hundred and twelve miles--required, at the least estimate, nine days. Such was the high rate of freight that, if no return freight was secured, the cost of sending a ton to Schenectady equaled one man's wages for eighteen days, about fourteen dollars. The improvement of the Mohawk before 1792 was, without doubt, of no real consequence. Ascending boatmen and forwarding companies here and there of necessity made the river passable, otherwise there could have been no traffic at all. As one of our maps shows, as early as 1730 a neck of land, in one instance, was cut through.[3] The batteaus which carried provisions and ammunition northward to Fort Stanwix or Fort Schuyler probably often broke a new way through the dams of forest driftwood which the flood tides left; and at high tide there was, we know, good downward navigation. Elkanah Watson must be remembered as one of the pioneers in the improvement of the central New York waterway. In 1788 he made a western journey by way of the Mohawk, and his journal is full of observations which show him to have been a far-sighted man with correct ideas of the logical advance of commerce and the revolutions it would make.[4] Returning from his journey October, 1791, he prepared all the facts in favor of improving New York's western waterway, in the form of a pamphlet which he presented to General Schuyler, then a member of the state senate. He also contributed an anonymous article to one of the papers in January, 1792, urging publicly the improvement of the Mohawk and Oswego Rivers.[5] Public interest being awakened, in one way or another, as to the value of the river route westward, and the route up the Hudson and across to Lake George and Lake Champlain, a bill was presented to the New York legislature authorizing the formation of two companies to undertake the work of improving these strategic passageways between the country east of the state and the country west. Accordingly, on the thirtieth day of March, 1792, the following act was passed by the legislature: _An Act for establishing and opening Lock Navigation within this State_.[6] The legal name of the company which was to operate on the Mohawk was the "president, directors, and company of the western inland lock navigation in the state of New-York." The word "northern" was inserted in the legal name of the Hudson-Lake Champlain company, which was otherwise the same. The two companies were chartered by one and the same act, on exactly the same basis; we will consider, however, only the one under discussion.