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The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east–west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly reducing the costs of transporting people and goods across the Appalachians.
- Overview
- Design and construction
Erie Canal, historic waterway of the United States, connecting the Great Lakes with New York City via the Hudson River at Albany. Taking advantage of the Mohawk River gap in the Appalachian Mountains, the Erie Canal, 363 miles (584 km) long, was the first canal in the United States to connect western waterways with the Atlantic Ocean. Construction ...
Beginning in the 1780s, various plans were proposed to improve navigation on the Mohawk River. In 1792 the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company was incorporated by the state of New York and given the rights to improve navigation on rivers and lakes west of Albany. Under the leadership of Philip Schuyler, the company focused most of its activity on the Mohawk River, clearing the riverbed and digging several short canals to bypass river rapids. Although the company achieved some success in making improvements to the river, it never had the financial resources to tackle the larger navigation obstacles in the river.
The Western Inland Lock Navigation Company, which found itself short of funds and snarled in state partisan politics, never completed its plans. Nonetheless, the Mohawk River still provided a valuable path from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, and plans for a new canal were debated. In 1820 the state of New York purchased the company’s works, closing the books on the 18th-century canal scheme.
Meanwhile, a new canal project had been gaining momentum. In particular, DeWitt Clinton had promoted the idea of a western canal as early as 1811 while serving in the New York state senate. He won preliminary legislative approval in 1816 and was named commissioner for the project. In 1817, following election as governor of New York, Clinton persuaded the state legislature to authorize loans for $7 million to build a canal from Buffalo, on the eastern shore of Lake Erie, to the upper Hudson, passing through the Mohawk Valley region. Chief engineer Benjamin Wright and his corps of self-taught engineers (there were no engineering schools in the United States at that time, though the project prompted several schools to start engineering programs) were successful in overcoming the technological problems faced by the canal, which needed to move boats through more than 150 metres (500 feet) of elevation.
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With a typical canal prism shape—12 metres (40 feet) wide on the top, 8.5 metres (28 feet) wide at the bottom, and 1.2 metres (4 feet) deep—the engineers patterned the Erie Canal after the Middlesex Canal in Massachusetts. The Erie required 83 locks, each made of stone, to move boats up and down the natural elevations. The locks were designed so that each needed only one person for its operation. The canal also required the construction of 18 aqueducts to carry the canal over bodies of water. With nature presenting more daunting obstacles on both the western and eastern sections, construction began in the middle segment on July 4, 1817, with Clinton officiating the groundbreaking at Rome, New York.
19 de dic. de 2022 · An Introduction to Mapping of the Erie Canal from Historic Sources. This digital map was created using New York State Archive resources, primarily the "Blue Line" and "Schillner" Map Collections. Thousands of hours of research and digitizing were required.
El canal de Erie fue la primera ruta de transporte que desbancó a los carros tirados por animales entre la costa este de los Estados Unidos y el oeste interior, recortando los costes de transporte hacia las tierras inexploradas del oeste cerca de un 95 %.
15 de mar. de 2018 · The Erie Canal is a 363-mile waterway that connects the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean via the Hudson River in upstate New York. The channel, which traverses New York state from Albany to...
Three years and thousands of hours (and counting) of research and digital mapping later, Talbot has created the first comprehensive historic map of the Erie Canal, which carved out much of the...
Built between 1817 and 1825, the original Erie Canal traversed 363 miles from Albany to Buffalo. It was the longest artificial waterway and the greatest public works project in North America. The canal put New York on the map as the Empire State—the leader in population, industry, and economic strength.
