“Simple Pleasures” The story of the Sodus Bay Shakers, The Sodus Bay and Genesee Valley Lateral Canals
(Camillus, NY – April 2015) Mary Messere, a well know historian and writer, will be at the Sims Store on the Erie Canal on Saturday April 18 at 9:45 am, to present a very special program on the Sodus Bay Shakers and the Sodus and Genesee Valley Canals.
The story of the Canals and the Sodus Shakers dates back to the early days of New York State’s Canal times and some of its earliest Shaker Communities.
The Sodus Canal is a mysterious link to the many lateral canals that were proposed in the 1830’s. Each was promoted in hopes of bringing commerce and growth to their respected areas by linking with the Erie Canal. Some of these efforts never came about.
The Shakers had already spread their villages across the United States from Maine in the east, to Kentucky and Ohio in the west, and so chose Sodus as a middle ground between the two. This western New York area was recognized by them as part of the so-called “Burned over District that was ripe with the Evangelism of the era.”
Come to the Camillus Erie Canal Park and learn the history of a era forgotten by many, an era of “Simple Pleasures.”
The presentation is one half of a story that will be continued in a presentation by Messere at the Geddes Historical Society on Monday April 26 on William Pryor Letchworth and Craig’s Colony for Epileptics. The stories weave us through history of the same group of Shakers who played an important role in each place, a place where all history seems to be related in some way.