As the proverb goes, "necessity is the mother of invention." Throughout America's history, difficult situations inspired many ingenious solutions, and constructing the Erie Canal made innovation a requirement. The success of the Erie Canal was paramount to the new nation, and failure was not an option. In spite of all the obstacles met along the way, the Erie Canal was completed in 1825, only eight years after construction began.

The original Erie Canal had to traverse over 360 miles, most of it through the wilderness of New York State. Considering the rough terrain, building the Erie Canal was not an easy job for engineers and workers. Not only did the workers lack professional training, the workers also did not have any large construction equipment, such as bulldozers or excavators, to help them. The workers had only their ingenuity and bare hands to rely on!

Relocating mountains and rivers was not a possibility, so Clinton's team had to figure out a way to make water go uphill, run through thick forests and across wild rivers. To overcome many of nature's obstacles, the Canal Commission's workers invented simple machines to remove trees and built structures to bypass water.

The inventions created during the construction of the Erie Canal helped to make the world's largest canal-- in the fastest time, at the cheapest cost!

Before canal building could begin, workers needed to first clear a 60-foot wide path through the wilderness of central and western New York State (Kendall, 2008). This stump puller was invented by canal workers in order to clear the land of trees in preparation for building the Erie Canal. Stump pullers allowed a team of men and their horses to remove 30-40 tree stumps a day.

To pull the tree stump from the ground, the axle was positioned over the stump, and a chain wound around the axle was fixed to the stump. After the outer wheels were chocked, a rope passing around the middle wheel several times was led to a team of oxen or horses. As the animals strained forward, the upward force of the chain on the stump removed it from the ground.

Cranes powered by men and horses were invented to dig and haul large volumes of rock and dirt. During construction of the Erie Canal, the most challenging lock work occurred near the western end of the canal, where a double flight of five locks surmounted a forested 66-foot rock ridge at Lockport, New York.

The purpose of an aqueduct is to carry the canal and its towpath over a river, a ravine, a road, or later, a railroad. Typically, the towpath is carried across an aqueduct on stone arches, while the canal itself is carried across in an adjacent heavily-braced wooden trough resting on stone piles.

Over 18 aqueducts were built by German masons during the initial construction of the canal. This invention allowed boats to bypass or cross over untamed waterways, such as the Mohawk River, the Seneca River, Genesee River or smaller creeks, to complete their journey from Lake Erie to the Hudson River.

A lock is a device used for raising and lowering boats, ships and other watercraft between stretches of water of different levels on river and canal waterways. To accommodate the 500-foot elevation changes throughout the Appalachian Mountain region, workers built 83 canal locks that raised or lowered the water, allowing the boats to move from one part of the Erie Canal to another. This invention allowed boats to literally travel uphill!

The original Erie Canal had 83 locks. The Enlarged Erie Canal, built between 1835 and 1862, reduced the number of locks to 72. Today, there are only 35 locks, including the first lock which is nicknamed "the Troy Federal Lock." All locks were constructed to be operated independently, by just one person.

Altogether, the locks, the aqueducts, and the canal itself were considered an American engineering marvel! The Erie Canal was a great source of American pride -- its construction showed the world how citizens in a republic could improve upon nature and promote progress (Britannica Academic, 2009).