f those [the
Ohio] waters," they could absolutely secure for themselves the trade
of the Great Lakes, "taking Presq' Isle [Erie, Pennsylvania] which is
within our own State, as the great mart or place of embarkation."

The plan which the Society proposed involved the improvement of water
and land routes by way of the Delaware to Lake Ontario and Lake Otsego,
and of eight routes by the Susquehanna drainage, north, northwest,
and west. A bill which passed the Legislature on April 13, 1791,
appropriated money for these improvements. Work was begun immediately on
the Schuylkill-Susquehanna Canal, but only four miles had been completed
by 1794, when the Lancaster Turnpike directed men's attention to
improved highways as an alternative more likely than canals to provide
the desired facilities for inland transportation. The work on the canal
was renewed, however, in 1821, when the rival Erie Canal was nearing
completion, and was finished in 1827. It became known as the Union Canal
and formed a link in the Pennsylvania canal system, the development of
which will be described in a later chapter.

In New York State, throughout the period of the Old French and the
Revolutionary wars, barges and keel boats had plied the Mohawk, Wood
Creek, and the Oswego to Lake Ontario. Around such obstructions as
Cohoes Falls, Little Falls, and the portage at Rome to Wood Creek,
wagons, sleds, and pack-horses had transferred the cargoes. To avoid
this labor and delay men soon conceived of conquering these obstacles by
locks and canals. As early as 1777 the brilliant Gouverneur Morris had a
vision of the economic development of his State when "the waters of the
great western inland seas would, by the aid of man, break through their
barriers and mingle with those of the Hudson."

Elkanah Watson was in many ways the Washington of New York. He had
the foresight, patience, and persistence of the Virginia planter.
His "Journal" of a tour up the Mohawk in 1788 and a pamphlet which he
published in 1791 may be said to be the ultimate sources in any history
of the internal commerce of New York. As a result, a company known
as "The President, Directors, and Company of the Western Inland Lock
Navigation in the State of New York," with a capital stock of $25,000,
was authorized by act of legislature in March, 1792, and the State
subscribed for $12,500 in stock. Many singular provisions were inserted
in this charter, but none more remarkable than one which s