Opening of the Erie Canal (1825)

My name is DeWitt Clinton, and there was a time when many people in America thought my greatest idea was my greatest mistake. In the early 1800s, when I was Governor of New York, our young country was full of promise, but it was also a very divided place, not by politics, but by nature itself. To the west lay the vast, fertile lands of the Ohio Valley and beyond, but between those lands and the bustling cities of the East Coast stood a formidable barrier: the Appalachian Mountains. Imagine trying to move a wagon full of wheat over those steep, rugged hills on roads that were little more than muddy tracks. It was slow, dangerous, and so expensive that a farmer's hard work could barely earn him a profit. I looked at a map and saw a solution that others dismissed as impossible. I saw the Hudson River, which flows south to the great port of New York City and the Atlantic Ocean. And to the west, I saw the Great Lakes, a massive freshwater sea touching the heart of the continent. There was a gap, a 363-mile stretch of land separating them. I dreamed of digging a channel, a man-made river, right through that land. This canal would be a water highway, connecting Lake Erie to the Hudson River. It would unite our country, allowing goods, people, and ideas to flow freely. It was a vision of a future where a boat could travel from the middle of America all the way to the ocean, making our nation stronger and more prosperous than ever before.

Of course, a dream that big is bound to attract doubters, and my canal project certainly did. Prominent leaders, even President Thomas Jefferson, called it 'a little short of madness.' My political opponents had a grand time making fun of the idea, nicknaming it 'Clinton's Folly' or, more commonly, 'Clinton's Ditch.' They laughed and said the project was too big, too expensive, and that it would never be finished. But I knew it could be done. I believed in the power of American ingenuity and determination. So, on July 4th, 1817, a fitting day to begin a project that would secure our nation's future, the first shovel of dirt was turned near Rome, New York. The work that followed was one of the greatest engineering challenges of the age. We had no steam shovels or dynamite. The canal was built by the muscle and sweat of thousands of men, many of them immigrants from Ireland who had come to America seeking a new life. With only pickaxes, shovels, and wheelbarrows, they carved a channel forty feet wide and four feet deep through dense forests, mucky swamps, and hills of solid rock. It was grueling, dangerous work. They had to invent new tools and techniques as they went, like special plows to clear trees and stump-pullers to rip out roots. The land was not flat, so the canal couldn't be a simple, level ditch. To overcome the 568-foot rise in elevation between the Hudson River and Lake Erie, our engineers designed a brilliant system of 83 locks. A lock is like a water elevator for boats. A boat would float into the stone chamber, heavy wooden gates would close behind it, and then water would be slowly let in or out to raise or lower the boat to the next water level. It was a magical thing to witness. Even more amazing were the aqueducts, which were essentially water bridges. These incredible stone structures carried the canal over rivers and valleys, so our boats could continue their journey uninterrupted. The aqueduct over the Genesee River in Rochester was over 800 feet long, a true marvel that showed the world what our determined workers could accomplish.

After eight long years of relentless toil, the day of triumph finally arrived. On October 26th, 1825, I boarded a packet boat named the Seneca Chief in Buffalo, at the edge of Lake Erie. Our journey was to be the grand opening of the entire canal. As we began our trip eastward, a cannon was fired. This set off a chain reaction. All along the 363-mile route, a series of cannons were placed within hearing distance of one another. As each cannon operator heard the one to the west, they fired their own. This 'cannon telegraph' sent the news of our departure across the entire state to New York City in just 90 minutes. Our ten-day journey was a continuous celebration. In every town and village we passed, people lined the banks of the canal, cheering and waving. They knew this wasn't just a ditch; it was their future. On November 4th, 1825, we sailed into New York Harbor, where a fleet of ships greeted us. There, I conducted the final ceremony, which we called the 'Wedding of the Waters.' I lifted a keg of water we had carried all the way from Lake Erie and poured it into the salt water of the Atlantic Ocean. This act symbolized the union we had created between the great interior of our continent and the wider world. The Erie Canal was an immediate success. The cost of shipping goods between the Midwest and the East Coast dropped by over 90 percent. New York City boomed into the nation's largest port and financial center. The canal opened up the west for a wave of pioneers and turned remote frontier towns into thriving cities. My 'folly' had become the artery of a growing nation, proving that with a bold vision and the courage to see it through, Americans could achieve almost anything.