Heaven's Ditch: God, Gold, and Murder on the Erie Canal

by Jack Kelly

Overview

A page-turning narrative, Heaven's Ditch offers an excitingly fresh look at a heady, foundational moment in American history.

The technological marvel of its age, the Erie Canal grew out of a sudden fit of inspiration. Proponents didn't just dream; they built a 360-mile waterway entirely by hand and largely through wilderness. As excitement crackled down its length, the canal became the scene of the most striking outburst of imagination in American history. Zealots invented new religions and new modes of living. The Erie Canal made New York the financial capital of America and brought the modern world crashing into the frontier. Men and women saw God face to face, gained and lost fortunes, and reveled in a period of intense spiritual creativity.

Heaven's Ditch by Jack Kelly illuminates the spiritual and political upheavals along this "psychic highway" from its opening in 1825 through 1844. "Wage slave" Sam Patch became America's first celebrity daredevil. William Miller envisioned the apocalypse. Farm boy Joseph Smith gave birth to Mormonism, a new and distinctly American religion. Along the way, the reader encounters America's very first "crime of the century," a treasure hunt, searing acts of violence, a visionary cross-dresser, and a panoply of fanatics, mystics, and hoaxers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250131522
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/30/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	359,681
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

JACK KELLY is a journalist, novelist, and historian, whose books include Band of Giants, which received the DAR's History Award Medal. He has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, and other national periodicals, and is a New York Foundation for the Arts fellow. He has appeared on The History Channel and been interviewed on National Public Radio. He spent his childhood in a town in the canal corridor adjacent to Palmyra, Joseph Smith's home. He now lives in New York's Hudson Valley.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Map x

Prologue 1

1 5

Hardship

Bond of Union

A Mighty Baptism

A Perfect Wilderness

Hair-hung

Eternity

Visionary

Navigable

Abduction

2 39

Groundbreaking

To Feel and Shout

Damned If You Do

Practical

All

The Spirit of God

Clouds of Heaven

Beyond Description

3 65

Excited

On Fire

Otherwise, I Am Fine

Mania

Magnificent

Ill-Advised Zeal

Gold Bible

Ingenious

Whiskey

Methods

Abyss

4 111

Translation

Time

Most Imminent Danger

By the Hand of Mormon

A Battlefield

Morgan's Ghost

Story

Awake

Tell It to the World

Latter Days

All Rochester

5 157

Wedding

Big Things

Work of God

Sharp Sickle

Zion

Fort Niagara

Salvation

Deep Prejudice

Velocity

Spirit

Extermination

6 201

Packet

Unutterable Magnitude

Pagans

War

Public Prosperity

Thunderer

The Bones of God

7 231

The Whole of America

O Blessed Year

As It Is

Strong Meat

Awful Forebodings

O Lord, My God

Epilogue 255

Today

Everything

Highway

Martyr

Old Mule

Pageant

Source Notes 265

Sources Cited 277

Index 283

Editorial Reviews

"Compelling ...Kelly captures the enormous excitement of these heady days. An intriguing synthesis of American cultural and economic currents in the early 19th century." —Kirkus Reviews

"Jack Kelly's entertaining romp across upstate New York during the early years of the Erie Canal is fascinating, shocking, and filled with surprises. From religious fanatics to murderers to genius engineers, they're all here, transforming America in their wake." —Lauren Belfer, New York Times bestselling author of CITY OF LIGHT and AND AFTER THE FIRE

"It was a fun read and very informative. The book is a wonderful read and really captures much of the transformation that was occurring culturally, politically and religiously in the first half of the 19th century and around the canal." —David Brooks, Education Coordinator, Schoharie Crossing State Historic Site

"Well researched work showing Kelly's deft ability to bring to life the strong and pivotal characters who, by will or grace, moved American History forward." —Susan Fargione at Merritt Bookstore in Millbrook, NY

"An adventure story disguised as the history of the Erie Canal, Heaven's Ditch is compelling reading, fascinating history and a character driven chronicle of a lost America. Highly recommended." —Chris Morrow, Northshire Bookstores

"In this bright, breezy, and immensely informative account, Jack Kelly interweaves the saga of one of the nation's greatest engineering feats, the Erie Canal, with the stories of Joseph Smith and a half dozen other colorful figures who peopled upstate New York in its most creative period." —Richard Bushman, preeminent scholar of Mormonism and author of Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, the definitive biography of the church's founder

"Kelly’s study of upstate New York is a compelling history of ambition and religious fervor in early 19th century America." —Dick Hermans, owner of Oblong Books in Millbrook and Rhinebeck and a past president of the New England Independent Booksellers Association

"Jack Kelly has a whole new take on two old creations—the Erie Canal and the Second Great Revival—deftly synthesizing familiar separate stories into a timeless interplay of technological and religious fervor, speculation and salvation. Heaven’s Ditch reminds us how man and God have long mingled in the psyche of America where strong, deep, competing urges for commercial and spiritual uplift give us destructive chaos and astonishing progress. Heaven’s Ditch is beautifully written and masterfully told: intelligent and insightful new history." —Gerard Koeppel, author of Bond of Union: Building the Erie Canal and the American Empire

"Heaven's Ditch is the fantastic story of a fantastic undertaking through a fantastic country, the wild, turbulent, sometimes murderous construction of the greatest engineering project since the pyramids, built through an America bubbling with religious revivals, get-rich-quick schemes, and manifest destiny. It's all true! Stranger than fiction but just as entertaining." —Kevin Baker, author of The Big Crowd

"The Erie Canal was the most audacious public works project of its day, a game-changer in American history, and the stage for some wild and intriguing characters and events – including daredevils, zealots and Mormons. Who knew? Jack Kelly’s Heaven’s Ditch tells a not-to-be-missed story in a reader-friendly style. Sure to be a hit, this thought-provoking book will definitely spark discussion." —Erica Freudenberger, Director, Red Hook Public Library, Best Small Library in America Award finalist

From the Publisher

05/02/2016
In this snappy telling of an oft-told tale, Kelly (Band of Giants), a journalist, novelist, and historian, brings to life the texture of central and western New York State in the early decades of the 19th century. The region, its settlers, and its culture were central to the nation’s development in the decades before the Civil War. Central and western New York—overrun with religious fervor, political turmoil, and projects to improve life and commerce—incubated much of the cultural change that eventually spread nationally: women’s rights, evangelical religion, abolitionism and other reform movements, and the Erie Canal, one of the great engineering feats of American history. Kelly weaves his story around the construction of the canal, which brought people, trade, and change to the Midwest and helped make New York City into America’s greatest urban center. A writer of history rather than a researcher or interpretive historian, Kelly has mined existing books but not manuscripts or records. He adds nothing to what’s already known about the region’s history, nor does he venture any particular interpretation of his subject. But those who wish to learn something about a critical era and a critical region will find Kelly’s book a good place to start. (July)

Publishers Weekly

06/01/2016
Kelly (Band of Giants) provides a comprehensive look at the social, economic, and religious impact resulting from the building of New York state's Erie Canal. With Westward expansion came significant social upheaval and economic dislocation. The birth and spread of the evangelical Christian movement is well documented. The epic clash of commerce, religion, and technology reverberated throughout the 19th century. Upon the completion of the canal in 1825, New York became the financial capital of the country. Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism and author of the Book of Mormon, lived for a time in Palmyra, NY, and was murdered in Carthage, IL, while running for president. The disappearance and likely murder of William Morgan, a resident of Batavia, NY, and author of a work about Freemasonry, remains unsolved. Many prominent evangelical preachers are also featured in this detailed narrative. The catastrophes surrounding the canal are no longer visible a century later—summer boaters can now cruise down a quiet (renamed) Barge Canal. An intriguing account of often overlooked events that significantly impacted the lives and times of individuals living during one of the most tumultuous times in American history. VERDICT Recommended for American history buffs in search of stories untold and rarely documented.—Claire Franek, Owensboro, KY

Library Journal

The Erie Canal was built during the Second Great Awakening in American religion, when New York State was a hotbed of religious fervor. These are the twin focuses of this audiobook. Andrew Reilly offers a solid, engaging narration that captures the excitement of the period. He varies his pace nicely to keep the text flowing for the listener. But his narration can’t overcome structural problems with the text itself. The author jumps from topic to topic so often that it’s hard for listeners to follow, and the multitude of personalities makes it hard to keep people straight. This is really two histories—one of the canal and one of religious fervor. Because of Reilly’s reading, diligent listeners will learn a lot about both. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

SEPTEMBER 2016 - AudioFile

2016-04-13
Historian Kelly (Band of Giants: The American Soldiers Who Won America's Independence, 2014, etc.) weaves together diverse strands of early New York state history for an improbable yet oddly compelling narrative of social, political, and religious visionaries. At the beginning of the 19th century, around the same time that businessman Jesse Hawley was publishing anonymously 14 essays in the Genesee Messenger spelling out his "favorite, fanciful project of an overland canal" across the state of New York, inventor Robert Fulton sailed the first commercial steamboat up the Hudson River, and the future founder of the Mormon sect, Joseph Smith Jr., was born in Vermont to poor tenant farmers who would eventually settle in Palmyra, New York. This period marked the beginning of the Second Great Awakening, sparking outbreaks of religious fervor in unlikely spots. The author explores the lives of itinerant frontier preachers such as Charles Finney, William Miller, and Methodist Lorenzo Dow, among many others, as well as the abduction and probable murder of former Freemason William Morgan, who dared to publish the mysteries of the Freemasons in Batavia, New York, in 1826. Meanwhile, on the hopeful report by New York surveyor James Geddes, Gov. DeWitt Clinton banked his career on spurring financing and construction of the ambitious canal that would link the Hudson and Mohawk rivers at Albany to Lake Erie at Buffalo—360 miles of tangled forests, valleys, and swampland that would open up commerce to an unimaginable degree. Notwithstanding the lack of engineering knowledge, especially about the building of locks, construction got underway by July 4, 1817, requiring horrendous digging by mostly Irish immigrants, and was finally completed in 1825 at the cost of $7 million. As this "psychic highway" flourished and Joseph Smith was embarking on his Book of Mormon, Kelly captures the enormous excitement of these heady days. An intriguing synthesis of American cultural and economic currents in the early 19th century, all culminating with the completion of the Erie Canal.

Kirkus Reviews