As Michigan became a state in 1837, Governor Stevens T. Mason and the legislature set forth plans for the Clinton-Kalamazoo Canal to transport farm products. The canal was to cross the state to eliminate the long trips through the Straits of Mackinac to Chicago.

The route traveled on the Clinton River from Belvidere to Mount Clemens, and digging started in the village of Frederick. The canal would proceed through Clinton and Sterling townships to Utica before passing through Shelby Township to Rochester and Pontiac. The canal would then cross Michigan and meet the Kalamazoo River in Allegan County before entering Lake Michigan.

With Michigan's evaluation of only $8 million, the state negotiated a loan with the Morris Canal and Banking Company of New Jersey. In 1837, $40,000 of the projected canal cost of $2.5 million was appropriated to begin construction.

The July 19, 1838 Detroit Free Press noted the festivities to mark the beginning of the project included waking the entire Mount Clemens area with a signal gun's sound followed by speeches, food, a 13-gun salute, music and the governor turning the first shovel of dirt. There were enough toasts and beverages to suggest that those not intoxicated by the end of the day had only themselves to blame.

Work began immediately from Frederick toward Utica. The digging started in 1-mile segments, and the woods filled with men laboring with picks, shovels and wheelbarrows digging the canal and placing dirt alongside the ditch for a towpath. The work proceeded westward through Utica and Shelby Township towards Rochester. Crews built locks and an aqueduct to carry the canal over the Clinton River.

In 1843, the Morris Canal and Banking Company went bankrupt. With no funds to pay laborers, they drifted off into the wilderness. Before doing so, they pilfered anything they could carry and inflicted severe damage to the canal project.

An 1846 committee report to the state legislature showed the canal to be a failure. With the railroads' popularity, the state did no further work on the canal, and the title passed to the Utica Milling Co., who used it as a millrace. By keeping the canal open, they could use the water power for grinding farm produce for more than a century.

Segments of the canal are visible from the 2.5-mile nature trail in River Bends Park at 5200 22 Mile Road, and hikers can imagine the woods filled with digging laborers. Hikers can walk along portions of the canal on trails throughout the township’s Holland Ponds Park at 50385 Ryan Road.

Along 22 Mile Road, the canal is visible as it crosses 22 Mile Road just west of Shelby Road before it crosses Ryan Road north of 22 Mile Road.

An unspoiled portion north of 22 Mile Road is on private property. A state marker notes a portion of the canal at the end of John R Road in Rochester Hills. The aqueduct remains are still visible at Yates Cider Mill as is the canal's beginning at the old townsite of Frederick at Canal Park at 20100 Clinton River Road in Clinton Township.

Home and road construction projects filled some old canal sections, but portions remain in Sterling Heights and Clinton Township along Canal Road.