Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 14).djvu/150

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146
THE GREAT AMERICAN CANALS

start for New York. The steamers swept the boats rapidly onward; they were saluted at Catskill, West Point and Newburgh, and arrived at New York at daylight of November 4, anchoring near the state prison.

The steamer "Washington," magnificently decorated, came alongside the "Chancellor Livingston" bearing the committees of the Corporation and the officers of the Governor's Guard. Alderman Cowdrey made an address to which Clinton replied. At nine o'clock the fleet from Albany accompanied by a fleet bearing the Corporation set out for open sea. The spectacle was one to attract much attention. Salutes were fired from the Battery, from the forts on Governor's Island, and from Forts Lafayette and Tompkins. The destination of the pageant was indicated by the U. S. schooner "Porpoise" which preceded the other craft and moored within the Hook, where the interesting ceremony of wedding the waters of the Atlantic and the Great Lakes was to be held. " . . Never before," wrote an enraptured beholder, "was there such a fleet collected, and so superbly decorated; and it is very