Does anyone know why the Erie Canal didn't first empty into Lake Ontario (via eg Oswego, NY, which eventually happened), and then have a second canal on the NY side of Niagara Falls connecting Lake Ontario to Lake Erie? That seems like a lot less digging than the famous canal.
From Whitford's '
History of the Canal System of New York':
'At first the chief objection to going by way of Lake Ontario was the fear lest commerce, once started in that direction, should continue down the St. Lawrence, and so out of the country. At that day the great West was not so firmly bound to the United States as at present, and the fear was evidently well grounded. When the practicability of an interior canal was established, the development of western New York by a canal through its midst, and the having of so much lockage as the Ontario route would require, were important factors in determining the route. However, so well established in the public mind was this idea of the Ontario route, that, when in 1808 the first proposition was made in the Legislature to authorize a survey directly from the Hudson to Lake Erie, the members would not take the responsibility of so wild a scheme, and ordered the Surveyor-General to investigate along "the usual route of communication between the Hudson river and lake Erie, and such other contemplated route as he may deem proper."'
There's a lot more detail in the chapter itself as to why they didn't adopt the Ontario route, and I'd recommend reading it. It could, however, have done with a link to the 'New York memorial' of 1815, which can be found
here.