The Erie Canal deserves a lot more time than schools give it. Our "Erie Canal Classroom Collection" makes it easy to remedy that. What's more, the timing couldn't be better: This is the Bicentennial of the Erie's completion on October 25, 1825.
Use our 25 short topical video clips to present a class that your students will never forget. Consider doing an assembly presentation to the whole school! You'll feel like you've got an Erie Canal expert as your TA for the entire class.
Erie Canal balladeer George Ward not only sings this famous song, but he also comments on where it came from and how influential it's become.
In a letter to the governor of Virginia, George Washington expressed his deep concern that the future of our nation depended on opening and maintaining routes for heavy cargoes over the Blue Ridge Mountains to the western lands. This video includes the relevant text of that letter.
Governor Dewitt Clinton gets most of the credit for the creation of the Erie Canal. His enemies used the term "clinton's ditch" to deride Governor Clinton. It backfired on them though, as did Thomas Jefferson's comment that the canal was "little short of madness".
You can't always trust the signs we find at historical sites. In the case of the Erie Canal, it's rare to find a sign that actually gets dating right, let alone WHICH of the three versions of the canal the sign is trying to describe. This video speaks to those mistakes.
It takes more than a lock to carry boats up and down hilly ground. Locks need water to work, and without skillfull surveyors, the Erie Canal would have run dry in some sections on its first day.
What are the odds that a river flowing westward off the Adirondack mountains near Rome, would make a sharp turn eastward and cross through the mountains all the way to the Hudson River near Albany?
It's hard to think of Canadians as enemies today. We were enemies in the War of 1812, and both countries began similar canal projects when the war was over.
Today we forget that back in the days before freezers and refrigeration, salt was the main way to preserve meat, fish and perishable food crops. It's no accident that the original Erie Canal was routed to run near the ample salt supply at Syracuse, NY.
The bankwatch program was discontinued in the eastern section when the modern Barge Canal was opened, but they kept it in the west. Find out why.
In order for Lake Erie water to flow into the canal, it had to cross a stretch of high ground just south and west of Lockport. Unfortunately, that meant cutting a trench through solid rock that was forty feet wide for SEVEN MILES.
Did you know that Melville mentioned these locks at Lockport in his book Moby Dick?
Modern motorships can throw their propellers into reverse to stop, but mule-drawn vessels have to "snub" their boats. Here's how.
Coincidentally, steam powered vessels were just coming on the scene when the original erie was completed in 1825. Still, the decision was made to include a towpath along the canal's entire 363-mile length. Animal power would be used on the Erie Canal throughout its first 80 years.
Joseph Elicott was the manager of Western New York State when it was mostly an uninhabited wilderness. He knew that land values would swell, and he lobbied for a route that would take advantage of that. Fortunately, the decision-makers ignored him in favor of a harder but much better plan. See why in this video.
This embankment on the east side of Rochester has an interesting story.
NY Canal Corporation employee John Cavanaugh is from this region, so we'll let him explain.
Joseph Elicott was the manager of Western New York State in our country's early years. He sent surveyers to cut two straight lines through the wilderness in 1799. In this video licensed surveyor John McIntyre tells their story.
Jim Brennan relates how this two-hundred foot motorship ended its career in the 1980s. Craig Williams points out that this very ship was also the very FIRST of its size to ply the modern Barge Canal when it was completed in about 1918.
When the decision was made to enlarge the canal one last time, the village of Delta just north of Rome was in the way. They needed a large reservoir to feed those locks, and Delta had the misfortune of being located in the valley that soon would become a lake.
Orleans County Historian Bill Lattin relates how homeowners who lived near the modern Barge Canal enlargement had to choose between a new bridge across the canal, or a check for a thousand dollars.
This video was shot in Albion, about half way between Rochester and Lockport in the western section. Another point of interest: Compare the buildings in the background of both of the two bridges shown in this video.
The barges shown in this video are located at Rotterdam Junction in the eastern section.
The late Tom Grasso shares some thoughts on the importance of the Erie to the development of major eastern cities in America - most notably New York City.
Try this with your class: Tell them that a mule-drawn barge can make the trip from the Niagara River to the Hudson in about a week. Then ask them to guess how long it will take the water in the canal to make the same trip. This video answers the question.
The canal is drained and shut down every winter. Watch as the state crews open the canal for another season by "cracking" the guard gates just south of Lockport.