E23 Brewerton

After miles of open water, the canal finds its banks again at Brewerton, where Oneida Lake narrows back into the Oneida River and Lock E23 resumes locked navigation — the first chamber on the lake’s western side, and said to be one of the busiest on the whole system. Its lift is a mere 6.9 feet, gentle work after the big drops out of Rome. The ground here was strategic long before the canal: Fort Brewerton, an eight-pointed British star fort, was raised in 1759 during the French and Indian War to command the water route between the Great Lakes and Albany. The village today straddles the Onondaga–Oswego county line, and a few miles on lies Three Rivers Point, where the Oneida and Seneca rivers join to form the Oswego — the fork between Lake Ontario and Buffalo.