1825: The Erie Canal opened providing overland water transportation between the Hudson River on the east and Lake Erie at the western end. Popularly known as "Clinton's Folly," the eight-year construction project was the vision of New York Governor DeWitt Clinton. He convinced the New York State legislature to commit seven million dollars to the construction of a 363-mile ditch, forty feet wide and four feet deep. Harnessing gravity, the canal flowed from Buffalo on the east coast of Lake Erie, through the mountains near the Mohawk Valley west of Troy, and terminated at the upper Hudson River at Albany. On October 26, Governor Clinton and his party boarded the packet boat Seneca Chief, with two wooden barrels of Lake Erie water, to begin the journey from Buffalo to New York City. Eight days later, Clinton ceremoniously emptied the water into the Atlantic Ocean to marry the waters as a symbol of the importance of this canal. (Source: Library of Congress)