I recently read “The Mohawk” by Codman Hislop,  who taught American Civilization at Union College in Schenectady, New York. The book originally published in 1948 is the story of the Mohawk Valley and its river from prehistoric times up to the post-World War II period with a large section devoted to the history of the Erie Canal.

Canals and their construction were common topics in the early history of our nation as a way of connecting the original states along the eastern seaboard to the Northwest Territory and the states being created there that would include Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota. 

The Mohawk Valley was the best location for the Erie Canal because it provided the only natural, low-elevation, sea-level gap through the Appalachian Mountains. This unique geography, carved by glacial meltwater, allowed for a direct, 363-mile water route connecting the Hudson River to the Great Lakes. 

The Erie Canal was the first major infrastructure project in the history of America. A major challenge in building the Erie Canal was that the United States didn’t have a single college of engineering or any native-born engineers. An attempt was made to hire European engineers, but they were either too busy, too expensive or didn’t want any part of what seemed a crazy scheme.

Therefore the Canal Commissioners had no choice but to hire an amateur crew of self-taught local engineers that included a few inexperienced surveyors and one math teacher. The two chief engineers were Benjamin Wright and James Geddes, lawyers by trade who learned how to survey by prosecuting land disputes.

Construction of the Canal began in 1817 with ground broken in Rome, New York. This was because the 98-mile section of the Erie Canal between Rome and Syracuse required no locks and was known as  ”The Long Level.” Completed in October 1819, this flat, lock-free stretch was constructed first to quickly prove the viability of “Clinton’s Ditch.”

The Erie Canal was not built using bulldozers or earth movers but by thousands of laborers, many of them Irish immigrants, using basic tools like pickaxes, shovels, and black powder to carve a 363-mile, 4-foot-deep channel across New York. Workers also devised and employed stump-pullers, animal-powered scrapers.

I lived much of my youth in Fort Plain, a Mohawk Valley village beside the New York State Barge Canal and remnants of the Erie Canal. Back in the day it would have been described as a “canal town” with several canal stores catering to the needs of the boatmen, and with lift bridges over the canal for wagon and foot traffic. Its main street was Canal Street and the backs of commercial establishments on the north side of that street came within mere feet of the canal. These buildings had and most still retain hoists to lift goods from the boat to a warehouse.

The Village is Fort Plain named for the popular name of the Revolutionary War fortification, officially Fort Rensselaer, that stood on a hill to the northwest of the present village overlooking the Mohawk River. With the coming of the Erie Canal The village developed around Otsquago Creek at its confluence with the Mohawk River. Fort Plain became an incorporated village in 1832.

When the canal was completed in 1825 Fort Plain like many other canal towns celebrated. It is said that at one celebration a local hotel provided a sumptuous buffet set out on a sixty foot long table. Naturally the meal was accompanied with large amounts of beer, wine, and spirits causing a local school master, so the tale goes, to hop on the table and begin dancing. The table collapsed with the food falling to the floor. They must have already eaten their fill though because the school master was loudly cheered.

One evening some days later the canal boat Seneca Chief carrying New York Gov. George Clinton and his party arrived in Fort Plain. The Governor was amazed at the sight of what appeared to be fiery blazes hanging in the sky above the village only to be told that several boys had climbed Prospect Hill 200 feet above the village and raised flaming barrels of pitch on poles to mark the occasion. Shortly thereafter another school master arrived on board the Seneca Chief in an inebriated state to deliver a speech of welcome and fell headfirst into the canal. Apparently school masters in those days were not proficient at holding their liquor.

In the years following the opening of the canal several knitting mills, a furniture factory, several wagon makers and an iron foundry were established in Fort Plain near the canal giving them ready access to raw materials shipped on the canal and the shipping of finished goods.

The Erie Canal’s 1825 opening triggered explosive growth in New York, with Buffalo’s population increasing over sixfold from 2,412 in 1825 to 15,661 by 1835. Cities along the Route, like Utica, Syracuse, Rochester grew roughly 20-fold between 1820 and 1840, transforming from small outposts into major commercial centers. 

Early remnants of the canal still exist within Fort Plain. Remnants of Canal Lock 32 and a viaduct that carried the canal across Otsquago Creek still exist in a neighborhood called Lockville. Except for a stretch of dry ditch in the western part of the village most of the canal was filled in after the opening of the Barge Canal in 1918 but as you stand by that dry ditch on a summer day it is possible to imagine a canal boat pulled by a team of horses or mules approaching through the water.

For those interested in reading about life on and along the canal I would suggest several books by author Walter D. Edmonds. These are “Rome Haul,” a portrait of everyday life on the canal, “Erie Water,” a story about the canal’s construction, and “Mostly Canallers,” a collection of short stories about the canal.

Thomas Kirkpatrick Sr. is a Silver Creek resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com