ERIE CANAL 



2072 



ERIS 



charges from Buffalo to Albany fell from $22 

 to $4 per ton. 



History. The Erie Canal was not the re- 

 sult of a decade of planning and agitation, nor 

 of a quarter century. One hundred years be- 

 fore it was completed farseeing men of the 

 colonies had visions of a system of waterways 

 which would help take care of the westward 

 tide of migration, and as early as 1777 Gouver- 

 neur Morris, of Revolutionary fame, predicted 

 that one day the waters of the Great Lakes 

 would mingle by way of a canal with those of 

 the Atlantic Ocean, and that ships would sail 

 from London to America's inland seas by such 

 a route. Through the efforts of George Clin- 

 ton, first governor of New York, a compre- 

 hensive survey of the Mohawk Valley was 

 made in 1791, and a year later the Western 

 Inland Lock Navigation Company was char- 

 tered. .By 1796 this corporation had completed 

 six miles of canals at or about Little Falls, to 

 increase the facilities of the upper Mohawk 

 River; this waterway could be navigated by 

 vessels of sixteen tons. Thus the pathway to 

 a greater project was opened. 



In 1816 Governor Tompkins of New York 

 appointed a canal commission and urged that 

 a waterway from the Hudson River to Lake 

 Erie be built at once; at the head of the com- 

 mission he placed a man whose name is forever 

 connected with the success of the enterprise 

 De Witt Clinton, nephew of George Clinton. 

 De Witt Clinton was himself inaugurated gov- 

 ernor of the state in 1817, and served during 

 most of the time the canal was under construc- 

 tion. To the completion of this project he 

 devoted his untiring efforts. Three days after 

 his inauguration he broke ground for the canal 

 at Rome, then a thriving village on the Mo- 

 hawk, and for the next eight years an army 

 of workmen toiled in the rough, unbroken 

 country between the Hudson and the Great 

 Lakes, cutting down trees of the forests, blast- 

 ing their way through rocky ledges, building 

 stone aqueducts to carry the canal across 

 streams and constructing the great locks made 

 necessary by the upward slant of the land. 



On October 26, 1825, the Seneca Chief, the 

 first boat to make the trip through the com- 

 pleted canal, left Buffalo for New York City. 

 On board were several of the state's most dis- 

 tinguished citizens, including Governor Clinton. 

 The pealing of bells, the booming of cannon 

 and the shouts of enthusiastic people greeted 

 the boat all along its route, and its arrival in 

 New York was the occasion of an imposing 



celebration. The news of the opening of the 

 canal was sent from Buffalo to Sandy Hook, 

 a distance of over 500 miles, by means of can- 

 non placed at appropriate distances along the 

 way, the sound of each gun being the signal 

 for the firing of the next one. The telephone 

 and telegraph were not then invented, and it 

 was eighty-one minutes before the people of 

 New York knew, by the booming of the last 

 cannon, that commerce had begun on the new 

 waterway. 



The original Erie Canal cost the state $7,143,- 

 789 to build, and could carry boats eighty feet 

 in length, fifteen feet in width and of three 

 and one-half feet draft. It was not long before 

 its increasing business made a greater capacity 

 necessary, and in 1835 its enlargement was 

 authorized. By 1862, after a series of im- 

 provements had been made, the canal was sev- 

 enty feet wide at the surface, fifty-two feet 

 wide at the bottom and seven feet deep, and 

 could accommodate 240-ton vessels of six-foot 

 draft. Soon after the close of the War of 

 Secession the competition of the railroads be- 

 gan seriously to be felt, and the entire canal 

 system of the state suffered a period of de- 

 cline and neglect. Though an expenditure of 

 $9,000,000 for improvements was authorized in 

 1895, the changes made proved to be only of 

 temporary value, and the whole subject came 

 up again for discussion and legislation. In 

 1903, when a bond issue of $101,000,000 was 

 ratified by popular vote, there began a new era 

 in the history of the Erie Canal. For an ac- 

 count of the later improvements and their 

 commercial significance, see the article NEW 

 YORK STATE BARGE CANAL. T.E.F. 



ERIS, c'ris, in classic mythology, the god- 

 dess of discord and the sister of the war-god 

 Mars. In the legend of the Trojan War Eris 

 is the goddess who, indignant that she was 

 the only one of all the gods and goddesses who 

 was not invited to the marriage festivities of 

 Peleus and Thetis, threw into the midst of the 

 guests a golden apple known ever since as the 

 "apple of discord" which bore the inscription, 

 "For the fairest of the fair." The rivalry of 

 the three deities Hera, Athene and Aphrodite 

 for the gift was left to the judgment of Paris, 

 the son of the king of Troy, who, being ap- 

 pointed umpire by Zeus, bestowed it on Aphro- 

 dite. 



In the Iliad, Eris, or Strife, is described at 

 first as insignificant, but as swelling until her 

 head touches the heavens. In the Acneid she 

 appears under the name of Discordia. 



