NYS Library Blog

One of the most exciting ways that we construct our history is through the personal papers of past New Yorkers. The long and winding history of the Erie Canal is no exception. Many papers, including letters, diaries, and other writings, are carefully maintained at the NYS Library to allow researchers, educators, and New Yorkers to hear from these voices in the process of constructing our shared history.

It’s hard to know if these writers understood how important their observations would be to future New Yorkers. During this time of increased “continental thinking” and in the wake of more than one major military conflict with the powers of Europe, it’s possible that these individuals were writing for perpetuity. In many cases, they had already lived through history-making times before turning their minds to the Erie Canal. Other missives may be less clear cut in their intentions but no less helpful in helping us to piece together what life was like for our New York predecessors and what was on their minds. Regardless of their original intentions, these items can be stacked together to reconstruct life before, during, and after the construction of the Erie Canal.  

Western Inland Lock Navigation Company 

After the American Revolution, Philip Schuyler redirected his prodigious energies toward his interests in surveying and engineering, and toward the improvement of internal waterways. He served as president of the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company, the precursor to the Erie Canal, and was a well-connected political figure in Albany. Schuyler’s correspondence can be considered a constellation of power players and ideas in early America and New York, and his role in the construction of the canal continues in this pattern.

In the 1796 letter pictured below, Schuyler instructs an unknown recipient to purchase clay for improvements to Western Inland Lock Navigation Company works, in particular an earthen wall near a guard lock on the recommendation of engineer William Weston. Schuyler wrote: 

New York March 14 1796  

Dear Sir  

Mr. Weston has recommended that about an acre and an [sic] half of ground of Mr [indecipherable] meadow should be obtained adjoining the river above the guard lock for the purpose of procuring clay & [indecipherable] to strengthen & compleat the embankments.  

Will you be so good as to try to purchase it from the owner, or if he refuses to sell the fee simple, then to agree with him to take what earth we may want, and the money will be paid him in conformity to any agreement with him which you shall make. – If he refuses this also, Mr [indecipherable] has freedoms to apply [indecipherable] as the magistrate to have the damages valued in conformity to law.  

I have the pleasure to advise you that the Senate have agreed to loan the company fifteen thousand pounds and I make little doubt but the Assembly will acceed to them.  

We have a good prospect that Mr Weston will assist us in the second year and that the canal at Fort Schuyler will be compleated in all [indecipherable], and many of the obstructions between Schenectady & the falls be removed –  

The directors [intreat?] you to continue to have the toll collected for the passage of the boats, Mr  Constable has some time since written you on that subject but I apprehend his letter has [indecipherable]  

I am Dear Sir, with  

sentiments of great regard  

Your Obed. Servant  

Ph. [Philip] Schuyler

English canal engineer William Weston was one of the few trained engineers practicing in America during the 1790s, and his opinion was highly valued by Schuyler and others. Weston oversaw construction on part of the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company’s locks. Later, he was asked to review plans for the Erie Canal and considered them viable. Weston was eventually offered the position of chief engineer for the Erie Canal project but was enjoying his retirement in England and politely declined. 

You can view this letter in the NYS Library’s Digital Collections. In addition, the Library is home to the Schuyler Family Collection, 1679-1823. This collection contains Philip Schuyler’s correspondence to others about the Revolutionary War, business matters, land transactions, and government. Some letters to family members are also included, such as those to Schuyler’s similarly famous and accomplished sons-in-law, Alexander Hamilton and Stephen Van Rensselaer. 

Adventures of Elkanah Watson 

The Western Inland Lock Navigation Company was active in pursuing information and improvements. In 1791, the company sponsored Elkanah Watson on a trip west from Albany to search for a water route to best connect the Hudson River to the Great Lakes.  

Watson’s life is largely characterized by his travel adventures. As a young apprentice, he was tasked with traveling from Providence, Rhode Island, to Charleston with $50,000 sewn into the lining of his clothes. During his travels, he adopted the practice of keeping a detailed journal which described the difficult travel conditions he often faced. Watson kept up his journal for the remainder of his life.

A September 9, 1791, entry in Watson’s journal illustrates the challenges of inland water travel before the development of canals. Watson writes: “In many places the windings [of Wood Creek] were so sudden & short that while the bow of the boat was ploughing in the Bank on one Side her Stern was rubbing land against the other.”  Two days later, he expanded on these difficulties:

“Nothing can exceed the crookedness of Wood Creek & nothing can be more trying to the Patience of an active mind under its present obstructions than Sailing through it. The Points & Necks crooks every moment presented themselves, carrying us all round the Compass & in many places running exactly Paralel [sic] to each other at a little distance. We counted 188 distinct Points on both Sides between Canada Creek & the Royal Block House, 27 Miles. At a place called the Neck, 4 miles from the Oneida Lake we measured 7 paces across the Neck, & our boats had to go a mile round to meet us on the opposite side. …” 

Watson, like Philip Schuyler, was a man of many interests and correspondents, and he left behind a trove of personal materials when his adventures finally ended. Some pages from Watson’s journal, including those quoted above, are available to view in our Digital Collections. Additionally, the NYS Library is home to the Elkanah Watson Papers, 1773-1884. This collection includes Watson’s journals, papers, and other records. Like Philip Schuyler, Watson corresponded and interacted with many famous figures of the day. His journals often include attached or transcribed letters to and from others, among them George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. 

The Alexander Stewart Scott Diary

Later diarists documented their experiences on the completed canal. In 1826, just one year after the Erie Canal opened, law student Alexander Stewart Scott traveled from Quebec, Canada, to Albany before heading west to Buffalo on the Erie Canal. The journey lasted for over three months, and Scott’s diary is packed with details about his experiences and his means of travel.

One episode from Scott’s diary recounts his experience sleeping (or trying to sleep) aboard a packet boat. Packet boats on the Erie Canal offered comfortable passenger travel, as they were outfitted with large windows for sight-seeing and bunk beds with varying levels of privacy for passengers to sleep in each night.  

The image above, from Marco Paul’s Voyages & Travels, Erie Canal (New York: Harper, 1852), provides a helpful illustration of a similar scene. For more illustrations, view Marco Paul’s Voyages & Travels, Erie Canal in our Digital Collections. 

Of his own experience in the bunks, Scott writes that he could not help: 

“[…]laughing at what happened in the course of the night. While in my Birth [that is, berth] & asleep, I chanced to throw my arms about at a great rate (probably under the influence of some Dream). I awoke with my exertions, and found myself actually in the fact of hitting a Gent[leman] who was in the Bed next me, a slap on the Face, which he, apparently of a cholerick disposition & half asleep, took in high dudgeon, & immediately showed fight – in his eagerness to resent the supposed injury he jumped up & tumbled out of Bed – overthrew a Chair and Basin of Water on the person under him in the lower Birth, who also it appeared did not intend to put up quietly with (as he imagined) such unprovoked usage – the hula- bulloo awakened all the other Passengers …  

… I was obliged to stuff the Bed clothes into my mouth to prevent my betraying myself by laughing …” 

While Scott may have been a fun travel companion, he was also exact in keeping track of his itinerary. The back of his diary is given over to tracking his mode of travel, his expenses, and the miles he logged during his trip. Scott traveled by canal, stagecoach, ferry, steamboat, and wagon. On his return trip to Quebec, on board a canal boat between Buffalo and Palmyra, Scott paid “3 cents a mile.” 

The entirety of Alexander Stewart Scott’s travel diary is available to view in our Digital Collections.  

Preserving New York Voices 

The collections of the NYS Library continued to grow throughout the 1800s to include literary and historical treasures such as books, letters, maps, and even other artifacts such as relics from George Washington’s famous life. More than once, Library leaders sought expanded and improved space for the prestigious (and popular) collection.

Famously, in 1911, the NYS Library was ravaged by the Capitol Fire of March 29. While items like the draft Emancipation Proclamation and a draft of Washington’s Farewell Address were saved from the blaze, the majority of items were lost. In his history of the NYS Library, Cecil R. Roseberry writes: 

“[...]only after the calamity did the majority of the [Albany] population begin to understand how large and important a library it had been. Before, the average man-in-the-street, as well as most newspapers, had a tendency to think of the State Library as 'a room on the third floor of the Capitol'; now they awakened to the astonishing fact that it had been rated fifth among libraries of the United States, and that it had stood among the 20 largest in the world” (p. 88).  

The NYS Library lost 450,000 books and 270,000 manuscripts in the fire. Samuel J. Abbott, a nightwatchman and Civil War veteran, perished in the fire.

Salvage, restoration, and rebuilding began immediately after the fire. While many books could be replaced, the Library’s collection of manuscripts faced a different path to rebirth. In 1912, New York State acquired another batch of Van Rensselaer Manor materials, including maps, surveys, leases, mortgages, and more. Other rare materials found their way to the recovering Library in the ensuing years, including letters by DeWitt Clinton, Philip Schuyler, and members of the Van Rensselaer family (Roseberry, p. 105). Even in unspeakable tragedy, the Library remained entwined with the forefathers of the Erie Canal—the voices of Clinton, Schuyler, and the Van Rensselaers continue to reach through the years to speak to successive generations of New Yorkers. 

Your Words: the NYS Personal History Initiative 

The presence of New York voices is what brings New York State history to life. The story of the Erie Canal contains a chorus of expertise, opinion, and experiences captured by the pen strokes of New Yorkers past. Surely this is one of the most exciting ways to study, interpret, and construct our shared history.

As part of the NYS Personal History Initiative, the NYS Library invites you to submit your own stories! The NYS Library’s Personal History Initiative collects and preserves stories from individual New Yorkers and New York communities. As we’ve seen in this exploration of letters and journals, the day-to-day experiences of all New Yorkers, from Long Island to Plattsburgh and from Albany to Buffalo, make up the foundation of our state's history.  

We invite you to explore stories on the PHI website by browsing our current collections. We hope they inspire you to document your own experiences! The NYS Library collects writing, photos, recordings, and artwork through our New York Experience prompts, which ask New Yorkers to upload their own stories to add to the historical record, alongside those of Philip Schuyler, Elkanah Watson, and Alexander Stewart Scott.  

What will future New Yorkers learn from your stories? 

In Conclusion

The New York History Conference is taking place later this week on June 5th and 6th. We hope that you have enjoyed this series of Erie Canal blog posts exploring this year’s conference theme of “Constructing the Empire State.” The NYS Library is home to many, many items that reveal the exciting and convoluted history of the Erie Canal, and we’ll continue to explore the collections as part of our ongoing celebration of 200 years of the Erie Canal.

Be sure to check out all of the posts in our Erie Canal/New York History Conference series and stay tuned for more from the collections of the NYS Library. 

The Seneca Chief set out from Lockport on October 26, 1825, carrying a victorious Governor DeWitt Clinton and an unsuspecting barrel of Lake Erie water. A flotilla of boats loaded with various products from Western New York followed for the 10-day voyage on the newly finished Erie Canal to New York City. The procession passed through several communities that lined the canal and was welcomed with speeches, artillery salutes, and fireworks in celebration of what New York and American democracy had accomplished in the Erie Canal.

On its journey from Buffalo to New York City, the Seneca Chief passed through 83 locks. It was 363 miles from Buffalo to Albany, and about another 125 nautical miles from Albany to New York City via the Hudson River.

A special cannon “communication” preceded the convoy of boats all along the route. The Grand Celebration! flyer below (available to view in our Digital Collections) asked the citizens of Geneva to illuminate their houses on the evening of October 26 and invited them to attend a community dinner, “...for the Purpose of Demonstrating the Joy Which the Citizens of Geneva, in Common with the Citizens of the State, Feel at the Completion of the Erie Canal [...]” It also announced that there would be cannon fire and the ringing of church bells to mark the completion of the project. 

Wedding of the Waters

Ten days later, the procession entered New York City for the final phase of the celebration. The “Wedding of the Waters” ceremony took place in New York Harbor off Sandy Hook. A choreographed parade of domestic and international vessels formed a circle in the bay while Clinton (now aboard the Chancellor Livingston steamboat) and others gave speeches and ceremoniously poured a barrel of water from Lake Erie into the Atlantic Ocean. The scene is rendered in detail in Benson John Lossing’s 1895 three-volume book Our Country, a Household History of the United States for All Readers, from the Discovery of America to the Present Time, available in the collections of the NYS Library. 

The celebration also included a parade of floats representing members of several societies, trades, and professions, including firemen, bakers, coopers, stonecutters, house painters, comb-makers, and—luckily for us and the historical record—printers! Cadwallader D. Colden’s memoir is largely dedicated to the celebration of the opened Erie Canal and includes detailed documentation about the planning and preparation of parade routes, military observances, and much more. The complete list of societies that met ahead of the parade at the Wedding of the Waters can be found on page 130 of Colden’s memoir, available to view in our Digital Collections. 

While the NYS Library does not have an image of the printers’ float specifically, we can get pretty close to what it looked like by combining sources from our collections. The first image below, also from Cadwallader D. Colden’s memoir, features a fire department float from the parade. The image depicts a float, pulled by four horses, carrying a fire engine and four firemen. The second image comes from Robert Hoe’s A Short History of the Printing Press and of the Improvements in Printing Machinery from the Time of Gutenberg Up to the Present Day. It illustrates a Peter Smith hand printing press similar to what would have been on the printers’ float. The NYS Library holds multiple copies of Robert Hoe’s Short History of the Printing Press.  

Samuel Woodworth, a New York printer, wrote an “Ode for the Canal Celebration” (pictured below) at the request of the printers of New York City. Copies of the ode were printed on two working printing presses that had been mounted on a “moveable stage,” or float, pulled by four horses. The presses produced 3,000 copies of the ode during the parade. In all, 8,000 copies of the ode were distributed at this event. Three hundred printers marched behind the float.  

You can also view the “Ode for the Canal Celebration” in the NYS Library’s Digital Collections. The “Ode for the Canal Celebration” is part of the NYS Library’s expansive collection of Broadside Ballads, or topical, narrative poems or ballads printed on a single sheet of paper. As an enduring form of “street literature,” broadside ballads often reflect contemporary public attitudes about current events.  

Water Music

Music was another way for New Yorkers to express their pride in the canal, but today’s most well-known Erie Canal song was probably never sung on the canal. Low Bridge! Everybody Down (or Fifteen Years on the Erie Canal) was written in the early 1900s by a professional songwriter as a nostalgic look back at the old Erie Canal. 

While the cover illustration for the sheet music depicts a classic old canal scene of a barge being drawn by a mule with the rider ducking under a bridge, the cover provides further clues to the song’s provenance: an inset reproduction of a news-clipping concerns plans by the New York State Department of Public Works to sell abandoned portions of the Erie Canal. You can get a closer look by viewing the Low Bridge sheet music in our Digital Collections. 

From the late 1890s to the1970s, New York City’s music publishing district was known as “Tin Pan Alley,” a nickname which was likely a reference to the continuous sound of pianos coming from seemingly every open window as songwriters searched for a hit. You can listen to a recording of Low Bridge! as part of the Library of Congress’s National Jukebox Early Tin Pan Alley playlist.

Sheet music is one of the NYS Library's largest special collections: there are approximately 35,000 musical scores, dating from the 1790s to the 1970s, including a major collection of 20th-century scores. Interestingly, while New York City is often considered the heart of the music industry, the NYS Library's collection indicates that music publishing also flourished in the canal-adjacent cities of Buffalo, Syracuse, Utica, and Albany, as well as in many smaller cities or towns in upstate New York.

A more contemporary composition is Charles Gilfert’s Grand Canal March, pictured below and available to view in our Digital Collections. Charles Gilfert was a composer who also managed an Albany theater for a brief period. He “most respectfully inscribed” his composition for pianoforte to Governor DeWitt Clinton. 

State Library Treasures

At the NYS Library, DeWitt Clinton’s initial campaign to build an impressive and useful collection was continuing in full force. For a collection which relied heavily on personal gifts and donations, the holdings grew quickly, perhaps due in large part to the fact that Clinton, Tayler, and others overseeing the Library in its early days were personal friends with former leaders and heroes of the Revolution who were in possession of countless documentary treasures from the nation’s past.

The Library trustees under DeWitt Clinton began publishing the Library’s catalog, even after the collection grew to thousands of items. Impressive selections from the early inventory included a first edition of Chaucer’s Works, the Domesday Book, Marshall’s Life of Washington, and the works of Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Johnson, and Alexander Hamilton (Roseberry, p. 6).  

Soon, the NYS Library was home to a number of impressive items that inspired a sense of pride in the collections. As the collections grew in volume and prestige to include such treasures as Audubon’s Birds of America double elephant folios, Library leaders sought to improve reading spaces, item storage, and the arrangement of books (Roseberry, pp. 16-18).  

Since its earliest days, the NYS Library and its stewards have sought to collect, preserve, and share the items that tell us stories about ourselves and the world where we make our home. From the initial efforts to enshrine knowledge and cultivate pride in New York accomplishments, the NYS Library has grown its collections to include over 20 million items.  

Next Week: Our Journey Concludes

Celebrations around the Erie Canal brought New Yorkers together to share in the triumph of the canal and to mark a milestone in American achievement. At the same time, the stewards of the young NYS Library were assembling a collection to accomplish a similarly impressive feat that would be a source of pride for New Yorkers and a monument to human knowledge and effort. The fruits of these twin efforts are the countless documents maintained at the NYS Library that help us to construct New York’s stories.

The New York History Conference is coming up in June. This year, the NYS Library is exploring how we construct New York History. Join us next week for New York Voices! 

Years of fighting land wars in the colonies had shaped American thinking around transporting large groups of people, a line of thought that led directly to the construction of the Erie Canal. As Americans pushed west, their efforts to connect people and products also resulted in considerable exploration and alteration of the land, some reflection on man-made impacts, and the production of maps, sketches, and more documents that help us tell the story of early New York State and the Erie Canal. 

Moving People

Before the Erie Canal, colonists used ancient Native American trade routes that followed New York’s natural waterways. Turnpikes, or toll roads, were in use by 1800, but were not much more than dirt paths. The turnpikes were ill-suited for the large-scale commerce by land that the young nation very much demanded.  

In addition, the experience of trying to move large numbers of soldiers and equipment between Albany and Oswego during the French and Indian War (1755-1763) prompted new conversations about building a canal between Albany and Lake Ontario and between Albany and Lake George. The map below, titled Communication Between Albany and Oswego, was printed in a history of the war published in 1772. It illustrates the dramatic twists and turns of the natural water route from Albany to Oswego. The complete book, The History of the Late War in North-America, and the Islands of the West-Indies Including the Campaigns of MDCCLXIII and MDCCLXIV Against His Majesty's Indian Enemies, is available to view in the NYS Library’s Digital Collections.

In addition to the twisting waterways, colonists faced a considerable barrier to westward expansion in the Appalachian Mountains, which cut off easy access to the interior of the continent from Georgia to just south of the Mohawk River in New York. However, the people living in the colony of New York had the distinct advantage of the break in the mountains that ran along what we now call the Hudson River valley and the Mohawk River valley. That break is visible in the photograph below, which features a relief model map created in 1897. The shading on the mountain ranges provides a good illustration of the break in the river valleys that allowed people to move westward. View the relief map in the NYS Library’s Digital Collections. 

Moving Land

Even with the convenient break in the mountains, constructing the Erie Canal meant making considerable alterations to the rugged natural makeup of New York State.  

Large swaths of forested land were cleared to make way for the canal. This activity and its impacts had different effects on those who encountered the new landscape. In 1829, Basil Hall published forty illustrations of landscapes in North America, which he had captured during trips he made in 1827 and 1828. The book, Forty etchings from sketches made with the camera lucida, in North America, in 1827 and 1828, is available in its entirety in the NYS Library’s Digital Collections. It includes many breathtaking views of the natural landscape and some detailed scenes of towns, cities, and fledgling infrastructure taking shape across New York State. 

Illustration IX, titled “Newly Cleared Land in America,” depicts cleared land in Ridgeway, New York, 40 miles west of Rochester. The image captures the stumps of a cleared forest with some signs of human habitation at the edges, including fences, a small structure, and domestic animals. Hall introduced this etching with the following commentary:

“The newly-cleared lands in America have, almost invariably, a bleak, hopeless aspect. The trees are cut over the height of three or four feet from the ground, and the stumps are left for many years till the roots rot; - the edge of the forest, opened for the first time to the light of the sun, looks cold and raw; - the ground, rugged and ill-dressed, has a most unsatisfactory appearance, as if nothing could ever be made to spring from it.”

Cadwallader D. Colden, a stockholder in the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company and enthusiastic Erie Canal supporter, had a much different reaction to such scenes in New York State. In 1825, Colden wrote:  

“Indeed, to see a forest tree, which had withstood the elements till it attained maturity, torn up by its roots, and bending itself to the earth, in obedience to the command of man, is a spectacle that must awaken feelings of gratitude to that Being, who has bestowed on his creatures so much power and wisdom.”

Cadwallader D. Colden appears on the “pillar of faces” dedicated to the Erie Canal’s supporters, as does his grandfather, Cadwallader Colden, a surveyor-general of the Province of New York and early advocate for improved internal navigation to support trade. 

In Lockport, a village that sat 30 feet above the canal’s water level, thousands of workers used wooden beams, ropes, oxen, horses, gunpowder, shovels, picks, and wheelbarrows to excavate a three-mile section of the canal that ran through solid rock. This work and its result are well documented in Cadwallader D. Colden’s Memoir, Prepared at the Request of a Committee of the Common Council of the City of New York and Presented to the Mayor of the City, at the Celebration of the Completion of the New York Canals, available to view in our Digital Collections. 

Displacement

The story of the Erie Canal’s construction is trailed by a complicated legacy manifest destiny and disenfranchisement. The triumph of the canal project and the westward surge of people seeking land and natural resources devastated Native American communities. In the name of nation building and progress, these long-standing communities were forced off their ancestral lands and sent to reservations.

Before construction on the canal began, land speculators correctly bet that a canal connecting the Hudson River with Lake Erie would be a good business investment. They began buying purchasing property with the intent to sell it at a higher price upon completion of the canal. By 1800, 25 years before the canal would open, various land speculation companies had gained the rights to most of western New York. As settlers flocked to the region, they pressured the government to make more land available and, by 1870, only a few small reservations remained. 

Maps at the NYS Library

When the NYS Library opened in 1818, it was home to 669 volumes and only nine maps. In just three years, the collections grew to over a thousand volumes and a few hundred pamphlets (and, presumably, maps) (Roseberry, p. 6). This growth in collections speaks both to DeWitt Clinton’s efforts to amass an impressive and useful collection of books (largely through gifts) and to the studies, surveys, and mapmaking activities that the government undertook during the 1800s.

New York State did not content itself with completing a massive feat of engineering in the 1800s. In fact, as part of the surge of nation-building in the former colonies, New York undertook, in the words of Cecil R. Roseberry, “a significant and pioneering work in the field of science” (p. 15). The Natural History of New York grew from the Natural History Survey launched by the NYS Legislature in 1836. That same year, the first geologic reports were added to the NYS Library’s shelves. Today you can view sections from the Natural History of New York in the NYS Library’s Digital Collections. The section on Geology in particular includes detailed maps and drawings.

Today, the NYS Library houses a wide selection of maps from the state’s history, including military and political maps; land patents, records, and surveys; and many maps produced by the Federal government and New York State government. Map enthusiasts are in good company at the NYS Library and may be interested in our Annotated Bibliography of Selected New York State Maps: 1793-1900. 

Further Downstream

The development of the Erie Canal carried the U.S. further and further from the years of the French and Indian War, the Revolution, and the War of 1812. The completion of the canal was an unprecedented and unparalleled cause for celebration, and New Yorkers took every opportunity to observe the occasion.

The NYHC is coming up in June. This year, the NYS Library is exploring how we construct New York History. Join us next week for Song and Celebration! 

When DeWitt Clinton became New York’s governor in 1817, shortly before construction on the Erie Canal began, he had already served in government for some time. Clinton had worked as a secretary to his uncle George Clinton, New York’s first governor, and as Mayor of New York City, a member of the NYS Assembly, and a member of the NYS Senate. In his first address to the state legislature, Clinton spoke to a sea of faces that included other powerful and connected figures like Stephen Van Rensselaer III and Martin Van Buren, both of whom also left their marks on the Erie Canal and on New York State as a whole.  

It’s likely that any researcher or reader exploring New York’s history will encounter the fascinating interwoven arcs of the state’s early leaders. These threads are long, beginning before the American Revolution, and are knotted along the way with the stories of New Yorkers’ trials and triumphs in the early days of the United States. The story of the Erie Canal—and the parallel growth of the NYS Library—is certainly one of these stories, and in this week’s post, we’ll introduce a fascinating cast of characters. 

Memoir of DeWitt Clinton 

David Hosack was a physician, botanist, New York power player, and longtime friend to DeWitt Clinton. In 1829, just four years after the Erie Canal officially opened, Hosack published his Memoir of DeWitt Clinton with an Appendix, Containing Numerous Documents, Illustrative of the Principal Events of His Life (available in the NYS Library’s Digital Collections). David Hosack, it should be noted, was also a famous face of early America: he was the physician who treated Alexander Hamilton following his fatal duel with Aaron Burr at Weehawken.

In telling the tale of the Erie Canal, Hosack identifies “great classes” of men who contributed to the conception and construction of the canal, including men who predicted and communicated the utility of connected waterways and “the various canal commissioners, engineers, surveyors, and many private but public-spirited citizens in various parts of the state, who have zealously given their personal attentions and services to this herculean undertaking...”  

Pillar of Faces 

Also included in Hosack's book is an engraving (by John L. Morton, based on a sketch by Stephen H. Gimber) portraying the “public-spirited” men who leveraged their power and connections for the long project of the Erie Canal. The engraving depicts a tall pillar flanked by two angel-like figures with flowing hair and garments. The pillar is decorated with fifteen portraits of famous faces known to have influenced the construction of the Erie Canal. George Washington, as an early supporter of improved infrastructure, fittingly occupies the top row of portraits on the pillar.  

Just beneath Washington is the less familiar face of Elkanah Watson, who helped to start and run the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company. In later years, Watson would cast himself as the sole originator of the Erie Canal idea, though he may have struggled to press that point with the other faces on the pillar. For example, Philip Schuyler is best known for his exploits as the head of a family of serious means during the American Revolution but was also deeply interested in engineering. He served as president of both the Western and Northern Inland Lock Companies and sought means for canal improvement. Jesse Hawley’s portrait appears in the third row down on the pillar, to the right of Philip Schuyler and George Clinton. Hawley is largely credited with first publishing a plan to connect Lake Erie and the Hudson River.  

Library Experience 

In addition to the Schuylers and the Clintons, other famous New York families made their mark on the Erie Canal and the lands it connected. Just above DeWitt Clinton’s place of honor (at the foot of the pillar, held gently by an angel figure) is the visage of Stephen Van Rensselaer III, who served many posts in both the state and federal government during his life.  

Stephen Van Rensselaer III very much embodied the “continental” shift in American thinking that followed the War of 1812. As heir to the Van Rensselaer Manor and one of the largest landowners in the country at the time, Stephen earned the “good patroon” moniker and was casual about collecting rents from his tenants. In fact, his interests seemed to lie elsewhere, particularly in engineering and higher education. He founded Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, and was a supporter of nearby Williams College in Massachusetts. He served on the Erie Canal Commission for 23 years and spent over half of those years as its president.  

While serving in the War of 1812, General Stephen Van Rensselaer commanded an Albany fighting force known as the Albany Volunteers, or the Irish Greens, headed by James Maher. They saw action at both the Niagara Frontier and Sacketts Harbor. In 1813, the Irish Greens were part of the force that crossed Lake Ontario into Canada for the raid on York, where government buildings, homes, and multiple libraries were pillaged and burned. According to Cecil R. Roseberry’s account, “[s]o far as known, that was the nearest James Maher came to any library experience before Governor Van Buren made him State librarian” in 1828 (For the Government and People of this State: A History of the New York State Library, p. 11).  

Being the Sixth Canal Tour for the Honorable Stephen Van Rensselaer 

Between 1822 and 1824, Amos Eaton, a pioneering researcher of New York State’s geological, agricultural, and mineralogical resources, undertook five geological surveys of the Erie Canal at Stephen Van Rensselaer’s request. Eaton was also a lecturer and a co-founder of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (known then as the Rensselaer School.) From 1826 to 1831, Eaton spent his summers using a hired canal boat  as a floating laboratory, lecture hall, and dormitory for students of the state’s natural history.

Eaton’s papers and journals are available to view at the NYS Library, including Journal “E”: “Amos Eaton’s Geological Journal from May 1st to June 10th 1826, Being the Sixth Canal Tour for the Honorable Stephen van Rensselaer.” (New York State Library call number: SC10685). 

Looking Ahead 

The early days of the United States were marked by repeated and protracted conflict with foreign adversaries. These conflicts were largely played out across the land and waterways of New York State and would come to shape the development and construction of the Erie Canal, and of New York State, for years to come.

The New York History Conference is coming up in June. To celebrate, the NYS Library is exploring how we construct New York History. Join us next week for the follow-up to our discussion of People and Power, where the story of the canal is told through Maps and Movement! 

At the NYS Library, we’re gearing up for the New York History Conference, taking place June 5 and 6 here at the Cultural Education Center in Albany. The conference brings together librarians, archivists, educators, historians, and museum professionals to share resources on the practice, research, preservation, and teaching of New York State history.

This year’s conference theme is Constructing the Empire State: Innovation, Environment, and Imagination in New York History, and wow, are we excited. Staff at the NYS Library have been hard at work preparing a new online series that tells the story of the Erie Canal—celebrating its 200-year anniversary this year—through the Library’s unparalleled collections. It’s a story with a full cast of characters—some very familiar—as well as difficult journeys, new discoveries, and celebrations of New York triumphs in New York voices. New York’s history is a real page-turner, and the saga of the Erie Canal is one of our favorite chapters.

NYS Library: We Put the “Story” in “History”

DeWitt Clinton is largely regarded as the “Father of the Erie Canal.” He was one of the original members of the Erie Canal Commission beginning in 1810, and in 1817, Clinton (by then serving his first nonconsecutive term as New York’s governor) received approval from the Legislature to begin construction on the Erie Canal. The Erie Canal officially opened in 1825, and its success carried DeWitt Clinton into his second term as governor.  

DeWitt Clinton, lover of New York infrastructure, was the Godfather of the NYS Library long before he presided over the canal’s Wedding of the Waters. In 1818, Clinton established the New York State Library, only the third state library in the country, behind Pennsylvania and Ohio. The establishment of state libraries across the young nation was largely a response to Congress’ 1813 decision to send copies of its laws, journals, and documents to each state.

In 1818, there were only 27 libraries open to the public in New York State, but “none of much consequence,” according to the NYS Library’s preeminent biographer, Cecil R. Roseberry. The Library of Congress, though established in 1800, had been burned by the British during the War of 1812 and was still in the process of rebuilding. Clinton and several associates gave from their personal libraries and archives to begin building the State Library’s collections. David Hosack, a physician, author, and contemporary of DeWitt Clinton, described the governor’s personal collection of books at the time as being a “large and well selected library of scarce and valuable works.”

Connecting New Yorkers by Word and Water

The Erie Canal and the NYS Library share more than just a father figure in DeWitt Clinton. They both represent a turning point in American history, when U.S. citizens began turning their attention away from war and toward infrastructure, toward improvement and connection with each other. This is perhaps best exemplified by the parallel acts of government that established the Erie Canal and the NYS Library.

Both are still in use today. Though once primarily used for commercial purposes, the canal is now enjoyed more widely for recreation. The NYS Library, at over 200 years old, continues to collect, preserve, and make available government documents, manuscripts, maps, books, music, and other items that help us to construct the history of New York State.

For more information about the storied history of the NYS Library, do yourself the favor of reading Cecil R. Roseberry’s For the Government and People of this State: A History of the New York State Library, available in our Digital Collections. 

Collect Them All!

Join us as we tell the story of the canal, its power to connect far-flung people and places, and the many times in New York’s history that the canal became inextricable from other New York stories—especially that of the NYS Library.  

From now until the New York History Conference, we’ll be exploring these exciting connections, which we’ve organized into four themes: People and Power, Maps and Movement, Song and Celebration, and New York Voices. Check back each week for a new theme and stories told through the items available in the NYS Library’s collection of scarce and valuable works.