Lockport lock tender's descendant enlists as a Canal Ambassador

Karrie Barrett-Foster grew up on Center Street. As a teen, she couldn’t wait to leave Lockport and join the Navy like her father had.

Also like her father, Barrett-Foster later returned to her hometown.

Barrett-Foster’s Lockport roots go back to the 19th century. Her great-great grandfather, Edward Barrett, is one of the Erie Canal lock tenders depicted in the Lock Tenders Tribute monument.

The sculpture of Barrett is notably small, compared to other in the series, which prompted the sculptor, Susan Geissler, to ask whether she’d gotten the size right.

“Nope, the Barretts are not large,” Barrett-Foster said with a laugh.

Tracing her family lineage, Barrett-Foster remembers when she was in seventh grade, she visited the Niagara County Historical Society and saw the F.B. Clench photograph that served as the basis for the Lock Tenders Tribute monument.

“I went home and asked my father, ‘Was great-uncle Eddie a lock tender?’ because I knew my grandfather had a brother named Edward. He said, ‘no, that’s your great-great grandfather,’” she said.

Years later, David Kinyon, chair of the Lockport Locks Heritage District, got in touch with Barrett-Foster to ask about Edward. Earlier this year he asked her if she would be willing to volunteer as a Canal Ambassador.

“Some people are great docents, others great walking-tour guides and Canal Ambassadors. She can do it all,” Kinyon said.

Edward Edwin Barrett (1847-1930), the son of William Barrett from Ireland and Johannna Barrett from Canada, was a Lockport lock tender for more than 40 years and was one of the oldest lock tenders on duty.

The canal played a role in the lives of several generations of the Barrett family, Barrett-Foster said. She recalls that her father said he had jumped off every bridge over the canal in Lockport, told her stories about the flocks of pigeons living underneath the bridges and talked about children at the time climbing into the rafters to find baby pigeons that would would take home to raise.

“It was like their playground,” she said, noting she never allowed her children to do that, but her dad was always telling them the stories of his youth.

Barrett-Foster said her mom and dad both played on the locks as children, long before they met one another. She noted that the Erie Canal Discovery Center used to be called Hamilton House, where her mom went to dances. The parking lot near Canal Street used to hold apartment buildings, she remembered, while pointing to a building on Ontario Street where her grandmother lived.

As a Canal Ambassador, Barrett-Foster said, she’s helping to staff the heritage district’s booth at Lockport Community Farmers Market, and her greater ambition is to be walking-tour guide. She’s amazed by the older volunteers who can “rattle off facts” about the locks and lock tenders.

“Lockport is such a great place with so much to offer. It’s the gem of Western New York,” she said.