It was on this day in 1825 that the Erie Canal opened. The canal was 363 miles long, linking Buffalo on Lake Erie in western New York to Albany on the Hudson River. The Erie Canal was such an impressive feat of engineering that it was called the Eighth Wonder of the World. For decades, there had been talk of a canal that would cross the Appalachian Mountains and make it easier to transport cargo to New York City. The project finally found a champion in Dewitt Clinton, the governor of New York, and construction began in 1817. The canal cost $7 million to build, a huge amount for a public works project, and many taxpayers were unsure whether the result would be worth the cost. One opponent claimed: In the big ditch will be buried the treasury of the state to be watered by the tears of posterity. Skeptics referred to the canal as Clintons Ditch or Clintons Folly. The construction took eight years. The workers were local laborers and Irish immigrants. Their work days could last up to 14 hours, often in miserable conditions, for which they were paid 80 cents a day plus a ration of whiskey. They had the help of oxen, but they did much of the excavating work by hand, from felling trees to using hand drills on rocks. The canal went through swamps, forests, and rocky cliffs; it had a series of aqueducts to cross rivers, and lift locks to compensate for the 675 feet of elevation change. There were no civilian engineering schools in America, so the team of engineers made it up as they went along. On this day, the official opening was celebrated. The ceremony began in Buffalo, New York, with marching bands. Governor Clinton left the shores of Lake Erie in his boat, Seneca Chief, transporting two beautifully carved wooden barrels of Lake Erie water, which he planned to pour into the Atlantic. As his boat left the shore, a cannon shot was fired. Cannons had been placed strategically all the way along the canal, so that as soon as someone at the next cannon heard the shot from the first, they fired off their cannon, and continued like this all the way to New York City. The last gunshot was fired on the Atlantic Ocean exactly an hour and 25 minutes after the first shot had gone off on the shores of Lake Erie. Governor Clinton continued his journey down the canal, joined by more and more boats as he went — including a boat called Noahs Ark, which carried a bear, two fawns, two eagles, two Native American boys, and a lot of fish. A week after their departure, Governor Clinton and his flotilla reached Albany on the Hudson River, where tables were set up on a bridge at the end of the canal, and 600 diners raised their glasses to celebrate the accomplishment. From there, the boats were towed down the Hudson River by steamboats, and arrived in New York City on November 4th. Clinton poured the water from Lake Erie into the Atlantic Ocean, and then joined 7,000 other marchers in a giant parade that had been going on all day. The parade consisted of marching bands, firemen, and workers representing New Yorks professions: hatters, tanners, shipwrights, curriers, combmakers, potters, leather dressers, and more. Each profession tried to outdo the next with their parade floats. The coppersmiths and tinplate workers crafted a float with a working metal model of the locks system, including canal boats ascending and descending in water — all pulled by horses. Three hundred printers set up printing presses on their float, distributing copies of a new poem called Ode for the Canal Celebration, which began: Tis done! Tis done! — The mighty chain / Which joins bright Erie to the Main, / For ages, shall perpetuate / The glory of our native State. The festivities continued for three days, culminating in a grand ball. The star attraction was a miniature model, made perfectly to scale, of a passenger boat floating in water; the water was from Lake Erie, and the boat was made entirely from maple sugar. The Erie Canal opened up western New York, and much of the Midwest, to settlement and trade. Before the canal, it cost between $90 and $125 to ship a ton of cargo from Buffalo to New York City; after the canals completion, that same ton cost just $4. Within the first year, 2,000 boats, 9,000 horses, and 8,000 men were working to transport cargo on the canal.
Posted on: Sat, 26 Oct 2013 08:33:05 +0000
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