Black Rock should be the western terminus of the canal was settled in favor of the former through the public spirit and enterprise of Charles Townsend, Samuel Wilkeson, Oliver Forward and George Coit. These men gave each a bond of $8,000 for the purpose of securing a loan of $12,000 from the State to construct a harbor, the State reserving the right to accept or reject, as it pleased, the completed work. From this time on, Judge Wilkeson devoted his immense energies and great executive ability to the interests of Buffalo in connection with the canal, and to him may justly be ascribed the credit of being the founder of her lake commerce. It was altogether appropriate, therefore, that, on the opening of the canal, he should have been given the honor of pouring into the lake the water brought from the ocean, an event described as the Wedding of the Atlantic and Lake Erie. It recalled the marriage in old time of Venice and the Adriatic.
Near where LaSalle, in 1679, built his little sailing vessel, the Griffin, three New York capitalists completed on May 28, 1818, the first steamboat that plied the waters of Lake Erie. This was fittingly named, after the
