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