The successes of the Canal du Midi in France (1681), Bridgewater Canal in Britain (1769), and Eider Canal in Denmark (1784) had spurred on what was called in Britain "canal mania".

The idea of a canal to tie the East Coast to the new western settlements had been discussed as early as 1724: New York provincial official Cadwallader Colden made a passing reference (in a report on fur trading) to improving the natural waterways of western New York.

Gouverneur Morris and Elkanah Watson were early proponents of a canal along the Mohawk River.

Their efforts led to the creation of the "Western and Northern Inland Lock Navigation Companies" in 1792, which had taken the first steps to improve navigation on the Mohawk and construct a canal between the Mohawk and Lake Ontario,[ but it was soon discovered that private financing was insufficient.

Christopher Colles (who was familiar with the Bridgewater Canal) had surveyed the Mohawk Valley, and made a presentation to the New York state legislature in 1784, proposing a shorter canal from Lake Ontario.

The proposal had drawn attention and some action but has never been implemented.

Jesse Hawley had envisioned encouraging the growing of large quantities of grain on the western New York plains (then largely unsettled) for sale on the Eastern seaboard.

However, he went bankrupt trying to ship grain to the coast.

While in Canandaigua debtors' prison, Hawley had begun pressing for the construction of a canal along the ninetey-mile (one hundred and forty)-long Mohawk River valley with support from Joseph Ellicott, the agent for the Holland Land Company in Batavia).

Ellicott realized that a canal would add value to the land he was selling in the western part of the state. He later became the first canal commissioner.
Engineering requirements

The Mohawk River (a tributary of the Hudson) rises near Lake Ontario and runs in a glacial meltwater channel just north of the Catskill range of the Appalachian Mountains, separating them from the geologically distinct Adirondacks to the north.

The Mohawk and Hudson valleys form the only cut across the Appalachians north of Alabama, allowing an almost complete water route from New York City in the south to Lake Ontario and Lake Erie in the west.

Along its course and from these lakes, other Great Lakes, and to a lesser degree, related rivers, a large part of the continent's interior (and many settlements) would be made well connected to the Eastern seaboard.

The problem is that the land rises about six hundred feet (one hundred and eighty meters) from the Hudson to Lake Erie.

Locks at this time can handle up to twelve feet (three point seven meters) of lift, so even with the heftiest cuttings and viaducts, fifty locks would be required along the three hundred and sixty-mile (five hundred and eight kilometers) canal.

Such a canal would be expensive to build even with modern technology; in 1800, the expense was barely imaginable.

President Thomas Jefferson called it "a little short of madness" and rejected it; however, Hawley has interested New York Governor DeWitt Clinton in the project.

There is much opposition, and the project is ridiculed as "Clinton's folly" and "Clinton's ditch."

In 1817, though, Clinton receives approval from the legislature for seven million dollars for construction