Exciting times in Albany, and a touch of rheumatism

Sunday, October 5th, 1823 – In the morning visited the Falls of the Genesee River, one mile from Rochester and started at 9 o’clock for Utica by canal-boat. The forests are now seen to advantage, all the tints imaginable [Douglas has become a leaf-peeper!!]. Left Utica at 11am by canal boat for Little Falls, where I took the stage for Albany. Slept at Palatine and started again for Albany next morning at 4 o’clock [another early start]. From cold I was seized with rheumatism in my knees, which alarmed me a little. At 2 o’clock got to Albany.

This day is the celebration of the opening of the Western Canal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erie_Canal

The town was all in an uproar – firing of guns, music etc. 

Noble E. Whitford's 1906 account gives a flavour of events

 

 THE OPENING OF THE ERIE CANAL.
(Copyright, 1905, C. Y. Turner.)
A mural decoration in the De Witt Clinton High School, New York, illustrating the passage of the first boats from Lake Erie to the Atlantic. 

"The twenty-sixth of October had been appointed as the date of the celebration [although it seems to have happened early as Douglas records it on Oct 5th], as the canal commissioners had determined that the canal would be ready for navigation on that day. The arrangements provided for fitting demonstrations to be held throughout the state on that day, and also for the starting from Lake Erie of a fleet of boats which was to traverse the whole length of the canal to Albany and then to proceed down the Hudson to New York and on to Sandy Hook, where the ceremony of uniting the waters brought from Lake Erie with those of the Atlantic was to occur.

At ten o’clock, as the fleet entered the canal, this event of the embarkation of the first boat from the lakes to the ocean was heralded throughout the length of the state by the firing of cannon stationed at suitable intervals, each of which caught up the message in turn and passed it to its neighbor. Thus was sounded a grand salute, from a battery five hundred miles long, such as the world had never heard before, announcing an event which was equally new in the world’s history. The message was carried from Buffalo to New York in an hour and thirty minutes and then returned again to Buffalo."

So the town is indeed in an uproar;  this is a highly significant event in American commercial history,  opening up relatively rapid, by the standards of the day, connections between the Great Lakes area & and the interior and the Atlantic seaboard.  I don't know whether Douglas appreciates quite how significant it is but he is fortunate to be there at such a pivotal moment.  It's hardly surprising he has some problems both in finding accommodation and also seeing Governor Clinton!

Governor Clinton’s situation prevented me from seeing him for the day. I had considerable difficulty in getting lodgings in the inn. I unpacked my seeds, arranged and put in fresh papers.

 

And there are actually two significant events reported here by Douglas. The first, described above, is of national economic importance; the opening of the Erie Canal, which event led directly to the development of New York as the undisputed pre-eminent commercial city on the East Coast. 

The second is of personal significance for Douglas, although he will have only the smallest inkling of it at this point. He has experienced his first bout of rheumatism. This will get worse quite soon and will plague him for the rest of his life. With hindsight and better medical knowledge we have been able to diagnose him with reactive rheumatoid arthritis, which diagnosis explains a number of his other complaints in years to come. 

By the way, Douglas slept in Palatine in 1823. Me too, in May 2001.