Review
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Title: Heaven’s Ditch: God, Gold, and Murder on the Erie Canal
Author: Jack Kelly
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Genre: History
Year: 2016
No. of Pages: 264
Binding: Hardback
ISBN 13: 9781137280091
Price: $27.99 US
Reviewed by Gary McCary for the Association for Mormon Letters
An argument can be made that the 19th century in the United States produced some of the greatest jaw-dropping feats of engineering in our country’s history. The Transcontinental Railroad comes immediately to mind, as does the Brooklyn Bridge. But most people have forgotten that the first great engineering accomplishment of the 19th century–indeed, in American history–was the marvel known as the Erie Canal. It literally changed the United States forever in ways that still reverberate today.
But another phenomenon–of SPIRITUAL engineering–was taking place in America at the same time as the great canal was being built. There was an awakening of spiritual and religious fervor in the U.S. in the early 19th century that was primarily brought about by one evangelist–Charles Grandison Finney. Yet two “home-grown” religions, for the most part unrelated to Finney, also found their genesis at the same time. And what makes this so remarkable is that both the canal, and the religious awakening, occurred in the same area of the United States–upper New York state.
Historian and journalist Jack Kelly has written a compelling work of history with his recently published *Heaven’s Ditch: God, Gold, and Murder on the Erie Canal*. Kelly reveals a huge slice of Americana that heretofore has not been synthesized: the route of the Erie Canal and the spread of evangelical religion in that century of wonderment.
When the canal was opened in 1825, its 360-mile ribbon of water changed the course of American history in a number of ways: it made New York the commercial capital of America; it helped launch our consumer culture; it boosted the tourism industry; it led to the construction of other, albeit smaller, canals across the U.S.; it sharpened the divide between North and South over slavery; and it fostered the spread of a religious revival along the canal route that in time created Mormonism and Adventism.
This last point cannot be overstated. Kelly has done a massive amount of research in the area of home-grown American religion. Conditions were ripe for truly and uniquely American religious movements in the early 1800’s. Kelly carefully and thoroughly tells the stories of both Joseph Smith, Jr. and William Miller. He highlights their humble beginnings and their flowering religious awakenings. Of Smith’s we learn that he had “habitual proneness to jesting and joking.” Of Smith’s new church, Kelly informs us of the impact that other established religions had on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. For example, “The Church Joseph invented shared much with the sects he had long scorned. Like Methodists, Mormons believed that salvation was open to all. Like Baptists, they practiced adult baptism by immersion. Like the Shakers, they were open to Pentecostal powers–visions, healings, speaking in tongues. . . . Like many evangelical sects, they expected the literal return of Christ and the establishment of his kingdom on earth.”
For those who think that Mormonism was created out of whole cloth, this fact comes as a pleasant surprise.
Kelly’s treatment of William Miller is no less revelatory. Miller’s conversion from Deism to Baptist belief is standard stuff, but his years of Bible study culminating in his conviction that Christ would literally return to earth “about 1843 or 1844” is given extended treatment. What we learn here is that “he began to suffer from dropsy, a swelling of the ankles that suggested he was developing congestive heart failure,” which only added to the stress of his pressing appointments and big-tent speaking engagements.
The Millerite Movement, of course, culminated with the “Great Disappointment” of October 22, 1844. Though Miller’s preaching resulted in thousands of followers, the disappointment brought an end to the movement. A small remnant of believers ultimately reinterpreted Miller’s conclusions, and we can rightly say that his movement was the germinating seed of what would become Seventh-day Adventism, the fastest-growing denomination in the United States today.
Kelly manages to weave in and out of the canal building, the life of Joseph Smith, the preaching of Charles Finney, the life of William Miller, and the strange disappearance (murder?) of William Morgan, who had written an expose of the secrets of the Masons.
It’s fascinating from beginning to end. Every Seventh-day Adventist and Mormon certainly should read this fine book, as it will inform and illuminate. Every lover of U.S. history would be well-served to read it. And if you’ve never figured out how a canal works, this is just the book for you. A great read and a real page-turner.