The Erie Canal: God’s Gift to the Town of Verona, NY

By Jeff Blanchard, Town of Verona Historian

Copyright ©2025 All rights reserved by the author. If one were to drive through the Town of Verona, NY, on State Route 46 in this current century, a few things are hard to miss, while others are seemingly unremarkable and not hard to miss at all. One of those hard-to-miss sights is an unusually wide ditch-like body of water clinging to the edge of Route 46, brimming with cattails, fallen trees, and other vegetation. Road signs are abundant on Verona’s stretch of Route 46, denoting hamlets and areas with unique, and at times peculiar, names such as Durhamville, State Bridge, Stacy Basin, Higginsville, and New London. Clusters of homes, the occasional business, and large tracts of farm land dot either side of Route 46, with some stretches presenting the driver with nothing but wilderness.  If one were driving a bit too fast, it would be easy to miss a yellow and blue sign titled ‘Stark’s Landing’ or the signs for a crossroad known as Jug Point Road.

Now, if the clock were to be turned back to say the mid-Nineteenth Century, the sights would change dramatically. The wide ditch-like body of water (known more famously as the Erie Canal) would not be full of vegetation. Still, it would present packet boats leisurely traveling along, full of either cargo or passengers, destined for a stop somewhere along the canal’s endless miles. In Durhamville, immigrants from Europe, many of them Irish, would have been busy building and launching the next canal boat at Doran Dry Dock. State Bridge would have boasted businesses and a hotel. A booth to collect tolls for the State of New York on the Erie would have been found in Higginsville. Stark’s Landing would not have been hard to miss, with its grouping of a hotel, store, and a shop just a stone’s throw from the great canal. At Jug Point, canal boats would have been at a halt, the boat captains handing off empty water jugs to get topped off by the child workers of the nearby hotels. New London would have been a hub of entrepreneurial activity, with hotels, stores, dry docks, and charming homes clinging to either side of the Erie Canal. The tracts of farmland would still be in this mid-Nineteenth Century scene, except that the farmers would have been placing their processed crops on canal boats bound for distant markets. Now, one must be shocked that the sights and scenes from two centuries ago included a bit more hustle and bustle than the sights and scenes of the Twenty-first Century. The hustle and bustle of mid-Nineteenth Century Verona, including the economic activities of local businesses, hotels, industry, and the built-up nature of local communities, was the result of God’s gift to the Town of Verona: the Erie Canal.

To fully understand the wondrous prosperity the Erie Canal brought to Verona, as well as its eventual demise, the story of how the canal came into being is essential. During the United States’ colonial and post-Revolutionary period, the Appalachian Mountains proved to be a formidable barrier between the original colonies and the eventual states and the lucrative lands west of the mountains.^[1] Pioneers had a rough go through the treacherous wilderness trails in order to settle in the lands beyond the Appalachians. The challenge of getting past the Appalachians was not just an issue for pioneers but also a geopolitical challenge for the young American republic. George Washington, in 1775, just prior to the American Revolution, expressed concern that if a way past the imposing mountain range could not be found, the lands west of the Appalachians would be lost to the great powers of either France or British Canada, leaving the U.S. as a minor power consigned to the Atlantic coast.^[2] Thus was born the concept of utilizing canals to traverse the Appalachians, and so began the quest to build a pathway to the west.

In 1777, Gouverneur Morris, a Congressman of the First Continental Congress, made the first proposal for a navigable waterway that “... would extend from the Hudson (River), through the valley of the Mohawk, all the way to Lake Erie.”^[3] Morris’ proposal was both forward-thinking and advanced for its time, with Morris himself proving to be an inspiration many years later. Energetic and ambitious men such as George Washington and General Philip Schuyler set out to breach the Appalachian range with a navigable waterway through private ventures after the War of Independence, such as Washington’s Patowmack Company (attempting to ‘canalize’ the Potomac River in Virginia)^[4]and Schuyler’s Western Inland Lock Company (an attempt to convert the Mohawk River into a ‘canal’ to allow boats to navigate from the Hudson River to Lake Ontario).^[5] Both of these ventures failed due to a lack of finances, but the idea for a navigable waterway spanning the length of Upstate New York from the Hudson to the Erie did not die.

Gouverneur Morris continued to advocate for the creation of a canal across New York despite the failures of other canal ventures. Morris highlighted the many advantages and benefits that such a canal would create, not only for New York but for the fledgling United States, with two members of the New York State Legislature sharing in Morris’ sentiment in 1805 by advocating for the construction of a canal.^[6] Enthusiasm for a trans-New York canal grew, but many pessimists doubted that such a project would succeed. In 1809, two members of the New York State Legislature traveled to Washington, D.C. to present the Erie Canal project to President Thomas Jefferson in order to secure Federal funds for the venture, but Jefferson proved to be a doubter stating the project was “. . .little short of madness to think of it at this day!” regarding the great challenge and difficulty that it would have taken to create such a canal.^[7] Despite the rejection of the Erie Canal project by the Federal Government, a champion for the canal, and one who would see to its creation, was found in an unlikely character of a man.

DeWitt Clinton was a politician of many shades. He had been the Mayor of New York City, a New York State Legislator, a U.S. Senator, and he would be just the man needed to champion the Erie Canal. Clinton had no interest in the Erie Canal project. Still, his chief political opponent, Jonas Platt, himself a proponent of the canal, knew Clinton was the right caliber of politician to support it.^[8] Although Platt could have allowed his political ambitions to steer Clinton away from the Erie Canal project, Platt knew that the canal project would not be successful without Clinton’s support, leading Platt to encourage Clinton to take the lead in supporting advocacy for the Erie Canal.^[9] Clinton, after realizing the political advantages that throwing his support to the canal project would bring, became a member of the Erie Canal Commission in 1810 to explore plans for building the canal.^[10]

Several years passed after the Erie Canal Commission was established in 1810, with various plans and proposals for the canal's route and design. The biggest break for the canal project and its commission came in 1817. In that year, the champion of the Erie Canal project, DeWitt Clinton, was elected Governor of New York State, placing him in a position to advocate for and win support for using state government funds to finance the canal project after it became apparent that Federal funding would not materialize.^[11] The chances of the Erie Canal building project moving forward were much higher with state funding in place, as previous private ventures had failed due to inadequate financial resources. Construction on the sought-after Erie Canal would finally start.

It was fitting that the groundbreaking of the Erie Canal began on a patriotic holiday such as July 4th. In the Village of Rome, NY on July 4^th, 1817, the official ground breaking ceremony commenced, with many local and state political dignitaries in attendance as well as the man who would break the earth for the great canal project, Magistrate John Richardson who won the bid to begin digging the first section of the canal.^[12] From Rome, an eight-year-long engineering project unlike any other at the time began. Construction of the Erie Canal was fraught with challenges, as engineers and surveyors were inexperienced, many hundreds of miles of forest had to be cleared by hand, and countless tons of dirt and rock had to be removed. Additionally, features necessary for canal building, such as locks, aqueducts, and feeder canals (to supply water to the canal), had to be devised for the project to be completed. By 1825, after eight years of laborious work carried out by a varied workforce, construction of the Erie Canal had been completed. The canal was officially opened on October 26, 1825, with a grand parade of canal boats led by Governor DeWitt Clinton on the Seneca Chief, going from Buffalo to New York City.^[13] With the Erie Canal finally constructed and open for operation, prosperity and development, the likes of which had never been seen, were about to be lavished upon New York State in the coming years.

The Erie Canal’s official opening in the fall of 1825 ushered in a new era of prosperity, economic growth, and industrial development, as well as the build-up of urban centers in New York State. Boat traffic on the canal provided for the transportation of goods and people from Buffalo all the way to the harbor of New York City. The sheer volume of boat traffic on the Erie Canal was such that between 1825 and 1836, enough revenue had been produced through boat tolls that the costs incurred to build the canal had been paid off entirely.^[14] Various developments related to technology (such as the transition from mule-drawn canal boats to those propelled by steam)^[15] and the reach of the Erie Canal (lateral canal branches were built off of or connected to the canal in the 1840s to allow for access to new territory and economic markets)^[16] enhanced the impact that the canal had on New York. Communities along the Erie Canal route, such as Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse, went from seemingly insignificant to sprawling urban centers, each with its own unique specialized industrial manufacturing base. Overall, New York State witnessed growth in its population, the unprecedented development of population centers of all sizes, and the transformation of manufacturing and farming from subsistence activities to large-scale commercial profit-making ventures.^[17] Not only did New York share in the benefits and transformation brought about by the Erie Canal, but so did the young American nation.

The Erie Canal had overcome the age-old challenge to the westward expansion of the United States that was posed by the Appalachian Mountains. In doing so, the canal transformed the country in more ways than one. The Erie Canal linked the Eastern Seaboard of the United States to the country's vast interior, allowing Americans, particularly New Englanders, to migrate to the Old Northwest to settle and develop the land.^[18] George Washington’s nightmare scenario of western lands being settled by great European powers had been averted. With the process of settlement and development in the West came economic growth and development for the country, as the prosperity of Eastern markets spread West and the bounty of western settlers, chiefly agricultural goods, flowed back to the Eastern markets.^[19] The Erie Canal stands in early American history as a dividing line between the “Frontier without the Factory” and the “Frontier with the Factory,” as it facilitated the growth and development of industry and technology.^[20] As the industrialized frontier developed, new territories in the West formed and eventually became states. These new states, with industrial economies, quickly established the sectional boundary line between the industrial “North” void of slavery and the agricultural “South” with widespread slavery, shaping the identity of the young United States.^[21] Lastly, the Erie Canal developed the religious and moral character of the American nation in the 1830s, as the ideology and core tenants of Christian revivals spread along the canal corridor of Upstate New York and beyond New York’s borders, influencing the rise of moralistic thinking amongst Americans, such as the belief that the institution of slavery was evil and needed to be abolished.^[22]The monumental transformation and bounty brought about by the Erie Canal to the nation and New York State would eventually reach the rural Town of Verona, NY.

In 1820, three years after construction began, the Erie Canal opened for operation in the Town of Verona, cutting across the town in a diagonal line following the present-day State Route 46 corridor.^[23] The canal was a physical dividing line in the town, splitting Verona into east and west.^[24] With the opening of the canal, preexisting local industries, such as farming and logging, began to take advantage of its ability to ship products to more distant markets. New industries, such as manufacturing, developed as a result of the canal’s establishment. An abundance of timber in the town also fostered the lucrative (and prolific) boat-building and repair industry in the hamlet communities of Durhamville, Higginsville, Stacy Basin, and New London; the boat-related industry lasted in the town from the 1830s to the early 1900s.^[25] Factories creating a variety of products developed alongside the banks of the Erie Canal, such as cheese factories, canning, and glassmaking. The glass-making industry, in particular, was prominent (partly due to an abundant supply of local lumber and sand), lasting from the 1840s to 1890, with factories in the communities of Durhamville and Dunbarton shipping glass products, such as windows, to New York City via the canal.^[26] Additionally, many smaller, but still important businesses developed to serve the needs of the canal in Verona, such as general stores, hotels, provision stores, and others. Perhaps the most significant change the Erie Canal brought to the town was the establishment of new communities and the accelerated development of preexisting ones, topics that require individual examination.

Durhamville, the southern-most ‘canal community’ in the Town of Verona, was the site of much prosperous activity related to the Erie Canal. Durhamville was first inhabited in the early 1810s (between 1811 and 1813) and was named after Eber Durham, who, after settling in 1826, prospered from the Erie Canal by leasing surplus water to operate local mills and factories.^[27] Many businesses related to the canal were established in the Hamlet of Durhamville, including dry goods and provision stores, warehouses, taverns, grist and feed mills, foundries, and tanneries.^[28] The most significant industry to arise, though, was boat building, the Doran Dry Dock being the most prominent. The twenty-two-acre Doran Dry Dock, established in 1863, built and repaired canal boats, the likes of which traveled from the Great Lakes region all the way to New York City.^[29] The Doran Dry Dock churned out numerous canal boats, employing large numbers of European immigrants who settled in Durhamville and established roots. Changing times led to the demise of the Doran Dry Dock: the ever-expanding railroad system created competition for the Erie Canal, reducing demand for canal boats and prompting the dry dock’s closure in 1924.^[30] As previously mentioned, the glass making industry, in the form of the Durhamville Glass Factory, established in 1845 (originally owned by DeWitt Clinton Stephens and later sold to Fox, Gregory and Son)^[31] utilized the canal as means of sending glass products to market. Perhaps the most distinctive feature of the Erie Canal in the Town of Verona was the Oneida Creek Aqueduct in Durhamville. The Oneida Creek Aqueduct, constructed between 1845 and 1855, carried the waters of the Erie Canal over Oneida Creek and was originally a sixty-foot-long double-arched stone structure before being replaced by a more adequate steel aqueduct in 1907.^[32] The development and prosperity brought to Durhamville by the Erie Canal traveled further north along the canal’s path to the communities of State Bridge and Dunbarton.

North of the hamlet of Durhamville are the curious hamlets of State Bridge and Dunbarton. State Bridge, named for a bridge carrying a section of a New York State-maintained highway,^[33] was once a small but bustling community with many canal-related enterprises. In addition to numerous homes, State Bridge boasted a hotel, provision stores, a blacksmith shop, and a post office,^[34] with many of these businesses located within close proximity to the Erie Canal (such as “Rollie” Potter's General Store, Feed Mill, and Post Office), serving the needs of canal travelers and Verona residents.^[35] Just north of State Bridge was the community of Dunbarton. Dunbarton’s main focal point was the Dunbarton Glass Factory, located conveniently near the Erie Canal, allowing for glass products to be shipped to distant markets. The Dunbarton Glass Factory was a self-contained community, boasting its own post office. In this factory store, workers used a special form of currency known as shin plasters to buy provisions and housing for some workers.^[36] Although the level of industry and enterprise were on a small scale in Sate Bridge and Dunbarton, these developments were nevertheless impressive for communities of their size due in part to the benefits the Erie Canal provided in both creating businesses to serve the canal or to enhance the profitability of businesses (such as the Dunbarton Glass Factory) through transportation of locally made products to distant consumers. As impressive as the development and prosperity were in State Bridge and Dunbarton, more prosperous development could be found further north in the hamlet of Higginsville.

Higginsville, located in the central portion of the Town of Verona, was named after Christopher Higgins, originally a native of Connecticut.^[37] Prior to the establishment of the Erie Canal, Higginsville’s main economic activity was farming, with canal-focused industry arising once the canal had been established.^[38] As was typical in many canal communities in the town, canal-related businesses and activities included a hotel, post office, a New York State canal toll collector’s office, stores, a dry dock, a boat supply yard, in addition to businesses that benefited from the canal, such as a cheese factory, blacksmith shops, and a cigar store.^[39] The Erie Canal not only transformed activity in Higginsville but also established various points of interest. Stark’s Landing was a focal point of social gathering in Higginsville, located near the Erie Canal, consisting of a hotel, store, and a blacksmith shop. Established by Jabez Stark, who moved to Higginsville from Seneca Falls in 1820.^[40] Other points of interest were very canal related such as Lawton’s Bridge, a docking point for canal boats and Jug Point, an area where the sloping banks of the Erie Canal prevented canallers from getting off their boats, earning its name in the 1860s due the frequent activities of boys employed by the local hotel securing empty water jugs from canal boatmen using poles; the water jugs were then brought to the local hotel to be filled with fresh water and were handed back down to the canal boatmen by pole.^[41] The most striking point of interest in Higginsville related to the Erie Canal was the Old Oneida Lake Canal. Similar to other lateral canal developments found throughout New York, the Old Oneida Lake Canal served as both a shortcut and a means of access to nearby Oneida Lake for canal boats.^[42] The Old Oneida Lake Canal extended four and a half miles through Higginsville from the Erie Canal, then met Wood Creek, which brought canal boats another two miles to Oneida Lake; this allowed boats from the lake to enter the Erie Canal without having to travel further south to Durhamville.^[43] The Old Oneida Lake Canal, opened for operation in 1835, utilized a system of seven locks and a guard lock made out of wood, which proved to be vulnerable to rot due to harsh winter conditions, with the canal experiencing the additional issues of sand bar build up at the mouth of the Fish Creek and troubles with the towpath by Wood Creek, which led to the closure of the Old Oneida Lake Canal in 1863 due to high maintenance costs.^[44] The short-lived successor to the Old Oneida Lake Canal, the New Oneida Lake Canal, was constructed from 1869 to 1877 and intended to connect the Erie Canal to Oneida Lake at Durhamville, thereby allowing boats access to Lake Ontario via the Oswego River. The canal was abandoned in 1877.^[45] The New Oneida Lake Canal was abandoned in 1878 after only a year of operation due to water leakage through the canal banks, as the canal was constructed on unstable ground.^[46] Higginsville proved to be an example of how the Erie Canal’s establishment radically altered the landscape and the community development trends of a preexisting hamlet in Verona. But the trend of the growth of new communities after the canal’s establishment continued, as was seen in Stacy Basin.

North of Higginsville, located approximately midway along the Erie Canal’s “long level,”^[47] is the community of Stacy Basin. Stacy Basin, like many canal communities in Verona, was a bustling hub of varied commercial activities clinging to the banks of the Erie Canal. Located within Stacy Basin were six stores, boatbuilding yards, dry docks, and three blacksmith shops. Many of the commercial activities in Stacy Basin were geared towards serving the needs and demands of the canal, in particular, provision and general stores that ensured canal travelers had the commodities they needed on long journeys. As was common in Verona at the time, timber was a plentiful natural resource in Stacy Basin and provided the basis for the primary commercial enterprise of the community: timber harvesting; chord wood was used in the local glass making industry, used in home construction and was also being shipped by way of the Erie Canal to Syracuse to be used in the salt industry of that community.^[48] Additionally, the town's primary staple industry, agriculture, benefited from the Empire State Canning Company, located near the banks of the Erie Canal. The Empire State Canning Company, organized in 1895 by Joseph H. Warren, employed approximately 175 local residents on a seasonal basis, canning locally grown produce with hundreds of thousands of canned products being churned out in the early Twentieth Century before the demise of the Erie Canal.^[49] Stacy Basin was an excellent example of a community within the Town of Verona that developed new talents after the arrival of the canal, while preexisting commercial activities benefited from the canal as well. Stacy Basin was not alone in this example, as the nearby community of New London also developed in much the same way.

New London would have been the last stop in the Town of Verona for a ‘canaller’ traveling on the Erie from south to north in the Nineteenth or early Twentieth Centuries. Located north of Stacy Basin, near the outer limits of Verona, New London was first settled in 1824, a year before the Erie Canal’s completion by a man named Ambrose Jones,^[50] naming the community after his original hometown of New London, Connecticut.^[51] The Erie Canal provided New London with the opportunity to capitalize on its local resources and establish new enterprises as the town's prosperity and population swelled in the mid-Nineteenth Century.  As was the case in Stacy Basin, New London had an abundance of timber, with trees thirty feet in diameter harvested and used not only for lumber (shipped out of the community in millions of board feet) but also for the extensive boat-building industry in five boat yards.^[52] The New London boat-building industry was so industrious that lore circulated that the New London boat builders would construct boats a mile long, sawing them into barge-length sections that were finished as completed boats, producing a fleet of instant canal barges.^[53] The establishment of the Erie Canal also allowed New London’s local agricultural and cheese making industries to ship their well cultivated grain, vegetables, flowers and cheese products to markets as far as New York City.^[54] Not only did the Erie Canal allow New London to ‘export’ its products, but it also allowed New London to become a ‘port,’ with canal barges unloading products, such as sugar and manufactured goods, to be loaded onto wagon trains bound for Oswego and Jefferson Counties.^[55] As was familiar in just about every other canal community in the Town of Verona, hospitality made for good business, with three hotels offering opportunities for canal travelers to rest on their long journeys.^[56] The Erie Canal shaped New London into a bustling and prosperous community, as it did for numerous communities across New York State. As time and progress marched on, though, it became apparent that the days of the canal were numbered across the state.

 As time went by for the Erie Canal, progress in transportation technology and engineering feats kept pace. The Erie Canal generated much public revenue through boat tolls starting after its official opening in 1825. The revenue generated was so profitable that the government of New York State began experiencing a surplus. In a cruel twist of irony, the New York State government began utilizing the surplus canal toll money for projects related to improving coach roads and constructing railroads throughout the state; this action had the unfortunate effect of creating significant competition for passenger traffic on the Erie Canal, driving many canal packet boat services out of business.^[57] By the 1880s, demand for passenger travel and commercial shipping on the Erie Canal was greatly reduced, as transport by rail was considerably faster and cheaper than the leisurely pace of travel on the canal.^[58] Despite previous efforts to widen and deepen the Erie Canal in the mid-Nineteenth Century to accommodate larger canal boats, canal transport was still fading, necessitating efforts to preserve its relevance and value. Starting in the early Twentieth Century, plans for a canal system that would utilize a combination of preexisting natural and man-made features along new travel routes were hatched. The New York State Barge Canal, as it was known, was built in the 1910s (just prior to the United States’ entry into World War I) and utilized natural and manmade waterways such as the Mohawk River, sections of the Erie Canal, and the Champlain, Oswego and Seneca Canals in order to accommodate considerably larger cargo boats to compete more effectively with rail and road transport.^[59] For a time, the Barge Canal was profitable because of its ability to accommodate larger canal barges capable of transporting significantly greater amounts of goods more cheaply than by rail. Progress took its toll on the Barge Canal, as it did with the Old Erie Canal, with the arrival of improved rail and truck transport that proved faster and more efficient than canal transport; the final death blow arrived in 1959 with the completion of the Saint Lawrence Seaway in Northern New York, a waterway that was able to accommodate ocean-going vessels.^[60] The Barge Canal still exists and is used by boat traffic. The glory days of the ‘canallers’ were over, with the Town of Verona’s section of the Old Erie facing the same fate.

The Erie Canal in Verona faced the same challenges as sections in other communities, as rail, road, and alternative canal transportation began to develop. The greatest challenger of the Old Erie Canal in Verona, and the one that put it out of existence, was the New York State Barge Canal. Between 1918 and 1919, the Barge Canal opened for commercial transport, cutting across the northern section of the town,^[61] with the new canal system taking a more direct route to Rome by traveling from Oneida Lake through New London.^[62] With a more efficient canal transport system in operation, the Old Erie Canal was completely abandoned,^[63] with the former canal system being repurposed as a feeder canal for the Barge Canal.^[64] The abandonment of the Old Erie Canal in the Town of Verona had a devastating impact on the town. For many decades, the numerous canal communities oriented their economic activity towards serving the needs of the canal and using it to ship locally made goods to distant markets. With the arrival of the Barge Canal, which was less accessible to the community than the Old Erie, businesses and, eventually, the population of Verona declined, especially in New London and Durhamville.^[65]Hotels no longer provided beds for weary canal travelers. Provision, General, and grocery stores no longer sold food and supplies to boatmen. Factories and farmers no longer had an easily accessible transport artery from which their rich products could flow to distant markets. Boat yards no longer had any demand for their sturdy vessels. Of the communities struck by this crisis of progress, New London was hit hardest by a combination of misfortunes. Not only did the opening of the Barge Canal take business away from New London in 1918, but previous competition from the Black River canal and two major fiery conflagrations through New London’s canal business district also devastated the small community.^[66] The glory days of ‘canalling’ were over in the Town of Verona, but the memories of those days could still be cherished by those who lived them and can still be cherished by those who learn about them in the present.

The Erie Canal, born out of a desire to penetrate the imposing Appalachian Mountains, was a blessing both to the State of New York and the Town of Verona, NY. The canal was conceived and brought to fruition through a difficult process involving the optimism of its proponents, such as Gouverneur Morris and DeWitt Clinton, who faced down pessimistic naysayers. Over eight years of hard, backbreaking labor, the Erie Canal was carved out of the soil and rock of Upstate New York by immigrants seeking opportunity and local community residents anticipating prosperity. Prosperity eventually arrived, and a new chapter was written in U.S. history as the way to the West was opened and industry began taking root in the American economy, with the Erie Canal allowing the movement of people and goods to far-off places. The Town of Verona took part in the bountiful ‘harvest’ of the Erie Canal, with communities such as Durhamville, State Bridge, Dunbarton, Higginsville, Stacy Basin, and New London becoming bustling, active, thriving hubs of civilization in the farmland of the town. The good times lasted for many decades, but would not last forever as the railroads, highways, and Barge Canal proved to be the way forward. Communities across the state, and within Verona, declined as the downward spiral set in, with business and trade stripped away by the new means of transport. Although the days of the ‘canallers’ are now preserved in history books, they can still be cherished by those living in the here and now, as the Erie Canal shaped New York and Verona into what they are today. If nothing else, the preserved memories of the canal across the state and town, eliciting images of packet boats leisurely streaming past refreshing countryside scenes while being pulled by plodding mules, provide a temporary escape for the postmodern mind existing in a fast-paced Twenty-First Century that refuses to travel at the leisurely speed of mule as in a cherished bygone era.

About the author: Jeff Blanchard has been the Historian for the Town of Verona, NY, since June 2025, and has vigorously pursued projects related to Verona’s rich history. Jeff earned a Bachelor of Science in History from Liberty University and is interested in local history, post-World War II military history, and American military history. 

Sources

Bernstein, Peter L. Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the making of a great nation. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2005.

Author Unknown. Erie Canal Timeline. Publisher Unknown, Date Unknown.

Andrist, Ralph K. The Erie Canal. New York, NY: American Heritage Publishing, 1964.

Cmaylo, Dorothy et al. Images of America: Verona. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2010.

Cmaylo, Dorothy. “Verona.” Exploring 200 Years of Oneida County History. ed.Donal F. White. Utica, NY: Oneida County Historical Society, 1998.

Ernenwein, Raymond. Verona Town History. Verona, NY: Verona Town Board, 1970.

Hoffman, Sheila. Waterways in the Town of Verona, NY. Verona, NY: Sheila Hoffman, Date Unknown.

Hopkins Adams, Samuel. The Erie Canal. New York, NY: Random House, 1953.

Jones, Pomroy. Annals and Recollections of Oneida County. Rome, NY: Pomroy Jones, 1851.

Kelly, Jack. Heaven’s Ditch: God, Gold and Murder on the Erie Canal. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2016.

 Bibliography

^[1] Peter L. Bernstein, Wedding of the Waters: The Erie Canal and the making of a great nation, (New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2005), 22.

^[2] Bernstein, Wedding of the Waters, 22-23.

^[3] Ralph K. Andrist, The Erie Canal, (New York, NY: American Heritage Publishing, 1964), 10 and 12.

^[4] Bernstein, Wedding of the Waters, 23.

^[5] Andrist, The Erie Canal, 16.

^[6] Bernstein, Wedding of the Waters, 24.

^[7] Andrist, The Erie Canal, 19.

^[8] Ibid, 20.

^[9] Ibid.

^[10] Ibid.

^[11] Author Unknown, Erie Canal Timeline, Publisher Unknown, Date Unknown, 1.

^[12] Jack Kelly, Heaven’s Ditch: God, Gold and Murder on the Erie Canal, (New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2016), 40 and 41.

^[13] Samuel Hopkins Adams, The Erie Canal, (New York, NY: Random House, 1953), 128 and 129.

^[14] Hopkins Adams, The Erie Canal, 174.

^[15] Ibid.

^[16] Ibid, 174-175.

^[17] Bernstein, Wedding of the Waters, 357-358.

^[18] Kelly, Heaven’s Ditch, 260-261.

^[19] Hopkins Adams, The Erie Canal, 177.

^[20] Bernstein, Wedding of the Waters, 358.

^[21] Kelly, Heaven’s Ditch, 261.

^[22] Ibid.

^[23] Dorothy Cmaylo, “Verona,” Exploring 200 Years of Oneida County History, ed.Donal F. White (Utica, NY: Oneida County Historical Society, 1998), 224.

^[24] Pomroy Jones, Annals and Recollections of Oneida County (Rome, NY: Pomroy Jones, 1851), 676.

^[25] Cmaylo, Exploring 200 Years, 224.

^[26] Ibid.

^[27] Cmaylo, Exploring 200 Years, 227.

^[28] Dorothy Cmaylo, et al., Images of America: Verona (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2010), 9.

^[29] Cmaylo et al., Images of America, 10.

^[30] Ibid, 10 and 12.

^[31] Ibid, 9.

^[32] Sheila Hoffman, Waterways in the Town of Verona, NY (Verona, NY: Sheila Hoffman, Date Unknown), 5.

^[33] Cmaylo et al., Images of America, 35.

^[34] Cmaylo et al., Images of America, 35.

^[35] Ibid, 36.

^[36] Ibid, 38.

^[37] Ibid, 35.

^[38] Ibid.

^[39]  Raymond Ernenwein, Verona Town History (Verona, NY: Verona Town Board, 1970), 61.

^[40] Cmaylo, Images of America, 35.

^[41] Ernenwein, Verona Town History, 62-63.

^[42] Hoffman, Waterways, 9.

^[43] Ibid, 9.

^[44] Hoffman, Waterways, 9.

^[45] Ibid, 9.

^[46] Ibid, 9.

^[47] Cmaylo et al., Images of America, 59.

^[48] Ibid, 59.

^[49] Ibid, 61.

^[50] Ibid, 59.

^[51] Cmaylo, Exploring 200 Years, 228.

^[52] Ibid.

^[53] Ibid.

^[54] Ibid.

^[55] Ibid.

^[56] Ibid.

^[57] Hopkins Adams, The Erie Canal, 177.

^[58] Hoffman, Waterways, 8.

^[59] Hopkins Adams, The Erie Canal, 177-178.

^[60] Kelly, Heaven’s Ditch, 263.

^[61] Cmaylo, Exploring 200 Years, 224.

^[62] Hoffman, Waterways, 11.

^[63] Ibid.

^[64] Cmaylo, Exploring 200 Years, 224.

^[65] Hoffman, Waterways, 6.

^[66] Cmaylo, Exploring 200 Years, 228.