Erie Canal Research Paper

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The Erie Canal is a great piece of history. It is also known as the New York State Canal System. The canal was also a big part of the cultures. The individuals that worked on the Erie Canal made up a lot of songs and many more memories. The canal was not only a form of transportation for individuals that used it, but some individuals also used the canal as a vacation place, and also a place to hang out with family and friends. While they were with family and friends, gambling and entertainment were popular. The Erie Canal went from Albany, New York which was on the Hudson River to Buffalo, New York on Lake Erie. At that time the canal was 363 miles long. The trip from Albany to Buffalo took five days on a boat on the canal. There were individuals…show more content…
The war of 1812 made the building of the Erie Canal a little hard. It was a lengthy interruption, but they continued to work on the canal and made great progress on the waterway. There were a lot of meetings which were involved in the Erie Canal era. There were well over one hundred thousand individuals that signed the petition, and helped create the canal. They finally approved the building of the Erie Canal on April 15, 1817. It was a decade right before they approved it that Hawley wrote all of his essays. There were seven million dollars authorized to the building of the Erie Canal. The canal was 40 feet wide and 4 feet deep. The mules or horses path was ten foot wide. The individuals who pulled the boats, and kept track of the mules were known sometimes as hoggees. The construction started on July 4th, in Rome, New York. The construction on the canal took eight years. The completion of the Erie Canal gave the option to individuals to settle father west. The canal gave plenty of access to great land and different types of resources. Governor Clinton opened the waterway after he sailed down the canal himself. He traveled from the mouth of Lake Erie to New York City. He took to casks of water from Lake Erie and emptied those casks into the Atlantic Ocean, this was the “Wedding of the Waters,” which involved the first connection that the waters have had from East to…show more content…
Using the canal was the easiest way to transport good, and people at the time. They enlarged the canals quite frequently throughout the years. Once they enlarged the Erie Canal it was seventy foot wide, seven foot deep, and could hold boats carrying two-hundred and forty tons of freight. The final canal that was enlarged was completed in 1918. This canal was 120 to 200 feet wide, and twelve to fourteen feet deep. By the time the canal was finished it could carry up to 3,000 tons of freight. The canal helped transform New York City, which made it the leading port. Roy Finch decided to share his experience about the Erie Canal on the canals one hundredth

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