Erie Canal

Originally, it ran 363 mi from the Hudson River in Albany to Lake Erie in Buffalo.

The city grew significantly in the 19th and 20th centuries as a result of immigration, the construction of the Erie Canal and rail transportation, and its close proximity to Lake Erie.

Originally, it ran 363 mi from the Hudson River in Albany to Lake Erie in Buffalo.

The city lies toward the north end of the navigable Hudson River, was the original eastern terminus of the Erie Canal connecting to the Great Lakes, and was home to some of the earliest railroad systems in the world.

The Erie Canal is a canal in New York, United States that is part of the east–west, cross-state route of the New York State Canal System (formerly known as the New York State Barge Canal).

In the 19th century, New York's development of access to the interior beginning with the Erie Canal, gave it incomparable advantages over other regions of the U.S. east-coast and built its political and cultural ascendancy.

Originally, it ran 363 mi from the Hudson River in Albany to Lake Erie in Buffalo.

The Hudson was also the eastern outlet for the Erie Canal, which, when completed in 1825, became an important transportation artery for the early-19th-century United States.

The canal was denigrated by its political opponents as "Clinton's Folly" or "Clinton's Big Ditch".

In this last capacity, he was largely responsible for the construction of the Erie Canal.

It was built to create a navigable water route from New York City and the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes.

The 1825 completion of the Erie Canal through central New York connected the Atlantic port to the agricultural markets and commodities of the North American interior via the Hudson River and the Great Lakes.

In 1800, it typically took 2½ weeks to travel overland from New York to Cleveland, Ohio, (460 mi) and 4 weeks to Detroit (612 mi).

This key link between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes connected it to the Atlantic Ocean via the Erie Canal and Hudson River, and later via the St. Lawrence Seaway.

The canal has 34 numbered locks starting with Black Rock Lock and ending downstream with the Troy Federal Lock.

The lock has been a part of Black Rock since the state of New York built the Erie Canal in 1833.

Christopher Colles (who was familiar with the Bridgewater Canal) surveyed the Mohawk Valley, and made a presentation to the New York state legislature in 1784, proposing a shorter canal from Lake Ontario.

In certain quarters he was described contemptuously as a "visionary projector," yet he was also credited with being the first to conceive a waterway to the West that would ultimately be achieved by the Erie Canal.

The canal has 34 numbered locks starting with Black Rock Lock and ending downstream with the Troy Federal Lock.

On the old Erie Canal, there was a danger of injury when operating the paddles: water, on reaching a certain position, would push the paddles with a force which could tear the windlass (or handle) out of one's hands, or if one was standing in the wrong place, could knock one into the canal, leading to injuries and drownings.

The canal has been mainly used by recreational watercraft since the retirement of the last large commercial ship, Day Peckinpaugh, in 1994.

Day Peckinpaugh was built in 1921 by the McDougall-Duluth Shipyard in Duluth, Minnesota, the first boat specially designed and built for New York State Barge Canal, the successor to the famed Erie Canal.

In time, projects were devised in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and relatively deep into the coastal states.

The Erie Canal, built between 1817 and 1825, threatened traders south of New York City, who began to seek their own transportation infrastructure to link the burgeoning areas west of the Appalachian Mountains to mid-Atlantic markets and ports.

It was built to create a navigable water route from New York City and the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes.

Pleasure boats can also enter or exit the Great Lakes by way of the Erie Canal and Hudson River in New York.

Jesse Hawley had envisioned encouraging the growing of large quantities of grain on the western New York plains (then largely unsettled) for sale on the Eastern seaboard.

Jesse Hawley (May 11, 1773 – January 10, 1842) was an American flour merchant in Geneva, New York who became an early and major proponent of building of the Erie Canal.

Yet these men "carried the Erie Canal up the Niagara escarpment at Lockport, maneuvered it onto a towering embankment to cross over Irondequoit Creek, spanned the Genesee River on an awesome aqueduct, and carved a route for it out of the solid rock between Little Falls and Schenectady—and all of those venturesome designs worked precisely as planned".

It is named from a set of Erie Canal locks (Lock Numbers 34 and 35) within the city.

In 2000, the United States Congress designated the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor to recognize the national significance of the canal system as the most successful and influential human-built waterway and one of the most important works of civil engineering and construction in North America.

It has created signage in a wide area, including placing signs many miles away from any historic site of the Erie Canal.

While in Canandaigua debtors' prison, Hawley began pressing for the construction of a canal along the 90 mi-long Mohawk River valley with support from Joseph Ellicott (agent for the Holland Land Company in Batavia).

On the south side of the City it enters the Erie Canal and begins to flow east.

James Geddes and Benjamin Wright, who laid out the route, were judges whose experience in surveying was in settling boundary disputes.

Benjamin Wright (October 10, 1770 – August 24, 1842) was an American civil engineer who was chief engineer of the Erie Canal and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.

Yet these men "carried the Erie Canal up the Niagara escarpment at Lockport, maneuvered it onto a towering embankment to cross over Irondequoit Creek, spanned the Genesee River on an awesome aqueduct, and carved a route for it out of the solid rock between Little Falls and Schenectady—and all of those venturesome designs worked precisely as planned".

Connected to the west via the Mohawk River and Erie Canal, Schenectady developed rapidly in the 19th century as part of the Mohawk Valley trade, manufacturing and transportation corridor.

The first 15 mi, from Rome to Utica, opened in 1819.

In the 19th century, immigrants strengthened its position as a layover city between Albany and Syracuse on the Erie and Chenango Canals and the New York Central Railroad.

In time, projects were devised in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and relatively deep into the coastal states.

Industrialists in Philadelphia pressed for some solution to their foundries fuel needs and by years end in 1812, legislation was on the books for improving the Schuylkill River into the Schuylkill Canal which ended up sadly underfunded, so got opened 'years late to the party' when, first in 1820 two of its disgruntled directors put the Lehigh Canal into operation in just under two years in late 1820, and the much heralded and ''derided 'Clinton's Folly', the Erie Canal, opened the first sections in 1821.

Yet these men "carried the Erie Canal up the Niagara escarpment at Lockport, maneuvered it onto a towering embankment to cross over Irondequoit Creek, spanned the Genesee River on an awesome aqueduct, and carved a route for it out of the solid rock between Little Falls and Schenectady—and all of those venturesome designs worked precisely as planned".

Transportation through the valley was improved by construction of the Erie Canal, completed in 1825 and connecting the Great Lakes with the Hudson River.

When the canal reached Montezuma Marsh (at the outlet of Cayuga Lake west of Syracuse), it was rumored that over 1,000 workers died of "swamp fever" (malaria), and construction was temporarily stopped.

The city has functioned as a major crossroads over the last two centuries, first between the Erie Canal and its branch canals, then of the railway network.

The Erie Canal is a canal in New York, United States that is part of the east–west, cross-state route of the New York State Canal System (formerly known as the New York State Barge Canal).

The Erie Canal (opened 1825) was chartered and owned by the state of New York and financed by bonds bought by private investors.

While in Canandaigua debtors' prison, Hawley began pressing for the construction of a canal along the 90 mi-long Mohawk River valley with support from Joseph Ellicott (agent for the Holland Land Company in Batavia).

The Erie Canal in 1825 bypassed Batavia, going well to the north at Albion and Medina, enabling Buffalo and Rochester to grow much faster.