THE ERIE CANAL
Since the beginning of the century there had been more or less talk
of a canal to connect the Hudson with Lake Erie, and in 1816 the
legislature of New York voted to undertake the building of the Erie
Canal. The adoption of this plan and its success were due mainly to
De Witt Clinton, who set forth in a carefully reasoned memorial the
advantages of the proposed waterway. For years thousands of men had
been employed in the work, and many difficulties had been met and
solved. Commissioners had been appointed to determine the route which
the canal should follow and to oversee its construction. They conducted
operations in three sections, intrusting the job of digging and filling
to contractors, no contract covering any large amount of territory.
The eastern section extended along the line of the Iroquois trail up
the Mohawk Valley from Albany to Rome. On this part of the route swift
streams had to be crossed, and falls and rapids had to be passed. Where
the canal crossed creeks and streams, guard locks were built to keep
the water from rushing into the canal and overflowing it. At Little
Falls there was such a narrow space between the mountains that rocks
had to be blasted to make a bed for the canal, and a wall twenty or
thirty feet high, rising from the channel of the Mohawk River, built
to support it. Other falls on this section required aqueducts and
elaborate series of locks.
The middle section followed the line of trail and turnpike as far as
Syracuse, and then went northwards to Clyde and Montezuma. It had the
greater part of the “Long Level,” a sixty-nine-mile stretch from a
point east of Utica to Syracuse, without any locks. At Montezuma, near
the beginning of the third section, the builders came to the edge of
the Cayuga marshes, and here they erected an embankment, nearly two
miles long and so high that boats were often seventy-two feet above the
level of the swamps. At Rochester a great aqueduct was built at the
Genesee River. Between Rochester and Buffalo the canal ran for a long
distance inside the great ridge which rises south of Lake Ontario,
but at Lockport it crossed the mountains. Here was performed one of
the most difficult engineering feats of the whole construction. An
excavation was made through the three-mile ridge at an average depth of
twenty feet, and five great locks were built, each twelve feet high, so
that vessels were elevated and dropped sixty feet.
The first surveyors drove along the route of the canal five lines of
stakes. The two outer rows were sixty feet apart, indicating the space
to be cleared. Between these were two other rows forty feet apart,
which indicated the exact width of the canal, and in the middle a
single line of stakes marked the centre of the waterway. It was eight
years and four months since the surveyors had driven these stakes, amid
the mocking laughter of the inhabitants, who thought these dreamers
crazy to plant their bits of wood in swamps and forests, on rocky
ledges and in watercourses. In spite of swamp fever, which had at one
time laid low a thousand men, and in spite of rough tools and almost
insuperable obstacles, the three hundred and sixty-three miles were
at length completed. By eighty-three locks and eighteen aqueducts,
covering a descent of 568 feet from Lake Erie to the Hudson,
navigation was made open. Sections of the canal had been in use since
1819, and now, on October 26, 1825, Governor Clinton had started on the
first trip along the entire length of the waterway which had long been
familiarly known as “Clinton’s Big Ditch.”
The city of Buffalo was particularly rejoiced over this occasion
because the western terminus of the canal had long been in doubt and
had only very recently been settled in favor of that town over her
rival, the present suburb of Black Rock. Buffalo was located on the
shore of Lake Erie at the mouth of the Niagara River. Black Rock was
three miles down the river, and had a good open harbor, in which its
citizens had recently built a two-mile pier to protect vessels from the
waves of the lake and river. Buffalo Creek had a troublesome sand-bar
which injured its harbor, and the Black Rock settlers had built their
pier in the hope of stopping the canal at their town instead of having
it run on to Buffalo. When the canal commissioners came to decide on
the terminus, they were of the opinion that the current of the river
was too swift at Black Rock, and that the danger from ice and sunken
rocks was too great. They would bring the canal to Buffalo if that
harbor could be improved. When the public-spirited men of that place
heard that, they agreed together that if the canal was brought to
their town, they would remove the sand-bar. They clubbed together and
on their own personal notes borrowed from the state twelve thousand
dollars, a large sum in those days, with which they removed the
sand-bar and made a safe harbor.
A new canal-boat, the _Seneca Chief_, had been built of Lake Erie
cedar for the opening trip, and lay moored in the harbor at Buffalo.
On her deck were two paintings, one of the scene which was soon to be
enacted, Buffalo creek and harbor with the canal-boat moving away along
the canal, and the other representing Governor Clinton as Hercules,
dressed in Roman costume, and resting from his labors. At nine o’clock
in the morning a grand procession formed in front of the court-house
and marched to the head of the canal. Governor Clinton and his staff,
and a group of prominent New Yorkers who had been closely connected
with the furtherance of the project, went on board the _Seneca Chief_
and an address was given. Upon the boat had been placed two new kegs
containing Lake Erie water, which was to be mingled at New York with
that of the ocean. The _Seneca Chief_ was to be followed by four other
canal-boats, and a fifth craft, which was called _Noah’s Ark_. The last
contained, under the title “Products of the West,” a bear, two eagles,
two fawns, several fish, and two Indian boys,--the counterparts of the
“beasts, birds, and creeping things” of the Bible story.
As four magnificent gray horses pulled at the tow-rope of the _Seneca
Chief_ and the vessel began to move, a signal-gun was discharged, and
all along the route the cannon that had been stationed took up the
sound and passed it on till the news of the opening was carried to New
York in one hour and thirty minutes. New York responded, sending the
message back to Buffalo in the same time.
[Illustration: Through the Locks at Lockport]
At almost every town and village along the route the _Seneca Chief_ was
met with exercises, dinners, triumphal arches, and illuminations. So
steadily was the party welcomed and fêted that it took them six days
to make the journey to Albany. Two or three of the celebrations are of
especial interest. At Lockport the boat was greeted by a salute of
guns which had been captured by Perry at the battle of Lake Erie, being
discharged by a gunner who was said to have fought under Napoleon. At
Rochester a dramatic ceremony had been arranged. Rain was falling when
the guests arrived, but this did not dampen the inhabitants’ zeal. They
assembled in large numbers along the banks of the canal, headed by
eight companies of uniformed soldiers. As the boat approached the great
nine-arch stone aqueduct over the Genesee River, the _Young Lion of the
West_, stationed there “to protect the entrance,” pushed out from the
shore and a voice hailed the _Seneca Chief_.
“Who comes there?” cried the _Young Lion’s_ spokesman.
“Your brothers from the West, on the waters of the Great Lakes.”
“By what means have they been diverted so far from their natural
course?”
“By the channel of the Grand Erie Canal.”
“By whose authority, and by whom, was a work of such magnitude
accomplished?”
“By the authority and by the enterprise of patriotic people of the
state of New York.”
At this answer the _Young Lion_ gave way, guns were fired, and amid
the cheers of the great crowd the flotilla of boats, with Governor
Clinton, Lieutenant-Governor Talmadge, and other distinguished men on
deck, floated into the spacious basin at the end of the aqueduct. The
customary procession and address of welcome were followed by a grand
ball and illumination, and the flotilla, increased by the _Young Lion
of the West_ with several Rochester gentlemen on board, proceeded.
At Rome, on the 30th of October, the first sign of unfriendliness was
encountered. The inhabitants of that place were dissatisfied because
the canal did not follow the line of the old waterway laid out by the
Western Inland Locks Navigation Company, upon which the village of Rome
had been built. On the day when the group of boats left Buffalo, the
citizens of Rome had held a solemn mourning assembly, and had marched
with muffled drums from the old canal to the new, bearing with them a
barrel of water from the old which they emptied into the new. Even this
mournful occasion had been closed with an appropriate celebration and
feast at the hotel, but no warm welcome greeted the travellers on the
thirtieth. At Schenectady rain and a spirit of marked opposition met
them because it was believed that the Erie Canal would be the ruin of
the town. Hitherto it had been the terminus of the Mohawk River route
and of the western stage and wagon lines. The opening of a direct
water route to Albany would be fatal to all these interests. Only
the students of Union College broke through the general disapproval,
and did the honors of the town in the pouring rain. That afternoon,
November 2, the boats entered the last lock at Albany, and were greeted
by a welcoming salute of twenty-four cannon, followed by appropriate
ceremonies.
From Albany the canal-boats were towed down the Hudson by steamer to
New York, where great celebrations had been prepared. “Never before,”
writes an enthusiastic onlooker, “was there such a fleet collected
and so superbly decorated; and it is very possible that a display so
grand, so beautiful, and we may even add, sublime, will never again be
witnessed.”
Governor Clinton poured the Lake Erie water into the ocean, another
gentleman poured in water from several other places, and the waters of
the Atlantic and the Great Lakes were pronounced “wedded,” joined in
indissoluble union. A procession a mile and a half long, the greatest
ever formed in America at that date, marched through the streets, a
grand exhibition of fire-works was held, and a ball was given in a room
made by the joining of an amphitheatre and a circus building, forming
the largest ball-room ever used in America. All about the hall the
great names of the canal constructors were blazoned, and in the ladies’
banquet room a boat made of maple sugar, which had been presented
to Governor Clinton at Utica, floated in a vessel filled with Lake
Erie water. At the end of the celebration the committee from the West
departed for home, bearing a keg of Atlantic water, ornamented with
the arms of the city of New York and the following words in letters
of gold: “Neptune’s return to Pan. New York, 4th Nov. 1825. Water of
the Atlantic.” When the committee reached Buffalo with this gift, they
held the closing scene of the great pageant, mingling the waters of the
Atlantic with those of Lake Erie.
If words, festivities, symbolic ceremonies, and a waterway of commerce
could do it, the Great Lakes and the Atlantic were united. The
importance of the outcome justified the hopes of the canal-promoters.
The canal cost nearly eleven million dollars; but the last debts
were discharged in 1836. Commerce increased greatly and was immensely
benefited, and within twelve years plans were on foot for enlarging the
canal, which were soon carried out.
Travellers soon found great pleasure in making their western journeys
by canal-boat, and the canal became a thoroughfare of travel as well
as of trade. That bright and interesting raconteur, Mrs. Anne Royall,
went west by this route in 1827–1828, and left a vivid account of
the boats and their method of locomotion. The canal she describes as
having a neat railing outside the tow-path, painted white and about
four feet high. Within this railing the route was fringed on both sides
with beautiful crimson Canadian thistles, which flourished in the
sandy gravel. Two kinds of boats passed along this waterway,--packet
boats and freight boats. The packet boats, accommodating about thirty
passengers, were fitted up with dining-rooms, separate quarters for
ladies and gentlemen, and rooms lined with berths, as was the custom in
all steamboats of that day. The fare, including board, was four cents
a mile; without board, three cents. The prices were thirty-seven and
a half cents for dinner, twenty-five for breakfast, and twelve and a
half for lodging. Mrs. Royall made her first journey from Schenectady
to Utica, a distance of eighty miles, passing through twenty-six locks,
in twenty-four hours. The boat was drawn by three stout horses, who
proceeded at a brisk trot and were relieved every ten miles by fresh
horses and a new driver. Freight boats were drawn by two horses or even
only one, and took passengers at the same rate as freight, a cent and a
half a mile.
Whenever her boat met another, and this was very often, Mrs. Royall
sat in dread of a collision, or at least a tangling of the ropes,
but each time they slipped past each other as if by magic. After
some watching she saw that the boats going west had the right of way
and proceeded as usual, while the boatman of the vessel going east
checked his horses till the rope fell for an instant very loose in
the water, and the other boat and team could slip over it. The canal
was frequently crossed by bridges, which made sitting on the upper
deck dangerous; but when they approached one of these obstructions the
helmsman called out in a loud voice, “Low bridge!” and the passengers
promptly “ducked” their heads. When the tow-path crossed the bridge
instead of going under it, the driver swung his team over so fast that
the movement of the boat was barely slackened. These boats carried the
mails, were widely advertised for traffic and travel, and were met at
every important point by stages connecting with the neighboring towns
and villages. This method of travelling was recommended by all as far
preferable to the jolting, overcrowded stage-coach.
Until 1858 the Erie Canal was the all-important transportation
route between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic. Even the coming
of the railroad did not take away its trade, and as late as 1862
the ton-mileage of canal traffic was more than double the combined
ton-mileage of the New York Central and the Erie railroads. Twenty
years later canal tolls were abolished and the canal became a free
waterway, maintained and operated by the state. Since the 1862
enlargement there has been no permanent improvement of any importance
of the canal until the present day. With the increase of railroad
traffic and the hampering effect of the conditions of forty years
ago,--even the same style of boats, and horse towage,--the canal has
not been able to keep pace with the railroad, and its traffic has
gradually fallen off, until it is to-day only two-thirds that of 1868
and less than one-tenth the freight tonnage on either the New York
Central or Erie roads.
A committee appointed in 1899 investigated the condition of the canal
and advised enlargement of its bed. Their recommendations were approved
by popular vote in 1903, and the enlargement is now in progress. The
new canal is to be navigable by steam-towed barges drawing ten feet of
water and having a carrying capacity of at least a thousand tons, which
is four times that of the largest boat in use on the existing canal.
The route is also to be considerably changed. River and lake channels
are to be utilized in one-half the new part of the route, carrying the
canal northward along the line of the Seneca River and Oneida Lake to
the Mohawk, and away from Syracuse and Rochester. It is interesting
to note that in making use of river and water beds the canal returns
more nearly to the route of the old Indian trail. Improved methods of
engineering will do away with several locks. At Waterford on the Hudson
five locks will take the place of the sixteen now necessary at Cohoes;
at Lockport two locks are to be substituted for five. The minimum depth
of the channel is to be twelve feet, and the locks are to be at least
three hundred and twenty-eight feet long. With all these changes it is
estimated that the trip from Buffalo to New York will be cut down from
ten days to five, and that a large amount of traffic will turn to the
canal as the cheapest and most satisfactory method of transportation.