Many years ago, America was a wild place, and few
people left the big cities of the East. They stayed, even
though the West had great forests and a lot of land that
could be used for farms. Many people would have liked
to travel to those wide open spaces, but the lands were
One man had an idea. He thought of a better way to
travel to the West. His name was Dewitt Clinton, and he
was the governor of New York. His idea was to build a
canal. The canal would go from Buffalo in the West to
Albany in the East. Boats would use the canal to get to
the Hudson River, and then they could travel to New York
City. Clinton felt that New York City would grow quickly if
Most people thought the idea would not work. They
said no one could build a canal that big. They called the
canal "Clinton's Ditch." But Clinton did not care. In 1817,
the state agreed to spend seven million dollars to build
the canal. That was a huge sum of money at the time.
Hundreds of men worked to dig the canal. It took them
eight years to finish. The canal would be close to four
hundred miles long. It opened in 1825.
Building the canal was a great idea. All that Clinton
imagined came true. People traveled west to live and
work. Boats moved goods back and forth across the
state. New York City grew and grew. The canal began the
great move west in the United States.