Heaven’s Ditch: God, Gold, and Murder on the Erie Canal
About this audiobook
“The Erie Canal rubbed Aladdin’s lamp. America awoke, catching for the first time the wondrous vision of its own dimensions and power.”—Francis Kimball, American architect
The technological marvel of its age, the Erie Canal grew out of a sudden fit of inspiration. Proponents didn’t just dream; they built a 360-mile waterway entirely by hand and largely through wilderness. As excitement crackled down its length, the canal became the scene of the most striking outburst of imagination in American history. Zealots invented new religions and new modes of living. The Erie Canal made New York the financial capital of America and brought the modern world crashing into the frontier. Men and women saw God face-to-face, gained and lost fortunes, and reveled in a period of intense spiritual creativity.
Heaven’s Ditch illuminates the spiritual and political upheavals along this “psychic highway,” from its opening in 1825 through 1844. “Wage slave” Sam Patch became America’s first celebrity daredevil. William Miller envisioned the apocalypse. Farm boy Joseph Smith gave birth to Mormonism, a new and distinctly American religion. Along the way, one encounters America’s very first “crime of the century,” a treasure hunt, searing acts of violence, a visionary cross-dresser, and a panoply of fanatics, mystics, and hoaxers.
A page-turning narrative, Heaven’s Ditch offers an excitingly fresh look at a heady, foundational moment in American history.
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About the author
Jack Kelly is a journalist, novelist, and historian, whose books include Band of Giants: The Amateur Soldiers Who Won America’s Independence, which received the History Award Medal from the Daughters of the American Revolution. He has contributed to the Wall Street Journal, American Heritage, and other national periodicals and is a fellow of the New York Foundation for the Arts. He has appeared on the History Channel and been interviewed on National Public Radio.
Andrew Reilly is an actor, narrator, and teacher who has lived in ten countries. Andrew has taught language learning through drama in Russia and Romania, and English in the West Bank, Palestine, and Saudi Arabia. He is fluent in French, Spanish, and German.
