A Current of Change: The Erie Canal and the Mount Vernon Hotel

Join us to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Erie Canal! The Erie Canal opened in October 1825 and brought technological and economic changes that made day hotels, like the Mount Vernon Hotel, flourish. On the gentle current of the canal, where boats traveled at 4 miles per hour, goods and people made the journey between the Midwest and the East much more quickly than they could via wagon and stagecoach.

Although middle-class guests who frequented the Mount Vernon Hotel likely could not afford the canal trip and a stay at the locales along its route, they could experience new luxuries and leisure activities at this day hotel, thanks in large part to the Erie Canal. See where guests might have penned letters at a Chinese writing desk, listened to music on a French barrel organ, enjoyed prints in the Hudson River Portfolio, ate meals prepared on a cookstove from Albany, and drank beer brewed from wheat transported along the canal. Come learn about the canal and its impact by exploring these activities and other objects in the period rooms of our museum that bring to life a day at the Mount Vernon Hotel, operated on this site from 1826 to 1833 in the countryside of Manhattan.

This program is part of our First Friday of the Month series when we offer a different themed tour, and it is also our featured program for the final quarter of 2025. The First Friday program will be offered on Friday, October 3, 2025 at 12 noon, and additional dates are Thursday, October 23 at 3 pm and Wednesday, November 12 at 11 am.

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Host or Publisher Mount Vernon Hotel Museum & Garden