While out mapping the streetlights in Cohoes for a subcontractor job, Steven Talbot kept an eye out for remnants of the Erie Canal. He found some of the informational signs and Canal Square Park, but he couldn’t get a clear picture of how the canals ran and operated in Cohoes. When internet searching failed him, he decided to make his own map.
Three years and thousands of hours (and counting) of research and digital mapping later, Talbot has created the first comprehensive historic map of the Erie Canal, which carved out much of the history and identity of New York upon its opening in 1825.
Talbot, who studied architecture at Carnegie Mellon University, has an extensive background in computer mapping and geographic information systems. The start of the pandemic gave the Loudonville resident an opportunity to further explore the mapping software he was using, and the Erie Canal gave him a topic.
“I just had this curiosity, and when I get curious, I start to dig into things,” Talbot said.
A support network among the Canal Society of New York, the New York State Canal Corporation and the New York State Archives formed to support Talbot’s research, connecting him with maps, historians and documents.
“A little bit of recognition of the history of the canal will encourage people to look at the entire landscape,” said Craig Williams, president of the Canal Society. “Upstate New York is so rich with its history that obviously goes back thousands of years. And when all we see tends to be what’s in front of the windshield, I think we lose a lot of that richness.”
Today, a project such as the Erie Canal would be drafted out during its planning stages before breaking ground, Talbot said, but technological restraints of the early 1800s meant surveyors worked directly from the field to figure out the canal’s path. That meant Talbot had to rely on a jigsaw of three maps drafted after…
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