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A canal from the Hudson to the Great Lakes was first proposed in the 1780s, but a formal survey was not conducted until 1808. The New York State Legislature authorized construction in 1817.
Political opponents of the canal and its lead supporter New York Governor DeWitt Clinton, denigrated the project as Clinton's Folly and Clinton's Big Ditch. Nonetheless, the canal saw quick success upon opening on October 26, 1825, with toll revenue covering the state's construction debt within the first year of operation. The westward connection gave New York City a strong advantage over all other U.S. ports and brought major growth to canal cities such as Albany, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo.
The construction of the Erie Canal was a landmark civil engineering achievement in the early history of the United States. When built, the 584 km canal was the second-longest in the world (after the Grand Canal in China). Initially 12 m wide and 1.2 m deep, the canal was expanded several times, most notably from 1905 to 1918 when the Barge Canal was built and over half the original route was abandoned. The modern Barge Canal measures 565 km long, 37 m wide, and 3.7 m deep. It has 34 locks, including the Waterford Flight, the steepest locks in the United States. When leaving the canal, boats must also traverse the Black Rock Lock to reach Lake Erie or the Troy Federal Lock to reach the tidal Hudson. The overall elevation difference is about 172 m.
The Erie's peak year was 1855, when 33,000 commercial shipments took place. It continued to be competitive with railroads until about 1902, when tolls were abolished. Commercial traffic declined heavily in the latter half of the 20th century due to competition from trucking and the 1959 opening of the larger St. Lawrence Seaway. The canal's last regularly scheduled hauler, the Day Peckinpaugh, ended service in 1994.
Today, the Erie Canal is mainly used by recreational watercraft. It connects the three other canals in the New York State Canal System: the Champlain, Oswego, and Cayuga–Seneca. Some long-distance boaters take the Erie as part of the Great Loop. The canal has also become a tourist attraction in its own right -a number of parks and museums are dedicated to its history. The New York State Canalway Trail is a popular cycling path that follows the canal across the state. In 2000, Congress designated the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor to protect and promote the system.
Before railroads, water transport was the most cost-effective way to ship bulk goods. A mule can only carry about 110 kg but can draw a barge weighing as much as 27,000 kg along a towpath. In total, a canal could cut transport costs by about 95 percent.
More information: Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor
In the early years of the United States, transportation of goods between the coastal ports and the interior was slow and difficult. Close to the seacoast, rivers provided easy inland transport up to the fall line, since floating vessels encounter much less friction than land vehicles. However, the Appalachian Mountains were a great obstacle to further transportation or settlement, stretching 2,400 km from Maine to Alabama, with just five places where mule trains or wagon roads could be routed. Passengers and freight bound for the western parts of the country had to travel overland, a journey made more difficult by the rough condition of the roads.
In 1800, it typically took 2½ weeks to travel overland from New York to Cleveland, Ohio, (740 km) and 4 weeks to Detroit (985 km).
The principal exportable product of the Ohio Valley was grain, which was a high-volume, low-priced commodity, bolstered by supplies from the coast. Frequently it was not worth the cost of transporting it to far-away population centers. This was a factor leading to farmers in the west turning their grains into whiskey for easier transport and higher sales, and later the Whiskey Rebellion.
In the 18th and early 19th centuries, it became clear to coastal residents that the city or state that succeeded in developing a cheap, reliable route to the West would enjoy economic success, and the port at the seaward end of such a route would see business increase greatly. In time, projects were devised in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and relatively deep into the coastal states.
The idea of a canal to tie the East Coast to the new western settlements was discussed as early as 1724: New York provincial official Cadwallader Colden made a passing reference (in a report on fur trading) to improving the natural waterways of western New York.
The original canal was 584 km long, from Albany on the Hudson to Buffalo on Lake Erie. The channel was cut 12 m wide and 1.2 m deep, with removed soil piled on the downhill side to form a walkway known as a towpath. Its construction, through limestone and mountains, proved a daunting task. To move earth, animals pulled a slip scraper (similar to a bulldozer). The sides of the canal were lined with stone set in clay, and the bottom was also lined with clay.
The Canal was built by Irish laborers and German stonemasons. All labour on the canal depended upon human and animal power or the force of water. Engineering techniques developed during its construction included the building of aqueducts to redirect water; one aqueduct was 290 long to span 240 m of river. As the canal progressed, the crews and engineers working on the project developed expertise and became a skilled labour force.
Construction began on July 4, 1817, at Rome, New York. The first 24 km, from Rome to Utica, opened in 1819. At that rate, the canal would not be finished for 30 years.
The remaining problem was finding labor; increased immigration helped fill the need. Many of the laborers working on the canal were Irish, who had recently come to the United States as a group of about 5,000. Most of them were Roman Catholic, a religion that raised much suspicion in early America because of its hierarchic structure, and many laborers on the canal suffered violent assault as the result of misjudgment and xenophobia.
More information: Smithsonian Magazine
The Erie Canal was thus completed in eight years at a total length of 568 km and cost $7.143 million (equivalent to $192 million in 2023). It was acclaimed as an engineering marvel that united the country and helped New York City develop as an international trade centre.
The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad opened in 1837, providing a bypass to the slowest part of the canal between Albany and Schenectady. Other railroads were soon chartered and built to continue the line west to Buffalo, and in 1842 a continuous line (which later became the New York Central Railroad and its Auburn Road in 1853) was open the whole way to Buffalo. As the railroad served the same general route as the canal, but provided for faster travel, passengers soon switched to it.
In 1992, the New York State Barge Canal was renamed the New York State Canal System (including the Erie, Cayuga-Seneca, Oswego, and Champlain canals) and placed under the newly created New York State Canal Corporation, a subsidiary of the New York State Thruway Authority. While part of the Thruway, the canal system was operated using money generated by Thruway tolls.
In 2017, the New York State Canal Corporation was transferred from the New York State Thruway to the New York Power Authority.
In 2000, Congress designated the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor, covering 843 km of navigable water from Lake Champlain to the Capital Region and west to Buffalo. The area has a population of 2.7 million; about 75% of Central and Western New York's population lives within 40 km of the Erie Canal.
The Erie Canal greatly lowered the cost of shipping between the Midwest and the Northeast, bringing much lower food costs to Eastern cities and allowing the East to ship machinery and manufactured goods to the Midwest more economically.
New ethnic Irish communities formed in some towns along its route after completion, as Irish immigrants were a large portion of the construction labor force. A plaque honoring the canal's construction is located in Battery Park in southern Manhattan.
Many notable authors wrote about the canal, including Herman Melville, Frances Trollope, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, Samuel Hopkins Adams and the Marquis de Lafayette, and many tales and songs were written about life on the canal. The popular song Low Bridge, Everybody Down by Thomas S. Allen was written in 1905 to memorialize the canal's early heyday, when barges were pulled by mules rather than engines.
Today, the Erie Canal is used primarily by recreational vessels, though it remains served by several commercial barge-towing companies.
More information: Niagara Falls USA
Low bridge, we're coming to a town
You'll always know your neighbor
And you'll always know your pal
If ya ever navigated on the Erie Canal.
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