A tour boat passes Lock 2 on the Erie Canal in Waterford,
New York, in 2008
BOB DOUGHTY: I’m Bob Doughty.
MARIO RITTER:
And I’m Mario Ritter with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. In the
early eighteen hundreds, traveling in the United States was dangerous.
Business and trading were limited. Then came the waterway called the Erie
Canal. It helped build America.
(MUSIC)
BOB DOUGHTY: Two men recently traveled the more than five
hundred eighty kilometers of America’s Erie Canal in kayaks. Then the two guided
their kayaks into the Hudson River to complete their trip to the Statue of
Liberty in New York City.
Richard Harpham of Britain and
American Glenn Charles piloted their light, small boats more than eight hundred
kilometers in about twenty-one days. Along the way, they made stops for cultural
and historic activities.
The event was called the “The New York
State Spare Seat Expedition.” The two men invited others to join them for parts
of their travels. These “guests” rode in the additional seat in the boats. Many
kayaks have a single seat.
MARIO RITTER: Richard Harpham and Glenn
Charles call themselves “expeditionary kayakers” – explorers on the water. One
goal of their trip was to honor the struggles that built the Erie Canal. It
became America’s first national waterway in eighteen twenty five.
At that time, the Erie Canal crossed the state of New York from the
city of Buffalo on Lake Erie to Albany and Troy on the Hudson River. The Hudson
flowed into the Atlantic Ocean at New York City. So the canal joined the Great
Lakes with the Atlantic. The canal made New York City a major port.
The
difficulty of traveling through the Appalachian Mountains had kept many people
from going west. The mountains also prevented people in the west from sending
their wood and farm products east. But the Erie Canal overcame the
natural barrier of those mountains. It helped open the American West. The
canal made the United States a richer and stronger young nation.
BOB DOUGHTY: Politicians, businessmen, farmers and traders had talked about
creating a canal connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic for one hundred
years. A lawyer and politician named De Witt Clinton finally succeeded in
getting the canal built.
As early as eighteen-oh-nine, Clinton saw
the need for the canal. Then he had to defend his idea against people who
laughed at him. Some critics called the canal “Clinton’s Folly” -- a stupid
project. In eighteen twelve, the federal government rejected a proposal to
provide money for the canal.
But five years later, the New
York State legislature provided more than seven million dollars for the
project. The lawmakers named Dewitt Clinton to head a committee to
supervise the development of the canal. Clinton was elected governor of New York
that same year.
MARIO RITTER: The Erie Canal was five hundred
eighty-four kilometers long, more than eight meters wide and one and one-half
meters deep. It could not have been completed without the hard and dangerous
labor of many workers. Historians say about one-third of the workers had
recently moved to the United States from Ireland. They received about fifty
cents a day for building the Erie Canal.
The men used explosives to
break the rocky earth. Many workers were injured. Many were infected with the
disease malaria. Twenty-six workers died of smallpox. Some were buried in
unmarked graves along the canal.
(MUSIC)
BOB
DOUGHTY: Big guns were fired in Buffalo in October, eighteen twenty-five. The
cannons were part of a celebration to observe the completion of the Erie Canal.
Governor De Witt Clinton and his wife left Buffalo on a barge called the Seneca
Chief. The boat moved at the rate of less than five kilometers per hour. It
reached the Hudson River nine days later. To mark the arrival, Governor Clinton
dropped some water from Lake Erie into the Hudson River.
MARIO RITTER: Within ten years, the Erie Canal had repaid the cost of building
it. Transportation of products by canal was less costly than other methods. The
waterway carried barges. Most of these boats had flat bottoms for carrying
goods. The barges measured up to twenty-four meters long and about four and
a-half meters wide.
Mules and horses on land pulled the barges
through the canal. Eighty-three locks raised the water levels by more than one
hundred seventy meters from the Hudson River to Lake Erie.
BOB DOUGHTY: Over time, the Erie Canal grew. Many improvements were made between
eighteen thirty-five and eighteen sixty-two. But a few years later, the canal
began to lose importance. Trains were becoming an easier and more profitable way
to transport goods.
As the canal was losing business, some of its
levees began to break. Levees normally hold back the water, preventing
floods. The breaks damaged the towpaths next to the canal and halted travel.
Age or heavy rains often caused the levees to break. But the breaks
were not always an accident. Towns like Forestport, New York, had been suffering
from the closing of businesses. Then, in the last years of the eighteen
hundreds, several area levees broke under suspicious conditions.
MARIO RITTER: Breaks in the levees should have been bad news for Forestport.
Difficult repairs were needed. But few people in the town seemed sad about the
breaks. Instead, many were pleased. Almost two thousand men were brought in to
repair the damage. That was more than the normal population of Forestport.
People crowded into places to eat, drink and have fun. The town had
money again. Life became as profitable and wild as it had been during the best
days of trade on the canal.
BOB DOUGHTY: The administration of New
York Governor Theodore Roosevelt grew suspicious. State officials investigated.
They charged several men from Forestport with plotting to damage canal
property.
Michael Doyle is a reporter who writes about legal
issues for California newspapers. He did research on some of his ancestors who
had lived in Forestport. His book, “The Forestport Breaks,” was published in two
thousand four. Mister Doyle said he learned that his great-grandfather took part
in the wrongdoing.
At the beginning of the story, a farmer sees
water flooding over a levee in Forestport. He warns local officials. His warning
prevents more severe damage. But some of the townspeople refused to praise the
farmer for his actions. Instead, Mister Doyle writes that they want to kill
him.
(MUSIC)
MARIO RITTER: By nineteen-oh-three, some
businesses were pressuring New York to build a whole system of canals. These
people did not want the railroads to completely control the transport of goods.
So the state formed the New York State Barge Canal System in nineteen eighteen.
The Erie Canal became the largest part, linked to three shorter canals.
The canal system stayed busy until nineteen fifty-nine. At that time,
the United States and Canada opened the Saint Lawrence Seaway. This waterway
permitted ocean ships to sail up the Saint Lawrence River and through the Great
Lakes. The Erie Canal lost a lot of its business.
BOB DOUGHTY: But
the Erie Canal and the other parts of the New York canal system got help. In
nineteen ninety-one, people who cared about the historic canal held a big public
event. The group was called Erie’s Restoration Interests Everyone. It made the
same trip that had celebrated completion of the canal in eighteen
twenty-five.
As Governor and Missus Clinton had done, the group
traveled from the city of Buffalo, New York to the Hudson River. A man playing
the part of De Witt Clinton dropped water from Lake Erie into New York
Harbor.
A few days later, New Yorkers voted to take steps to
re-develop the state’s canal system. Today, barges still use the system to
transport heavy goods. One estimate says the canal system carries more than four
hundred thousand tons of goods each year. More than one hundred fifty thousand
pleasure boats also use the system each year.
MARIO RITTER: Today,
an area called the Canalway National Heritage Corridor contains parts of the
Erie Canal of the eighteen hundreds. You can walk, run or ride a bicycle
in this area.
You may want to paddle along in a small boat,
like Richard Harpham and Glenn Charles. Or, you can take a historic Erie Canal
boat trip. Thousands of people do this every year.
The boat
moves slowly along the water. You listen to guides tell about the animals and
the men who pulled the barges. And, musicians play songs of the days when the
Erie Canal was helping a young nation grow.
(MUSIC)
BOB DOUGHTY: This program was written by Jerilyn Watson. Our producer was Mario
Ritter. I’m Bob Doughty.
MARIO RITTER: Join us again next week for
EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English.
