INTRODUCTION. 
8? 
search, with singular vigor and comprehensiveness of thought, and traced with 
prophetic accuracy a large portion of the outline of the Erie canal.* 
In 1807, Albert Gallatin, then secretary of the treasury, in pursuance of a 
recommendation made by Thomas Jefferson, president of the United States, 
reported a plan for appropriating all the surplus revenues of the general govern¬ 
ment to the construction of canals and turnpike roads ; and it embraced in one 
grand and comprehensive view, nearly without exception, all the works which 
have since been executed or attempted by the several states in the union. This 
bold and statesmanlike, though premature, conception of that eminent citizen, 
will remain the greatest among the many monuments of his forecast and wisdom. 
In 1808, Joshua Forman, a representative in the assembly from Onondaga county, 
submitted his memorable resolution, “ Whereas the president of the United 
States did, by his message to congress, delivered at their meeting in October last, 
recommend that the surplus moneys in the treasury, over and above such sums 
as could be applied to the extinguishment of the national debt, be appropriated 
to the gi’eat national project of opening canals and making turnpike roads: And 
whereas the state of New-York, holding the first commercial rank in the United 
States, possesses within herself the best mode of communication between the 
Atlantic and western waters, by means of a canal between the tide waters of the 
Hudson river and Lake Erie, through which the wealth and trade of that large 
portion of the union, bordering on the upper lakes, would forever flow to our 
great commercial emporium: And whereas the legislatures of several of our 
sister states have made great exertions to secure to their own states the trade of that 
widely extended country west of the Allegany, under natural advantages vastly 
inferior to those of this state : And whereas it is highly important that those advan¬ 
tages should as speedily as possible be improved, both to preserve and increase 
the commercial and national importance of this state : Therefore, resolved, if the 
honorable the senate concur herein, that a joint committee be appointed to take 
* Jesse Hawley lived to see the Erie canal completed, and two-thirds of it reconstructed and enlarged. He died in 
1841. 
