This week’s question: Landscapes, porches and surrounding structures may change several times over the course of years. These two homes are set on a rise. They stand side by side yet today on a well-traveled street where they have witnessed generations of active villagers. Do you recognize the location? Do you know anything about the homes?
Last week’s answer: The simplicity of the building shown in last week’s photo belies its significance. It was a key part of the success story that brought economic prosperity and global attention to Baldwinsville.
Called the “wheel house,” the wooden tower was built in 1883 by Heald & Morris, manufacturer of centrifugal pumps. Located between the Seneca River and the Baldwin Canal, just west of Virginia Street, the tower was separated from the plant by both the Baldwin Canal and Canal Street.
Invented in Baldwinsville and patented in 1864 as the Heald & Sisco Superior Patent Centrifugal Pump, the pump was a boon to the technological explosion that followed the Civil War. The company began on the south side of the village. An 1870 fire destroyed the plant along with all of its patterns, machinery and supplies. The company rebuilt the following year on the north side to take advantage of expanded transportation services via rail and water. The new plant was powered by steam engines.
Business grew, the product line expanded and the manufacturing plant itself was enlarged several times. Its leadership was both visionary and practical and it attracted the essential element, outstanding engineers. With this asset the company was able to harness the river to produce water power and deliver it across both a canal and a main street to power an entire manufacturing operation.
Using the wheel house, water power could be transferred to the plant. The tower was built over a “wheel pit” fed by a raceway from the Seneca River. The cobble stone pit held the “Little Giant,” a horizontal iron turbo-wheel 5 feet in diameter with 16-inch blades. A series of shafts, gears, belts, pulleys, pillow bearings and drive wheels harnessed the movement of the turbo-wheel and delivered it to the manufacturing plant. Crossing Canal St. was achieved by a looping steel cable that ran from the third floor of the tower across Canal St. through a similar tower built into the plant itself. Inside the plant a series of belts, pulleys and gears delivered power to the individual machines. Water power now replaced steam engines.
Powered by the Little Giant, manufacturing production was notable. By 1898 the plant was running around the clock with more than 75 employees. Five years later 170 employees were on the payroll.
When the river was running low an auxiliary steam engine supplemented turbo power. Another smaller cable controlled the water gate and allowed personnel inside the plant to essentially turn the water wheel on and off.
During the 1920s the plant became fully powered by electricity and the wheel house was abandoned. Once a powerhouse next to a rail yard, in a lineup of mills, and on the shore of a busy canal, the wheel house became a shamble of broken glass and rot. It was demolished in 1965. Three years later the Baldwin Canal was filled in and whatever vestiges remained of the once busy strip disappeared.
Email your guess to [email protected] or leave a message at 315-434-8889 ext. 310 with your guess by noon Friday. If you are the first person to correctly identify an element in the photo before the deadline, your name and guess will appear in next week’s newspaper, along with another History Mystery feature. History Mystery is a joint project of the Museum at the Shacksboro Schoolhouse and the Baldwinsville Public Library.
