Chenango Canal operated from 1834 to 1878, from April to November each year. The opening of the canal cut the shipping time from Binghamton to Albany from nine days to four days, and reduced the cost of shipping goods dramatically. It was intended to connect Binghamton and surrounding communities, by water route, to the port of New York City and to the Great Lakes States. The northern terminus of the Chenango Canal was in Utica at an entry lock near present-day N. Genesee Street and the Erie Canal; the southern terminus was in Binghamton at a turning basin near present-day State and Susquehanna Streets. State Street in Binghamton was built on the path of the canal in 1872. The village of Port Dickinson and the hamlets of Port Crane and Pecksport owe their origins and names to being stops on the route. With the coming of the Chenango Canal, Port Crane, being located on the line of this waterway, developed rapidly, with stores, hotels, boat yards and repair and dry docks being built in that village. For some time beginning in 1837, the canal afforded shipping facilities to these and other such isolated areas, which were gradually improved. Between 1840 and 1865, for example, the village of Port Crane reached the height of its prosperity. Overall, the construction of the canal led to a widespread manufacturing and building boom in the Chenango Valley. A western extension, commonly known as the Extension Canal, was begun in 1840. The Extension continued west along the south side of the Susquehanna River, as far as Vestal. Officially named the Chenango Canal Extension, it was for the purpose of "making connection with the Pennsylvania canal system, and thus to complete a route to the vast coal fields in that state, the New York Legislature, on April 18, 1838, passed an act (chapter 292) directing the canal commissioners to cause a survey to be made from the termination of the Chenango canal at Binghamton, along the valley of the Susquehanna, to the State line near Tioga Point, at the termination of the North Branch canal of Pennsylvania, and to cause an estimate of the cost of this continuation to be made." Also it would connect with western New York through the Junction and Chemung canals, Seneca lake, and the Cayuga and Seneca and the Erie canals. In the original plan, the Chenango Canal was supposed to