Economic history of the United States
The 325-mile Erie Canal, which connected Albany, New York, on the Hudson River with Buffalo, New York, on Lake Erie, began operation in 1825. Wagon cost from Buffalo to New York City in 1817 was 19.2 cents per ton-mile. By Erie Canal c. 1857 to 1860 the cost was 0.81 cents. The Erie Canal was a great commercial success and had a large regional economic impact.
John Randel Jr.
Perhaps because of the notoriety which came to him due to the Erie Canal controversy, in 1822 Randel was engaged as a consultant to the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal. The long canal, which would cut across the northern neck of the Delmarva Peninsula, connecting the Delaware Bay and Chesapeake Bay and cutting 300 miles off the trip between Baltimore and Philadelphia, was proposed as early as 1661. Work on the canal had actually started in 1804, supervised by Benjamin H. Latrobe, but stopped a year later due to lack of funds, politics, topographical and labor problems. In 1822, the re-organized canal company's board of directors engaged William Strickland, an architect and civil engineer, to re-examine the route that had originally been chosen for the canal. Strickland made a slight change, but otherwise deemed the original plan to be sound, however the board of directors was not certain. They asked New York governor DeWitt Clinton to recommend an engineer, and based on this they hired Benjamin Wright to be the canal's chief engineer. They also engaged Randel to review the canal's route, and the previously suggested one which had been passed over.