Towns along the canal grew tremendously as the canals were being built and continued with the completion and operation of the Erie Canal. Thousands of underpaid laborers made up of Irish, German, and Welsh immigrants built the canals under extreme conditions. The Irish were known for working for fifty cents a day plus jiggers of whiskey. Their lives were dangerous and violent with armed conflicts and labor riots. Heavy drinking was rampant in the communities (Haven, n.d.).
Canawlers
Retrieved from http://www.remingtonsociety.com/rsa/journals/Erie_Canal
Upon completion of the Canal, many people made their living and lived on the canal. These people were known as canawlers or canallers. Some crewed the packet boats and others drove the teams along the towpaths. Many owned or operated freight boats with their families living in the quarters of the boats' stern. Businesses along the towpaths that catered to canawlers included general stores, blacksmiths, saloons, hotels, and boatyards. Life for canawlers was difficult and they had a reputation as rowdy bunch. Local newspapers reported of weekend fights and drownings as it was not uncommon for canawlers to stagger out of a saloon, fall off a bridge, and drown in the canal (Larkin, n.d.).
"The boisterous side of life was soon flourishing among the canawlers and in the taverns" (Berstein, 2005).
Sermon
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The Second Great Awakening
The incidents of immoral behavior fueled a desire among some residences of canal towns to preserve American virtue among the canawlers and led to the Second Great Awakening. The Second Great Awakening was a period of religious revival. Evangelists, revival ministers, held ardent sermons and camp meetings within the vicinity of the Erie Canal. This led to widespread conversions, increased church activity, social activism, and the emergence of new Christian denominations. The canal boats bought ministers to remote communities along the canal towpath. Often the canals were used for baptismals. The reformists such as: the Shakers at Watervliet, the Perfectionists at Oneida Community, the Millerites and Fox sisters at Rochester, and the Mormons at Palmyra "all found the new technology useful in finding recruits, sending out evangelists, and spreading their communities" (Haven, n.d.).
The incidents of immoral behavior fueled a desire among some residences of canal towns to preserve American virtue among the canawlers and led to the Second Great Awakening. The Second Great Awakening was a period of religious revival. Evangelists, revival ministers, held ardent sermons and camp meetings within the vicinity of the Erie Canal. This led to widespread conversions, increased church activity, social activism, and the emergence of new Christian denominations. The canal boats bought ministers to remote communities along the canal towpath. Often the canals were used for baptismals. The reformists such as: the Shakers at Watervliet, the Perfectionists at Oneida Community, the Millerites and Fox sisters at Rochester, and the Mormons at Palmyra "all found the new technology useful in finding recruits, sending out evangelists, and spreading their communities" (Haven, n.d.).
"The stretch of New York from the Hudson to Lake Erie came to be known as the Burned-Over-District, combining images of “the fires of the forest and those of the spirit (Bernstein, 2005)."
The Erie Canal was completed in Palmyra, New York in 1825. Palmyra was home to Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church. This is where, on Hill Comorah, Smith received the tablets that he later translated into the Book of Mormon.
Excerpt from Joseph Smith's Journal
1835-1836
he said unto me I
am a messenger sent
from God, be faithful and keep his
commandments in all things,
he told me of a sacred record which was
written on plates of gold, I saw in the vision
the place where they were deposited, he said the indians, were the literal
descendants of Abraham
he explained many things of the prophesies
(Church Historians Press, 2013).
