$12,500 in stock. Many singular provisions were inserted in this
charter, but none more remarkable than one which stipulated that
all profits over fifteen per cent should revert to the State
Treasury. This hint concerning surplus profits, however, did not
cause a stampede when the books were opened for subscriptions in
New York and Albany. In later years, when the Erie Canal gave
promise of a new era in American inland commerce, Elkanah Watson
recalled with a grim satisfaction the efforts of these early
days. The subscription books at the old Coffee House in New York,
he tells us, lay open three days without an entry, and at Lewis's
tavern in Albany, where the books were opened for a similar
period, "no mortal" had subscribed for more than two shares.

The system proposed for the improvement of the waterways of New
York was similar to that projected for the Potomac. A canal was
to be cut from the Mohawk to the Hudson in order to avoid Cohoes
Falls; a canal with locks would overcome the forty-foot drop at
Little Falls; another canal over five thousand feet in length was
to connect the Mohawk and Wood Creek at Rome; minor improvements
were to be made between Schenectady and the mouth of the
Schoharie; and finally the Oswego Falls at Rochester were to be
circumvented also by canal. All the objections, difficulties, and
discouragements which had attended efforts to improve waterways
elsewhere in America confronted these New York promoters. They
began in 1793 at Little Falls but were soon forced to cease owing
to the failure of funds. Under the encouraging spur of a state
subscription to two hundred shares of stock, they renewed their
efforts in 1794 but were again forced to abandon the work before
the year had passed. By November, 1795, however, they had
completed the canal and in thirty days had received toll to the