US Migration Canals

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Historic Background

Transportation canals in the United states helped connect isolated rural areas to urban population centers. The golden age of historic transportation canals was from 1820 until the spread of railroads about 1860. Settlers flooded into regions serviced by such canals and the waterways they connected, because they could use the waterways to sell their agricultural products and obtain manufactured goods. The Erie Canal connected New York City to the Great Lakes. The Illinois and Michigan Canal connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River system. The short Louisville and Portland Canal by-passed some waterfalls and greatly extended how far a boat or raft could travel on the Ohio River. Pennsylvania combined canals and railroads. New Jersey, Maryland, Ohio, and Indiana also built canals that were enticing to settlers.

Understanding the transportation systems available to ancestors can help genealogists better guess their place of origin. Connect the place where an ancestor settled to the nearby canals, waterways, trails, roads, and railroads to look for connections to places they may have lived previously.

List of Significant Canals

Some of the most significant canals to American settlers were:

Chronological List of United States Canals Used by Settlers

Name	Date Opened	Origin	Destination
Champlain Canal	1818/1823	Hudson River (Troy, New York)	Lake Champlain (Whitehall, New York)
Erie Canal	1825/1832	Hudson River (Albany, New York)	Lake Erie (Buffalo, New York )
Ohio and Erie Canal	1828/1832	Lake Erie (Cleveland, Ohio)	Ohio River (Portsmouth, Ohio)
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal	1836	Georgetown, D.C.	Cumberland, Maryland
Illinois and Michigan Canal	1848	Lake Michigan (Chicago, Illinois)	Illinois River (Peru, Illinois)