At 259-feet long with a vast hold that could carry 100 dump trucks worth of cement, the Day Peckinpaugh plied the Great Lakes and the Barge Canal to transport cement from Canada from 1921 until it was taken out of service in 1994. It is the last survivor of 100 canal motorship cargo haulers.

After a Westchester County barge and tug operator purchased the Day Peckinpaugh at auction for $5,050 earlier this month, it's unclear if it is seaworth enough to be towed down the Hudson River for possible restoration because pumps keep it from sinking with a leaky steel-plated hull described as "Swiss cheese."

After years of neglect and no takers when the State Museum tried to give it away to 1,000 cultural institutions across the state with no takers, the Day Peckinpaugh molders away at its berth near Erie Barge Canal Lock 2 in Waterford.

After New York spent nearly $4 million restoring the historic Day Peckinpaugh, the 1921 Erie Barge Canal cargo hauler, it sold recently at auction for $5,050. Its fate is uncertain.

The storage hull aboard the canal boat the Day Peckinpaugh, an historic canal vessel New York spent $4 million to restore before auctioning it for just over $5,000 earlier this month.

The historic canal motorship Day Peckinpaugh, the first and last of her kind, was open for public tours on Aug. 1, 2009, at Matton Shipyard in Cohoes.

WATERFORD — I went down to the canal to see an old friend on Saturday.

Her name is Day Peckinpaugh and she looked forlorn, a 103-year-old cargo-hauling relic, moldering away.

Nobody knows what to do with the historic Erie Barge Canal motorship, the last of its kind. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

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Several pumps keep the 259-foot ship afloat. The hull’s steel plates have deteriorated to the point that they are described as “Swiss cheese.”

These days, her condition is terminal and she is about to be unplugged from life support.

“I call her the great-grandchild of Hudson’s Half Moon,” said Craig Williams, retired State Museum senior historian and curator who spearheaded the Day Peckinpaugh restoration in decades past.

Related: Canal fans not ready to give up the ships

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As a kid growing up outside Syracuse,........

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