The recent adoption of the constitutional amendment abolishing tolls on
the canals of New York State has revived interest in these water ways.
The overwhelming majority by which the measure was passed shows, says
the _Glassware Reporter_, that the people are willing to bear the cost
of their management by defraying from the public treasury all expenses
incident to their operation. That the abolition of the toll system will
be a great gain to the State seems to be admitted by nearly everybody,
and the measure met with but little opposition except from the railroad
corporations and their supporters.
At as early a date as the close of the Revolutionary War, Mr. Morris had
suggested the union of the great lakes with the Hudson River, and in
1812 he again advocated it. De Witt Clinton, of New York, one of the
most, valuable men of his day, took up the idea, and brought the leading
men of his State to lend him their support in pushing it. To dig a
canal all the way from Albany to Lake Erie was a pretty formidable
undertaking; the State of New York accordingly invited the Federal
government to assist in the enterprise.
The canal was as desirable on national grounds as on any other, but the
proposition met with a rebuff, and the Empire State then resolved to
build the canal herself. Surveyors were sent out to locate a line for
it, and on July 4, 1817, ground was broken for the canal by De Witt
Clinton, who was then Governor of the State.
The main line, from Albany, on the Hudson, to Buffalo, on Lake Erie,
measures 363 miles in length, and cost $7,143,789. The Champlain,
Oswego, Chemung, Cayuga, and Crooked Lake canals, and some others, join
the main line, and, including these branch lines, it measures 543 miles
in length, and cost upward of $11,500,000. This canal was originally 40
feet in breadth at the water line, 28 feet at the bottom, and 4 feet in
depth. Its dimensions proved too small for the extensive trade which it
had to support, and the depth of water was increased to 7 feet, and the
extreme breadth of the canal to 60 feet. There are 84 locks on the main
line. These locks, originally 90 feet in length and 15 in breadth, and
with an average lift of 8 feet 2 inches, have since been much enlarged.
The total rise and fall is 692 feet. The towpath is elevated 4 feet
above the level of the water, and is 10 feet in breadth. At Lockport the
canal descends 60 feet by means of 5 locks excavated in solid rock, and
afterward proceeds on a uniform level for a distance of 63 miles to the
Genesee River, over which it is carried on an aqueduct having 9 arches
of 50 feet span each. Eight and a half miles from this point it passes
over the Cayuga marsh, on an embankment 2 miles in length, and in some
places 70 feet in height. At Syracuse, the "long level" commences, which
extends for a distance of 69½ miles to Frankfort, without an intervening
lock. After leaving Frankfort, the canal crosses the river Mohawk, first
by an aqueduct 748 feet in length, supported on 16 piers, elevated 25
feet above the surface of the river, and afterward by another aqueduct
1,188 feet in length, and emerges into the Hudson at Albany.
This great work was finished in 1825, and its completion was the
occasion of great public rejoicing. The same year that the Erie Canal
was begun, ground was broken for a canal from Lake Champlain to the
Hudson, sixty-three miles in length. This work was completed in 1823.
The construction of these two water ways was attended with the most
interesting consequences. Even before they were completed their value
had become clearly apparent. Boats were placed upon the Erie Canal as
fast as the different levels were ready for use, and set to work in
active transportation. They were small affairs compared with those of
the present day, being about 50 or 60 tons burden, the modern canal boat
being 180 or 200 tons. Small as they were, they reduced the cost of
transportation immediately to one-tenth what it had been before. A ton
of freight by land from Buffalo to Albany cost at that time $100. When
the canal was open its entire length, the cost of freight fell from
fifteen to twenty-five dollars a ton, according to the class of article
carried; and the time of transit from 20 to 8 days, Wheat at that time
was worth only $33 a ton in western New York, and it did not pay to send
it by land to New York. When sent to market at all, it was floated down
the Susquehanna to Baltimore, as being the cheapest and best market.
The canal changed that. It now became possible to send to market a wide
variety of agricultural produce--fruit, grain, vegetables, etc.--which,
before the canal was built, either had no value at all, or which could
be disposed of to no good advantage. It is claimed by the original
promoters of the Erie Canal, who lived to see its beneficial effects
experienced by the people of the country, that their work, costing less
than $8.000,000 and paying its whole cost of construction in a very
few years, added $100,000,000 to the value of the farms of New York by
opening up good and ready markets for their products. The canal had
another result. It made New York city the commercial metropolis of the
country. An old letter, written by a resident of Newport, R. I., in that
age, has lately been discovered, which speaks of New York city, and
says: "If we do not look out, New York will get ahead of us." Newport
was then one of the principal seaports of the country; it had once been
the first. New York city certainly did "get ahead of us" after the Erie
Canal was built. It got ahead of every other commercial city on the
coast. Freight, which had previously gone overland from Ohio and the
West to Pittsburg, and thence to Philadelphia, costing $120 a ton
between the two cities named, now went to New York by way of the Hudson
River and the Erie Canal and the lakes. Manufactures and groceries
returned to the West by the same route, and New York became a
flourishing and growing emporium immediately. The Erie Canal was
enlarged in 1835, so as to permit the passage of boats of 100 tons
burden, and the result was a still further reduction of the cost of
freighting, expansion of traffic, and an increase of the general
benefits conferred by the canal. The Champlain Canal had an effect upon
the farms and towns lying along Lake Champlain, in Vermont and New York,
kindred in character to that above described in respect to the Erie
Canal. It brought into the market lands and produce which before had
been worthless, and was a great blessing to all concerned.
There can be no doubt that the building of the Erie Canal was the wisest
and most far-seeing enterprise of the age. It has left a permanent and
indelible mark upon the face of the republic of the United States in the
great communities it has directly assisted to build up at the West, and
in the populous metropolis it created at the mouth of the Hudson River.
None of the canals which have been built to compete with it have yet
succeeded in regaining for their States what was lost to them when the
Erie Canal went into operation. This water route is still the most
important artificial one of its class in the country, and is only
equaled by the Welland Canal in Canada, which is its closest rival. Now
that it is free, it will retain its position as the most popular water
route to the sea from the great West. The Mississippi River will divert
from it all the trade flowing to South America and Mexico; but for the
northwest it will be the chief water highway to the ocean.
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