Erie Canal question - why not Ontario Canal?

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. Was it just to keep transport away from potential British attacks/blockades, or was there some engineering/economic reason? I imagine switching mule pull trains for boats one more time would be annoying, but I have to imagine it would save time.

Erie_Canal
 
I suspect the whole defensiveness against the British aspect you mentioned, but also to ensure as much of the state as possible would benefit from the Canal in terms of area. I say "suspect" for a reason, though.
 
The Erie canal route was maybe not the most efficient one possible but the canal builders wanted it to be some distance from the Canadian border and British North America. If Canada was annexed by the USA after the war of independence, you might see a different route for the canal. It was certainly successful enough that it kick-started an canal boom across the US in OTL.
 
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.
 

TruthfulPanda

Gone Fishin'
So - if one paid one's way to go through the Welland Canal and descend to to Lake Ontario, then why pay to use another canal to go to New York?
Montreal was closer and cheaper.
 
Top