The Story of the New York State Canals (Classic Reprint)

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Excerpt from The Story of the New York State Canals Its effect was soon felt, not only through the State but throughout the east and the Great Lakes region. Settlers flocked westward, forests gave way to sawmills and villages replaced these. Prosperous towns were established on the Great Lakes and the splendid chain of cities, which has won for New York the title of Empire State, sprang up along the line of the Erie canal. The shipping which once went to Philadelphia, the nation's biggest seaport before the Erie canal, came to New York, the city grew by leaps and bounds and became the commercial center of the American Union. Sixteen years after the opening of the canal, the exports of New York were valued at three times those of Massachusetts, the value of real estate had increased more rapidly than the population, while personal property was nearly four times its former value, and manufacturing three times as great. There were five times as many people following commercial pur suits in New York as there were before the completion of the Erie canal. Many other canals were built after people saw the success of the Erie, and for many years canals formed the principal trade routes in the State. However, the invention of the steam engine and the building of railroads struck them a severe blow. Some of them failed and were closed, the Chenango canal, connecting Utica and Binghamton, , is an example of an abandoned canal. The Erie and main branches of the canal system were enlarged from time to time but still failed to hold their old popularity, and yet in 1882 it was found that the Erie had earned forty-two million dollars, over and above its original cost, expense of enlargement, main tenance and operation. At that time it had a depth of 7 feet and could ¿oat a boat big enough to carry 240 tons. In 1903, almost ninety years from the date of the beginning of Clinton's canal, the people of the State decided to again enlarge the canal and make it a Barge canal. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.