Fluency U3L4

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

not easy to get to.

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

the canal were built.

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.