At Lockport, canal builders overcame the great elevation of the Niagara Escarpment by constructing a unique flight of five double locks that lowered easterly bound boats and raised westerly bound boats some sixty feet. The Erie Canal developed in three historic stages: the original Erie Canal, or Clinton’s Ditch, from 1817 to 1825; the enlarged Erie Canal from 1835 to 1862; and the New York State Barge Canal System, Erie Canal Division, from 1905 to 1918. In Lockport, the present-day Erie Canal basically follows the same course as the original and enlarged nineteenth-century canals. The original locks of 1825 were replaced by a larger flight of double locks constructed between 1836 and 1847 and numbered 67 to 71. Those enlarged combined locks were later replaced by Locks 34 and 35 of the Barge Canal Improvement between 1910 and 1914. The northern set of the Lockport Five was left intact and is used as a spillway, and the old Lockport Five together with Locks 34 and 35 show the historic evolution of the New York State canals in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. DeWitt Clinton, who advocated building the Erie Canal from Buffalo to New York City, was elected Governor of New York on the strength of the canal question, served during its construction, and officially opened the canal on October 26, 1825.