[51] Jenkins, Political History of New York, p. 372.
[52] W. N. Holland, Life and Political Opinions of Van Buren: Attitude toward internal improvements, pp. 269-274.
[53] This is probably a reference to such loans as were authorized to be made to the New York and Erie Railroad. The New York and Erie Railroad was incorporated in 1832 and in 1836 the legislature authorized a loan of the credit of the state to the company for the amount of $3,000,000 subject to certain restrictions, some of which were that the route of the road should be through the Southern tier of counties in the state, one-fourth was to be completed in ten years, one-half in fifteen years, and the whole of it in twenty years. The road was to begin at Tappan, Rockland County, on the Hudson, pass through Goshen, Oswego, Elmira, and other towns and end at Dunkirk on Lake Erie.—Tanner, Canals and Railroads of the United States, 1840, p. 74.
[54] Lossing, Empire State, p. 493.
[55] Documentary Sketch of New York State Canals by S. H. Sweet (Albany, 1863), p. 104.
[56] Laws of the State of New-York relative to the Canals (Albany, 1825), vol. ii, pp. 13-14.
[57] Sweet’s Documentary History, pp. 198-199.
[58] Id., p. 201.
[59] Id., p. 207-208.
[60] Id., p. 204.