Erie Canal aqueduct over the Genesee River completed in 1823
Second aqueduct completed in 1842.   Boatyards doubled in number by 1846.  210 large freight boats built in 1846.   Spurred economic prosperity.

Teams of mules pulled barges along the canal.   100-150’ rope.   Know people along route.  Begun in 1817.   in Rome, NY.  363 miles from Albany to Buffalo.  40’ wide, 4 feet deep.   18 aqueducts, 83 locks   A packet, pulled by fresh horses, covered 80 miles in 24 hours, but carried only passengers and hand luggage.  Line boats (freight) made 2 miles an hour and took 9 days to travel from Albany to Buffalo.   Four mile an hour speed limit.   Log rafts, up to 500 feet long, were pulled by oxen.  Held up traffic.  Hated by canalers.  Carried goods, immigrants, supplies, etc. west.  Carried  potatoes, flour, whiskey, produce, etc. east.   Families lived on board.  Children worked, went to school during Dec-Mar when canal froze over.   Church boats on the canal.   General stores were located at the locks.   Monthly wage in 1823,  $30 – captain, $15 – Steersman, $12 – Steward, $10 – horstler, $4.80 – cabin boy.  3-5cents/mile.   Mules kept on the boats in a forward stable.  Taken off and on the boat via a horse bridge kept on roof.  Steered by the tail.   Man driving the team was called a hoggee and walked behind them on the towpath.  Three horses pulled a packet;  2 mules pulled one line boat;  3 mules towed 2 boats butted together.   When meeting,  one boat would pull to the far side and the mules would stop on the outside of the towpath.   The rope would drop and sink to the bottom of the canal.  The other boat and mules would pass over the down rope.

Conch shell: a sea shell used by canal boatmen to signal the locktender that a boat was approaching the lock.
Hoggee: pronounced ho-ge. The hoggee was usually a child 6-16 years old. It was the hoggee's job to take care of the mules and walk alongside them all day. 
Locktender: a person paid to operate the lock for the canal boat. The locktender's family lived in a house alongside the lock to enable the locktender to work the long days. 
Towpath: a trail on the side of the canal where the mules walked pulling or towing the boat. 
Trick – a hoggee’s tour of duty; a driver boy walked two six-hour tricks a day, each about ten miles long.

Carried farm & forest produce – potatoes, apples, cider, wheat and milled four, whiskey, live turkeys, lumber, and furs.  Packets crowded with people, ladies sitting in luxury on top of packet.
“Low bridge, everybody down!”
Jumping onto the top of a packet as it passed under a low bridge.
Bunks:  Cramped.  2 or 3 tiers.  Climb awkwardly to top one.   Captain would call out names from the bed list.  Ladies bedroom separated from the men’s by a curtain.   Ladies aft; men fore.   The cabin had bunks along the walls that were used at night.  Men might sleep on deck.  Narrow.  “Packed away like dead pigs in a Cincinnati pork warehouse.” NYC Mayor Philip Hone.   Mattresses on floor, every inch covered at night.   DO chores when waiting to pass through locks.
Bullheads and Lakers were cargo-carrying boats.

The Erie Canal, Andrist, Ralph K., American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc., 551 Fifth Avenue, New York 17,  New York, 1964.