunk as approach walls. The Annual reports for 1927 and 1928 state that barges were placed at the end of the upper and lower walls of Erie Lock 9, the lower wall of Locks 10 and 13. This was done to correct the error in design of building very short approach walls to the locks. In times of high and fast water, the bargemen found it difficult to control their boats during the approach into the locks. To correct this issue, the concrete barges were sunk at the end of the existing approach walls. This gave the bargemen the opportunity to gently bump into the wall during their approach to the lock, and then pivot off them. It was not a perfect solution, but the walls were never extended beyond this quick remedial measure.
Over time, weather and water have taken a toll on the old barges. As the concrete failed and fell off, it left the old steel rebar sticking at at odd angles, waiting to catch the unsuspecting boater. The barges at Lock 13 have been buried in the last reconstruction after the 2011 floods. The floods and work appear to have destroyed the barges below Lock 10. The three barges along the upper wall at Lock 9 remain as the most intact and are quite the attraction in the winter when the water is low in the river. The barges below Lock 9 have been mostly buried and were in very poor shape when last seen.
Concrete is still used to build rot resistant boats. The St Helena III at Canal Fulton in Ohio, and the General Harrison at the Johnson Farm and Indian Agency, also in Ohio, are animal powered boat rides that use a type of concrete in their hull. But this is a rather limited, and low impact usage.