Canal Item from the Lyons Advertiser - 1822

Submitted by Richard Palmer

Sept. 22,1822

Erie Canal.

We have recently had an opportunity of acquiring some information
respecting the progress of the Eastern Section of this great work ,
which we presume will be gratifying to our readers. It will be
recollected that this section has for the last and the present season
been under the immediate superintendence and direction of Mr. [Henry]
Seymour. The work is prosecuted with great spirit and persevering
industry. It is estimated that there are five thousand persons at
present engaged in various employments on that section of the canal.

The Schoharie creek is to be crossed by means of a dam. The dangers
and delays incident to the construction of such a work, had excited
much solicitude and apprehension. This dam was completely finished
last week, and is secured in the most durable and substantial manner;
it is more than six hundred feet long, and so perfect has been its
construction that the water falls over it in an even and unbroken sheet.

The early completion of this dam, and of the heavy and difficult jobs
at the little and at the great nose, two promontories which present
formidable obstacles, together with the forward state of the work in
general, give the strongest assurance that the line of the canal will
be completed the present year as far eastward as the city of
Schenectady.

Great loss has been sustained during the present summer, occasioned
by a want of means to transport the produce of the country to market.
Large quantities of flour lay exposed to the weather for weeks in
succession; and the owners had at last to pay from ten to twelve
shillings per barrel to have it carried from the little falls to this
city. If the canal, at the opening of this season, had been completed
to Schenectady, it is estimated that there would have been a saving
to the proprietors, in the transportation of the single article of
flour for this year alone, the enormous sum of one hundred thousand
dollars. The amount of toll for the present year, will greatly exceed
what was estimated in the last yearís report.

Albany Argus