Erie Canal Trip Touts Waterway’s History, Early Depictions

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The co-founder of a Vermont history museum is traveling New York's Erie Canal with prints of rarely-seen, nearly 200-year-old artwork of the waterway.

Arthur Cohn, director of the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, plans to stop in about 30 communities along the canal over the next six weeks as he discusses the canal's impact on the nation's growth in the 19th century and hands out prints of John Henry Hopkins' artwork.

In the fall of 1825, just days after the canal opened, the Episcopal minister from Pittsburgh painted and sketched scenes of the waterway while traveling by boat from Buffalo to Albany. The 37 images offer rare early views of the canal, including an elevated tow path built across a marsh west of Syracuse.

Cohn came across the artwork last year while doing research at a University of Michigan library.