DeWitt Clinton, who was one of just a handful of people who thought the canal was a good ideathe Erie Canal was built mostly by immigrants and opened eight years after construction began.
That's why, for instance, many comic book pioneers came from even the same high school, such as DeWitt Clinton in the Bronx, where pioneers such as Will Eisner, Stan Lee or Bill Finger, to name but a few, had been students.
However, DeWitt Clinton, mayor of New York City (and later governor of New York) got behind the idea, and in 1817 the people of New York voted to go ahead with the 363-mile canal.