_The Demand for Canals and Navigable Rivers.--Washington's
Search for a Route for a Canal or Road to bind the East and
West.--Much Money spent in the Attempt to make Certain Rivers
Navigable.--Failure of the Potomac Company to improve Navigation
on the Potomac.--The Need for a Potomac and Ohio Canal to withhold
the Western Trade from the Erie.--The Potomac Canal Company,
re-named the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company.--Apparent
Impossibility of building a Canal from the Potomac to
Baltimore.--Philip E. Thomas conceives the Idea of a Railroad from
Baltimore to the West.--The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company's
Jealousy of this Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company.--Both the
Canal and the Railroad started.--Difficulties in the Way of
Both.--The Canal's Exclusive Right of Way up the Potomac to be now
shared with the Railroad.--The Railroad completed to the Ohio,
1853.--A Canal from Philadelphia to Pittsburg built rapidly.--The
Alleghany Portage Railway opened for Traffic in Three
Years.--Washington's Efforts to accomplish the Same End.--The
Railways to a Large Extent supersede the Canals._
THOMAS AND MERCER: RIVAL PROMOTERS OF CANAL AND RAILWAY
[Illustration]
ALTHOUGH the Cumberland National Road proved a tremendous boon to the
young West and meant to the East commercially all that its promoters
hoped, other means of transportation were being hailed loudly as the
nineteenth century dawned. Improved river-navigation was one of these,
and canals were another. When it was fully realized how difficult was
the transportation of freight across the Alleghanies on even the best
of roads, the cry was raised, "Cannot waterways be improved or cut from
Atlantic tide-water to the Ohio River?"
In our story of Washington as promoter and prophet it was seen that
at the close of the Revolution the late commander gave himself up
at once to the commercial problem of how the Potomac River might be
made to hold the Middle West in fee. Passing westward in the Fall of
1784, he spent a month in the wilds of Northern Virginia seeking for a
pathway for canal or road from the South Branch of the Potomac to the
Cheat River. The result of his explorations was the classic letter to
Harrison in 1784, calling Virginia to her duty in the matter of binding
the East and West with those strongest of all bonds--commercial routes
bringing mutual benefit.
The immediate result was the formation of the Potomac Company, which
proposed to improve the navigation of the Potomac from tide-water, at
Washington, D. C., to the highest practicable point, to build a road
from that point to the nearest tributary of the Ohio River, and, in
turn, to improve the navigation of that tributary.
One stands aghast at the amount of money spent by our forefathers
in the sorry attempt to improve hundreds of unnavigable American
rivers. You can count numbers of them, even between the Mohawk and
Potomac, which were probably the poorest investments made by early
promoters in the infant days of our Republic. When, in the Middle Ages,
river improvement was common in Europe, it was proposed to make an
unnavigable Spanish river navigable. The plan was stopped by a stately
decree of an august Spanish council on the following grounds: "If it
had pleased God that these rivers should have been navigable, He would
not have wanted human assistance to have made them such; but that, as
He has not done it, it is plain that He did not think it proper that
it should be done. To attempt it, therefore, would be to violate the
decree of His providence, and to mend these imperfections which He
designedly left in His works." It is certain that stockholders in
companies formed to improve the Potomac, Mohawk, Lehigh, Susquehanna,
and scores of other American streams would have heartily agreed that it
was, in truth, a sacrilege thus to violate the decrees of Providence.
With Washington as its president, however, the Potomac Company set to
work in 1785 to build a canal around the Great Falls of the Potomac,
fifteen miles above Washington, D. C., and blast out a channel in
the rocky rapids at Seneca Falls and Shenandoah Falls. Even during
Washington's presidency, which lasted until his election as President
of the United States in 1788, there was great difficulty in getting
the stockholders to remit their assessments. Other troubles, such as
imperfect surveys, mismanagement, jealousy of managers, and floods,
tended to delay and discourage. The act of incorporation demanded that
the navigation from tide-water to Cumberland, Maryland, be completed
in three years. Nearly a dozen times the Legislatures of Maryland and
Virginia, under whose auspices the work was jointly done, postponed
the day of reckoning. By 1820 nearly a million dollars had been emptied
into the Potomac River, and a commission then appointed to examine the
Company's affairs reported that the capital stock and all tolls had
been expended, a large debt incurred, and that "the floods and freshets
nevertheless gave the only navigation that was enjoyed."
By this time the Erie Canal had been partly formed, and it was clear
that it would prove a tremendous success; its operation was no longer
a theory, and freight rates on merchandise across New York had dropped
from one hundred dollars to ten dollars a ton. Of the many canals
(which were now proposed by the score) the Potomac Canal, which should
connect tide-water with the Ohio River by way of Cumberland and the
Monongahela River, was considered of prime importance. Virginia and
Maryland (in other words, Alexandria and Baltimore) had held, by means
of the roads they had built and promoted, the trade of the West for
half a century. The Erie Canal seemed about to deprive them of it
all; the Potomac Canal must restore it! So the Virginians believed,
and on this belief they quickly acted. The Potomac Canal Company--soon
re-named the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company--was formed, and
chartered by Virginia. Maryland hesitated; could Baltimore be connected
by canal with the Potomac Valley? Before this doubt was banished a
national commission had investigated the country through which the
proposed canal was to run, and reported that its cost (the Company was
capitalized at six millions) would exceed twenty millions! The seventy
miles between the Potomac and the head of the Youghiogheny alone would
cost nearly twice as much as the entire capital of the Company! And
soon it became clear that it was impossible to build a connecting canal
between the Potomac and Baltimore.
The situation now became intensely exciting. A resurvey of the canal
route lowered the previous high estimate, and the Virginians and
Marylanders (outside of Baltimore) believed fully that the Ohio and
the Potomac could be connected, and that the Erie Canal would not,
after all, monopolize the trade of the West. Alexandria and Georgetown
would then become the great trade centres of the continental waterway
from tide-water to the Mississippi basin,--in fact, secure the
position Baltimore had held for nearly a century. Baltimore had been a
famous market for Western produce during the days of the turnpike and
"freighter"; the rise of the easy-gliding canal-boat, it seemed, was to
put an end to those prosperous days. Trade already had become light;
Philadelphia was forging ahead, and even New York seemed likely to
become a rival of Baltimore's.
A Baltimore bank president--whose name must be enrolled high among
those of the great promoters of early America--sat in his office
considering the gloomy situation. That he saw it clearly there is no
doubt; very likely his books showed with irresistible logic that things
were not going well in the Maryland metropolis. This man was Philip
Evan Thomas, president of the Mechanics' Bank. Before many days he
conceived the idea of building a railroad from Baltimore to the West,
which would bring back the trade that had been slipping away since the
turnpike roads had been eclipsed by the canal. Baltimore's position
necessitated her relying on roads; so far as the West was concerned
there were no waterways of which she could avail herself. Railroads
had been proving successful; one in Massachusetts three miles long
served the purposes of a common road to a quarry advantageously. At
Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, a railroad nine miles long connected a coal
mine and the Lehigh River. Heavy loads could be deposited on the cars
used on these roads, and on a level or on an upgrade horses could draw
them with ease. If a short road was practicable, why not a long one? A
three-hundred-mile railroad was as possible as a nine-mile road. Mr.
Thomas admitted to his counsels Mr. George Brown; each had brothers in
England who forwarded much information concerning the railway agitation
abroad. On the night of February 12, 1826, an invited company of
Baltimore merchants met at Mr. Thomas's home, and the plan was
outlined. A committee was appointed to review the situation critically
and report in one week. On February 19 the report was made, unanimously
urging the formation of a Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company.
The intense rivalry of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company and the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company forms of itself a historical novel.
The name "Ohio" in their legal titles signifies the root of jealousy.
The trade of the "Ohio country," which included all the trans-Alleghany
empire, was the prize both companies would win. The story is the more
interesting because in the long, bitter struggle which to its day
was greater than any commercial warfare of our time, the seemingly
weaker company, handicapped at every point by its stronger rival, and
also held back because of the slow advance of the discoveries and
improvements necessary to its success, at last triumphed splendidly in
the face of every difficulty.
The first act in the drama was to hold rival inaugural celebrations.
Accordingly, on July 4, 1828, two wonderful pageants were enacted, one
at Baltimore and the other at Washington. At Baltimore the aged Charles
Carroll of Carrollton, the only surviving signer of the Declaration
of Independence, laid the "cornerstone" of the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad. At Washington, President John Quincy Adams, amid the cheering
of thousands, lifted the first spadeful of earth in the great work of
digging a canal from Washington to Cumberland. The fact that the spade
struck a root was in no wise considered an ill omen. Redoubling his
efforts, President Adams again drove the implement into the ground. The
root held stoutly. Whereupon the President threw off his coat, amid
the wildest cheering, and, with a powerful effort, sent the spade full
length downward and turned out its hallowed contents upon the ground.
Washington, Georgetown, and Alexandria were represented by dignified
officials. Baltimore, so long mistress of the commerce of the West,
was now to be distanced by the Potomac Valley cities.
And it was soon seen that the Canal Company did hold the key to the
situation. Having inherited the debts and assets of the old Potomac
Company, it also inherited something of more value,--that priceless
right of way up the Potomac Valley, the only possible Western route
through Maryland for either a canal or a railroad. The railroad struck
straight from Baltimore toward Harper's Ferry and the Point of Rocks,
on the Potomac; the Canal Company immediately stopped its work by an
injunction. The only terms on which it agreed to permit its rival
to build to Harper's Ferry was that a promise should be given that
the Railroad Company would not build any part of the road onward to
Cumberland, Maryland, until the canal should have been completed to
that point.
Could it have been realized at the time, this blow was not wholly
unfortunate. There were problems before this first railroad company
in America more difficult than the gaining of a right of way to
Cumberland. Every feature of its undertaking was in most primitive
condition,--road-bed, tracks, rails, sleepers, ties, cars, all, were
most simple. The road was an ordinary macadamized pathway; the cars
were common stagecoaches, on smaller, heavier wheels. More than all
else, the motor force was an intrinsically vital problem. Horses and
mules were now being used; a car with a sail was invented, but was, of
course, useless in calm weather, or when the wind was not blowing in
the right direction. In the meantime the steam locomotive was being
perfected, and Peter Cooper's "Tom Thumb" settled the question in
1830, on these tracks of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. For a number
of years the ultimate practicability of the machine was in question,
but when the railroad was in a position to expand westward, in 1836,
the locomotive as a motor force was acknowledged on every hand to be
a success. In all other departments, likewise, the railroad had been
improving. The six years had seen a vast change.
With the canal, on the other hand, these had been discouraging years.
Though master of the legal situation, money came to it slowly, labor
became more costly, unexpected physical difficulties were encountered,
floods delayed operations. Again and again aid from Maryland had been
invoked successfully; and now, in 1836, it was reported that three
millions more was necessary to complete the canal to Cumberland.
Maryland now passed her famous "Eight-million-dollar Bill," giving the
railroad and canal each three million dollars, with a condition imposed
on the Canal Company that the two companies should have an equal right
of way up the Potomac to Cumberland. Though the directors of the Canal
Company objected bitterly at thus being compelled to resign control of
the situation, the needs of the Company were such that acquiescence was
imperatively necessary. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal was completed to
Cumberland in 1851, at a cost of over eleven million dollars, the root
of Maryland's great State debt.
The passage of this epoch-making law was the turning-point in this
long and fierce conflict. It marked the day when the city of Baltimore
at last conquered the State of Maryland,--when the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad mastered the situation, of which in 1832 the canal was master.
The panic of 1837 delayed temporarily the sweep of the railway up the
Potomac to Cumberland, but it reached that strategic point in 1842.
Work on the route across the mountains was begun at various points, and
the whole line was opened almost simultaneously. The first division,
from Cumberland to Piedmont, was opened in June, 1851; by the next
June the road was completed to Fairmount on the Monongahela River;
and on the night of January 12, 1853, a banquet-board was spread in
the city of Wheeling to celebrate the completion of the Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad to the Ohio River. Of the five regular toasts of the
evening none was so typical or so welcome as that to the president
under whose auspices this first railway had been thrown across the
Alleghanies,--"Thomas Swann: standing upon the banks of the Ohio, and
looking back upon the mighty peaks of the Alleghanies, surmounted by
his efforts, he can proudly exclaim, 'Veni, vidi, vici.'"
The story of the building of the Pennsylvania Canal, and later the
Pennsylvania Railway, a little to the north of the two Maryland works,
is not a story of bitter rivalry, but is remarkable in point of
enterprise and swift success; it also shows another of the results of
the successful operation of the Erie Canal.
In 1824 the Pennsylvania Legislature authorized the appointment of
a commission to select a route for a canal from Philadelphia to
Pittsburg. The success of New York's canal (now practically completed)
impressed the Pennsylvanians as forcefully as it did Marylanders and
Virginians; Philadelphia desired to control the trade of the West as
much as New York or Baltimore. The earnestness of the Pennsylvanians
could not be more clearly shown than by the rapid building of their
canal. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal up the Potomac Valley was over
twenty-five years in building; within ten years of the time the above
commission was appointed, canal-boats could pass from Philadelphia to
Pittsburg. The route, at first, was by the Schuylkill to the Union
Canal, which entered the Susquehanna at Middletown; this was nominally
the eastern division of the Pennsylvania Canal, it having been
completed in 1827. The central division extended from Middletown (later
from Columbia) up the Susquehanna and Juniata rivers to Hollidaysburg.
This division was completed in 1834, at a cost of nearly five and
one-half millions. The western division ran from Johnstown down the
Conemaugh, Kiskiminetas, and Alleghany valleys; it was completed to
Pittsburg in 1830, at a cost of a little over three millions.
As stated, canal-boats could traverse this course as early as 1834, and
the uninformed must wonder how a canal-boat could vault the towering
crest lying between Hollidaysburg and Johnstown, which the Pennsylvania
Railway crosses with difficulty at Gallitzin, more than two thousand
feet above sea-level. The answer to this introduces us to the Alleghany
Portage Railway, a splendid piece of early engineering, which deserves
mention in any sketch of early deeds of expansion and promotion in
America.
The feat was accomplished by means of inclined planes; the idea was not
at all new, but, under the circumstances, it was wholly an experiment.
The plan was to build a railway which could contain eleven sections
with heavy grades, and between them ten inclined planes. A canal-boat
having been run into a submerged car in the basin on either side of the
mountain, it could be drawn over the level by horses or locomotives,
and sent over the summit, 1,441 feet above Hollidaysburg, on the
inclines by means of stationary engines. The scheme was first advanced
early in the history of the canal, but it was not finally adopted until
1831, and in three years the portage railway was opened for traffic.
The ten planes averaged about 2,000 feet in length and about 200 feet
in elevation. They were numbered from west to east. Certain of the
levels were quite long, that between Planes No. 1 and No. 2 being
thirteen miles in length; the total length of the road was thirty-six
miles. It was built through the primeval forests, and an aisle of one
hundred and twenty feet in width (twice as wide as that made for the
Erie Canal) was cleared, so that the structure would not be in danger
of the falling trees which were continually blocking early highways
and demolishing pioneer bridges. Two names should be remembered in
connection with this momentous work,--Sylvester Welch and Moncure
Robinson, the chief and the consulting engineer who erected it.
It was in October, 1834, that the first boat, the "Hit or Miss" from
the Lackawanna, was sent over the Alleghany Portage Railway intact.
According to a local newspaper, it "rested at night on the top of the
mountain [Blair's Gap], like Noah's Ark on Ararat, and descended the
next morning into the valley of the Mississippi and sailed for St.
Louis." Fifty years before, to the month, the pioneer expansionist,
Washington, was floundering along in Dunkard Bottom seeking a way for
a boat to do what the "Hit or Miss" did in those October days of 1834.
It is a far cry, measured by hopes and dreams, back to Washington,
but one feature of the picture is of great interest: in Washington's
famous appeal to Governor Harrison in 1784 he said of the young West:
"The Western inhabitants would do their part [in forming a route of
communication].... Weak as they are, they would meet us halfway." What
a splendid comment on Washington's wisdom and foresight it is to record
that the ten stationary engines on the Alleghany Portage Railway,
which hauled the first load of freight that ever crossed the crest of
the Alleghanies by artificial means, were made in the young West, in
Pittsburg! The West was certainly ready to meet the East halfway when
their union was to be perfected.
But no sooner was the Pennsylvania Canal in working order than the
success of railways was conceded on every hand. At first the eastern
section of the canal was superseded by the Philadelphia and Columbia
Railway, a portage railway from the Schuylkill to the Susquehanna.
Then, in 1846 the Pennsylvania Railroad Company was organized. The old
route was found to be the best. The advance was rapid. In two years
the road was open to Lewisburg in the Juniata Valley; the western
division from Pittsburg to Johnstown was also built rapidly, and in
1852 communication was possible between Pittsburg and Philadelphia, the
Alleghany Portage Railway still serving to connect Hollidaysburg and
Johnstown. In 1854 this cumbersome method was superseded by the railway
over the mountain by way of Gallitzin.
The Pennsylvania Canal, instead of delaying the Pennsylvania Road,
assisted it, for the latter was encouraged by the State, and the State
owned the canal. In 1857 the railway bought both the canal and its
portage railway. The latter was closed almost immediately; the canal
has been operated by a separate company under the direction of the
Pennsylvania Railroad. But the whole western division from Pittsburg to
Johnstown was closed in 1864, and the portion in the Juniata Valley
was abandoned in 1899, and that in the Susquehanna Valley in 1900.
Two magnificent railways, standing prominent among the great railways
of the world, have succeeded the old canals and that old-time
Alleghany Portage Railway. But these great successes are not their
richest possessions; they still own, we may well believe, that
spirit which wrought success out of difficulty,--the persistent,
irresistible ambition to better present conditions and overcome
present difficulties, which is the very essence of American genius
and the great secret of America's progress. If you wish a painting
that will portray the secret of America's marvellous growth, ask that
the artist's brush draw Philip Evan Thomas in his bank office at
Baltimore, struggling with the problem how his city could retain the
trade of the West; or draw Sylvester Welch struggling with his plans
for the inclined planes of the Alleghany Portage Railway. There, in
those eager, unsatisfied, and hopeful men, you will find the typical
American.