Demand for a canal had increased in the first third of the 19th Century as new settlers cleared the fertile lands along the
Genesee River to plant crops such as wheat. The canal builders faced considerable difficulty getting past the
Portage Falls gorge in what is now part of
Letchworth State Park. This resulted in the building of a 400 foot
aqueduct that ran 50 feet above the Genesee River.
Opening On 1 September 1840, the
canal was opened to
navigation from
Rochester to
Mount Morris. The extension to
Dansville opened in the fall of 1841, and by then the split between the
Dansville branch and the main line was set at
Sonyea, southeast of
Mount Morris. After some partial openings, the full line was opened at the beginning of navigation in 1862, running to
Olean on the
Allegheny River and beyond to Mill Grove, on the river just north of the Pennsylvania state line. However, by then, the
Main Line of Public Works and
Pennsylvania Railroad had been completed, opening up the interior of Pennsylvania without depending on New York, and there was no interest in improving the
Allegheny River, which proved to only be able to handle large ships when its water level was at its highest in the spring. Instead, the
Buffalo, Bradford and Pittsburgh Railroad, connecting to the river at
Carrollton, west of
Olean, was used as a reason to continue building the canal.
Closing On 4 June 1877, the legislature approved an abandonment of the canal on or after 30 September 1878. The canal was sold on 6 November 1880 to the
Genesee Valley Canal Railroad, which had been chartered 15 July of that year. == Visible remnants ==