Mohawk River
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The Mohawk River is a major waterway in north-central New York, United States. The river flows approximately 143 miles (230 km) ESE from Oneida County, entering the Hudson River near Albany, making it the latter's longest tributary. The cities of Schenectady, Amsterdam, Utica, and Rome are built on its banks. The river and its supporting canal, the Erie Canal (a part of the New York State Canal System, called the New York State Barge Canal for much of the 20th century), connect the Hudson River and port of New York with the Great Lakes at Buffalo, New York.
The river has long been important to transportation and migration to the west as a passage between the Allegheny and Adirondack highlands. The fertile valley also attracted early settlers, and a number of important battles of the French and Indian War and the Revolution were fought here.
The middle course of the Mohawk River runs through Montgomery County, where most of the village sites of the Mohawk Nation of the Iroquois Confederacy are located. The Mohawks were compelled to leave the region during the American Revolution.(Jordan Cray's book Stalker has Mohawk Falls as the setting.)
[edit] The River and Valley in history
During the American Revolutionary war in 1777, the British made a significant effort to cut New England from the rest of the Colonies, in the theory that if the rebellious and hot headed New Englanders could be isolated, pacification of the other colonies would be simplified. On August 1, 1777, Burgoyne's forces, marching south via Lake Champlain and Lake George reached the planned rendezvous on the Hudson River at Fort Edward, but he was running out of supplies. The British force that was to have marched North from New York City, had been diverted into the attack on Philadelphia, and would be delayed.
General St. Leger's force—about 1,000 Iroquois Indians and 600 Loyalists had been advancing down the Mohawk River valley— and were also unable to reach Burgoyne. St. Leger's column reached Fort Stanwix near Rome, New York and laid siege to the fort. The Loyalists defeated a Patriot relief force at the Battle of Oriskany on August 6, but while this was taking place the Stanwix garrison marched out and raided the Loyalist camp, capturing most of their supplies. Finally, news of the imminent arrival of General Benedict Arnold and 1,000 reinforcements broke the stalemate, as the British forces besieging Stanwix retreated. St. Leger and his forces fell back up the Mohawk valley to Canada. Burgoyne would not hear of this second setback until August 28, when his army was approaching the American main body,[1] so the defeat of the reinforcing forces had a direct effect on the Battle of Saratoga when he ended by having to surrender his army.
In the early Nineteenth century water transport was the only efficient way to transport both goods and people. A corporation was formed to build a canal, known as the Erie Canal, off the Mohawk River tributary of the Hudson to Lake Erie. During the historic construction the first use and discovery of both masonary cement and concrete was discovered and exploited as a result of the project. Later, a larger better engineered canal supplanted the original small but historic effort, for the canal cut shipping costs to Lake Erie by 95%, and enabled much deeper settlements of points to the west.
[edit] See also
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