Utica amounted to $77,593.26, and the tolls on the Eastern Section totaled up to $27,444.09. Water was admitted into the canal between Schenectady and Albany in October; the work here, which included twenty-nine locks, had been found unexpectedly difficult. On October 8, 1823, the first boats passed from the West and the North (Lake Champlain canal) through the junction canal into the tide water of the Hudson at Albany. On September 8, 1824, water was sent into the canal from Brockport and Lockport; the line to Black Rock and the Black Rock harbor was completed nearly on scheduled time. Among improvements of the year must be named the hydrostatic locks built at Utica and Syracuse. The tolls of 1824 were $294,546.62. The grand canal was completed.
The completion was a signal for a royal celebration throughout the state of New York which is, in many aspects, of great historic interest.[1] Its unique details, the
- ↑ For elaborate account of this celebration see W. L. Stone's Narrative of the Festivities observed in honor of the Completion of the Grand Erie Canal (New York, 1825), and local histories.
