1To Thomas Jefferson from Jesse Hawley, 2 November 1803 (Jefferson Papers)
...the pseudonym “Hercules” that promoted the idea of a canal between Lake Erie and the Mohawk River. Years later, after his authorship of the essays became public, Hawley gained recognition as one of the founding fathers of the Erie Canal. He later served in the New York legislature and as collector for the district of Genesee (Gerard Koeppel, ...Union: Building the Erie Canal and the...