The Erie Canal
“Here we stop to view an old familiar sight, two boats passing a canal lock.
“Our illustration presents a scene at once charming and romantic. Tourists frequently indulge in short trips on the ‘raging canal.’
“A few days passed aboard one of these boats will afford lots of fun and make many a new acquaintance.
“The route traversed by this canal is located along the richest and most beautiful portions of the empire State, and the traveler never is sea sick, is seldom out of sight of land, and in case of great storms, he can jump ashore and put up at any landing for the night.”
—Summer Excursion, 1881, p. 57.
The Ramapo Valley
“There are few more romantic localities than that part of the Valley of the Ramapo which is traversed by the Erie Railway. Elevn lakes, perched high on the mountains…send their tumbling outlets into the valley and form the stream known as the Ramapo River. There are forty of these lakes within few miles of the spot where the Erie Railway enters the valley…
“The railroad presents the ever varying scenery of the valley to the tourist for a distance of 16 miles. The river courses meadows and ravines, tumbles over rocky bottom, and spreads out here and there into beautiful lakes.
“Fixed ledges of lofty rock, and huge piles of enormous boulders tower above and lie along its borders. No region is more interesting historically.”
General Washington stood upon the summit of Torne, “a bold mountain beak, near Ramapo Station… while the American troops were quartered in the valley during the Revolution, and surveyed the movements of the British fleet in the New York Harbor.”—Summer Excursion, 1881, p.88.
