296 The Erie Canal

296  The Erie Canal 

The best way to connect one steamboat route with another was to dig a canal . The most famous of all these canals was the one connecting the Hudson River with Lake Erie , and called the Erie Canal . It was begun in 1817 and was completed so that a boat could pass through it in 1825. It was De Witt Clinton who argued that such a canal would benefit New York City by bringing to it the produce of the Northwest and of western New York . At the same time it would benefit the farmers of those regions by bringing their produce to tide water cheaper than it could be brought by road through Pennsylvania . It would stil further benefit the farmers by en - abling them to buy their goods much cheaper , as the rates of freight would be so much lower by canal than they were by road . People who did not see these things as clearly as De Witt Clinton saw them , spoke of the enterprise most sneeringly and called the canal ＂ Clinton ＇ s big ditch .＂ It very soon appeared that Clinton was right . In one year the cost of carrying a ton of grain from Lake Erie to the Hudson River fell from one hundred dollars to fifteen dolars . New York City soon outstripped al its rivals and became the center of trade and money in the United States . Other canals , as the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal , were marvels of skill . But they were not so favorably situated as the Erie Canal and could not compete with it successfully .