jump across it where the boats first entered it, and it was so deficient of water that boatmen often had to negotiate with a miller just above the landing place to release extra water from his pond to get the boats floated and on their way. Yet in spite of its fragility, Wood Creek was the lynchpin of the waterway route to the Great Lakes." Among the improvements to the Wood Creek waterway were 13 short canals cut in 1793 that bypassed meanders (or "hooks") in the creek; the cuts were "among the earliest artificial waterways for navigation in North America". In 1802 four wooden locks were constructed to aid the passage from the end of the Rome Canal to the junction with Canada Creek; unusually, the locks were "covered", as was common for bridges in this region in the 19th century. Lord and Salisbury have also discovered that a man named Abraham Ogden had used a sophisticated method known as "brushpiling" or a "kid weir" to improve navigation on Wood Creek; they write, "it is in the upper reaches of this tiny stream that we find extraordinary evidence of a direct linkage between American wilderness engineering and English waterway history. ...its use in Wood Creek in 1803 is the first application of this ancient English erosion control technology in the United States." The Oneida Carry was replaced by the Rome Canal in 1797. The program of improvements to the Albany-Oswego waterway by the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company had been completed by 1803, which permitted the replacement of the relatively small boats (batteaux) by heavier craft. Prelude to the Erie Canal As noted by Ronald E. Shaw, "These improvements made it possible in times of sufficient water for new Durham boats as long as sixty feet and carrying sixteen tons to supplant those carrying only a ton and a half used heretofore on the river. The cost of transportation from Albany to Seneca Lake was reduced from $100 to $32 a ton, and that from Albany to Niagara by half. Down the canals came furs, lumber, pot and pearl ashes, wheat, and salt, and up them moved boats 'principally laded with European or Indian productions or manufactures'." In 1812 about 1500 tons of cargo was moved through Rome by this route. In the mid 19th century, John MacGregor wrote of the waterway, "However imperfect the navigation, as compared with