Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 14).djvu/154

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THE GREAT AMERICAN CANALS

Livingston, Fulton, Clinton, Van Rensselaer, Morris, Eddy, Young, Seymour, Porter, and Ellicott. In the ladies' banquet room a boat made of maple sugar—the gift of Colonel Hinman of Utica to Governor Clinton—floated proudly on Lake Erie water.

At the conclusion of the great celebration the committee from the West departed for Lake Erie, carrying with them a keg of Atlantic water, ornamented with the arms of the city of New York and the following words in letters of gold: "Neptune's return to Pan. New York, 4th Nov. 1825. Water of the Atlantic."

And the last scene in this old pageant was enacted at Buffalo on November 23; at ten o'clock of the morning of that day the committee, accompanied by a band, were towed out into the basin of Lake Erie; the waters of the Atlantic were poured into the lake, Juge Wilkinson delivering an appropriate address. In the evening a concluding celebration was held at the Eagle Tavern. The waters of the ocean and the Great Lakes were at last united; how largely the celebration was inspired by