Dams were vital to the operation of both the original Erie Canal and the Enlarged Erie Canal at this location, where several were built during the 19th century because ice and flooding from Schoharie Creek repeatedly destroyed them. A dam was first placed in Schoharie Creek on the 1820s Erie Canal to raise the water level and create a calm pool across which boats could be towed, though the crossing was often perilous. After construction of the aqueduct on the Enlarged Erie removed the need for boats to cross the pool created by the dam, a dam here still remained essential because the volume of water flowing across the aqueduct was too low to permit boat travel east of Fort Hunter. The Schoharie Creek dam supplied additional water by raising the creek to a level where it could be diverted through the modified East Guard Lock into a section of the original Erie Canal, from which it then flowed into the Enlarged Erie a short distance to the east. The dam’s location changed several times during the 19th century as canal engineers tried to rebuild it in safer places, and the last Schoharie dam was built in 1894 and later lengthened, modified, and repaired several times.