Although they journeyed westerly as far as Germantown, beyond the Erie roundhouse and the machine shop, and along the Delaware and Hudson Canal, and northward to Brooklyn, below Point Peter, he could see the church spire wherever he looked back.

The towboat, Herbert P. Brake, of New York, pushes a new barge East on the Erie Canal in Fairport, New York | Fairport, New York, United States

The barge and canal system contended favorably with the railways in the early industrial revolution prior to around the 1850s – 1960s for example, the Erie Canal in New York State is credited by economic historians with giving the growth boost needed for New York City to eclipse Philadelphia as America's largest port and city but such canal systems with their locks, need for maintenance and dredging, pumps and sanitary issues were eventually outcompeted in the carriage of high-value items by the railways due to the higher speed, falling costs, and route flexibility of Rail transport.

Included are inter-basin canals, such as the Suez Canal, Erie Canal, and the Panama Canal.

Aqueduct over the Mohawk River at Rexford, New York, one of 32 aqueduct s on the Erie Canal.

The Erie Canal ( opened 1825 ) was chartered and owned by the state of New York and financed by bonds bought by private investors.

The Hudson River connects Albany to the Atlantic port of New York City and the Erie Canal completed a navigable water route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes.

The Erie Canal with its easy connections to most of the U. S. mid-west and New York City soon quickly paid back all its invested capital ( USD $ 7 million ) and started turning a profit.

Assured of a market for their farm products the settlement of the U. S. mid-west was greatly accelerated by the Erie Canal.

The profits generated by the Erie Canal project started a canal building boom in the United States that lasted till about 1850 when railroads started becoming seriously competitive in price and convience.

By 1825 the Erie Canal, long with 82 locks, opened up a connection from the populated Northeast to the Great Lakes.

The Erie Canal ( as well as other canals ) was instrumental in lowering the differences in commodity prices between these various markets across America.

The first Welland Canal, which opened in 1829 between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, bypassing Niagara Falls and the Lachine Canal ( 1825 ), which allowed ships to skirt the nearly impassable rapids on the St. Lawrence River at Montreal were built for commerce.

It is connected to Lake Ontario by the Erie Canal and Seneca Lake by the Seneca River.

The river serves as an important transportation route connecting Lake Michigan, Huron, and Superior to the St. Lawrence Seaway and Erie Canal.

Following the completion of the Erie Canal in 1817, which opened up easier travel to Lake Erie from the East Coast of the United States, the Detroit River became a heavily traversed route for settlers traveling to northern Michigan, and Detroit, as well, experienced a sudden increase in population.

From there, ships could travel anywhere in the world out of the St. Lawrence Seaway or the Erie Canal to New York City.

Erie Canal map c. 1840

In time, projects were devised in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. The modern Erie Canal has 34 locks, which are painted with the blue and gold colors of the New York State Canal System.

" Paddy Works on the Erie " is another version of the song.

In 1938, the U. S. Supreme Court in Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins 304 U. S. 64, 78 ( 1938 ), overruled earlier precedent, and held " There is no federal general common law ," thus confining the federal courts to act only as interpreters of law originating elsewhere.

Later courts have limited Erie slightly, to create a few situations where United States federal courts are permitted to create federal common law rules without express statutory authority, for example, where a federal rule of decision is necessary to protect uniquely federal interests, such as foreign affairs, or financial instruments issued by the federal government.

The only other location where this occurs is Fort Erie, Ontario, lying south of several cities in Niagara County, New York.

This is a list of bridges and other crossings of the Detroit River from Lake Erie upstream to Lake St. Clair.

Lake Erie (; ) is the fourth largest lake ( by surface area ) of the five Great Lakes in North America, and the tenth largest globally.

The lake is named after the Erie tribe of Native Americans who lived along its southern shore.

The shallowest section of Lake Erie is the western basin where depths average only ; as a result, " the slightest breeze can kick up lively waves ," according to a New York Times reporter in 2004.

Lake Erie is primarily fed by the Detroit River ( from Lake Huron and Lake St. Clair ) and drains via the Niagara River and Niagara Falls into Lake Ontario.

Lake Erie in its current form is less than 4, 000 years old, a short amount of time geologically speaking.

Lake Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes because the ice was so thin and lacked erosion power when it reached that far south.

In 1669, the Frenchman Louis Jolliet was the first documented European to sight Lake Erie, although there is speculation that Étienne Brûlé may have come across it in 1615.

Lake Ontario is the easternmost of the Great Lakes and the smallest in surface area ( 7, 340 sq mi, 18, 960 km < sup > 2 </ sup >), although it exceeds Lake Erie in volume ( 393 cu mi, 1, 639 km < sup > 3 </ sup >).

The lake's primary source is the Niagara River, draining Lake Erie, with the St. Lawrence River serving as the outlet.

Although it is smaller than the Great Lakes of Ontario, Erie, Huron, Superior, or Michigan, Lake Champlain is a large body of fresh water.

Point Pelee is a peninsula of Lake Erie in southwestern Ontario ( near Windsor and Detroit, Michigan ) that is the southernmost extent of Canada's mainland.

The seaway's opening is often credited with making the Erie Canal obsolete, thus setting off the severe economic decline of several cities in Upstate New York.

Toledo is in northwest Ohio, on the western end of Lake Erie, and borders the State of Michigan.

However, this effect is lessened in the winter by the fact that Lake Erie freezes over in most winters ( unlike the other Great Lakes ), coupled with prevailing winds that are often westerly.

Most of the islands in the Detroit River are in the southern portion of the waterway near Grosse Ile and close to where the river empties into Lake Erie.

In 2000 the United States Congress designated the Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor to recognize the national significance of the canal system as the most successful and influential human-built waterway and one of the most important works of civil engineering and construction in North America.

This post guarded the upper end of the vital waterway joining Lake Erie and Lake Huron.

The Erie Canal, runs through the town, using Oneida Lake as a waterway.

The Wabash and Erie Canal was a shipping canal that linked the Great Lakes to the Ohio River via an artificial waterway.

From the earliest times until the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, the lake was part of the most important waterway connecting the Atlantic seaboard of North America to the continental interior.

However, this progress was mere prelude to completion, in 1825, of the Erie Canal, which bypassed the Oneida Lake system, causing the population around the lake to lose their navigable waterway eastward.

This project had to succeed by getting almost 100 miles of waterway up an incline with a 706 ’ elevation, to the summit level in Bouckville, and back down a descent of 303 ’ to the Erie Canal in Utica.