Steamboats were now running on the Great Lakes and on all the important rivers of the West. The first result of this new mode of transport was the separation of the West from the East. Steamboats could carry passengers and goods up and down the Mississippi and its branches more cheaply and more comfortably than people and goods could be carried over the Alleghanies. Many persons therefore advised the building of a good wagon road to connect the Potomac with the Ohio. The eastern end of this great road was at Cumberland on the Potomac in Maryland. It is generally called, therefore, the Cumberland Road. It was begun at the national expense in 1811. By 1820 the road was built as far as Wheeling on the Ohio River. From that point steamboats could steam to Pittsburg, Cincinnati, St. Louis, or New Orleans. Later on, the road was built farther west, as far as Illinois. Then the coming of the railroad made further building unnecessary.

The best way to connect one steamboat route with another was to dig a canal. The most famous of all these canals was the one connecting the Hudson River with Lake Erie, and called the Erie Canal. It was begun in 1817 and was completed so that a boat could pass through it in 1825. It was De Witt Clinton who argued that such a canal would benefit New York City by bringing to it the produce of the Northwest and of western New York.