On the Erie Canal

Part 1: I've got a mule, her name is Sal
By Warner M. Montgomery warner@thecolumbiastar.com

The Erie Canal was begun in 1817 and completed in 1825. This 1825 map shows the route of the canal from Albany to Buffalo, from the Hudson River to Lake Erie.

 

I love canals. One of my life goals is to traverse all of the world's major canals. So far, I have done the Santee Canal (USA's first canal, but now defunct), the Columbia Canal (Phase 1 defunct, Phase 2 Columbia's wonderful riverfront resource), the Richmond (VA) Canal (by foot and car), the Panama Canal (north by train, south by bus), and, most recently, the Erie Canal (America's most famous). Next year, Linda and I hope to sail through the Suez Canal.

The Canal Era began in the mind of George Washington as he visited the states of his new country in 1790- 91. When he met with South Carolina leaders in Charleston and Columbia in 1791, he advised them, as he had all states' leaders, to get busy connecting the Atlantic coast with the Mississippi River with river transportation. This meant build canals.

The race was on to connect Charleston with Chattanooga on the Tennessee River. The first step was to allow boats to go from Charleston to Columbia without going in the ocean. The Santee Canal, financed by private investors, connected the Cooper and Santee Rivers at Pineville in 1800. Robert Mills and Abram Blanding began planning a canal to get boats around the Congaree rapids at Columbia.

Janice, Linda, and John pose at the foot of Taughannock Falls in Ithaca, NY. Water from the falls flows into Lake Cayuga then into the Erie Canal.

Jefferson's purchase of the entire Mississippi River basin in 1803 made the rewards evident: the first city on the east coast to connect to the Mississippi would become the premier American trading center. Charleston, one of the top three cities in the US, realized its fate and pushed the South Carolina government for canal funds.

Canals were built on the Congaree, Saluda, and Broad Rivers, but the Appalachian Mountains were too much of a challenge. New York completed their 363- mile canal from Albany to Buffalo in 1825. Charleston had lost the race, and its commercial power soon slipped away.

When our friends John and Janice set up a farmstead in Ithaca, New York, and invited us to visit, I said, "Only if you make arrangements for us to travel the Erie Canal." They replied, "Of course, come on up." As we drove to Ithaca, Linda sang:

I've got a mule,
Her name is Sal,
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal.
She's a good old worker
And a good old pal,
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal.
We've hauled some barges in our day
Filled with lumber, coal and hay
And we know ev'ry inch of the way
From Albany to Buffalo.

The song "Low Br idge, Ever ybody Down" was subtitled "Fifteen Miles on the Erie Canal" when it was published in 1906 by Thomas S. Allen.

This popular song "Fifteen Miles on the Erie Canal" was written in 1905 by Thomas S. Allen and memorialized the years from 1825 to 1880 when the mule barges made boomtowns out of Utica, Rome, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo, and transformed New York into the Empire State.

I had dreams of being pulled on a barge through the locks of the Erie Canal by a mule named Sal. Linda hoped for a luxury boat with full eating and sleeping quarters.