At Rome probably the first indication of ill-feeling was met; exercises had been held on the twenty-sixth to commemorate the opening of the canal, but dissatisfaction was felt over the fact that the Erie Canal did not follow the route of the old Western Inland Lock Navigation Company canal upon which the village of Rome had grown up. In consequence, at 11 A. M. on the twenty-sixth, a procession was formed bearing a black barrel filled with water from the old canal. Drums were muffled and the procession moved slowly out of town to the Erie Canal into which the barrel was emptied. The return march was made at quick step and at the hotel an appropriate celebration was held. The present flotilla arrived on Sunday, the thirtieth, and remained only an hour. Utica was reached at noon on this date; during the exercises held on the morrow, Governor Clinton took occasion to pay high tribute to Utica's citizen, Judge Platt, who had long befriended the canal movement. Little Falls was reached Monday evening; here, too, a change of route displeased some; the old Lock Company canal was on the north side of the Mohawk, and the Erie Canal was on the south side; a banquet was served the guests at one of the hotels. At three o'clock Tuesday afternoon, Schenectady was reached--two hours ahead of scheduled time. Here a grave reception awaited the enthusiastic voyageurs; a local paper had mentioned "a project of a funeral procession, or some other demonstration of mourning." No preparation for the reception of the visitors had been made. The canal would, it was believed, be the ruin of Schenectady; as the terminus of the old overland portage of sixteen miles from Albany, the town had grown in size and wealth; a large part of all the freight from the south that passed up the Mohawk came by wagon to Schenectady and was there loaded on boats. The village was, on one hand, a Mecca for wagon lines and wagons, and on the other the terminus of Mohawk shipping. The Erie Canal overturned everything. A waterway was now opened straight through to Albany; Cohoes Falls, which had been the making of Schenectady, was wiped out of existence by the Erie Canal and the Schenectady of the old days was a thing of the past. The students of Union College, however, were cosmopolitan, and the "College Guards" did the honors of the rainy day; the guests took dinner at a hotel and were off at four o'clock. On the following morning, above the patroon mansion of General Stephen Van Rensselaer, the flotilla was met by the aldermen of Albany and the last lock in the long canal was entered at 10:30 A. M. Twenty-four cannon announced the flotilla's arrival. The procession that soon formed moved slowly to the capital; after a prayer and an ode, the address of the day was delivered by Philip Hone.