CHAPTER XXXVII

The story of the Erie canal

Everything was going along smoothly when all at once the yellow fever broke out on the west side, far downtown.  It raged with even more violence than had the small-pox.  Citizens fled, and the stricken district was fenced off so that no one might enter it.  It was like a place of the dead, silent and deserted.  Many people went far out of town to Greenwich Village, and many business houses opened offices in this little settlement; with the result that Greenwich Village started on a new life, and it was not long before it grew to be an important part of New York instead of a suburb.  For many who had transferred their business also went to live there, not returning to the city even after the fever had passed away.

[Illustration:  Landing of Lafayette at Castle Garden.]

In the year after the fever (it was by this time 1824) General Lafayette came again to America and was warmly received.  Landing first at Staten Island, he was, on the following day, escorted by a naval procession and conducted to Castle Garden.  A multitude came to voice their welcome and follow him to the City Hall, where he was greeted by the Mayor and all of the officials.  During his stay he held daily receptions in the City Hall, and afterward visited the public institutions and buildings.  On leaving for a tour of the country he was accompanied all the way to Kingsbridge by a detachment of troops.  For thirteen months he travelled through the country, and when he returned to New York in the autumn of the next year, the citizens gave a banquet in his honor, at Castle Garden, which surpassed anything of the kind that had ever been seen.

Then General Lafayette sailed away to France again.  In the month after he had gone, with all the city cheering him and making such a din that you would have thought that there never could be a greater, in the very next month the city was again all decorated, and more shouts rent the air, for a grand undertaking had just been completed, which you shall now hear of.

Ever since the days of the Revolution there had been talk of digging a canal from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean; for you must know that in these days there being no railroads, most of the traffic and travel were done by water.  This canal had been long talked of, but no step had been taken toward building it.

Now you will remember that De Witt Clinton, while he was Mayor, took a great deal of interest in everything that was for the good of the city.  Well, after he had been Mayor for some years, he became Governor of the State, and it was he who came to think that although the building of the canal would be a great undertaking, for it would have to be more than 300 miles long, it might after all be accomplished.  For years he worked, with some others, while many said that it was a foolish idea, and too much of a task even to think of.  But still Clinton worked at his plans, and finally, the money having been given by the State, the digging of the canal was begun.  The work went on for eight years, and in the month of October, 1825, was finished.