Chenango River

The Chenango River is a 90-mile-long (140 km)^[1] tributary of the Susquehanna River in central New York in the United States. It drains a dissected plateau area in upstate New York at the northern end of the Susquehanna watershed. The river rises NW of the Morrisville swamp in the Town of Smithfield in Madison County, NY, about 25 miles southwest of Utica. It flows SE through the swamp and is joined by the Sangerfield River. Named after the Oneida word for bull thistle,^[2] it rises in Madison, It flows south past Sherburne to Norwich, where it turns southwest, flowing past Greene, and Chenango Forks, where it receives the Tioughnioga River. It joins the Susquehanna from the north in downtown Binghamton.

In the 19th century the river furnished a critical link in the canal system of the northeastern United States. The Chenango Canal, built from 1836–1837 between Utica and Binghamton, connected the Erie Canal in the north to the Susquehanna River. The canal was rendered obsolete by railroads and was abandoned in 1878.

Flooding is often a concern during the spring and fall.

See also

• List of New York rivers

References

1. ^ U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National Map, accessed August 8, 2011
2. ^ Runkle, Stephen A. Native American Waterbody and Place Names within the Susquehanna River Basin and Surrounding Subbasins Publication 229. Susquehanna River Basin Commission, September 2003.