Welcome to the Old Erie Canal. Trailhead is N42 52.974 W074 03.956.
Parking in gravel area across the road under RR bridge.
Cache jumpers and those cramped for time can find several areas
to access the trail that are closer, but the full hike will please
your Cardiologist. Please rehide well because when fall comes, the
leaves will be gone and it may be visible to passersby. When
hunting season approaches, please dress wisely, i.e. don't let some
dummy think you look like a deer. It should be a low hazard area
for that however.
You will be hiking on the mule tow path of the old Erie Canal.
The ceremonies outside the village of Rome on Independence Day,
1817, climaxed years of discussion about building the Erie Canal.
Dignitaries and local citizens assembled at sunrise to attend the
start of construction. Judge Joshua Hathaway, a veteran of two
American Wars, spoke and began the excavation. Judge John
Richardson, the first contractor, then turned the earth. Cannon
boomed as others started digging.
Benjamin Wright, "the father of American engineering," assisted
by John B. Jervis, supervised construction of the section between
Utica and the Seneca River. In the first year, 15 miles were
constructed. By October, 1819, the 98-mile section was completed,
and the first boat traveled from Rome to Utica.
When finished in 1825, the Erie Canal was considered the
foremost engineering achievement of the time. The 363-mile canal
crossed the State and became the main route between the Atlantic
Ocean and the Great Lakes. Passenger and freight barges crowded the
canal. Western New York flourished with new, cheap transportation.
The canal insured the place of New York City as the Nation's
greatest port and city, and it hastened development of the
Midwest.
Under the leadership of Governor De Witt Clinton, construction
began July 4, 1817 and had many critics; It was known as Clinton's
folley and Clinton's ditch. With little technical knowledge,
thousands of workers surveyed, blasted and dug a 363-mile canal
across the State. They hewed through solid rock and dug in marshes;
they erected aqueducts to carry the the canal over rivers and
valleys, and they built 83 locks to take the canal over changes in
ground level. When completed in October, 1825, the Erie connected
Troy and Buffalo and became the main route between the Atlantic
Ocean and the Great Lakes. Gov. Dewitt Clinton travelled through
where you are at from Buffalo to Troy that year to celebrate the
opening of the original Erie Canal.
Success of the Erie stimulated enlargement of the original canal
in the 1840's and construction of additional canals. More than 500
miles of canals connected the Erie to other sections of New York
State. After the 1870's, canal transportation declined and many
canals closed. The Erie was modernized in 1918 as part of the State
Barge Canal System consisting of the Erie, Champlain, Oswego and
Cayuga-Seneca Canals.
Learn more at:
www.canals.state.ny.us/cculture/history/index.html
By walking this path you will have the distinction of being able
to say that you travelled on the Old Erie Canal.
HINT: That BIG tree.
Click To Rate This Cache