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| Early morning fog at Schuylerville Yacht Basin |
We left the dock at 8:30 a.m. and arrived at Whitehall at 2:00 p.m. All of the locks were ready for us as we locked through the until the last lock at Whitehall. The canal was finished in 1823 and the series of locks and newly dug canals and improved riverways allowed for the passage of raw materials out of the Champlain Valley to New York and beyond. The opening of the Champlain Canal marked the beginning of the Champlain Valley's entry into the national economy. In 1841, Burlington businessman and my great-great-great grandfather Timothy Follett, along with John Bradley formed the Merchants Lake Boat line. Their use of sailing canal boats which were more efficient and
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A portion of the 24-mile dug channel
from Lock 7 to Whitehall |
faster than standard canal boats greatly increased the speed, use and profitability of shipping to and from the Champlain
Valley. The decline of shipping through the canal began to
decline in 1853 when rail lines connected the area to Montreal,
Boston and New York. The rail lines could run throughout the
year and they were much quicker.
http://www.lcmm.org/shipwrecks_history/history/history_commercial.htm
After we arrived in Whitehall, we put the mast back up and began looking forward to being on Lake Champlain for the rest of the trip.
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