"The surface of Lake Erie is elevated about two hundred and eighty feet above the Hudson at Albany. A canal, large enough for sloops of fifty tons burden, will not only bring the produce of these great and rich tracts of land in the State of New York to its capital, but will secure all the trade and productions of the vast country which surrounds the lakes Erie, Huron, Michigan, and Superior. Were this once effected, a sloop might then perform an inland voyage of seventeen hundred miles!

"The trade of Lake Erie already supports twenty-three ships, brigs, snows, and sloops; and Ontario twelve.

"The United States have millions of acres in the Michigan country, of which the produce by this operation would be transportable to a market.

“How, you ask, and by what funds is this great work to be accomplished? Without presuming that my opinion should be the guide in so important a concern, it is enough if I can point out one way in which it may be possible, and I think the mode I am about to propose not only possible, but very practicable. The State of New York may cede the track of this canal to the United States, and the United States may then grant a charter to a company, with strong rights and immunities, and the fullest security the general laws will admit of — in short, whatever would encourage the European capitalist to adventure in this magnificent enterprise. Let the United States take shares to the amount of ten millions of dollars, which will serve as an encouragement and security to the foreign capitalist, and be a safeguard against the effects of those fluctuations in councils and public opinions, to which the affairs of men are everywhere liable.

"The banks of this canal would become a carriageroad, and one of the most beautiful in the universe.

That most attractive and gratifying object, the falls of Niagara, would of itself create a thoroughfare, and the product of the tolls on the turnpikes, and canal gates, would raise a revenue sufficient, in a very short time, to requite the undertakers. No stranger but would

make this tour his object, and no traveler of taste would leave it uncelebrated. But, as this speculation lies in the province of fancy, and may be treated as a vision, I leave it."

Different indeed was the aspect and the whole character of the valley of the Mohawk in those days from what it has since become. If the canal was considered visionary, what would have been thought of the railroads, and of the telegraph, which only thirty years later was planned by a friend of the young midshipman, then slowly moving up the troubled current of the stream. There were two kinds of boat then in general use on the Mohawk, by which the produce of the interior moved down the stream towards the Hudson, and the manufactures of the seaboard were carried to Utica and the small towns farther west. The Schenectady boat was small, flat-bottomed, and rigged with an ungainly sail, though depending chiefly on the muscular power of the boatmen with their oars or poles. The Durham boat, of which there were large numbers, was long, shallow, and nearly flat-bottomed. These batteaux, as they were called, were chiefly worked by means of a pole, ten feet long, shod with iron, and crossed at short intervals with small bars of wood; the men would place themselves at the bow, two on each side, thrust their poles into the channel, and grasping the wooden bars successively, work their way towards the stern, impelling the boat forward by this laborious movement. These Durham boats found their way from the Mohawk to the St. Lawrence, and were

much used on the Canadian waters.

And it was said

that one of these craft went into the Missouri River, making an inland voyage of six weeks, from the rude wharf at Schenectady. The Mohawk boatmen were singularly skillful in those times; they made the trip to Utica, about one hundred miles, against current and rapids, and returned in nine days! Two miles and a half in an hour was the usual speed against the current.

The young midshipman was the guide of the party as they moved slowly up the river. He was thoroughly familiar with the valley of the Mohawk, his own home among the Otsego Highlands lying some five and twenty miles to the southward. The two fine stone houses semifortified, built by Sir William Johnson more than half a century earlier, were passed. And in the same reach of the river a singular Indian antiquity was observed, which is no longer visible; it was a picture writing, on a rock in a conspicuous position, representing a canoe with seven warriors in it. The coloring was red, the figures rude as usual, but every line had its meaning to the Indian eye. It was said to have been painted by some Mohawk war party about the middle of the last century. At the mouth of the Schoharie, a little fort and church built in the time of Queen Anne, for the benefit of the Mohawks, were still standing. In those days the boatmen generally stopped at this point, for a supply of water from a peculiarly fine spring. At Fort Plain, the little block house which has given its name to the village was still in good condition. At Little Falls the travelers came to one of the first steps in internal improvement undertaken in our State. There was a succession of five canal locks at the Portage as it was formerly called, for the passage of loaded boats to and fro. They were first used in 1803. General

Schuyler had superintended this work, which was a first step towards the Erie Canal. These locks had been originally built of wood, but in 1808 they were rebuilt of stone. The cost of each lock was $10,000. The tolls in 1808 were $4700. In the course of three months some two hundred and fifty boats would pass.

Only six days were required for this voyage between Schenectady and Utica! This was a pleasant little village, where twenty years earlier there was only one house. It could now boast some two hundred and fifty houses, and about fifteen hundred inhabitants. It was not considered so well built, however, as Cooperstown, a sister village in Otsego county.

The batteaux still moved up the Mohawk to Rome, the site of Fort Stanwix; here, at one hundred and six miles from Schenectady, the first stage of the voyage was completed on the seventh day. Here in the last century was a famous portage, between the head waters of the Mohawk, and those of the Wood Creek. A cluster of forts had arisen one after the other about this portage, but they were already in a ruinous condition. And here again were a cluster of locks, and a bit of canal to connect the eastern and the western waters. The travelers and their batteaux were soon floating on that dark and sluggish stream, the Wood Creek, and on the evening of the second day they reached the Oneida Lake, a broad sheet of dark-colored water, unwholesome to drink, and strangely blended with small dark particles called the Lake blossom, by the boatmen. It was very rich in fish, the boatmen asserting that more than a hundred large salmons would sometimes be caught in a day, by a small party with a seine. These hundred fish would sell for $75. It was a day's voyage, with the oars and poles, across the lake, against a head wind. Another

day was needed to bring the boats to "Three River Point," where the Oneida and Seneca unite, to form the Oswego River, which is twenty-five miles long, full of rocks and rapids, and at that period flowed through a country still essentially wild. Vast reaches of unbroken forest lay on either side, east and west. The Oswego Fall, with its rocks and foaming waters, making a descent of twelve feet, was passed on foot; the boats with a light lading were carried down safely by very skillful pilots. Some months later a large cannon, a thirty-two pounder, was carried safely down the fall in a boat, the officers standing on the shore anxiously watching its descent. The twelfth day the boats reached the port of Oswego.

The little village had an odd aspect. The old fortifications on both sides of the river were entirely in ruins. There were ruins also of old Dutch trading-houses, of some strength; these buildings were of stone, built around a long square, upon which all their doors opened within, for security. One of these houses bore the date of 1711, some sixteen years before the building of the first English fort.

The foundation of the American village did not take place until twenty years after the Peace, in 1803. The oldest settler had many adventurous stories to tell the young officers, of the hardships he and his family had undergone in the dark ages, five years earlier. He rode forty miles to mill. He had not one neighbor when he built his solitary dwelling. The nearest market, for common necessaries, was one hundred miles distant.

There was, however, quite a brisk trade at the wharves in 1808, some nine or ten vessels belonging to the port passing constantly to and fro. Many of them were laden with Onondaga salt. And, strange to say, others carried tea and Chinese and East Indian goods to Canada.