If anyone wishes to cut & paste the following for another posting please feel free to do so. My e-mail skills are limited. >From the book "New York State and its Communities by Wallace E. Lamb". I haven't finished reading the book. "The knight in shining armor who led the battle for canals was DeWitt Clinton. ...... Actual work in digging the Erie Canal was begun on July 4, 1817, and the Champlain Canal was begun during the same year. The Champlain Canal was completed first. It extended from Whitehall at the southern end of Lake Champlain to Waterford on the Hudson, and it was first opened October 8, 1823. It was sixty-four miles long, with forty-six miles of man-made waterway, while the remainder was made up of waterways already existing, especially the Hudson. Since that time several improvements have been made in this water route. .... In 1819 the first boat on the Erie Canal went from Rome to Utica. By 1823 the canal was completed all the way from the Hudson to the Genesee River. By 1825 there was a continuous waterway extending entirely across the state. "Clinton's big ditch," as it was called by his political rivals, was 363 miles long. Its total cost was over $7,000,000, an enormous sum fo! r those days." (I have seen mention of a calculator to convert values - could someone do that for us ? Just imagine Seven Million in those days) "On October 26,1825, a fleet of boats carrying Governor Clinton and many other important people entered the Erie Canal at Buffalo to tour the state in triumph. The news was relayed from one end of New York to the other in ninety minutes by the boom of a cannon. Clinton's boat was drawn by four fine gray horses. Another boat had on board two Indian boys and a large number of animals from the West, including a bear, two fawns, two eagles, and several fish. The entire journey was a series of celebrations, the population rushing to the canal to watch this strange procession pass through their fields and villages." (And in Florida they view men going off into space) "On November fourth occurred the "Marriage of the Waters," when DeWitt Clinton poured a keg of Lake Erie water into the Atlantic. At the same time, water from fourteen great rivers in Asia, Africa, Europe, South America, and North America was emptied into New York Bay. A procession five miles long marched through the city streets. Well might the people celebrate, for this was the dawn of a new day for our state." Can we assume that those who migrated via boat settled in the towns along the canal AND that those who migrated via oxen or horses and wagon traveled along the waterway and migrated inland. My descendants came from New York to Albany and then to Camden, NY. Just a thought. How did one hear about the good areas to settle in? I thought this was a story worth telling/sharing! Florence Secor