Lake Erie

Lake Erie lies with in Ontario Canada and the U.S states of New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan. As  the fourth largest finger lake and eleventh globally its 9,940 square miles of shoreline is 871 miles long and holds 127.8 trillion gallons of water  the outflow is the Niagara river. There were a number of lakes formed with different shores and depth the most recent before the current lake is  Lake Warren. Lake Warren was from 12,000 and 13,000 years ago the shore was 8miles inland from the current lakes shore line

The Economic growth the Erie canal made on the US

The Erie canal was good for the economic growth of our young country providing many jobs and helped grow towns along the canal. The canal paid for itself in the first year it was open with tolls alone. Along with freight and commercial boats the canal saw a number of passenger boats. In 1825 there were 40,000 that enjoyed the beauty of the canal.The Erie canal helped to grow New York City to a major city and main port it is today. The population of New York State quadrupled between 1820 and 1850 and wall street took off. The Erie canal was a big part of the underground railroad.

Harriet Tubman moved to New York after freeing her self in Maryland in March of 1913. Harriet made 13 trips freeing over 70 people using the Erie canal tow paths 

The Erie canal

The Erie Canal runs 363 miles from Lake Erie in the West to Albany in the East. The Erie canal was built by Governor DeWitt Clinton and engineered by Benjamin Wright construction  started in Rome N.Y from July 1817 and opened in October 1825 with an elevation change of 565 ft and has 34 locks with a depth of 4ft and a width of 40ft for reference the Panama canal is only 51  miles long 85ft above sea level and 110 feet wide The cost of building the canal in $7143,00 {that's $14,664,579 in today's money}The first boat on the canal was The Seneca Chief it was an astonishing 10day trip with governor DeWitt on board from Buffalo to Albany vs the 15 to 45 days the shorter trips also made it more cost effective by wagon for a ton of cargo it cost $125 {$2,566.25 into days money} with the canal it was $6 a ton {that's $123.18 in today's money} to hall such big loads they would you a team of houses or oxen to tow the boats on the path on the sides of-the canal