By Zach Peelman
with assistance from Dorothy Heller, Town of Clay Historian
Today the only obvious reminder of the Gaskins Rapids is a minor back road (Gaskin Road) running along the Seneca River from below Belgium to Three Rivers Point. But for much of Clay’s history the rapids were a well-known and important geographical feature.
The Gaskins (or “Gascon’s Rift” or “Reef” as it was often called) were located south of Three Rivers in the Seneca River and extended roughly half a mile from near the western end of Verplank Road south to the power lines that cross the river just north of Linda Lane. The shallow waters of the rapids made them an ideal fishing site, which is probably what drew Native Americans to the site. Archaeological evidence and historical accounts suggest that the Onondaga had seasonal fishing camps on both sides of the river at the rapids. This continued even after European settlers arrived, with one observer reporting Native Americans fishing in the area as late as 1810.
Just like River Road
With the arrival of Europeans, who fought for control of the region, the rapids took on a different significance. In the early 1700s, the British established Oswego as an important trading post and fortress, the only British outpost on the Great Lakes and a major obstacle in the way of any French invasion of New York’s western frontier. While most supplies and soldiers destined for the remote fort would have traveled by boat on Central New York’s inland water system (Mohawk River, Oneida Carrying Place, Wood Creek, Oneida Lake, Oneida River, and Oswego River), a 1757 French account (supported by period maps) reports that the British also used a “road over which [they] used to drive cattle and horses.”
This “road” — perhaps more like a trail — ran from the Mohawk Valley to modern-day Syracuse, then up the eastern side of Onondaga Lake and the Seneca River (roughly the route of modern Route 57) to a “small fall” south of Three Rivers, almost certainly the Gaskins Rapids. The British used the shallow rapids as a ford across the otherwise deep river. The road continued north to Oswego along the western bank of the Oswego River, just like modern-day River Road in Lysander.
In 1759, at the height of the French and Indian War, Captain Jellis Fonda and several Onondaga marked out what appears to have been a shortcut from the ford at the Gaskins to the “next Oneida post” (probably the village of Canaseraga, near Chittenango, through which the old road ran through).
The channel
In contrast, the rapids were an obstacle to the construction of the Oswego Canal in the 1820s. From Mud Lock in Liverpool to the falls in Phoenix, the canal used the Seneca River which was deep and largely obstacle-free — except at The Gaskins where there the river was too shallow and dropped 15 inches.
One proposal was to build a lock at the Gaskins but this was expensive. A less ideal but also less expensive option was to simply excavate a channel through the rapids, which would slightly lower the level of the Seneca River; this option was adopted.
The channel was located along the eastern bank and debris and dirt was piled along the western side of it, separating it from rapids. Running along the east side of the channel, slightly west of modern Gaskin Road, was a towpath for canal boats, with which Gaskin Road appears to have merged for a short distance.
Despite improvements, the rapids continued to be a dangerous area, with boats often getting stuck and ice jams forming in the shallows. The canal did bring increased business to the area. The steep banks of the river just south of the rapids provided a good source of clay, causing Dudley Breed to establish a tile and brick factory on the Clay side in the late 19th century. An early 20th century photo shows workers standing on wooden boards along the river’s shore, their excavations into the river bank in the background. Products were often loaded onto canal boats to be taken south to the Syracuse area.
Goodbye, Gaskins
The construction of the Barge Canal in the early 20th century spelled doom for the rapids. The new canal utilized the Oswego and Seneca Rivers as part of its route. Shallow areas were dredged and rapids and waterfalls destroyed or altered as part of new hydroelectric dams. At the Gaskins the solution was simply to remove the rapids and the old canal channel.
Today little remains of the rapids — this stretch of river is placid and wide, with houses and docks lining the banks, and boaters motoring though the area with ease. Few drivers on Gaskin Road or pedestrians on the footpath to the water’s edge on the western bank would guess that this was a military supply route in colonial times — supporting campaigns that altered he course of North America’s history. However, there are still clues that remain for those looking for them. While a deep channel exists in the middle of the river, the bed on both sides of the channel is still rather shallow, and navigation charts warn boaters that submerged rocks lie under the surface in these areas.
You might say, then, that The Gaskins, both a boon and an obstacle to many over the years, never completely disappeared, never completely were conquered, even by the great engineering might of modern man. Like much of history itself, they remain hidden, ready to be uncovered by those interested in looking below the surface.
