The subtitle of this book is “God, Gold, and Murder on the Erie Canal”. Much of the books is about how the Erie Canal went from being a far-fetched idea to a reality. But interspersed with the story of the canal are stories about others who lived near the route of the canal in that time frame. Apparently, construction of the canal overlapped the time period and area of the “burned-over district”. Early in the 1800’s in western New York State there were religious revivals. Some of the foremost individuals involved in these revivals include Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Later-Day Saints, and Charles Finney, a popular evangelist of the time.
One of the profiles in the book is Jesse Hawley, who was one of the first people to dream of a canal to connect the eastern and western parts of New York State. He published his thoughts under a pseudonym, “Hercules”. His idea caught on, and even though many of the people working to create the canal were self-taught, they managed to actually construct the longest canal built at that time. It had a major impact not just on travel, but on shipping goods and materials from either end of the state. The canal was a major factor in how people moved toward the west, especially people who started in New England or the New York area.
This book gives a great overview of what was going on in New York State in the early 1800’s. Since our ancestors did not live in a vacuum, they would have been aware of most of these occurrences as they happened. The challenge with this book is that it skips around, in both topic and time frame. All of the individuals profiled are interesting, especially the ones that are much less well known. And all of the information on the canal was fascinating, and there was quite a lot of detail.
If this was your family, how would you research them? If your ancestors lived in this area, you will know from censuses and land records. They would have been impacted by the economic changes once the canal was completed. However, even if they didn’t stay in New York State, they may have traveled on the canal. The canal was a route many utilized, since roads were in pretty deplorable conditions back then. If they did stay in New York State, if they lived near the canal, they might have either worked on the construction, or for the canal once it was open. If they remained farmers or in other professions, they might have shipped goods, or had things shipped to them, via the canal.