SOURCE: [TIMES UNION, 2007]
DeWitt Clinton
Click on images to enlarge
While in debtors' prison, Jesse Hawley, a merchant, wrote essays describing a canal from Albany to Lake Erie. Joshua Forman noticed his publication and wrote the initial canal legislation in 1808.
"The trade of almost all the lakes in North America, the most of which flowing through the canal, would centre at New York for their mart. This port, already of the first commercial consequence in the United States, would shortly after, be left without competition in trade, except by that of New Orleans. In a century its island would be covered with the buildings and population of its city." |
In 1810, DeWitt Clinton was approached with the canal cause and immediately took interest. The Canal Commission was established to survey possible routes for a waterway from the Hudson.
"The city will, in the course of time, become the granary of the world, the emporium of commerce, the seat of manufactures, the focus of great moneyed operations. And before the revolution of a century, the whole island of Manhattan, covered with inhabitants and replenished with a dense population, will constitute one vast city." |
"The most distant parts of the confederacy will then be in a state of approximation, and the distinctions of eastern and western, of southern and northern interests, will be entirely prostrated." "It remains, for a free state to create a new era in history, and to erect a work more stupendous, more magnificent, and more beneficial than has hitherto been achieved by the human race." |
|
In 1822, Clinton was removed from office by political opponents, who labeled the canal "Clinton's Folly." He reclaimed office before the opening.
"DeWitt Clinton emphasized how internal improvements [canal] would serve the ideals of nationalism and republicanism." |
Clinton hoped that the canal would bring prosperity to New York.