ALBANY, N.Y. — In the fall of 1825, John Henry Hopkins traveled from Buffalo to Albany on the Erie Canal just days after the 363-mile waterway had opened.
Along the way, the Episcopal minister from Pennsylvania drew scenes of what then was considered a marvel of modern engineering.
This month, the co-founder of a Vermont history museum is traveling by tugboat on the canal, stopping at about 30 communities during the next six weeks as he discusses the waterway's effect on the nation's growth in the 19th century and hands out prints of Hopkins' artwork; many of the pieces were never published and have rarely been seen by the public.
"He left us an incredible series of images of the communities, of the canal, that fill in a tremendous amount of information," Arthur Cohn said by phone from the C.L. Churchill, a 52-year-old wooden tugboat owned by the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum in Vergennes, Vermont — which Cohn directs.
Cohn and his fellow crew members are visiting communities along the canal as far west as Rochester, New York, giving public talks about the waterway and presenting copies of Hopkins' artwork to area museums and historical societies.
Follow this link to see the artwork and read the full story: 