Doctor uncovers 1831 canal journal

hanks to the discovery of Seymour Schwartz, Distinguished Alumni Professor of Surgery, history buffs have a dramatic glimpse of life along the Erie Canal in the 1830s.

An Englishman's Journey Along America's Eastern Waterways, published recently by the University of Rochester Press and the Rochester Museum & Science Center, is a reproduction of an 1831 journal and pen-and-ink drawings of Herbert Holtham, a Unitarian minister from Brighton, England. The book details Holtham's travels in parts of the Eastern United States, particularly in New York along the Erie Canal, only six years after the completion of the canal.

Both the journal and drawings by Holtham would have remained undiscovered had not Schwartz, an avid collector of early American maps, found them in 1989 while visiting Chicago to further his collection of historical maps.

Schwartz, who edited the journal, will sign copies of the book at 7 p.m., Thursday, December 7, at Borders Books, Music & Cafe, 30 Square Dr., in Victor.

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