Book Review: Heaven’s Ditch by Jack Kelly
Author: Jack Kelly
Title: Heaven’s Ditch: God, Gold, and Murder on the Erie Canal
Publication Info: New York : St. Martin’s Press, 2016.
Summary/Review:
I thought I was getting myself into a book about the history of the Erie Canal. And it is – but it’s about so much more – using the thread of the Erie Canal to connect the stories of turbulent changes in Western New York in the first half of the 19th century.
The canal itself is an engineering wonder constructed by the state of New York under the leadership of Governor DeWitt Clinton. Did you ever wonder why the canal crosses the entire state rather than a shorter route from the Hudson River to Lake Ontario? Turns out that option was discarded due to too great a difference in elevations, the hazards of navigating Lake Ontario, and that they would still need a way to get around Niagara Falls to reach the other lakes. Kelly offers a lot of great detail of the engineering challenges especially in Lockport where the “flight of five” locks was constructed to carry the canal over the Niagara Escarpment,
While workers excavated the canal, the growing Western New York region became the “burned-over district” at the heart of the religious revivals of the Second Great Awakening. The term originates with the Presbyterian minister Charles Grandison Finney. Other leaders emerged to found entirely new religions. William Miller predicted the end of the world on a specific date, and even though it didn’t come his followers eventually evolved into the Adventist movement. Meanwhile, Joseph Smith, Jr. founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints based on a new scripture he claimed to have found inscribed on golden plates in a hill in Palmyra.
Western New York was also a hotbed of social movements, including abolitionists (many overlapping with new Christian denominations) and women’s suffrage. In 1826, a former Freemason named William Morgan planned to publish a book exposing Masonic secrets. After Morgan disappeared and was presumed murdered, the scandal launched an anti-Masonic movement that grew into a political party. The Anti-Masonic Party held the first presidential nominating convention in 1832, and their candidate – William Wirt – won 7 electoral votes! And if to tie together this book with a cosmic coincidence, Morgan’s widow Lucinda ended up becoming one of Joseph Smith’s “plural wives!”
The book can be disjointed as jumps back and forth among different threads. But I found the details of this histories and the connections among them fascinating.
Recommended books:
- The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge by David McCullough
- The King’s Best Highway: The Lost History of the Boston Post Road, the Route That Made America by Eric Jaffe
Rating: ***1/2
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