Erik Heyl papers

Erik Heyl was the author of a number of works on the history of navigation in North America. His most significant work is the six-volume Early American Steamers series published between 1953 and 1969.

Although active in researching all early North American steamboats, Heyl had a special interest and expertise in the WALK-IN-THE-WATER, the first steamboat in service above Niagara, and in Great Lakes vessels that served as combatants in the American Civil War.

Mr. Heyl was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on August 4, 1887, the son of Jacob and Louise Schandein Heyl. He attended Milwaukee Academy and in 1905 the University of Berlin. He moved to Buffalo just prior to WW I and began a career as an accountant. He developed an interest in stamp collecting and through this hobby noted that old stamps indicated the name of vessels on which mail was carried. He became interested in obtaining illustrations of these vessels and began to research them. Later he developed scale drawings and models of the early steamers of which images were scarce. These drawings were later incorporated into his Early American Steamers.

The drawings he made were featured in several exhibitions, including one at the Cleveland Public Library in 1952 and one at the Truxtun-Decatur Museum, Washington, DC, in1964. Also, in 1964 he received the Samuel Wilkinson Award from the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society and was named 1972 Great Lakes Historian of the Year by the Marine Historical Society of Detroit.

Erik Heyl married Elizabeth Ralph and together they had two daughters. Mr. Heyl died at Millard Fillmore Hospital in Buffalo on July 15, 1973. He was 85 years of age.