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The canal spanned 350 miles between the Great Lakes and the Hudson River and was an immediate success. Between its completion and its closure in 1882, it returned over $121 million in revenues on an original cost of $7 million. Its success led to the great Canal Age.
The history of turnpikes and canals in the United States began with work attempted and accomplished in the original thirteen colonies, predicated on European technology. After gaining independence, the United States grew westward, crossing the Appalachian Mountains with the admission of new states and then doubling in size with the Louisiana ...
All but forgotten except as a part of nostalgic lore, American canals during the first half of the nineteenth century provided a transportation network that was vital to the development of the new nation.
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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.
Sep 2, 2024 · Canals and inland waterways - US History, Construction, Navigation: In the United States, canal building began slowly. Only 161 km (100 miles) of canals had been built at the beginning of the 19th century, but before the end of the century more than 6,437 km (4,000 miles) were open to navigation.
Canals in American History. The United States was full of waterways but lacking in a coordinated network to join them. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and other luminaries encouraged the construction of waterways to join the waypoints of the expanding country, joining the rivers to the rivers and to the lakes.
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Aug 4, 2015 · The Panama Canal is a massive engineering marvel that connects the Pacific Ocean with the Atlantic Ocean through a 50-mile series of shipping canals and locks.
