Christopher Colles

Who was Christopher Colles?

Christopher Colles was an Irish and American engineer and inventor, known for his work on numerous inland improvement projects, among them a water distribution system in New York City, canals to link the Atlantic seaboard to the American interior, and a road atlas of the northeastern United States. Described by his contemporaries and by historians as “ingenious” and “restless,” many of his projects proved too ambitious to be realized and few attained real success. In certain quarters he was described contemptuously as a “visionary projector,” yet he was also credited with being the first to conceive a waterway to the West that would ultimately be achieved by the Erie Canal.