The Erie Canal: Traversing the American Midwest Before Railroads

hello everybody welcome back to a brand new episode of mega projects if you don't have enough videos from me in your feed which uh honestly you probably do but i have another channel called side projects which is all about mega projects that weren't quite mega enough for mega projects it's linked to below subscribe if you feel like it [Music] when we think of great routes that built the united states the transcontinental railroad is probably the first thing that comes to mind but nearly 50 years before the completion of america's great iron way another route opened that helped transform both the eastern states and the midwest there were no trains and no track on this particular passageway it was a 584 kilometer stretch of water that reached from the upper hudson river north of new york to the boundaries of canada and lake erie and it became known as the erie canal size has always been both a blessing and a curse for the united states and especially so when it was a young fledgling nation the distances across the country are quite simply staggering it is 4 488 kilometers from new york to los angeles and that's just east to west if you were going to go from the town of portal that sits on the canadian border to brownsville on the border with mexico you would be faced with a journey of 2993 kilometers so yes it is a country of immense distances especially as someone who lives in europe an hour's drive is long for me of course these distances don't sound quite as imposing with these rapid machines we have called aeroplanes but centuries ago traveling to the american interior was both time consuming and at times pretty dangerous the transcontinental railroad may have transformed the nation when it first opened in 1869 but before that it was a sliver of man-made water pushing westward that opened up the midwest [Music] the story of the erie canal begins with the first u.s president george washington when he assumed the presidency in 1789 his young nation was a small grouping of 13 states huddled along the eastern seaboard with the global powers of the time britain and france sniffing around to further their colonial ambitions washington was eager to push the united states boundary further west at the time little was known about the vast interior of the continent which was inhabited by native americans and of course a lot of buffalo but from what could be gathered from various expeditions it was a vast fertile land that was prime for expansion the northwest territory which would eventually become ohio illinois michigan and indiana was rich in timber furs and minerals while providing vast open land perfect for farming in terms of potential commerce it was a gold mine but one that came with an imposing problem the imposing appalachian mountains which stood between the northwest territory and the 13 states at that time it took weeks for goods to travel along the difficult route and try as they might early explorers failed to find a major east-west river that would have sped up expansion no end if the young nation needed a waterway that was running westward well they would have to build it themselves washington's plan to build a canal from the potomac river which begins in west virginia to the ohio river valley was hugely ambitious for the late 19th century and would represent the first extensive canal construction in the country but this wasn't quite a canal as we think of it in the modern sense in total five skirting canals were constructed throughout the 17-year process which was finally completed in 1802. these were essentially small sections of canals that were built to navigate around the rapids on the potomac river which dropped 182 meters over a 321 kilometer stretch while patormat canal certainly provided for greater trade along the route they never quite lived up to the expectations and the organization that built it the potomac company went out of business in 1825. this was partly because of the huge cost of construction and relatively low revenue it produced but also by that time it had major competition from a considerably bigger and better canal george washington didn't live to see the opening of the canal that had become something of an obsession for him and while it struggled to live up to his lofty dream it was still quite an extraordinary construction feat it showed the young nation what was possible and proved to be a loose blueprint of what would arrive soon after the idea for a canal that stretched from the hudson river to lake erie first materialized in 1807. jess hawley a flower merchant from western new york state who went bankrupt while trying to get his produce to the atlantic coast penned a series of essays while indebted prison and if you've never come across this kind of jail well it's exactly what you might think it is if you couldn't pay your debts you would be incarcerated for a set period depending on the amount and your personal situation this was a practice that was eventually abolished in 1833 for obvious reasons anyway back to jess hawley who wrote a passionate series of essays which advocated for a great canal linking lake erie and the hudson river this would allow goods to move quickly back and forth which could then be unloaded onto other boats that could either travel further west across lake erie or down south down the hudson to the bustling new york city from where it could be transported to europe these essays caught the eye of dwight clinton who was at the time a young upstart businessman but would eventually become mayor of new york and eventually run unsuccessfully for president to call clinton the driving force behind the project would be a vast understatement and the canal was sometimes referred to as either clinton's big ditch or clinton's follow depending on the level of support for the project initial plans submitted to president thomas jefferson were rejected with the rather disparaging remark that the project was a little short of madness while there was plenty in the way of physical obstacles that could cause significant holdup the 180 meter altitude increase from the hudson river to lake erie was seen as the biggest problem locks would be needed to raise the water level but single locks at that time could only handle an increase of about 3.7 meters meaning roughly 50 would be needed for the entire distance a number that eventually went up to 83. it was a mammoth undertaking but by 1817 after a delayed cause by the american civil war clinton had secured approval from the new york legislature for the 7 million roughly 100 million dollars today for the construction project [Music] the fact that the erie canal was even completed was an astonishing engineering feat let alone when you consider that those taking part had little to no experience of doing anything like this the majority of the engineers involved had never worked on a canal before and some were packed off to england for a quick crash course in everything canal related james geddes and benjamin wright who laid out the route were both judges who primarily focused on boundary disputes this was a rag tag group but well there was certainly one that learned quickly on the job the canal would not be built in a continuous process instead the route was divided into three sections west middle and east construction began no doubt symbolically on the 4th of july 1817 independence day from rome near syracuse roughly in the middle of the whole canal and began heading east towards utica the canal was opened in stages as different sections were finished this was no doubt down to an eagerness to get trade and revenue moving but with the first section a distance of just 24 kilometers between rome and utica taking two long years it meant that if present pace continued the entire canal would take over 30 years until it was finished a truly daunting prospect this was mostly down to the lack of experience among those working on the project and subsequent sections were completely much faster many of the laborers were irish immigrants fresh off the boat and eager for whatever work they could find and this was absolutely back-breaking work that paid just 50 cents a day roughly 10 today dynamite wasn't invented until the 1860s so the majority of the work was done with shovels spades and pickaxes although gunpowder was occasionally used to blast through difficult sections of rock there is a long told story that barrels of whiskey were left upstream from where the workers were working to encourage them to work faster whether this is actually true or not we aren't sure but you can certainly imagine that it would have worked the vast channel that was dug measured 12 meters in width and 1.2 meters in depth earth was excavated using slip scrapers imagine a horse dragging a large metal plate similar to what is seen today on bulldozers and then the removed soil was piled on either side to form a walkway which eventually became the towpath the bottom and sides of the canal were set in clay and stone most of which was done by hundreds of german masons who would later find bountiful employment in new york constructing bridges as the canal pushed westward it came to a shuddering hold when it reached the montezuma marshes near the finger lakes region of new york there are reports that up to a thousand workers died of malaria at this point of the story but it must be said that no mass graves have ever been found and this figure has been constantly debated over the years soon after with numbers no doubt replenished construction work resumed the section between utica and selena was completed in 1820 and opened up for traffic almost immediately while the completed middle and eastern section from brockport to albany a distance of 400 kilometers was formally opened on the 10th of september 1823. with the eastern route done all that was left was to join brockport and buffalo but it was here they faced one of the most daunting challenges how to cross the irondequoit creek and the genesee river crossing the creek required the construction of what came to be known as the great embankment a 400 meter long embankment which carried the canal 23 meters above the creek the river itself was traversed by stone aqueduct measuring 244 metres in length and 5.2 meters wide with a total of 11 arches supporting it a total of 18 aqueducts were built along the way with the largest measuring at 290 metres in lengths the next major hurdle was the niagara escarpment an imposing 24 meter high wall of dolomitic limestone which lay directly in the canal's path this is the site of the largest concentration of locks anywhere on the canal and the two sets of five locks soon gave birth to the town of lockport hence the name the locks together raised the canal 18 meters with the final section being cut 9.1 meters into the limestone rock of the onondaga ridge before continuing west on the 26th of october 1825 the erie canal was finally completed and in a truly grandiose manner a series of cannon shots were ordered along the length of the canal the cannonade lasted 90 minutes and stretched from new york city to buffalo the canal was completed in just eight years at a final cost of 7.143 million dollars equivalent to about 115 million dollars today the erie canal proved to be an instant success with both sides greatly benefiting the eastern cities were able to bring in cheaper food from the west while machinery and manufactured goods poured the other way new york city which was at the time smaller than boston philadelphia and new orleans saw a huge boom soon after while at the other end the competition between two villagers buffalo and black rock to be the western terminus was won by buffalo which went on to become a major city and would eventually envelop black rock in 1820 buffalo numbered only 200 inhabitants but 20 years later that figure had risen to 18 000. to give you an idea of just how many major communities sprang up close to the canal today 80 percent of the population of upstate new york still lives within 25 miles of the canal tolls were collected along the route and within a year they had surpassed the state's construction debt for the canal in fact the entire debt was paid off by 1837 [Music] the canal became such a success that before long there was talk of upgrading it work began on these upgrades in 1834 with a preliminary stage known as the first enlargement this was no small undertaking and called for the canal to be widened from 12 to 21 meters and deepened from 1.2 to 2.1 meters blocks were also improved upon and new aqueducts were installed along the route during a busy period that was finished in 1862. feeder canals which led into the erie canal also quickly began to appear with those living further away from the main canal eager to get in on the act these included the cayuga seneca canal south to the finger lakes the oswego canal from three rivers north to lake ontario at oswego and the champlain canal from troy north lake champlain business was booming and everybody wanted in while others looked on enviously it was only a matter of time until competition began to heat up a rival canal operating from philadelphia opened in 1834 while the mohawk and hudson railroad opened in 1837 and five years later was extended all the way to buffalo goods could now be delivered much faster by rail but this didn't kill off the canal in 1852 the canal still hauled 13 times more freight than all of new york state's rail network combined it wasn't until 1918 that the canal was effectively replaced by the new york state barge canal which used certain sections of the erie canal while missing out others but by this point canals as a form of freight transportation were in decline and they have steadily become more of a pastime activity parts of the old erie canal that weren't incorporated into the newer barge canal can still be found some still with water that act as canal parks while others stand emptied filled with overgrowth and debris barely recognizable from the thriving waterway it once was while the erie canal might not have the same kind of prestige as the transcontinental railroad it should certainly be held in similar regard to today's mind the distance of 584 kilometers might not sound particularly impressive but in the early 19th century it was monumental this certainly facilitated greater and faster trade between the north west territory and the 13 states and significantly sped up the expansion of the united states cities like new york and buffalo rose substantially in magnitude because of the canal with new york quickly becoming the most important city in the nation by 1853 63 percent of all u.s trade was flowing along the erie canal while allowing tourism to flourish along the way and in particular at niagara falls on the u.s canada border while the transcontinental certainly united the country in both a symbolic and literal sense the erie canal provided that burst that led to a prosperous nation in the 20th century if the transcontinental was the railroad that built america and the erie canal was the waterway that laid the vital foundations beforehand so i really hope you found that video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below don't forget to subscribe we got new videos three times a week and if you're looking for something else why not check out my other channel side projects which is linked to below and thank you for watching you

Channel: Megaprojects

Views: 371,435

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Length: 15min 14sec (914 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 14 2020