[53] This is probably a reference to such loans as were authorized to be made to the New York and Erie Railroad. The New York and Erie Railroad was incorporated in 1832 and in 1836 the legislature authorized a loan of the credit of the state to the company for the amount of $3,000,000 subject to certain restrictions, some of which were that the route of the road should be through the Southern tier of counties in the state, one-fourth was to be completed in ten years, one-half in fifteen years, and the whole of it in twenty years. The road was to begin at Tappan, Rockland County, on the Hudson, pass through Goshen, Oswego, Elmira, and other towns and end at Dunkirk on Lake Erie.--Tanner, _Canals and Railroads of the United States_, 1840, p. 74. [54] Lossing, _Empire State_, p. 493. [55] _Documentary Sketch of New York State Canals_ by S. H. Sweet (Albany, 1863), p. 104. [56] _Laws of the State of New-York relative to the Canals_ (Albany, 1825), vol. ii, pp. 13-14. [57] Sweet's _Documentary History_, pp. 198-199. [58] _Id._, p. 201. [59] _Id._, p. 207-208. [60] _Id._, p. 204. [61] _Id._, p. 205. [62] _Id._, p. 210. [63] _Id._, p. 213. [64] _Id._, p. 326. [65] _House Reports, No. 423, 54th Cong., 1st sess., 1896_, also, _No. 1023, 55th Cong., 1st sess._ [66] _Laws of 1898_, ch. 44. [67] _Senate Documents_, no. 23. [68] _Laws of 1899_, ch. 494. [69] _Report of the New York Commerce Commission_, Albany, 1900. [70] _Laws of 1900_, ch. 411. [71] _Historic Highways of America_, vol. xiii, p. 25. [72] _Historic Highways of America_, vol. ix, pp. 213-215. [73] "An act to provide for the improvement of the internal navigation of this state," passed April 17, 1816. From _Laws of the State of New-York relative to the Canals_, vol. ii, pp. 184-186. [74] "An Act respecting Navigable Communications between the great western and northern lakes and the Atlantic ocean," passed April 15, 1817. From _Laws of the State of New-York relative to the Canals_, vol. ii, pp. 358-364. [75] Suspended. See act March 30, 1820. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: 1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_. 2. Obvious errors in spelling and punctuation have been corrected. 3. Footnotes have been moved to the end of the main text body. 4. Images have been moved from the middle of a paragraph to the closest paragraph break. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Historic Highways of America (Vol. 14), by Archer Butler Hulbert