ROME, N.Y. – As the nation celebrates Independence Day, another historical event from July 4 is remembered. On July 4 in 1817, construction began on the Erie Canal in Rome, New York.
The original Erie Canal ran 363 miles from Buffalo to Albany. The only indicator of where that engineering marvel began is a historical marker along the Canalway Trail, often overlooked.
Brett Davidsen: “Do you know where they put the first shovel in the ground to build the Erie Canal?”
Adrian Behany, cyclist: “Wouldn’t know. I’m guessing it’s at one end or the other. So that would be either Lockport or Albany.”
Natalie Stetson, executive director of the Erie Canal Museum in Syracuse, talked about why they chose Rome.
“They started in Rome because Rome is in a very flat part of the state. There’s actually a nice flat area from Rome, all the way to Montezuma. There’s not a lot of elevation change,” said Stetson.
With then Governor DeWitt Clinton facing skepticism over his support for the canal idea, Rome gave them the best chance at silencing the critics.
“I do think they needed success. The canal was not popular with everyone. It was called Clinton’s ditch, derogatorily at the time, and they needed support. They needed success,” Stetson said.
There are no photographs of that historic first day as photography hadn’t yet been invented. Just an illustration painted decades later of a few dignitaries gathered to celebrate the groundbreaking in Rome under an American flag on Independence Day.
So as we celebrate the 4th of July, we not only recognize the birth of our nation, we celebrate the beginning of one of the most transformative projects in our nation’s history.
The early digging of the canal in Rome spurred several significant innovations for land clearing. They included a powerful stump puller, specialized plows and improvements to the wheelbarrow.
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