50 Fun Facts About The Erie Canal

Which river forms the eastern end of the Erie Canal?

It gave the Atlantic its first navigable link to the upper Great Lakes above Niagara Falls.

In what year was the Erie Canal completed?

It opened on October 26, and toll revenue covered the state's construction debt within the first year.

Which New York governor was the canal's lead supporter, and the butt of its nickname 'the Folly'?

Opponents also called it 'Clinton's Big Ditch'; he won $7 million from the legislature in 1817.

When completed, the Erie was the world's second-longest artificial waterway after which one?

The Canal du Midi and Bridgewater Canal had inspired its planners; Suez did not open until 1869.

What were the original canal's dimensions?

The First Enlargement widened it to 70 by 7 feet, and the Barge Canal to 120 by 12.

How many locks does the modern Erie Canal have?

The overall elevation difference between the Hudson and Lake Erie is about 565 feet.

Which series of locks is called the steepest in the United States?

Locks E2 to E6 lift boats 169 feet in less than two miles.

What was the canal's peak year for commercial shipments?

Some 33,000 shipments moved that year; by 2007 there were just 15.

Which vessel was the canal's last regularly scheduled commercial hauler, retiring in 1994?

The New York State Museum planned to convert it into a floating museum.

What barge weight can a single mule draw along a towpath?

That is why a canal could cut transport costs by roughly 95 percent before railroads.

Around 1800, how long did an overland trip from New York to Cleveland typically take?

Detroit took four weeks; the Appalachians offered just five places where wagon roads could cross.

Which river valley provided the only cut through the Appalachians north of Alabama?

The Mohawk and Hudson valleys let the canal route avoid the mountains entirely.

Where was Jesse Hawley when he began pressing for the canal in print?

He had gone bankrupt trying to ship grain to the coast and wrote from Canandaigua jail.

Which president called the canal idea 'little short of madness'?

The land rises about 600 feet from the Hudson to Lake Erie, and locks then managed only 12 feet each.

How much did the legislature approve for construction in 1817?

The finished canal cost $7.143 million, roughly $203 million in 2025 dollars.

On what date did construction begin at Rome, New York?

The first 15 miles, from Rome to Utica, opened in 1819; at that pace it would have taken 30 years.

Which two immigrant groups are credited with building the canal?

About 5,000 Irish, mostly Catholic, faced violence and suspicion while doing the digging.

How much experience did James Geddes have with a surveying instrument before laying out the route?

He and Benjamin Wright were judges; there were no civil engineers in the United States at the time.

How did the crews fell trees to clear the route?

A three-wheeled stump puller worked by oxen then ripped out the roots.

Which wetland was rumoured to have killed over 1,000 workers with 'swamp fever'?

Recent research suggests the toll was far lower; crews finished the crossing when the swamp froze in winter.

How many arches supported the stone aqueduct carrying the canal over the Genesee River?

The aqueduct was 802 feet long and 17 feet wide.

Which community grew up around the two sets of five locks that climb the Niagara Escarpment?

The 80-foot wall of dolomitic limestone needed lift-locks totalling 60 feet, exiting into a deep rock cut.

Which village lost out to Buffalo in the contest to be the canal's western terminus?

Buffalo dredged Buffalo Creek to make a harbour, won, and eventually annexed its rival.

What was the name of the boat that carried Governor Clinton from Buffalo to New York City at the opening?

The flotilla took ten days and was greeted by a 90-minute relay of cannon shots along the route.

What did Clinton pour into New York Harbor to mark the 'Wedding of the Waters'?

On the return trip the Seneca Chief carried a keg of Atlantic water, which was poured into Lake Erie.

What was used to seal the leaks that appeared along the new canal?

The cement hardened underwater; erosion of the clay bottom also forced a 4 mph speed limit.

What speed limit was imposed on canal boats to protect the clay bottom?

Passenger packet boats could reach 5 mph, still far smoother than a stagecoach.

What was the driver of a canal boat's towpath team called?

When boats met, the driver without right of way let his towline sink so the other team could step over it.

To what did the cost of shipping a barrel of flour from Rochester to Albany fall once the canal opened?

Cheap freight lowered food prices in Eastern cities and sent machinery west more economically.

How many passengers used the canal in its opening year of 1825?

Preachers, land speculators and settlers all rode the packet boats, which slept up to 40 passengers.

Which oil tycoon shipped refined oil from Cleveland to New York via the canal in summer?

In winter, when the canal froze, he had to use the Erie, New York Central or Pennsylvania railroads.

How large was Buffalo's population in 1820, before the canal made it a city?

By 1840 it had grown to more than 18,000 people.

For which secret network did the canal serve as a final leg to Buffalo?

Freedom seekers rode toward the Canada-US border on the same boats as tourists and preachers.

Who wrote the 1905 song 'Low Bridge, Everybody Down'?

It memorialised the mule-towed heyday just as the engine-driven Barge Canal was being planned.

When did tolls on New York's canals end?

Voters approved a constitutional amendment in 1882 as the canal struggled against the railroads.

As late as 1852, how did canal freight compare with all New York railroads combined?

Passengers had switched to trains after a continuous line reached Buffalo in 1842, but bulk freight stayed on the water.

When was the New York State Barge Canal, which replaced much of the original route, completed?

It cost $96.7 million, canalised the Mohawk and other rivers, and dropped the towpath in favour of tugs.

How heavy were the barges the Barge Canal was built to carry?

With no towpath, boats had to be moved by tugs or their own engines.

Which 1959 project helped push commercial traffic off the canal?

Trucking on the new Interstate system did the rest; freight had peaked at 5.2 million tons in 1951.

How far can a canal barge move a ton of cargo on one gallon of diesel?

A train manages 202 miles and a truck 59, which is why a little commercial traffic returned as fuel prices rose.

What did Congress designate in 2000 to protect and promote the canal system?

It covers 524 miles of navigable water; about 75% of Central and Western New Yorkers live within 25 miles of the canal.

Which three other canals does the Erie connect within the New York State Canal System?

The Chenango, Chemung and other branch canals of the 1830s have long since been abandoned.

Which state body took over the Canal Corporation in 2017?

From 1992 it had been a subsidiary of the Thruway, funded by highway tolls.

Which long-distance boating circuit includes the Erie Canal?

Today the canal is used mainly by recreational craft, and the Canalway Trail follows it for cyclists.

How long was the original Erie Canal from Albany to Buffalo?

The modern Barge Canal route is slightly shorter at 351 miles but far larger, at 120 feet wide and 12 feet deep.

To what width was the canal broadened during the First Enlargement that began in 1834?

It was also deepened from 4 to 7 feet, after traffic immediately blew past the planned 1.5 million tons a year and wore out the walls.

Which railroad, opened in 1837, first bypassed the slowest stretch of the canal between Albany and Schenectady?

A continuous rail line reached Buffalo by 1842 and passengers switched, but the canal still hauled far more freight than all New York's railroads a decade later.

What is the lock-free reach of the canal from Henrietta to Lockport nicknamed?

Water rises only two feet across the whole stretch, and diversions from neighbouring streams keep it topped up.

How many passengers could a canal packet boat sleep overnight?

By day the same 78-foot boats squeezed in up to three times as many people, and at five miles an hour they beat the cramped stagecoaches.

Which New York provincial official first floated the idea of a canal to the west, in a 1724 fur-trade report?

Later planners also drew on France's Canal du Midi, England's Bridgewater Canal and George Washington's failed Potomac scheme.