When the Erie Canal opened in 1825, Halfmoon's commercial focus shifted to Crescent, where the longest aqueduct on the canal system carried the canal across the Mohawk River until it was replaced in 1842. Between 1840 and 1844, Crescent resident Alfred Noxon established a foundry, paint works, a block of stores, and a hotel, employing at times from 70 to 100 men, and the brick building with the iron steps northeast of the Route 9 Bridge served as his bank and residence. Beginning in 1907, the Mohawk River was dammed and dredged for the Erie-Barge Canal, and when the Barge Canal opened in 1917, the old Erie Canal was abandoned, the aqueduct was removed, and higher water levels left parts of the original shoreline underwater. The Mohawk Towpath Byway follows state, local, and county highways from Waterford to Schenectady along the Mohawk River, the original Erie Canal, the enlarged Erie Canal, and the Barge Canal corridor, linking scenic, recreational, and historic resources in communities such as Vischer Ferry, Crescent, Rexford, and the Stockade District of Schenectady. Half Moon Country was settled and well established by 1675, and its location along the Hudson River north-south route and the Mohawk River east-west route made it an important trade route for Indians and early settlers. An early fort at Halfmoon, constructed about the house of Harme Leversee on the Hudson River about one mile north of Waterford, protected early Dutch settlers from raids during the French and Indian wars. Following Halfmoon's natural transportation corridors, the Erie and Champlain Canals linked the Capital District with Canada and the Midwest, carrying westbound settlers and manufactured goods and bringing agricultural goods, lumber, and iron ore east and south to the industrial Northeast. The canals used locks to raise and lower boats between levels, and an aqueduct carried the Erie Canal across the Mohawk River to this site before it continued west along what is now Canal Road; when the aqueduct was enlarged in 1842, the piers of the old aqueduct were reused to support a toll bridge, and nearby limestone masonry was originally used to build canal structures.