Peter Bernstein, author of Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the Making of a Great Nation, spoke at Hamilton on March 29. In addition to Hamilton students, faculty and staff, many outside guests, including local high school students and teachers, attended the lecture. Bernstein is president of Peter L. Bernstein Inc., an economic consulting firm to institutional investors and corporations worldwide. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, then after working in research at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Bernstein served as a captain in the Air Force during World War II. He has authored nine books on economics and finance, and has contributed countless articles to professional journals.
Wedding of the Waters, called "A riveting account of one of most amazing technological achievements of all time" by the Philadelphia Inquirer, treats American history rather than finance. Bernstein presented a brief overview of the history of the Erie Canal and its great effects on the country, which is the main subject of his book.
The Erie Canal opened in Rochester, NY in 1823. Part of the cargo that was transported from New York City using the canal was oysters. "I was so impressed they could be eating fresh oysters in Rochester," said Bernstein, of one of the many reasons he found the canal so fascinating. The time it took to travel from New York to Albany, formerly a 30 day trip, was reduced to 5 days by canal. As a result of the canal opening a new, more efficient passage to the west, there was eventually more freight moving toward the ocean than away from it as people were able to move west. The canal provided a smooth ride and direct route, and there were no currents or falls.
While the first part of the canal opened in 1823, the story of the Erie Canal really begins in 1775, when George Washington wrote a letter saying that he was worried that people to the west of the Appalachians would drift away without communication. Washington wrote that "some kind of artery" had to be developed for easy travel and commerce. In 1794, directly following the Revolution, Washington tried to build a canal using the Potomac River, but due to financial loss, this project failed. In 1724, Cadwallader Colden had proposed a canal linking Lake Erie and Hudson River; however, it would still be almost a century before this idea was put to action.
"The hero of the story is DeWitt Clinton," said Bernstein. Clinton, the mayor of New York, threw all of his political weight behind building a canal in New York State to unite the two parts of the country. He feared that Western states would separate if they were not joined in some way. In 1816, Clinton drafted a petition titled Memorial of the Citizens of New York, in Favour of a Canal Navigation between the Great Western Lakes and the Tide-waters of the Hudson. As a result of Clinton's work, later in 1816 the New York legislature agreed to build a canal in New York. However, the federal government would not offer financial support. New York State funded the project, which was managed by a committee of politicians, by issuing bonds.
Building the canal proved a tremendous technological challenge. Workers had to dig a ditch the entire way from Albany to Buffalo, without the use of rivers, because there was only one place (Little Falls) where there was a break in the Appalachians that made a passageway possible. When finished, the canal was 40 feet wide and four feet deep, 363 miles in length, with 77 locks; there were also about 300 bridges built for farmers whose land was split by the canal. "It was all done with bare hands, shovels, explosive powders and mules," said Bernstein. "It was truly man-made. In spite of all the obstacles, the Erie Canal was finished on time with no significant hitches. It all worked."
From October 26 to November 2, 1825, a small number of boats traveled along the canal from Buffalo to Albany, with Clinton in the lead ship. All of the towns along the canal held huge celebrations as the parade passed through. The Wedding of the Waters occurred when water from Lake Erie was transported along the canal and the Hudson and poured into the Atlantic Ocean at New York Harbor.
One year after the opening, there were 7,000 boats operating on the canal. Towns sprung up along the canal, connected by this one "thronged street," as Nathanial Hawthorne, who visited the canal in 1830, wrote. Cities also grew to the west of Albany, including Cleveland and Chicago. In 1852, 27 years after its opening, there was 13 times more freight on the Erie Canal than all of the United States railroads combined.
As Bernstein wrote in Wedding of the Waters, "By bringing the interior to the seas and the seas to the interior, the Erie Canal would shape a great nation, knit the sinews of the Industrial Revolution, promote globalization ... and revolutionize the production and supply of food for the whole world."
-- by Laura Trubiano '07
