At 9:00 am on the twenty-sixth day of October eighteen hundred and twenty-five, the Grand Erie Canal was officially opened. In Buffalo at the foot of Main Street, Governor DeWitt Clinton boarded the packet boat, Seneca Chief, which was elegantly outfitted for the trip to New York City. When the Seneca Chief, with the Governor aboard arrived at the intersection of Tonawanda Creek and the Grand Erie Canal, the packet boat, William C. Bouck, met the governor with a delegation from Lockport aboard. The flotilla of boats proceeded to Lockport for the celebration.