The canal town of Canal, New York, is renamed Memphis. ** The approximate date the Tonawanda Guard Lock is removed when its portion of the Erie Canal is enlarged.

Sep 1
The enlargement of the Erie Canal, to carry 270-ton boats, is completed. Cost - $31,000,000, four times that of the original.

U. S. canal engineer Charles Ellet, Jr. dies in Memphis, Tennessee, of battle wounds. ** The Genesee Valley Canal reaches the upper Allegheny River.

The 60-acre Erie Basin opens in Brooklyn's Red Hook section. Construction of the first graving dock begins. Construction also begins on a warehouse pier.

Illinois and Michigan Canal revenues top $300,000 for each of the next two years. ** Illinois passes an enabling act to use the Illinois and Michigan Canal as a diversion for Chicago's sewage. ** The warehouse pier at Brooklyn's Erie Basin is used for grain storage.

Ferdinand De Lesseps builds the Suez Canal. ** The U. S. Army Corps of Engineers retains William Roberts to make recommendations for evening out the water supply for the Ohio River. ** The Lac La Belle Ship Canal Company receives a grant of 100,000 acres of U. S. Government land. ** The first graving dock at Brooklyn's Erie Basin is completed.

May 22
G. G. DePuy of Ithaca, keeping a journal of a trip from Newburgh to Buffalo on the Erie Canal, describes losing two teams into the canal; only one of which they are able to save.

U. S. canal engineer E. H. Gill dies in Richmond, Virginia.

New York City - Railroad contractor William Beard builds Brooklyn's Erie Basin in the Red Hook section, for the use of canal boats from upstate, using ballast from arriving ocean-going vessels, for which he charges their captains a disposal fee.

New York State - Rail traffic surpasses canal traffic for the first time. ** John F. Montgomery establishes a boatyard at Rochester, New York's Holley Street and Cayuga Street (now Byron Street and Clinton Avenue). It's in operation for about a year.

The Suez Canal is completed. ** The steam yacht Minnie V is built at Black Rock, New York. It's sailed to Bayfield, Wisconsin to be used as a ferry on Chequamegon Bay and is the smallest steam vessel to sail through the Sault Ste. Marie canal.



© 2005 David Minor / Eagles Byte


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