Who are the Canalboys?

Historically, the Canalboys were the lowest of the low. They were the young men who drove the mules that pulled the boats that plied the canal. Poor, often orphans, many sought to be arrested in the late fall so they could spend the winter warm (and fed) in a local jail.

These canal boys are Paul Ryan, Terry Morris & Mark Schmeller. Terry is a research librarian from Dewitt with a love of stupid facts. Paul is a former Wall Streeter who fell in love with the canal while riding the Amtrak from NYC to Syracuse. Mark, alas, is a professional historian who decided he would risk his tenure at a major university by debasing himself for the easy money of historical podcasting.

Paul and Terry are friends from kindergarten in Buffalo. After many years estranged due to a disagreement over an unpaid elementary lunch money debt, Paul found Terry derelict in a local gin mill one night insisting to no one in particular that Dewitt Clinton should have been President. That same night, Mark walked into that same gin mill wearing his top hat and monocle bragging to his retinue that he was a direct descendent of Gouverneur Morris and he had a piece of whalebone to prove it. Many bottles of Dom Perignon later, Paul , Terry & Mark became close friends.

This is the Bonafide origin story of the Canalboys and makes as much sense as any Batman movie we’ve seen.

  • Paul Ryan

    FOUNDER

    Born in Buffalo, NY, Paul Ryan worked on Wall Street for 35 years. Founding Partner at Ulysses Film Fund, Paul also founded Hayfield, a middle-market consulting and advisory firm.

    Before that, he worked for two leading hedge funds where he learned to appreciate the vida loca.

    In his spare time in New York City, Paul tutored high school history after school to at-risk youth where the importance of the Erie Canal made itself apparent: Paul has been reading and researching this topic ever since. After his wife Margaret died in 2002, Paul moved back upstate to Manlius to be closer to his son Teddy who had matriculated to Syracuse University.

    Paul earned an AB in Economics from an elite men’s finishing school on the Charles River called Harvard. You can usually tell a Harvard Man, but he usually tells you first: Paul daily lives up to this creed. Additionally, Paul has a JD from Fordham University on the mistaken assumption that it would make him more attractive to women.

  • Mark Schmeller

    THE COACH

    Not born in Buffalo, Mark Schmeller (AKA "Coach") is an Associate Professor of History at Syracuse University, where he teaches and researches 19th-century American political, cultural, and legal history. A graduate of Kansas State University and the University of Chicago, Coach has lived in Central New York for the last fifteen years. During this time, Coach developed an unreasonable and often morbid fascination with the history of the canal region that lead him to write  The Book of Morgan: A Story of Conspiracy, Freemasonry, and Democracy in America (University of Chicago Press, forthcoming), which examines the 1826 abduction and murder of William Morgan, a Batavia, New York freemason who had threatened to publish the secrets of the fraternity. The ensuing "Morgan Affair" resulted in a flurry of prosecutions and conspiracy theories, sent shock waves through American politics, and nearly destroyed American masonry. Schmeller became a Canal Boy for reasons that remain unclear even to him, but it is suspected that he just likes being called "Coach." 

  • Terry Morris

    AKA THE TONAWANDA DANDY

    Born in Buffalo, NY, a few blocks from Paul, Terry has always loved libraries and research. In his career, Terry worked at various library vendors in sales and support positions spending nights hidden in the stacks of many a public library researching his yet unpublished History of the Entire World 2026BC-2026AD.

    Paul found Terry on the floor of a gin mill (The Continental) in Buffalo, NY and convinced him to shower and work on this podcast the same night The Coach was buying champagne for the whole bar as one can when they are a seriously overpaid academic historian

    Terry holds - although occasionally drops - a Master's Degree in Library Science and a BA in Tarot Card Reading from the University at Buffalo.