History of Albany, New York (1784–1860) 1807, Robert Fulton initiated a steamboat line from New York to Albany, the first successful enterprise of its kind. By 1810, with 10,763 people, Albany was the 10th largest urban place in the nation. The town and village known as "the Colonie" to the north of Albany was annexed in 1815. In 1825 the Erie Canal was completed, forming a continuous water route from the Great Lakes to New York City. Unlike the current Barge Canal, which ends at nearby Waterford, the original Erie Canal ended at Albany; Lock 1 was located north of Colonie Street. The Canal emptied into
History of the British canal system not where a river happened to be. The claim for the first pure canal in Great Britain is debated between "Sankey" and "Bridgewater" supporters. The first true canal in the United Kingdom was the Newry Canal in Northern Ireland constructed by Thomas Steers in 1741. The Sankey Brook Navigation, which connected St Helens with the River Mersey, is often claimed as the first modern "purely artificial" canal, because although it was originally a scheme to make the Sankey Brook navigable, it included an entirely new artificial channel that was effectively a canal along the Sankey Brook valley. However, "Bridgewater" supporters