During the mid-1820s, a large section of the Erie Canal running through Lockport was blasted out of solid rock. Workers, predominantly Irish immigrants, drilled holes several feet into the strata, filled them with gunpowder, and then a "powder monkey," one of their young sons so nicknamed because of his small size and agility, would squeeze into the crevice, light the fuse and scamper. Powder monkeys generally had the same life expectancy as chopper pilots during the Vietnam War. It's an unfortunate fact of local history that children died in Lockport, blown to pieces during the construction of the canal. Of course, this was many years before the onerous and burdensome government regulations known as child labor laws were inflicted on the American public by Democrats hell-bent on advancing their socialist agenda.
