At Rome probably the first indication of ill-feeling was met; exercises had been held on the twenty-sixth to commemorate the opening of the canal, but dissatisfaction was felt over the fact that the Erie Canal did not follow the route of the old Western Inland Lock Navigation Company canal upon which the village of Rome had grown up. In consequence, at 11 A. M. on the twenty-sixth, a procession was formed bearing a black barrel filled with water from the old canal. Drums were muffled and the procession moved slowly out of town to the Erie Canal into which the barrel was emptied. The return march was made at quick step and at the hotel an appropriate celebration was held. The present flotilla arrived on Sunday, the thirtieth, and remained only an hour. Utica was reached at noon on this date; during the exercises held on the morrow, Governor Clinton took occasion to pay high tribute to Utica’s citizen, Judge Platt, who had long befriended the canal movement. Little Falls was reached Monday evening; here, too, a change of route displeased some; the old Lock Company canal was on the north side of the Mohawk, and the Erie Canal was on the south side; a banquet was served the guests at one of the hotels. At three o’clock Tuesday afternoon, Schenectady was reached—two hours ahead of scheduled time. Here a grave reception awaited the enthusiastic voyageurs; a local paper had mentioned “a project of a funeral procession, or some other demonstration of mourning.” No preparation for the reception of the visitors had been made. The canal would, it was believed, be the ruin of Schenectady; as the terminus of the old overland portage of sixteen miles from Albany, the town had grown in size and wealth; a large part of all the freight from the south that passed up the Mohawk came by wagon to Schenectady and was there loaded on boats. The village was, on one hand, a Mecca for wagon lines and wagons, and on the other the terminus of Mohawk shipping. The Erie Canal overturned everything. A waterway was now opened straight through to Albany; Cohoes Falls, which had been the making of Schenectady, was wiped out of existence by the Erie Canal and the Schenectady of the old days was a thing of the past. The students of Union College, however, were cosmopolitan, and the “College Guards” did the honors of the rainy day; the guests took dinner at a hotel and were off at four o’clock. On the following morning, above the patroon mansion of General Stephen Van Rensselaer, the flotilla was met by the aldermen of Albany and the last lock in the long canal was entered at 10:30 A. M. Twenty-four cannon announced the flotilla’s arrival. The procession that soon formed moved slowly to the capital; after a prayer and an ode, the address of the day was delivered by Philip Hone.
At nine o’clock on Thursday morning, November 3, the flotilla set sail from Albany on the broad Hudson; the canal boats were in tow of strong steamers, the “Chancellor Livingston” leading the way. Unfortunately “Noah’s Ark” with its bears and Indians had not kept up with the main procession and did not arrive in time to start for New York. The steamers swept the boats rapidly onward; they were saluted at Catskill, West Point and Newburgh, and arrived at New York at daylight of November 4, anchoring near the state prison.
The steamer “Washington,” magnificently decorated, came alongside the “Chancellor Livingston” bearing the committees of the Corporation and the officers of the Governor’s Guard. Alderman Cowdrey made an address to which Clinton replied. At nine o’clock the fleet from Albany accompanied by a fleet bearing the Corporation set out for open sea. The spectacle was one to attract much attention. Salutes were fired from the Battery, from the forts on Governor’s Island, and from Forts Lafayette and Tompkins. The destination of the pageant was indicated by the U. S. schooner “Porpoise” which preceded the other craft and moored within the Hook, where the interesting ceremony of wedding the waters of the Atlantic and the Great Lakes was to be held. “... Never before,” wrote an enraptured beholder, “was there such a fleet collected, and so superbly decorated; and it is very possible that a display so grand, so beautiful, and we may even add, sublime, will never again be witnessed. We know of nothing with which it can be compared.... The orb of day darted his genial rays upon the bosom of the waters, where they played as tranquilly as upon the natural mirror of a secluded lake. Indeed the elements seemed to repose, as if to gaze upon each other, and participate in the beauty and grandeur of the sublime spectacle.”[40] At the auspicious moment the Governor of New York permitted the water from Lake Erie to fall into the ocean, saying: “This solemnity, at this place, on the first arrival of vessels from Lake Erie, is intended to indicate and commemorate the navigable communication, which has been accomplished between our Mediterranean Seas and the Atlantic Ocean, in about eight years, to the extent of more than four hundred and twenty-five miles, by the wisdom, public spirit, and energy of the people of the state of New York; and may the God of the Heavens and the Earth smile most propitiously on this work, and render it subservient to the best interests of the human race.”[41] Whereupon the “Young Lion of the West” gave a brave salute from “a pair of brazen lungs” which he had provided for himself at Rochester, and a collation was served on the fleet.
While these inspiriting scenes were being enacted, the greatest procession, it was said, that ever had been formed in America to date, was preparing in the city under the direction of Major-general Fleming; all classes were represented, the military and civil societies, educational institutions, the city departments, state artillery and benevolent and mechanical organizations, the whole enlivened by the playing of many bands. At 10:30 o’clock the line, one mile and a half in length, began its march. From Greenwich Street, the route was through Canal to Broadway, up Broadway to Broome, up Broome to the Bowery, down the Bowery to Pearl, down Pearl to the Battery, and thence to Broadway and the City Hall. At night the illuminations were beautiful, the commonest being the letter “C” and “Grand Canal;” the New York Coffee House, the City Hotel, Peale’s Museum, Scudder’s Museum, Chatham and Park theaters had elaborate displays. The illuminations of the City Hall were “surpassingly beautiful.” The exhibition of fireworks in New York was said to be the greatest in its history. On Monday evening, November 7, the celebration was concluded by a grand ball at the Lafayette Amphitheatre in Laurens Street; in order to secure the necessary space required, the floor of the amphitheater was connected with the floors of an adjacent circus building on one side and the floor of a riding school on the other; as a result the largest ball room in America was temporarily formed, measuring two hundred feet in length and from sixty to one hundred feet in width. Above the proscenium were emblazoned the names of the engineers of the “Grand Canal”—Briggs, White, Geddes, Wright, and Thomas; also the names of the past and present canal commissioners—Hart, Bouck, Holly, De Witt, Livingston, Fulton, Clinton, Van Rensselaer, Morris, Eddy, Young, Seymour, Porter, and Ellicott. In the ladies’ banquet room a boat made of maple sugar—the gift of Colonel Hinman of Utica to Governor Clinton—floated proudly on Lake Erie water.
At the conclusion of the great celebration the committee from the West departed for Lake Erie, carrying with them a keg of Atlantic water, ornamented with the arms of the city of New York and the following words in letters of gold: “Neptune’s return to Pan. New York, 4th Nov. 1825. Water of the Atlantic.”
And the last scene in this old pageant was enacted at Buffalo on November 23; at ten o’clock of the morning of that day the committee, accompanied by a band, were towed out into the basin of Lake Erie; the waters of the Atlantic were poured into the lake, Judge Wilkinson delivering an appropriate address. In the evening a concluding celebration was held at the Eagle Tavern. The waters of the ocean and the Great Lakes were at last united; how largely the celebration was inspired by political interests it is impossible to say. The fact remains that the pageant was one of the most significant in American history and marked a new era in the commercial awakening of America.