From the September, 1914 issue of Erie Railroad Magazine
After having been the first railroad to send a train order from one point to another over a commercial wire by the Morse Telegraph Code; the first railroad to run a milk train; the first railroad to build and operate an all-steel mail car, and several like achievements, with which most Erie men are familiar, the Erie once more comes into prominence by being the first railroad to send a commercial tow through the recently completed Cape Cod Canal, which connects the Atlantic Ocean with Buzzards Bay and effects a short route to and from the several ports on the Massachusetts Coast.

This latter achievement of the Erie Railroad took place on August 12, 1914. The steel, sea-going tug Albert J. Stone, towing the light barges Pittston, Binghamton and Marion, from Boston through the canal and into the Atlantic Ocean, bound for New York, left Boston at 11:30 on the morning of the llth, and passed out of Boston Light at 12:45 P.M., anchoring off the entrance of the canal at 9:30 P.M. waiting for daylight, a delay of about two hours having been suffered by heavy southwest winds.

At 6:45 o'clock on the morning of the 14th the Canal Pilot came off to the Erie tow, with the Canal Company's tug Vesta and notified Captain Decker that the conditions were right to proceed through the canal. At 7 o'clock sharp the "Stone" entered the new waterway, with barges towing tandem and about 30 fathoms of hawser between the tug and each Charge, with the tug "Vesta" trailing astern of last barge to steady tow.

Captain Decker reports that the tide was slack when he entered the canal, but at 7:15 o'clock it began running toward Cape Cod Bay. When at Bourne he was informed by the pilot, that tide was running at its full strength, which Captain Decker judged was about two knots per hour. However, as the tide runs true the barges followed prettily in a straight line, without the slightest trouble and he passed by Wings Neck at 9:40 A.M., making the run in 2 hours, 40 minutes.

As he was then on the broad Atlantic, hawsers were lengthened and he proceeded to New York, arriving at Undercliffe at 4:10 P.M. Aug. 13. making the time from departure to arrival, 52 hours, or actual running time, 43 hours.

It is not to be understood that the "Albert J. Stone" and her three-barge tow, were the first craft to enter and proceed through the Cape Cod Canal. It is a fact, however, that this was the first commercial tow to use the waterway as a business proposition, and the records of the canal will register it as such. This, as stated, entitles the Erie Railroad to the prestige of once more being first in an achievement well worth accomplishing. It shows, too, that the Erie, both on land and water, is the Company that knows the definition of the word Progressiveness.

Captain Decker is entitled to his share of the honor. He is a good and clever officer, a credit to the Erie's Marine Department and, like Captain Corcoran, in the famous Gilbert & Sullivan opera "Pinafore," "He commands a right good crew."