Lockport

After the Erie Canal opened in 1825, Lockport changed from a village of log cabins filled with construction workers into an industrial city. English traveler Francis Trollope said of Lockport that it looked as if the demon of machinery, having invaded the peaceful realms of nature, had fixed on Lockport as the battleground on which they should strive for mastery. In 1829, a group of investors from Albany laid out streets below the canal locks and promoted Lower Town as Lockport's future center; the construction of a bank, hotel, newspaper, railroad, dock, and cotton mill seemed to confirm those predictions. In 1850, a branch of the Strap Railroad was laid through Upper Town, and within months business and profits began to roll in; Upper Town soon gained new status and gradually overtook and surpassed Lower Town as Lockport's business center. Jesse Hawley, a prominent citizen of Lockport, developed his idea for an artificial river connecting Lake Erie and the Hudson River beginning in 1807 while serving a 20-month sentence in debtor's prison. He studied maps to find a route and wrote 14 persuasive articles for the Ontario Messenger. State assemblyman Micah Brooks supported the idea, Surveyor General Simeon DeWitt investigated its feasibility, and future governor DeWitt Clinton adopted the canal concept and guided it through New York politics. Hawley was invited to speak at the ground-breaking ceremony on July 4, 1817, in Rome, New York, and Clinton credited him as a gentleman of ingenious and reflective mind. Hawley later served as Lockport's city treasurer and was buried in Cold Springs Cemetery just south of here.

Lockport, New York · United States