Eric Canal and Fort Stanwix too

The Erie Canal is flowing with history, it is claimed to be one of America's most famous man-made water-ways. First proposed in the 1780s, its construction began in 1817 and it was primarily dug by hand...it opened in for traffic in 1825. The original Erie Canal had 83 locks, was 363 long and ran from Albany on the Hudson to Buffalo on Lake Erie, and it was cut 40 feet wide and 4 feet deep, with removed soil piled on the north downhill side to form a walkway known as a "towpath" for the mules and horses. In a time when bulk goods were limited to pack animals and there were no railways, water was the most cost effective way to ship bulk goods. The original canal was the first transportation system between the eastern seaboard, New York City and the western interior, The Great Lakes of the United States. 

Today the present Erie Canal rises 566 feet from the Hudson River to Lake Erie through 35 locks. From tide water level at Troy, the Erie Canal rises through a series of locks in the Mohawk Valley to an elevation of 420 feet above sea level at Rome. Continuing westward, it descends to an elevation of 363 feet above sea-level at the junction with the Oswego Canal, and finally rises to an elevation of 565.6 feet above sea-level at the Niagara River. We floated down the Erie Canal and went through lock 17.. at one time this was the highest lift lock in the world, raising and lowering vessels over 40ft...it was like going back in time..they still use equipment that is over 100yrs old and it still works perfectly. 

There is a fort in Rome, New York so after our Erie tours we took a tour of Fort Stanwix, this Fort was built to guard a portage between the main waterways southeastward to the Atlantic seacoast, down the Mohawk and Hudson rivers, then northwestward to Lake Ontario down Wood Creek and Oneida Lake to Oswego....Indians used this portage for centuries, they called it 

-Wain-Sta, or The Great Carrying Place.

Fort Stanwix has been almost completely reconstructed to its 1777 appearance, and they have people that wander around in period costumes. 

When they were excavating, prior to reconstructing the fort, a substantial quantity of 18th-century artifacts were unearthed and they offered some evidence of the activities that took place here during various periods of time during the fort's occupation.

Fort Stanwix was garrisoned until 1781, but played no further active part in the war. In October 1784, American and Iroquois representatives met here to negotiate the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, which set terms for a separate peace with the Indians and forced the Iroquois Confederacy to cede large parts of their lands to the United States. 

It was just another fort..but these Forts have such historic value and when I was walking around, I just can not help think about the people that used to inhabit these Forts and what they went through! It's mind blowing!