Most of our Landmarks books are reader copies only, and are usually less than the marked price. Collectors: please call or email if you're looking for specific editions or dust jackets!
The books in this section are usually hardcover and in decent condition, though we'll sometimes offer hard-to-find books in lesser condition at a reduced price. Though we often put images of the book with their original dust jackets, the copies here won't always (or even often) have them. If that is important to you, please call ahead or say so in the order comments!
"Yes, sir! Five million dollars! That's what this canal will cost!"
Five million dollars was a lot of money in the early 1800's. But the upstate New Yorkers wanted the canal -it would help them. On the other hand, they didn't want the canal -it would cost money, a lot of money.
Most likely the Erie Canal would never have been built but for the strong-minded De Witt Clinton. He saw the wisdom of it, and nothing could weaken his determination. So on the Fourth of July, 1817, digging for the new canal was finally started at Rome, New York.
How it was carried through to success is told in this exciting book by Samuel Hopkins Adams, author of The Pony Express(the No. 1 best-seller in the Landmark series) and The Santa Fe Trail.
An authority on the Erie Canal, about which he has written many stories, Mr. Adams is a descendant of people who live along the "Erie water". As a boy, he often heard his grandfather tell about his journeys on the canal, and about the men who built it.
Mr. Adams brings to life a group of interesting, colorful York-staters: Captain Osgoodby, skipper of the canal boat Starry Flag, and a fighting man to boot; the canny farmers who lived on the canal-side and were always ready to sue the authorities; the rowdy packet boat "runners" who gave Schenectady its nickname, "The Battleground," and the canal diggers who let neither malaria-ridden swamp nor solid rock stand in their way.
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