A Path Out West: Why Was the Erie Canal Built?

When James and Eleanor Stuart came to America in 1828, it was popular to travel to Niagara Falls as a tourist destination. As it was a particularly hot summer, they decided not to spend time in the City of New York for too long at that time, and went upstate to Niagara. The Stuarts got to experience a new way of traveling, on the Erie Canal, part of their way to Niagara. This manmade waterway, built by thousands of workers between 1817 and 1825, much of it by hand, provided an important gateway for many people into the western part of New York State and into the Midwest, not just for sightseeing, but for moving to a new home and for trading goods.

In the early 19th century, the United States was growing, in land and in population. There was so much open space and so many great resources! New Yorkers were excited to be able to get access to what the areas around them had to offer. The Northwest Territory, for example, which became a part of the United States after the American Revolution in the 1780s (it included the Midwest states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin) had many forested areas. Access to timber (wood) was important for building, making furniture, and using as fuel for fireplaces to cook and eat. These states and the very western part of New York State are around the Great Lakes, and thus have particularly fertile land, which means various crops can grow more easily there.

If you were a student at the beginning of the 19th century you might have been reading these details about New York State resources in this 1805 geography book:

Name one kind of crop grown east of the Allegany mountains (now spelled Allegheny Mountains) that can be used for making flour?

______

What is "clothed thick with timber" and what do you think this means?

______

What, besides wheat, was exported (sent and Image 103 of Pinkerton's Geography, epitomised for the use of schools Image provided by: sold to other countries)? Library of Congress, Washington, DC. Link to the full image: https://www.loc.gov/resource/dcmsiabooks.pinkertonsgeogra00pink/?sp=103 ______(Pinkerton, John, and David Doyle. Pinkerton's Geography, epitomized for the use of schools. Philadelphia, printed for S.F. Bradford, 1805.)

Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Garden, 2020 1

Many people started to move upstate in New York and some eventually to the Midwest as the land was cheap and the opportunities were promising.

However, it was much harder to travel! New York State has several mountain ranges and many bodies of water. Many people traveled by covered wagon, pulled by oxen, horses, or mules. The journey was long and difficult, with challenges such as irregular roads, swamps, waterfalls, and mud when it rained. Find out more about the natural features of New York by going to this activity on the Museum website, and see if you can figure out a good route from one side of the State (at Albany) to the other (at Buffalo):

People who moved to the frontier out West (unsettled territories) were called pioneers. Here is an image of pioneers taking a break by artist Theodore R. Davis from later in the 19th century.

Davis, Theodore R., Artist. Pilgrims on the plains / sketched by Theo. R. Davis. Photograph [of illustration]. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/2003674117/

Look closely at this picture. What might be packed inside the covered wagons if these families are moving? ______

Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Garden, 2020 2

Imagine moving hundreds of miles away in the 1800s on a journey filled with many unpredictable moments: what the land is like, whether you need to cross any rivers, how weather such as rain may affect your trip. Name three things that you would definitely take with you and why:

1) ______Reason: ______

2) ______Reason: ______

3) ______Reason: ______

As the dream of having easier access to the interior of the country continued to grow stronger and the obstacles west of the Appalachian Mountains became evident to more travelers, a number of people began thinking of ways to create a path to the west. George Washington, upon touring New York in the 1780s, felt that it was important to somehow connect the waterways upstate to be able to travel westward. The key was the Mohawk River, which connects to the Hudson River in the north! The idea for canals, or manmade waterways, evolved into a construction by the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company in the 1790s, to build a canal in Rome (between the Mohawk River and Wood Creek), a canal at Little Falls, and a canal in German Flats. This was helpful for that particular area, but was still far away from Lake Erie that borders the Midwest states.

A flour merchant by the name of Jesse Hawley from Geneva in upstate New York used the canal created by the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company to send flour to the City of New York's market, but he faced a financial challenge: in the summertime, the Mohawk River fell (became more shallow), and he had to pay more for transportation, eventually going bankrupt (losing money). Hawley wrote a series of essays in 1807 and 1808 where he proposed a way to unite the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers in the east with Lake Erie in the west through a canal. Have you ever had an idea of how to improve something that you had a hard time with? If you have an idea, you can draw it here.

______

Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Garden, 2020 3

Jesse Hawley's essays eventually caught the eye of DeWitt Clinton, a politician who became Governor of New York in 1817. Clinton fought to be able to get funding for the Erie Canal project and for a while it was even called "Clinton's Folly"! Work began in the town of Rome in the middle of the Canal route in 1817, and was fully completed between Buffalo and Albany in 1825, after which a huge celebration was held throughout the state.

The Erie Canal had a huge effect on the economy of New York. Prices drastically decreased on goods from Buffalo to the City of New York:

From: $100 per ton (before the Erie Canal)

To: between $5 and $10 per ton (after the Erie Canal)!

The picture on the left shows the Genesee Falls in Rochester that provided power for flour mills (to grind wheat into flour). Genesee flour became popular and was one type of good that traveled along the Erie Canal. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. "The Genesse Falls, Rochester." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1825. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47d9-7e75-a3d9-e040- e00a18064a99

After upstate goods traveled on the Erie Canal across the state, they would then travel on the Hudson River down to the City of New York (and vice-versa, when the City sent goods upstate.) The picture on the right shows boats downtown on the Hudson River. Did you know that it was called the North River in the 1820s?

By looking at the signs on the boats, list two places upstate where they might be coming from:

______The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York ______Public Library. "Canal boats on the North River, New York." The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1825. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47d9-7e53-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

What kinds of boats traveled along the Erie Canal? As the water on the manmade Canal did not have the same kind of current as there would be on a river or another body of water that exists in nature, packet boats (for people) and freight boats (for goods) were pulled by mules, who took turns working, along a towpath that went alongside the Erie Canal. The travel was slow, at 4 miles an hour, but the ride was more direct than before. Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Garden, 2020 4

Take a look at this map of New York State from 1831. The thick black line across the state is the Erie Canal. See if you can recall some of the places mentioned in the reading, highlighted as circles and a star.

Key to places highlighted along the Erie Canal, in order from left to right:

Buffalo Rochester Rome German Flats Little Falls Albany,,,,

1) Why were the places highlighted in green important in the early history of the New York State canals? ______

2) What is the place that is farthest west? ______

Map: Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division, The New York Public Library. "Map of the state of New York" The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1831. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47db-aff1-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99 [Original image cropped and highlights of places added.] Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Garden, 2020 5

Sources

Books:

Shaw, Robert E. Erie Water West: A History of the Erie Canal, 1792-1854. The University Press of Kentucky, 2013 (originally published in 1966). Accessed on Google Books on 4/17/20.

Stuart, James. Three Years In North America. 3d ed., rev. Edinburgh: Printed for R. Cadell, 1833. Original book from the University of California. Digitized by Google, Inc. Accessed on HathiTrust on 4/7/20. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.$b307235

Websites:

Ziemer, Heidi, and Dan Ward. Two Hundred Years on the Erie Canal. Digital Public Library of America.

January 2018. https://dp.la/exhibitions/erie-canal. (Online exhibit on the Erie Canal.)

Erie Canalway National Corridor. http://eriecanalway.org/learn/teachers. (Online resources for students and teachers on the Erie Canal, including those developed by the Albany Institute of History & Art.)

Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com. Topics: "Erie Canal" (by Robb, Francis C., October 18, 2019), "American frontier" (by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, July 12, 2019), and "Northwest Ordinances" (by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, last updated on April 16, 2020.) Accessed on 4/20/20.

Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Garden, 2020 6