where did they start digging the erie canal
Rome, New York
title: Erie Canal text: of New York, New York City, and the United States. The canal was first proposed in the 1780s, then re-proposed in 1807. A survey was authorized, funded, and executed in 1808. Proponents of the project gradually wore down opponents; its construction began in 1817. The canal has 34 numbered locks starting with Black Rock Lock and ending downstream with the Troy Federal Lock. Both are owned by the federal government. It has an elevation difference of about . It opened on October 26, 1825. In a time when bulk goods were limited to pack animals (a maximum), and there were title: Erie Canal text: madness" and rejected it; however, Hawley interested New York Governor DeWitt Clinton in the project. There was much opposition, and the project was ridiculed as "Clinton's folly" and "Clinton's ditch." In 1817, though, Clinton received approval from the legislature for $7 million for construction. The original canal was long, from Albany on the Hudson to Buffalo on Lake Erie. The channel was cut wide and deep, with removed soil piled on the downhill side to form a walkway known as a towpath. Its construction, through limestone and mountains, proved a daunting task. In 1823 construction reached the Niagara Escarpment, necessitating title: Erie Canal text: onto a towering embankment to cross over Irondequoit Creek, spanned the Genesee River on an awesome aqueduct, and carved a route for it out of the solid rock between Little Falls and Schenectady—and all of those venturesome designs worked precisely as planned". (Bernstein, p. 381) Construction began July 4, 1817, at Rome, New York. The first , from Rome to Utica, opened in 1819. At that rate, the canal would not be finished for 30 years. The main delays were caused by felling trees to clear a path through virgin forest and moving excavated soil, which took longer than expected, title: Erie Canal text: Erie Canal The Erie Canal is a canal in New York, United States that is part of the east–west, cross-state route of the New York State Canal System (formerly known as the New York State Barge Canal). Originally, it ran from where Albany meets the Hudson River to where Buffalo meets Lake Erie. It was built to create a navigable water route from New York City and the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. When completed in 1825, it was the second longest canal in the world (after the Grand Canal in China) and greatly affected the development and economy title: Erie Canal text: (in a report on fur trading) to improving the natural waterways of western New York. Gouverneur Morris and Elkanah Watson were early proponents of a canal along the Mohawk River. Their efforts led to the creation of the "Western and Northern Inland Lock Navigation Companies" in 1792, which took the first steps to improve navigation on the Mohawk and construct a canal between the Mohawk and Lake Ontario, but it was soon discovered that private financing was insufficient. Christopher Colles (who was familiar with the Bridgewater Canal) surveyed the Mohawk Valley, and made a presentation to the New York state