thousand dollars. A new channel was cut, piers commenced, and the work
entered upon which has been carried on with varying energy to the present
time. The opening of the river gave considerable impetus to the commerce
of the place, which was then carried on wholly by lake.

The opening of the Ohio canal was the first grand starting point in the
commercial history of Cleveland. It brought into connection with the lake
highway to market a rich country rapidly filling up with industrious
settlers, and the products of dairies, grain farms, and grazing lands were
brought in great quantity to Cleveland, where they were exchanged for New
York State salt, lake fish, and eastern merchandise. Two years after the
opening of the canal, which was completed in 1832, the receipts amounted
to over half a million bushels of wheat, a hundred thousand barrels of
flour, a million pounds of butter and nearly seventy thousand pounds of
cheese, with other articles in proportion. Business went on increasing
with great rapidity; every one was getting rich, in pocket or on paper,
and Cleveland was racing with its then rival, but now a part of itself,
Ohio City, for the distinction of being the great commercial centre of the
West. At that moment, in the year 1837, the great crash came and business
of all kinds was paralyzed.

Cleveland was one of the first places in the West to recover. Its basis
was good, and as the interior of Ohio became more peopled the trade of the
canal increased and, of course, Cleveland was so much the more benefited.
The opening of the Pennsylvania and Ohio canal, in 1841, opened
communication with Pittsburgh and added a trade in iron, nails, and glass
to the other branches of business. In 1844 the commerce of Cleveland by
lake had reached an aggregate of twenty millions for the year.

The opening of the railroad to Columbus in 1851 marked the second step in