After two full years of hardship, the American economy began to emerge from the Panic of 1819, shaken by the experience but still possessed of the deep roots of optimism and promise that had been planted since the time of Independence. The foundations of American prosperity survived; fundamental resources, energy, and innovative habits persisted; and the shape of what might be was apparent to perceptive entrepreneurs. And even as the speculative boom of the late 'teens marched toward its disastrous resolution, crucial structural changes had begun that pointed the way toward an era of “marvelous improvements” that would capture the imagination of a generation and set the agenda for American economic growth through the rest of the antebellum period. Nothing better symbolized the pluck and drive, the audacious ambition, and the breath-taking confidence of men with little more than a layman's hunch about what they were doing than New York's magnificent Erie Canal.

THE RISE OF NEW YORK PORT

Since the late colonial era, New Yorkers had dreamed of improving the “water-level” route to the West that nature conveniently laid out within the confines of their state. From Maine to Georgia, elevations of two or three thousand feet separated the Atlantic from the interior waters – except in New York. In the Empire State, the east-west valley of the Mohawk River offered a link between the Great Lakes and the Hudson River – a route 360 miles long – with an elevation gain less than 600 feet.