On a splendid autumn morning in late October 1825, Governor DeWitt Clinton of New York boarded a brightly decorated canal boat in Buffalo, New York. Named the Seneca Chief, the boat then did something many had said was impossible. It glided down the just opened Erie Canal and headed east to Albany.
“The Wedding of the Waters”
The Seneca Chief left Buffalo at 10:00 am. At that moment a crew fired a loud cannon. A few miles away a second cannoneer heard the boom and fired his gun. In this way, the message that the Seneca Chief had begun its momentous voyage reached New York City in just 80 minutes. The line of cannoneers then sent the same booming message back to Buffalo to let Governor Clinton know that New York City had received the historic message and was preparing for his triumphant arrival
A long line of ships and cheering passengers greeted Governor Clinton’s flotilla when it reached New York City. The climax of his historic 10-day journey occurred at Sandy Hook where the Atlantic Ocean meets New York harbor. Governor Clinton proudly poured two kegs filled with water from Lake Erie into the ocean’s salty waves. This “Wedding of the Waters” symbolized the joining together of the waters of the Great Lakes with those of the Atlantic Ocean.
An unprecedented engineering feat
Governor Clinton had good reasons to celebrate the opening of the Erie Canal. The inland waterway represented a stunning engineering accomplishment. Engineers and workers built 83 locks, constructed over 300 short bridges, and hacked a passageway through dense forests. Awed visitors hailed the canal as one of the wonders of the world.
The changing math of American commerce
The Erie Canal represented more than a feat of American engineering ingenuity; it also had a dramatic effect on the American economy, Before the canal opened, the Appalachian Mountains formed a geographic barrier that forced farmers and merchants in the Old Northwest to send their products to market by way of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans and from there to the East Coast. The Erie Canal reduced the cost of shipping goods between Buffalo and New York City by 90 percent.
New York becomes the “Empire State”
The Erie Canal reduced the trip from Buffalo to New York City from 20 days to just under a week. The canal’s success soon transformed New York State into America’s “Empire State” as inland cities such as Rochester, Syracuse, and Utica grew and prospered.
No city benefited more from the Erie Canal than New York City. The massive profits from the canal trade fueled the city’s spectacular financial prosperity. Located along Wall Street, the New York Stock Exchange soon became the center of American corporate finance.
The Market Revolution
During the early 1800s, most Americans bought or bartered goods from friends or neighbors in a local economy. The Erie Canal sparked a market revolution by enabling merchants and farmers to reach consumers in a rapidly expanding regional markets. The market revolution created especially close commercial ties between the Midwest and the Northeast.
The Erie Canal’s spectacular success inspired a decade-long mania for building canals that witnessed the construction of about 3,000 miles of inland waterways. But the era of canal building proved to be short-lived as steamships and railroads provided new and faster ways of transporting people and goods across increasingly national markets.
So why should you remember the Erie Canal? The Erie Canal touches a number of frequently tested topics. Fo example, its success played a role in debates about government funding of internal improvements. The Erie Canal also played an especially important role in how the market revolution changed American society from 1820 to 1855.