New York’s Pathway of Commerce - Part One

 By: Michael Palumbo

   Our Aqueduct Stabilization Project is complete, so let’s look at some notable features relating to the Schoharie Crossing aqueduct and its historic significance. Our aqueduct is one of our most impressive engineering features on site, originally it was 624 feet-long and comprised of 14 arches. It was constructed of limestone and timber and functioned as a cross-over water bridge avoiding danger on the turbulent and unremitting Schoharie Creek. It was designed in part by John B. Jervis and built by Otis Eddy. During the “Enlarged Erie Canal,” period there were a total of 18 aqueducts built between 1835 to 1862. When comparing all these aqueducts, the Lower Mohawk Aqueduct was the longest aqueduct built, it was 1,136 feet with 26 arches, located in Crescent, NY. The shortest multiple span aqueduct was in nearby Rotterdam Junction on Flat Stone Creek, it was 57 feet with only 3 arches.  The Aqueduct is also known as the Plotter Kill Aqueduct.

   In Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, published in 1851, he refers to canal aqueducts as “Roman Arches over Indian Rivers.” In that work, the whale is an indominable force of nature similar to the Schoharie Creek’s powerful and raging flooding waterway. It was indeed a dangerous crossing. Currently our six remaining arches are being stabilized, repointed, and enforced with a thrust block on the last arch serving as a structural bookend.

   The Erie Canal’s development and completion gave New York State a prominent position which increased statewide expansion of new cities from New York City to Buffalo and then beyond. New York became a “Booming State,” with commerce rapidly developing. These subjects expanded and flourished with great magnitude: economics, manufacturing, engineering, and farming.  Then on an extraordinary personal level we have religion, politics, immigration, and social stratification also happening in these new cities. The Erie Canal became the connecting link benefiting everyone from New York State’s upsurging success as the hot bed of economic commercial development, no matter what your ethnic background or where you came from.

   Built with blood, sweat, and tears the canal was a monumental effort. It was hands-on creative engineering that spawned the reality of this manmade artificial waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. The Erie Canal also enabled our fellow states to trade worldwide, which in due course established New York City as the purveyor of worldwide commerce. Because the Erie Canal’s success coincided with the Civil War, it facilitated faster movement and westward expansion along with the early railroad. Whether a family was seeking employment, agricultural work, religious freedom or civil rights, the Erie Canal enhanced all these possibilities.

*this article first ran in the Spring 2023 Friends of Schoharie Crossing Newsletter.

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