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Please see the August 30, 2000 entry in Flat Teddy's Journal.

Lake Ontario is the smallest of the five Great Lakes, and it's the lowest in elevation. Lake Superior is 600 feet above sea level, and Lake Ontario is only 243 feet above sea level. Lakes Michigan, Huron, and Erie are only slightly lower than Superior, and the Niagara Escarpment (see Niagara Falls report) accounts for the large drop in elevation for Lake Ontario. As in three of the other Great Lakes, the U.S.-Canadian border runs through the middle of Lake Ontario. Lake Ontario, as well as Lake Erie, served as a transport route for escaped slaves to cross in a boat to Canada and freedom before the Civil War.

This picture was taken from my campground beside the lake just east of where the Niagara River flows into Lake Ontario.

Susan B. Anthony owned and lived in this house in Rochester, New York, from 1866 until her death in 1906, the forty years of her life that she was most politically active. She was 86 years old when she died. She never married. She constantly protested laws that made it illegal for married women to own property (title to the land or the house had to be in the husband's name), and to get custody of the children if there was a divorce (children belonged to the husband), or to vote. In those days, if a married woman inherited wealth or property, it became the property of her husband. Although women couldn't vote, they were taxed, and Susan B. Anthony and others in the women's rights movement protested this fact, frequently quoting the American Revolutionary slogan, "No taxation without representation." Friends of Susan Anthony and frequent guests in this house were Elizabeth Cady Stanton, women's rights advocate, and Frederick Douglass, advocate for the abolition of slavery.

After the Civil War, when congress approved an amendment to the constitution giving African Americans the right to vote, the first statement in the amendment said that the right to vote would not be denied anyone, regardless of race, creed, or color. Further down in the text of the amendment it was clearly stated that the people referred to in the amendment were men. But Susan B. Anthony decided to put the first sentence of the amendment to a test. She got a few women together in 1872, the first election after the voting rights amendment went into effect, and they marched down to the polls and demanded ballots. The men at the polling booth were aghast at these women's impropriety, but they did not want to create a disturbance that would invite publicity. They decided to let them vote, and the women did so. Later, police arrived at Susan B. Anthony's house, and it was in her living room, pictured here, that she was arrested for breaking the law and voting. She spent only a few hours in jail, but the public outrage from that incident greatly furthered the cause of women's suffrage.

Frederick Douglass was born in 1818, into slavery. His was subjected to many cruel brutalities in his childhood. He escaped from slavery in 1838.

Douglass became an ardent abolitionist, choosing Rochester, New York, to be his home for over twenty-five of his adult years. He was an eloquent orator, writer, and public servant. He became known the world over as an abolitionist and human rights advocate. He was a friend of Susan B. Anthony, and he gave his support to help her and others in the women's suffrage movement after black American men were given the right to vote. Both he and Susan B. Anthony are buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester. The building in the picture is the Frederick Douglass Museum and Cultural Center, the mission of which is to celebrate Douglass' achievements, commemorate his presence in Rochester, and explore his legacy of civic action in contemporary culture.

These two pictures are of the Erie Canal, which is still in use today. It was designed and built in the early 1800's to transport goods between the Hudson River in eastern New York State and Buffalo on the shore of Lake Erie. The first picture shows the Erie Canal as it passes through the town of Palmyra, New York. You can see a bridge that carries traffic of one of the city streets crossing the canal.

The second picture shows a lock outside of Palmyra. The lock is full of water, and the lower lock gate is shut.

The Erie Canal was built to ship raw materials from the Great Lakes region to manufacturing areas of the eastern states, which had access to the Hudson River or to railroad lines. And the canal carried barges laden with goods to transport to settlements in western New York and on up the Great Lakes.

Today the canal is used by individual pleasure craft and tour boats. When I arrived at this spot it was very late in the afternoon, and the only cruise I could book was a dinner cruise with a theme of murder mystery. It sounded like fun, but I wouldn't have gotten back to Charlie Brown until way past time to be finding a campground for the night. I sadly didn't get the experience of traveling a ways on the Erie Canal. I understand that it is possible to travel the length of the canal in a boat. Someday...

Seneca Falls, New York, at the north end of Cayuga Lake, in 1848 became the site of the opening skirmish in the battle for women's rights. A group of women, mostly Quakers, had gathered for tea one morning and invited Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The Quakers were ardent abolitionists and involved in the effort to win the battle against slavery in this country. The next step seemed to be getting equal rights for women. In those days, a married woman could not vote, make contracts, divorce an abusive husband, gain custody of her children, or own property--even her own clothing! If she inherited property or wealth from her family, it became the property of her husband.

These women on that particular morning decided that the time had come to make public the need for equal rights for women. They planned a convention and held it in Wesleyan Chapel (of which a few walls remain and are protected from the elements so that we can see it today). They drew up and read a list of grievances based on the Declaration of Independence, called the Declaration of Sentiments, denouncing inequities in property rights, education, employment, religion, marriage and family, and suffrage (right to vote.) The Declaration of Sentiments began:

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton moved to this home in Seneca Falls, New York, with her husband Henry (a lawyer and an ardent abolitionist lecturer) and her three young sons. It was here in Seneca Falls that Stanton's political stance on women's rights became fixed and very public. In the previous report you read about the tea party at which she first voiced her unhappiness with women's lot in America.

She soon became acquainted with Susan B. Anthony in Rochester, not too far away from Seneca Falls. The two became fast friends and would remain close for the rest of their lives. Stanton was tied to home and family responsibilities that prevented her from traveling and speaking outside the local area, but she did much of the speech-writing for the cause. Susan B. Anthony was free of those domestic duties which confined Stanton to home, so she became the traveler and speech-giver. One time Stanton wrote Anthony a letter saying that if Susan would get over to Seneca Falls and help with the children, maybe Elizabeth could get some writing done! Susan spent several weeks at a time there, many times, helping out with the children. The three boys were quite mischievous, to put it mildly, and they weren't altogether happy when "Aunt Susan" came to stay with them because she was much stricter with them than their parents were.

The lake in the picture is Cayuga Lake, one of the Finger Lakes in western New York state. These lakes are remnants of glaciers from the last ice age. They run north and south and fan out away from each other at the southern ends of the lakes. Indian legend tells that Great Spirit blessed this beautiful part of the land by laying his hands on it and imprinting it with his fingers. There are, however, eleven lakes in all--not ten. Six of the lakes are named for the six nations of the Iroquois Indians: Cayuga, Seneca, Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, and Tuscarora. Cayuga Lake is a little less than forty miles long, from top to bottom, north to south. Seneca Falls, where Elizabeth Cady Stanton lived and where the first Women's Rights Conference was held in 1848, is near the northern end of the lake. Ithaca, home of Cornell University and the late Carl Sagan , who popularized astronomy, is at the southern end.

Harriet Tubman was born a slave in 1820 or 1821 in Maryland. She escaped in 1849 and traveled by night as far as Canada. Freedom meant little to her as long as others were still held in slavery, so she began making trips back to the South to free others. In all, she made nineteen trips, freeing more than three hundred slaves, using the secret and constantly-changing hiding places of the Underground Railroad. She helped her own parents, brothers, and sisters escape on one trip. From all these daring trips she became known as the Moses of her people.

Later, during the Civil War, she served as spy, scout, and hospital nurse. She had many friends; the most famous were John Brown, Frederick Douglass, and Secretary of State William Seward. It was Seward who helped her obtain this home in Auburn, New York, where she lived the rest of her life until her death at the age of 92 or 93 in 1913.

Sarah Bradford wrote a biography of Harriet Tubman, and she turned over all the profits to her. With this money, Harriet was able to buy adjoining property, including two houses. She turned one of these into an old folks' home and the other into an infirmary. All this property she left to her church, the A.M.E. Zion Church, which maintains it to this day.

Up in the Adirondack Mountains of New York state, on a back highway, I drove over a bridge that crossed a small stream. By the side of the bridge was the sign that you can see in the first picture. This is the point where all the feeder creeks from the nearby high mountains merge into the one large stream that is called the Hudson from this point on down the river to New York City. An old caretaker had me stand on a yellow marker that was stuck into the grass at the park there. He pointed at a particular spot in the fog and grey clouds and told me that up in that fog was Mt. Marcy, the highest point in New York state at 5,344 feet.

Vice-President Teddy Roosevelt was climbing Mt. Marcy on September 14, 1901, when he got word from people who hiked up to him that President McKinley was dying of a gunshot wound suffered a few weeks earlier. Roosevelt had gone hiking in his beloved Adirondacks believing that McKinley was recovering from the wound. He hiked down Mt. Marcy in the waning light of day and rode several hours in the night in the wagon that you see in the second picture, to get to a train station. At the station the news arrived that McKinley had died, and a special train took Roosevelt to the Ansley Wilcox House in Buffalo, where the Oath of Office was administered before he took off for Washington, D.C. The wagon is displayed in the Adirondack Museum in the little town of Blue Mountain Lake, New York.

In this picture you're looking out from Fort Ticonderoga onto the southern end of Lake Champlain, which lies between Vermont and New York state. The French built the fort in 1755, naming it Fort Carillon. It was strategically placed to guard the connecting waterway (Lake Champlain and Lake George) between the American colonies (belonging to England) and Canada (belonging to France). In 1759 the British captured, rebuilt, and renamed the fort. In 1775, after the American Revolution had begun, Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys (all from Vermont) captured the fort from the British in a surprise attack without shedding any blood on either side. In 1777 British general Burgoyne took back the fort and burned all the buildings to the ground. It was never garrisoned again. Today it is rebuilt on the original French foundations.

Lake Champlain is long and thin, stretching from north to south for 120 miles. It is never more than 12 miles across, and at one point is only a quarter-mile wide. A small portion of the northern part of the lake lies in Canada. It connects to the Hudson River via the Champlain Canal and provides a transportation route for ships to travel from New York City all the way to Montreal and the Great Lakes. Some people believe that Lake Champlain has its version of the Loch Ness Monster, and there have been numerous sightings of "Champ." Samuel de Champlain reported seeing a serpentine creature twenty feet long, as thick as a barrel, and with a head like a horse. It remains a matter of speculation whether or not a distance cousin of "Nessie" lives in this lake.