From the time of the landing of the Mayflower in 1620, the colonizing of Eastern North America consisted primarily of a narrow vertical strip of land inland from the Atlantic Ocean and stretching from Maine in the north to Florida in the south.
Expansion of America westward was hindered by the Appalachian Mountain Range which stretches over 2,000 miles (3,300 km) from Newfoundland south through Quebec and into Maine. From there it meanders south through 13 states into central Alabama and Mississippi. The Appalachian Mountains are older than the Rocky Mountains.
The Appalachian Range consists of several localized ranges including the Catskill Mountains, Blue Ridge Mountains, and the Great Smoky Mountains, but does not include the Adirondack Mountains of Northeastern New York state. The Adirondacks are an entirely separate range of different composition, are roughly circular, and contained almost entirely within Adirondack State Park, one of America’s largest. The Adirondacks cover the area from Ogdensburg on the shore of the St. Lawrence River south through Lake Placid to Lake George, east to Lake Champlain and west to the Mohawk River.
Unlike the Adirondacks, the Appalachian Range was a barrier to east-west travel and commerce. There were less than a half dozen natural routes along its length onto which horseback or wagon trains could readily be dispatched westward to cross the mountains. The St. Lawrence River Valley and the Great Lakes along with the Mississippi River and its tributaries had provided some colonization of the Midwest, but not ready access to the Eastern Seaboard.
The increasingly powerful merchants in New York City had heard of the enormous harvests of corn and grain being grown annually in the Midwest and they knew of the demand for same in England and Europe. Somehow there had to be a way of getting commodities from the Midwest across the Appalachians to east coast ports, as well as transporting goods and people westward. There were no railroads and overland travel from New York City to Buffalo by horseback or stagecoach could take a couple of weeks. It took almost two hundred years to remedy this situation.
After years of political bickering and stalling, and having determined that the mighty Hudson River, channeled by the Ice Age glaciers, provided a natural south-north pathway through the Appalachians, survey teams started their work in 1808. A major tributary of the Hudson -- the Mohawk River -- then meandered 150 miles (240 km) in a northwest direction almost to Lake Ontario.
Tributaries could then provide a route through to Buffalo and thus Lake Erie. They could also provide a route to the Midwest via the Great Lakes to Cleveland, Detroit, Sault St. Marie, and Chicago. Neither the Welland Canal linking Lake Ontario to Lake Erie, nor the St. Mary’s Falls Canal providing access to Lake Superior, had been built at this point. That’s why the plan remained to connect to Lake Erie rather than the easier and much shorter route to Lake Ontario.
The War of 1812-1814 between the United States and Britain (essentially Canada), while ending in a virtual stalemate, nevertheless further proved the necessity of a reliable and efficient transportation route for people and products across the Appalachians between the Atlantic seaboard and the Midwest. Construction of the Erie Canal was commenced in 1817.
The Hudson River north from New York City as far as the State capital in Albany, while tidal, required almost no construction or alteration and is not officially part of the Erie Canal. Roughly 10 miles (16 km) north of Albany and just past Troy, the Mohawk River, following a meandering glacial meltwater channel, empties into the Hudson River at Cohoes/Waterford. This is the official eastern start to the Erie Canal which continues westward some 350 miles (563 km) to join Lake Erie at Buffalo.
For reasons not made clear, except perhaps wanting to work their way downstream, the 1817 construction of the canal started near the source of the Mohawk River at Rome, New York, located northeast of Syracuse and about 140 miles (225 km) almost due west of its mouth at the Hudson River. Two years later in 1819, the first 15 miles (24 km) of the canal from Rome to Utica, New York was opened. The section west from Rome through Oneida Lake to Onondaga Lake northwest of Syracuse was completed in 1820.
By late 1823, the canal was in service from just west of Rochester, north of the Catskill Mountain range and the Finger Lakes via the Seneca and Oneida Rivers and then of course the Mohawk River the 250 miles (400 km) right through to the Hudson River and thus to the eastern seaboard. As the construction progressed, unique engineering solutions were required including a quarter mile (400 m) long man-made embankment which included a concrete arch-supported aqueduct some 75 feet (23 m) above the creek below.
Construction further west confronted the Niagara Escarpment resulting in two sets of flight locks of five locks per flight and all within a three mile (5 km) section of the canal in order to rise to the level of Lake Erie. The community of Lockport was established there. The canal then joined Tonawanda Creek at Pendleton and continued west to meet the Niagara River at Tonawanda, New York, a northern suburb of Buffalo.
Opened to great fanfare in 1825, the Erie Canal is today exactly two hundred years old. When opened, it was then the second longest canal in the world after the Grand Canal in China and the only navigable waterway connecting the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. Its completion substantially reduced the time and costs of transporting goods and people east and west. This resulted in an exponential increase in the development of the Midwest and even the expansion west of the Mississippi.
Commerce also grew exponentially along the new waterway. Shipment of wheat by barge from the Midwest grew from three thousand bushels in 1829 to over a half million bushels only six years later. By 1840, New York City had become the busiest port in America and was securing its place as the centre of commerce and finance for the United States.
Originally when the canal sections were cut, it was only 40 feet (12 m) wide by 4 feet (1.2 m) deep. It was expanded a number of times until in 1905 it was almost completely rebuilt and reconfigured with much of the old man-made route abandoned. When completed in 1918, it officially became the Erie Barge Canal utilizing the canalization of the Mohawk River. This rebuild resulted in the canal being 120 feet (37 m) wide by 12 feet (3.7 m) deep with 34 locks to manage the elevation difference of 565 feet (172 m) between Lake Erie down to the Hudson River.
Locks are 328 feet (100 m) long by 45-feet (14 m) wide with a minimum depth of 12 feet (3.7 m). At its eastern end at the mouth of the Mohawk River, the Waterford Flight locks comprised of five locks are recognized as the steepest in the world. The locks elevate boats 169 feet (52 m) between the Hudson and the Mohawk Rivers over a span of less than two miles (3.2 km). Original man-made sections of the canal still in use after the rebuild, primarily between Rochester and Buffalo, were widened and deepened to the new dimensions.
While it is officially still the Erie Barge Canal but it is mostly referred to as simply the Erie Canal and between it and the Hudson River, encompasses some of the most spectacular scenery you will ever encounter as a boater. And it is not a standalone boater’s paradise. It is part of the New York State Canal System which includes three additional waterways.
With construction starting in 1825, the same year that the Erie Barge Canal was completed, the Oswego Canal was completed in 1828. It is 24 miles (38 km) long connecting Oswego on Lake Ontario and essentially utilizing the Oswego River through seven locks to connect with the Erie Canal near Liverpool, New York. The Oswego Canal is most popular with pleasure boaters doing The Loop and wanting to utilize Ontario’s Trent-Severn Waterway between Lake Ontario and Georgian Bay on Lake Huron.
Pleasure boaters can do a mini-Great Loop utilizing the Hudson River, Erie Canal, Oswego Canal, Lake Ontario and then either the historic Rideau Canal to Ottawa and from there the Ottawa River to Montreal, or the St. Lawrence River from Lake Ontario to Montreal. From Montreal they can head roughly 50 miles (80 km) east on the St. Lawrence River to Sorel, Quebec, the mouth of the Richelieu River.
About 40 miles (64 km) south up the Richelieu River is the 12 mile (20 km) long Chambly Canal between the quaint boating tourist towns of Chambly and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec. The Richelieu River then crosses the International border into Vermont at its headwaters, the spectacular Lake Champlain.
One of the largest lakes in North America, the 120-mile (almost 200 km) long Lake Champlain is another boater’s paradise. Completed in 1823, just a couple of years prior to the completion of the Erie Canal, the north-south Champlain Canal, part of the New York State Canal System, links the head of Lake Champlain the 61 miles (100 km) via 11 locks to the Hudson River near Fort Edward, NY. It then continues south on the Hudson River to immediately north of the start of the Erie Canal at Waterford.
The third part of the New York State Canal System is much less well-known but offers simply incredible boating experiences. This is of course the 20 mile (32 km) long Cayuga-Seneca Canal linking those two Finger Lakes via the canalized Seneca River to the Erie Canal at Montezuma, roughly half way between Syracuse and Rochester. Completed in 1818 utilizing 11 locks, the canal was rebuilt at the same time as the Erie Canal and now utilizes only four locks to accommodate the 84-foot (25 m) difference in elevation.
Another lifetime of boating pleasures are available by exploring the magnitude and magnificence of the New York State Canal System plus the incredibly scenic and historic Hudson River into New York City where it joins the Intracoastal Waterway.
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