On October 26, 1825, a fleet of decorated barges set off from the city of Buffalo, New York, on a brand-new 363-mile-long ditch. Governor DeWitt Clinton stood on the lead boat, called the Seneca Chief. At each town along the way, cannons fired in a sound chain stretching all the way to New York City - the first instant communication across the state. Nine days later, the boats reached the Hudson River, and Clinton poured a barrel of Lake Erie water into the Atlantic Ocean. It was called 'the Wedding of the Waters.' The Erie Canal was officially open.
The canal had taken eight years to dig, mostly by hand. Workers - many of them Irish immigrants - shoveled out a channel 40 feet wide and 4 feet deep through forests, hills, and swamps. They built 83 stone locks to lift boats up and down the elevation changes, including a stunning series at Lockport where five locks climbed a 60-foot cliff. Critics had called it 'Clinton's Ditch' and said it was a waste of money. Once it opened, they stopped laughing.
The Erie Canal made New York City the busiest port in America. Suddenly farmers in Ohio could ship wheat by boat all the way to Manhattan for a fraction of the old wagon cost. Pioneers used the canal to travel west to new homes. Towns like Rochester, Syracuse, and Buffalo exploded into cities. The canal helped knit the young United States together, made New York 'the Empire State,' and showed the world what a country could do with shovels, stone, and a stubborn dream of a path through the wilderness.
