July 10, 2017 Monday
In Rome, NY, on July 4th, 1817, ground was broken for the Erie Canal. In 2017, two hundred years later, the canal is celebrating its bicentennial. Lucky us, in honor of the bicentennial, all canal fees are waived this year.
Proposed in 1808 and completed in 1825, the canal links the waters of Lake Erie in the west to the Hudson River in the east. In the beginning, many called the concept of the canal “Clinton’s Folly,” believing that, the then Governor of New York, was just wasting taxpayers money. In the end, it was an engineering marvel that some called the Eighth Wonder of the World. More important than being the Eighth Wonder of the World, the opening of the canal played an important role in the westward expansion.
The original canal was hand dug to a depth of 4 feet and width of 40 feet, in the late 1800’s it was enlarged to 7 feet deep and 70 feet wide. The next improvement increased the canal to today’s current dimensions of 12 to 14 feet deep, 120 to 200 feet wide, and 338 miles long. going from Waterford to Tonawanda.
In this improvement, five large locks on the Waterford side of the canal replaced the original sixteen locks that had brought the old canal through Cohoes. The ‘Waterford Flight’ of five locks raises boats from 15.2 feet to 180 feet above sea level, in just a short 1.5 miles, this is the world’s greatest vertical lift in such a short distance.
The canal starts at Lock #2 and goes to Lock #35, with two locks at #28, 28A & 28B and no lock numbered 1 or 31, a total of 34 locks. At each lock, there will be an information sign so that we will know how far it is to the next lock. Tonight we are tied to the Waterford Free Dock and primed to start our Erie Canal journey first thing tomorrow.
