West Troy Weigh Lock

Thumbnail Image Courtesy Canal Society of New York State, www.canalsnys.org

The West Troy Weighlock Building, 1850-1915, a Greek-revival structure, was one of several weigh stations along the Erie Canal used to levy tolls for barges carrying merchandise and farm goods.

Until 1850 most freight cargoes were measured by the displacement theory, but the West Troy hydraulic type worked with scales rather than displacement. After a boat entered the lock the lock doors were closed, and then the water was drained out allowing the boat to come to rest on a wooden cradle. Certain rods transferred the boat's weight along a series of levers to the beam of the scales inside the Weighlock building. The Weight Master moved a center balancing weight along the beam which determined the weight of the loaded boat. The weighlock became obsolete after in the late 1800's because the state abolished tolls in order to compete with the railroads.

The first West Troy Weighlock of the Clinton's Ditch era was one of the first three weighlocks built, being erected in 1824. In 1834 this lock was completely rebuilt and overhead a "frame building was erected, with proper offices for the collector, weight-master, and inspector: The old scales, however, were reused. Designed for vessels weight only thirty to forty tons, they were clearly soon inadequate. Amazingly, they continued in use until the Weighlock was once again rebuilt, this time on a site further to the north and away from the crowded Upper Watervliet Sidecut. The new Enlarged Erie West Troy Weighlock with its new Fairbanks scale was in operation by 1851. While improvements were made to the scales in the years ahead, most of the official mentions of the Weighlock refer to the Weighlock house. It was fitted with gas lights in 1854. A "suite of rooms has been fitted up in connection with the Weighmaster's office" in 1868. By the late 1870s settling of the foundation was causing sever structural stress. Walls cracked and crumbled. In 1881 the north and south ends were rebuilt. The Weighlock itself was reported in 1908 to be out of commission for a number of years. Since tolls had been abolished several decades earlier, in 1883, this report should have come as no surprise. In 1919 the Great Eastern Storage, Transfer and Wrecking Company purchased the building and probably removed it soon thereafter. Of the seven weighlocks that once operated on the Erie Canal, the Syracuse Weighlock is the only one remaining, now home of the Erie Canal Museam.

The remains of the West Troy Weigh lock are in the Maplewood Historic Park beside Route 32 in the Town of Colonie, New York.