DeWitt Clinton was an American politician and naturalist. He served as a United States senator, as the mayor of New York City, and as the sixth governor of New York. In the last capacity, he was largely responsible for the construction of the Erie Canal. Clinton was a major candidate for the American presidency in the election of 1812, challenging incumbent James Madison.
Portrait by Rembrandt Peale (1823)
Print showing Clinton mingling the waters of Lake Erie and the Atlantic, in a ceremony in 1826
Clinton Memorial by Henry Kirke Brown, 1855, at Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York
$1,000 Legal Tender note, Series 1880, Fr.187k, depicting DeWitt Clinton
The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east–west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly reducing the costs of transporting people and goods across the Appalachians. In effect, the canal accelerated the settlement of the Great Lakes region, the westward expansion of the United States, and the economic ascendancy of New York State. It has been called "The Nation's First Superhighway."
Tugboat at Lock E33 in Rochester
The Mohawk Valley, running east and west, cuts a natural path between the Catskill Mountains to the south and the Adirondack Mountains to the north.
Governor DeWitt Clinton, champion of the canal
Profile of the original canal