Finger Lakes history · regional story
Developing historyWhen the canal and the mills needed the same water
Whitford’s canal history records a dispute over the Keuka outlet: the canal needed water, but so did the mills downstream.
Research status
This history is still developing.
Parts of this account remain unresolved. Here is what the sources support, what is uncertain, and what we are looking for next.
About this review. Written and source-checked with AI assistance under an owner-authorized editorial process. This is not a personal review by Riley or an independent historian. Sources and unresolved questions are listed below; corrections are welcome.
- What the records establish
- The account records a dispute and several responses to it. A petition’s allegation, permission to buy water privileges and a report of completed work are different kinds of evidence.
- What remains uncertain
- We have inspected the chapter’s online transcription, not the original petitions or legislative files. This does not settle the amount of harm, prove every proposed purchase occurred, or reconstruct the mills’ daily water supply.
- What we are researching next
- Retrieve the 1835 and 1836 legislation and the named petition. Compare them with canal commissioners’ reports and water-privilege instruments before drawing a property-by-property timeline.
The canal’s water supply was also the mills’ power supply. Noble Whitford’s 1906 history reports complaints from outlet mill owners in 1834–1835: they said that filling the Crooked Lake Canal had reduced the water reaching their works. History of the Canal System of the State of New York, volumeI, chapterXV: The Crooked Lake Canal.
The proposed remedies changed. Whitford describes 1835 authority for channel and feeder work, then an 1836 petition in which Abraham Waggoner alleged damage to his mills. Canal officials considered buying the Waggoner and Gillett water privileges. Whitford later reports completed waste gates and better-regulated flow. History of the Canal System of the State of New York, volumeI, chapterXV: The Crooked Lake Canal.
Sources
- History of the Canal System of the State of New York, volumeI, chapterXV: The Crooked Lake Canal — Noble E. Whitford; 1906. Locator: ChapterXV:paragraphs In 1834-5 complaints, The Legislature in 1835, In 1836 another controversy, The report of the commissioners, Shortly afterward. Accessed October 22, 2026.