A bankrupt flour merchant in debtor's prison helped inspire the Erie Canal.

Thomas Jefferson dismissed the Erie Canal as 'little short of madness'

When first proposed, President Jefferson scoffed at the idea of carving a 363-mile waterway through wilderness and rock. With no precedent in American engineering, the canal seemed impossible.

DeWitt Clinton’s “Big Ditch” gamble transformed New York

Mocked as “Clinton’s Folly” and “Clinton’s Big Ditch,” New York Gov. DeWitt Clinton championed the Erie Canal against skeptics. His political drive secured funding for the project in 1817.

Travel the 363-mile Erie Canal, the waterway that cut freight costs by 90% and opened the American frontier.

The Erie Canal was built without a single dollar of federal funding

After President Madison and Congress rejected the project, New York State financed the 363-mile Erie Canal entirely on its own—authorizing $7M in bonds in 1817.

The Erie Canal was opened Oct. 25, 1825, with a group of boats from Buffalo to NYC

The unlikely engineering project connecting the Midwest to the Atlantic saw a ceremonious opening as Governor Dewitt Clinton rode with a flotilla of boats from Buffalo on Lake Erie to New York City.

The Erie Canal transformed New York City into America’s banking capital

By redirecting western trade through New York Harbor, the canal turned New York into the nation’s commercial hub. This surge in commerce shifted financial power from Philadelphia to Wall Street, establishing the city as America’s banking capital.

The Erie Canal runs 363 miles from Albany to Buffalo

Mostly using the low elevations of the Mohawk River Valley, the canal project connected the Great Lakes to the Atlantic seaboard for the first time. This site has a series of old and new maps of the canal.

Local limestone made waterproof cement for the Erie Canal

In 1818, engineer Canvass White discovered that limestone near Chittenango, New York, could be processed into hydraulic (or waterproof) cement. This breakthrough replaced costly European imports, enabling watertight locks and aqueducts and revolutionizing American construction.

Amateur engineers built America’s first great infrastructure project

With no engineering schools in the US, the Erie Canal was designed and built by self-taught amateurs who improvised new methods and became known as the “Erie School of Engineering.”

Infrastructure projects in New York are much more difficult today

The Erie Canal was one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects in American history. Many have said such an effort would be impossible today. This article explores why that is the case and ponders the future of large-scale American infrastructure development.

The Erie Canal reduced freight costs by 90%

Before the canal, shipping goods overland cost about $100 per ton. After its completion in 1825, rates fell to just $10—making western farm products competitive in eastern markets for the first time.

The Appalachian Mountains blocked east–west boat travel until the Erie Canal

The Appalachian Mountains, spanning from Alabama to Canada, long hindered inland commerce. The Erie Canal created the first reliable water route through the range by leveraging the natural valley of the Mohawk River, revolutionizing trade and migration.

Before dynamite was invented, Erie Canal builders blasted rock with gunpowder

Constructed decades before the invention of dynamite, the Erie Canal’s toughest obstacles were blasted through using black powder charges.

The canal carried germs as well as goods

In 1832, North America’s first cholera epidemic spread inland by way of the Erie Canal, carried by immigrants arriving on ships. Fearful towns barred passengers from disembarking, yet cholera, smallpox, and other diseases still traveled the waterway.

The original canal had 83 different hand-operated locks

Locks are gated chambers that raise and lower boats between stretches of water at different levels. On the Erie Canal, 83 such locks managed a 565-foot elevation change from the Hudson River to Lake Erie.

The Erie Canal fueled a surge in westward settlement

By providing cheap, reliable transport to the interior, the canal made western lands more accessible. Farmers, traders, and immigrants moved into the Great Lakes region, accelerating population growth.

The canal became a highway for American reform movements

Beyond goods, the canal carried ideas. Its corridor hosted Second Great Awakening revivals and became a center for activism—fueling abolitionist networks, women’s suffrage organizing, and other reform movements.

Erie Canal builders invented the “stump puller” to clear forests

One ingenious device created for the Erie Canal was the stump puller—a horse-powered machine using levers and chains to rip tree stumps from the ground.

Reflections on the Erie Canal’s 200-year history

Reflections on the Erie Canal traces the waterway from its 1825 opening to its evolving role today. Each short video in this 10-part series explores a different aspect of the canal and its legacy today.

'Ben Franklin's World' podcast explores the building of the Erie Canal

Historian Janice Fontanella, site manager of the Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site, joined the podcast to recount the engineering challenges, local innovations, and broader impact of constructing the Erie Canal.

A letter about a hurricane helped launch Hamilton's life in America

After a hurricane severely damaged the Caribbean island of St. Croix, Alexander Hamilton wrote a vivid letter that was later published and impressed local business leaders, who took up a collection to send the teenager to North America for schooling.

Explore the technical side of the Erie Canal

Listen to this podcast from Northwestern University exploring the canal’s groundbreaking infrastructure—from locks and aqueducts to its role as America’s first large-scale engineered waterway.

The history of bankruptcy in the US dates back to the signing of the Constitution

In 1787, this founding document gave Congress the right to establish nationwide bankruptcy laws. Legislators took advantage of that power in 1800 when they passed the Bankruptcy Act of 1800, the first comprehensive bankruptcy law at the federal level.

Hamilton learned about global trade before he was a teenager

Before he moved to America, Hamilton worked as a clerk around age 12 at the Caribbean trading firm Beekman and Cruger, handling shipping documents, inspections, and port logistics. He eventually managed the day-to-day operations of a trading charter that immersed him early in Atlantic commerce.

Hamilton founded what many regard as the first commercial bank in the United States

In 1784, Alexander Hamilton helped found the Bank of New York, which initially operated without a charter, financed early federal operations, provided what is considered the US government's first loan, and became the first stock traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

Hamilton built the foundations of the US financial system as the nation's first Treasury secretary

Appointed the nation's first Treasury secretary in 1789 by George Washington, Alexander Hamilton designed a powerful federal finance system—repaying war debts, creating new taxes, founding a national bank, and promoting economic development.

Hamilton created the First Bank of the United States

As Treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton proposed the First Bank of the United States to stabilize national finances—serving as the government's fiscal agent, managing debt, and expanding credit through a public-private banking model.

Hamilton's endorsement helped win Jefferson the presidency

In the 1800 presidential election, neither candidate won a majority in the Electoral College, sending the decision to the House of Representatives. After 36 failed votes, Alexander Hamilton lobbied for his ideological rival, Thomas Jefferson, over Aaron Burr, helping break the deadlock.

The US finished what the French had started with Panama's canal

For about two decades, Suez Canal-builder and Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps led the project, but financial troubles forced it into the hands of the US, who completed it in 1914. This timeline, made to accompany the definitive PBS American Experience documentary about the canal, highlights major moments in its construction.

Gambling and lotteries funded America's early expansion, funding infrastructure and capital projects.

Alexander Hamilton consolidated the states' debts, implemented a tax system, and established a national bank.

Roughly 25,000 workers died building the canal

For each mile of canal that was built, 500 workers lost their lives. The threats came from multiple fronts: mudslides, floods, earthquakes and disease-carrying mosquitoes. Workplace accidents became so common that artificial limb manufacturers competed for contracts with the canal builders.

Alexander Hamilton played a significant role in creating the American system of government

From 1787 to 1788, Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay anonymously published a collection of essays known as the Federalist Papers to promote the new Constitution. Of the 85 essays that proved pivotal to the eventual ratification of the document, Hamilton wrote 51.

Future President Dwight D. Eisenhower's terrible experience on a cross-country road trip in 1919 helped inspire him to create the interstate highway system.

The ancient Egyptians built prototypes of the modern Suez Canal

The idea to facilitate trade between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea and connect the Eurasian continent was apparent even to pharaohs in the second millennium BCE. Though no physical traces remain, contemporary accounts attest to early, shorter versions of the canal, including from Herodotus.

Twain was a notoriously bad investor

After becoming a famous writer, Twain invested in railroad stocks, a magnetic telegraph, and a printing press that weighed four tons. Eventually, he founded his own publishing company, which ultimately led to his bankruptcy. “He is, in business,” one lawyer said, “just a big overgrown boy.”

Hamilton proposed one of the strongest visions of national government

At the Constitutional Convention, Alexander Hamilton advanced a plan modeled partly on Britain's system, calling for a powerful national executive and for senators to serve for life (with good behavior)—proposals that failed to gain widespread support.

Famed American investor Jesse Livermore made millions when the stock market crashed in 1929

Livermore made his first major short against rail company Union Pacific in 1906, coincidentally before an earthquake in San Francisco, which ultimately tanked share prices. During a financial panic the next year, JP Morgan reportedly asked Livermore to increase his long-term investments to restore hope and restabilize the market—which Livermore did. However, Livermore began betting against the market in 1929, sensing that stocks were too hot, and was one of the few people to benefit from the 1929 stock crash.

Often dubbed the 'king of bank robbers,' George Leonidas Leslie stole an estimated $7M (equivalent to $200M today) and charged other criminals a $20K fee to evaluate their heist plans

Leslie studied architecture and used blueprints of safes and banks to execute meticulously planned bank heists across the Northeast between 1869 and 1878. Although Leslie was an infamous bank robber by night, he posed as a member of high society by day, providing critical intel on the institutions he'd rob and helping conceal his crimes. Months before his largest planned heist, where he planned to turn on his gang, Leslie's body mysteriously washed up along the Hudson River. His killer remains a mystery.

Hamilton opposed slavery in principle but participated in the institution

Alexander Hamilton spoke against slavery, helped found the New York Manumission Society, and supported gradual emancipation while also participating in transactions involving enslaved people through his in-laws—and possibly within his own household, though historians debate this.

Jefferson’s Lewis and Clark expedition joined the centuries-long hunt for Northwest Passage

For centuries, leaders pursued a direct seafaring trade route from Europe to Asia. Jefferson joined this quest by sending Lewis and Clark west, though they confirmed no such practical interior route existed across the continent.

William Marbury was a wealthy Federalist insider

Marbury was a prosperous Georgetown businessman, bank director, and slaveholder with close ties to the Federalists. His appointment as a justice of the peace, which was never delivered, sparked the Marbury v. Madison case.

Dr. William Gorgas eradicated yellow fever in Panama, crucial to canal construction

The disease was one of the factors hampering the French effort to build the canal. Gorgas' experience elsewhere in the Caribbean had taught him that good drainage and quaranting patients were essential, and he would eventually apply mosquito prevention tactics on a mass scale.

Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark to map, trade, and secure the West

Beyond seeking a water route to the Pacific, Jefferson tasked the Corps of Discovery with mapping the new Louisiana Territory, cataloging its resources, and establishing trade with Native nations.

One of Hamilton's first published works was an anonymous pamphlet

While on a scholarship at King's College, Alexander Hamilton anonymously published a series of political pamphlets defending the Continental Congress, engaging in a sustained, sharply argued back-and-forth with loyalist writer Samuel Seabury that drew wide attention.

Hamilton's tax on whiskey sparked the first armed rebellion against US federal authority

As Treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton designed an excise tax on whiskey that provoked violent resistance in western Pennsylvania. The Whiskey Rebellion ended when George Washington mobilized state militias under federal authority to enforce the law.

The New York Stock Exchange wouldn't have been made if not for municipal bond sales

The Funding Act of 1790 nationalized and consolidated the debt held by the 13 colonies to be sold off in the form of bonds.

The federal government's decision to pay off the states' Revolutionary War debts required a new tax, which sparked an armed rebellion. 

Benjamin Franklin founded America's first lending library, the Library Company of Philadelphia, in 1731.

When Dickens was 12, his father was imprisoned for debt

John Dickens was imprisoned at Marshalsea Debtors' Prison in London for failing to pay his debts. The experience forced the young Charles to leave school to help provide for his family. It also eventually informed his fiction, which often called for social reform, including the abolition of debtors' prisons.