Among the various growing pains of the early American republic was the problem of transporting people and goods across the eastern hills and mountains to take advantage of the newly opened western lands.  Daniel Boone’s Wilderness Road and the waterway of the Ohio River were arduous to access, so the building of the Erie Canal across upstate New York in the 1820’s provided the first relatively easy access from the eastern seaboard to the deep interior.  A marvel of ingenuity, engineering, and hard labor, the Erie Canal route—with its terminus on the western end of Lake Erie near Detroit—also facilitated the great wave of migration that swelled the population of Michigan Territory and led to its statehood in 1837.  We’ll follow the journey from New York City to Detroit along the Erie Canal, noting some historical quirks and characters along the way!

          Subject: history

Michael Stevens has a Ph.D. in literature from the University of Dallas and has taught American literature and various writing courses in Grand Rapids for more than 25 years. A native of upstate New York, he traces his interest in baseball history to a boyhood visit to Cooperstown, and his interest in the Civil War to the presence of his great-great-grandfather's veteran's monument (15th NY Cavalry) in the family burial plot in Caroline, NY.