ad to be cut through another limestone layer, the Onondaga ridge. Much of that section was blasted with black powder. The inexperience of the crews often led to accidents, and sometimes rocks falling on nearby homes.
Two villages competed to be the terminus: Black Rock, on the Niagara River, and Buffalo, at the eastern tip of Lake Erie. Buffalo expended great energy to widen and deepen Buffalo Creek to make it navigable and to create a harbor at its mouth. Buffalo won over Black Rock, and grew into a large city, swallowing its former competitor.
Work was completed on October 26, 1825. The event was marked by a statewide "Grand Celebration," culminating in successive cannon shots along the length of the canal and the Hudson, which took 90 minutes to travel from Buffalo to New York City. A flotilla of boats, led by Governor Dewitt Clinton aboard the Seneca Chief, sailed from Buffalo to New York City in ten days. Clinton then ceremonially poured Lake Erie water into New York Harbor to mark the "Wedding of the Waters."
The Canal began on the west side of the Hudson River at Albany, and ran north to Troy, where the Champlain Canal branched off. At Cohoes it turned west along the south shore of the Mohawk River, crossing to the north side at Crescent and again to the south at Rexford Flats. The Canal continued west near the south shore of the Mohawk River all the way to Rome, where the Mohawk turns north.
At Rome, the Canal continued west parallel to Wood Creek, which flows from Oneida Lake, and turned southwest and west cross-country to avoid the lake. From Canastota west it ran roughly along the north (lower) edge of the Onondaga Escarpment, passing through Syracuse and Rochester. At Lockport the Canal turned southwest to rise to the top of the Niagara Escarpment, using the ravine of Eighteenmile Creek. The Canal continued south-southwest to Pendleton, where it turned west and southwest, mainly using the channel of Tonawanda Creek. From Tonawanda south to Buffalo it ran just east of the Niagara River, emptying out into the river in downtown Buffalo.
Problems developed but were quickly solved. Leaks developed along the entire length of the canal, but these were sealed with a newly invented concrete that hardened under water. Erosion on the clay bottom proved to be a problem and the speed was limited to 4 mph (6 km/h).
The original design planned for an annual tonnage of 1.5 million tons (1.36 million tonnes), but this was exceeded immediately. An ambitious program to improve the canal began in 1834. During this massive series of construction projects, known as the First Enlargement, the canal was widened to and deepened to . Locks were widened and/or rebuilt in new locations, and many new aqueducts were constructed. The canal was also straightened and slightly re-routed in some stretches, resulting in the abandonment of short segments of the original 1825 canal. The First Enlargement was completed in 1862, with further minor enlargements in later decades.
Today, the reconfiguration of the canal created during the First Enlargement is commonly referred to as the Improved Erie Canal or the Old Erie Canal, to distinguish it from the canal's modern-day course. Existing remains of the 1825 canal abandoned during the Enlargement are sometimes referred to today as Clinton's Ditch (which was also the popular nickname for the entire Erie Canal project during its original 1817-1825 construction).
Additional feeder canals soon extended the Erie Canal into a system. These included the Cayuga-Seneca Canal south to the Finger Lakes, the Oswego Canal from Three Rivers north to Lake Ontario at Oswego, and the Champlain Canal from Troy north to Lake Champlain. From 1833 to 1877, the short Crooked Lake Canal connected Keuka Lake and Seneca Lake. The Chemung Canal connected the south end of Seneca Lake to Elmira in 1833, and was an important route for Pennsylvania coal and timber into the canal system. The Chenango Canal in 1836 connected the Erie Canal at Utica to Binghamton and caused a business boom in the Chenango River valley. The Chenango