Historic Highways of America/Volume 13/Chapter 1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
CANALS are of two classes, those admitting large and those admitting small craft; the former are technically known as ship canals, the latter, barge canals. It is, of course, the barge canal, in its relation to the western movement of the American people, that agrees in all essentials with our present study of Historic Highways and which should be considered in any study of the subject.
The subject of fast and safe transportation of freight has become so commonplace in our day of railways that it is with difficulty that we catch any true idea of the economic importance to our forefathers of the invention and general use of such an ordinary thing as a good wagon. The meaning of the successful opening of a great canal, such as the Erie Canal, can hardly be understood unless one has known nothing of the problem of transportation save as represented by the pack-saddle and "Conestoga" wagon. When looked at from such a standpoint, the lock canal is at once seen to be one of the grandest inventions of any age; it was every whit as far ahead of any system of transportation when it was discovered as the railway is in advance of the best canal today.
From this point of view—that of the comparative value of this method of moving freight over any method known before it—it must seem most inexplicable that the lock canal was the invention of moderns. The simple canal lock, with all its immense benefits, escaped the notice of the builders of pyramids or the "Hanging Gardens," of the Parthenon and of the engineers of the Cloaca Maxima. Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, with all their vast needs in the way of handling heavy freight, never invented the simple hydraulic lock. And this is the more astonishing because they dug great canals; the Royal Canal of Babylon was twice as long as our American Erie Canal; the Fossa Mariana, from the Rhône to the Gulf of Stomalenine (102 B. C.), the Emperor Claudius's canal from the Tiber to the sea, the canal from the Nile to the port of Alexandria, Odoacer's canal from Mentone, near Ravenna, to the sea, the Roman canals in England and Lombardy, the Moorish canals in Granada (which languished when Ferdinand conquered the country!) all indicate the knowledge the ancients had with this form of inland navigation.
The general early theory was to make inland navigation possible by means of a "canalization" of rivers. One of the most successful efforts in this direction is the Grand Canal of China, the great highway of the Middle Kingdom; it was built in the thirteenth century, to connect the waters of the Yang-ste and the Pei-ho Rivers, the former the great waterway of central China, the latter the waterway of the strategic province of Chili. This great work nearly a thousand miles in length is a series of canalized rivers. Other canals, such as that pushed forward by Charlemagne to unite the Rhine with the Danube, were almost impossible until the invention of the lock. The blockheadedness of the Spaniard is most clearly shown in the attitude of a certain state paper, though, in fact, it very nearly voices a fundamental scientific law; with reference to the canalization of Spanish rivers a decree of a state council read: " . . 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 decrees of his providence, and to mend these imperfections which he designedly left in his works." There was a vast deal of mending the imperfections of Providence before men found the secret of one of Providence's simplest laws.
In 1481 two engineers at Viterbo, Italy, invented the canal lock by which craft could be lifted or lowered from one level to another. The discovery gave great impetus to canal building, especially in Italy. The first canal in France was the Braire, built in 1605–1642. The Orleans was opened in 1675. Of all European works of this character the Languedoc Canal, built by Riquet, from 1667 to 1881, was the most conspicuous. It connected the Bay of Biscay and the Mediterranean, its termini being Narbonne and Toulouse. It is one hundred and forty-eight miles in length and its summit level is six hundred feet above the sea, "while the works on its line embrace upwards of one hundred locks and fifty aqueducts, an undertaking which is a lasting monument of the skill and enterprise of its projectors; and with this work as a model it seems strange that Britain should not, till nearly a century after its execution, have been engaged in vigorously following so laudable an example."[1]
The Romans had built two canals in England, the Caer Dyke and the Foss Dyke; of the former only the name remains. "Camden in his Britannia states that the Foss Dyke was a cut originally made by the Romans, probably for water supply or drainage, and that it was deepened and rendered in some measure navigable in the year 1121 by Henry I. In 1762 it was reported on by Smeaton and Grundy, who found the depth at that time to be about two feet, eight inches. They, however, discouraged the idea of deepening by excavation. . . It was resolved [1840] to increase the dimensions of the canal, and to repair the whole work . . and thus that ancient canal, which is quoted by Telford and Nimmo as 'the oldest artificial canal in Britain,' was restored to a state of perfect efficiency, at a cost of £40,000."[2]
The internal navigation of Great Britain was the subject of legislation in 1423; locks were known on the river Lee as early as 1570. The seventeenth century saw considerable canal digging, but the island is so narrow that in early days the coasting trade and navigable rivers answered almost all purposes of commerce. About the middle of the eighteenth century the growth of manufacturing centers wrought great changes, and for half a century canal building in England came to the fore, though south of Durham no point was fifteen miles from navigation. The Duke of Bridgewater, procuring a grant for construction of canals in 1758, was the great promoter in this line of industry at this period. These were the brilliant days of John Smeaton, civil engineer and improver of hydraulic machinery. Born near Leeds in 1724, he achieved perhaps his most celebrated success in 1759, by the completion of the Eddystone lighthouse. His other famous works were building Ramsgate Harbor and the Forth and Clyde Canal in Scotland; this work, first proposed by Charles II, was completed in 1789, according to Smeaton's plans. It is thirty-five miles in length, passing over a summit level of one hundred and sixty feet, by means of thirty-nine locks. In Ireland the Grand Canal from Dublin to Ballinasloe, with a total length of one hundred and sixty-four miles, was built in 1765. In 1792 the Royal Canal leading from Dublin to Tormansburg, ninety-two miles, was completed. Nearly five thousand miles of canals have been built in Great Britain.
It was natural that an echo of the awakening of internal improvements in England should have been heard in her American colonies where such a vast field for such enterprise lay awaiting a similar awakening. It is believed that as early as 1750 a canal or sluice was dug in Orange County, New York, by Lieutenant-governor Colder for the transportation of stone. The earliest planned lock canal in the provinces was the Schuylkill and Susquehanna, surveyed from the Schuylkill River near Reading, Pennsylvania, to Middletown on the Susquehanna in 1762. Work on this canal was not begun until 1791, but only four miles were opened by 1794, when the work again paused. Not until 1821 was it resumed, and the canal was completed in 1827 under the name of the Union Canal. It became a division of the later Pennsylvania Canal.
The second canal survey in the American colonies was of a route between Chesapeake Bay and the Delaware River in 1764. A new survey was made of this proposed canal in 1769, under the auspices of the American Philosophical Society; it was not, however, until 1804 that work was commenced on this canal—the Chesapeake and Delaware, as it was known—and this was soon suspended. The route was re-surveyed in 1822 and completed, thirteen and one-half miles long, in 1829.
It is interesting to note that the subject of canals was being widely mooted in America at a time far remote from the day when they came actually into existence. England waited a century after the celebrated Languedoc Canal in France proved what vast good this form of internal improvement could bring, before she took up the canal problem in earnest. Within half a century, and less, after canal building was common in England it became common in young America. We were comparatively quick to make the most of opportunities in this as in every branch of invention and promotion which helped toward annihilating distances. The great extent of our territory in itself was an inducement to this end. Our colonial roads were often impassable in the winter season and wretched in any wet weather; the main line of communication was the Atlantic Coast, never easily navigated and, for a large part of the year, extremely dangerous in these early days before the invention of the blessings of our present coast surveys, lighthouses, and lightships. As a consequence, it was natural that the idea gained ground rapidly that if the splendid rivers which are scattered in profusion up and down our seaboard could be connected by canals a new era would dawn in our coastwise trade, which was, in fact, almost our only trade. Thus it came about that hosts of schemes were proposed for connecting our Atlantic rivers and bays.
In many cases our rivers were easily navigated for long distances into the interior; but these distances varied in different seasons of the year, and when, in the last quarter of the eighteenth century the western movement became prominent, and the rivers were ascended further than before, the question of the navigation of unnavigable waters came quickly to the fore. Unfortunately for their pocketbooks, our forefathers did not agree with the Spanish idea that improving unnavigable rivers was a wilful attempt "to mend the imperfections of providence." The story of the sorry attempts to make such rivers as the Mohawk and upper Potomac navigable proves that the Spanish decree was somehow in the right, whether the Spanish reasoning was correct or not.
The following letter written by Benjamin Franklin to S. Rhoads, Mayor of Philadelphia, from London, August 22, 1772, with reference to the improvement of rivers and building of canals is an interesting early view of the subject. Mayor Rhoads had evidently applied for and received data respecting the canals of Great Britain:
"I think I before acknowledg'd your Favour of Feb. 29. I have since received that of May 30. I am glad my Canal Papers were agreeable to you. I fancy work of that kind is set on foot in America. I think it would be saving Money to engage by a handsome Salary an Engineer from here who has been accustomed to such Business. The many Canals on foot here under different great Masters, are daily raising a number of Pupils in the Art, some of whom may want Employment hereafter, and a single Mistake thro' Inexperience in such important Works, may cost much more than the Expense of Salary to an ingenious young Man already well acquainted with both Principles and Practice. This the Irish have learnt at a dear rate in the first Attempt of their great Canal, and now are endeavoring to get Smeaton to come and rectify their Errors. With regard to your Question, whether it is best to make the Schuylkill a part of the Navigation to the back Country, or whether the difficulty of that River, subject to all the Inconveniences of Floods, Ice, &c., will not be greater than the Expense of Digging, Locks, &c., I can only say that here they look on the constant Practicability of a Navigation, allowing Boats to pass and repass at all Times and Seasons, without Hindrance, to be a point of the greatest Importance, and, therefore, they seldom or ever use a River where it can be avoided. Locks in Rivers are subject to many more Accidents than those in still water Canals; and the Carrying away a few Locks by Freshets of Ice, not only creates a great Expense, but interrupts Business for a long time till repairs are made, which may soon be destroyed again, and thus the Carrying on a Course of Business by such a Navigation be discouraged, as subject to frequent interruptions. The Toll, too, must be higher to pay for such Repairs. Rivers are ungovernable things, especially in Hilly Countries. Canals are quiet and very manageable. Therefore they are often carried on here by the Sides of Rivers, only on ground above the Reach of Floods, no other Use being made of the Rivers than to supply occasionally the waste of water in the Canals. I warmly wish Success to every Attempt for Improvement of our dear Country. . ."
The Revolutionary War put an end to many plans for the improvement of Franklin's "dear country." Immediately after the close of the war, however, the various projects were again advanced here and there as the young republic began to grasp the great opportunities that lay before it. Among the most important early undertakings were those which looked forward to a new West and the need of lines of communication in advance of the rough roads which were the only avenues of commerce. The scheme of improving the rivers which rose in the Alleghenies, and connecting their heads with the waterways which flowed into the Ohio River at Lake Erie, was one of the moving projects of the hour. The improvement of the James, Potomac, and Mohawk Rivers for this purpose commanded the attention of the nation at the time; these projects were the first steps toward building the Chesapeake and Ohio and the Erie canals, and will be treated in the chapters devoted to those topics. It is our purpose here only to emphasize in general terms the mania for improving the minor waterways in which so many millions of dollars were wasted before such advice as that given by Franklin in 1772, as quoted, was found to be well-grounded.
The spirit of this enterprising but unfortunate movement cannot be caught better than by studying the papers and projects of a "Society for promoting the improvement of roads and inland navigation," formed in Philadelphia at the beginning of the last decade of the eighteenth century and of which the able but unfortunate Robert Morris was president. Much of Pennsylvania's leadership in works of improvement was due to the activity of this organization. One of the main objects of the society is stated in a memorial to the Pennsylvania Assembly dated February 7, 1791, the introduction of which reads:
"The memorial of 'The Society for promoting the improvement of roads and inland navigation,'
"Respectfully sheweth,
"That your memoralists, residing in various parts of this state, with a view to contribute their best endeavors to promote the internal trade, manufactures and population of their country, by facilitating every possible communication between the different parts of the state, have lately formed themselves into a society, by the name above mentioned. And knowing that the Legislature, with the laudable intention of advancing the best interests of this commonwealth, and availing themselves of the extensive information, which they have obtained of the geography and situation of the country, have now under their consideration the important subject of roads and inland navigation; we, therefore, beg leave, with all possible deference, to suggest some important considerations which have occurred to us in our enquiries into this subject." A description of the position of Pennsylvania then follows, with an outline of her rivers which, as was then believed, were to become by improvement the commercial avenues of the dawning age. "To combine the interests of all the parts of the state, and to cement them in a perpetual commercial and political union, by the improvement of those natural advantages, is one of the greatest works which can be submitted to legislative wisdom; and the present moment is particularly auspicious for the undertaking, and if neglected, the loss will be hard to retrieve."[3]
Following this the river systems of Pennsylvania are taken up in order, showing the number of miles of waterways which it was supposed were capable of being connected and made avenues of trade. The two main divisions and their various subdivisions were as follows:
"Delaware Navigation
1. From the tide water at Trenton falls to lake Otsego, the head of the northeast branch of Susquehanna
2. From the tide water on Delaware to Oswego on lake Ontario
"Susquehanna Navigation
1. From Philadelphia, or the tide waters of Schuylkill, to Pittsburgh on the Ohio
2. From Philadelphia to Presqu'Isle on lake Erie, by the Juniata and Kiskeminetas &c
3. From Philadelphia to Presqu'Isle, by the west branch of Susquehanna, Sinnemahoning and Conewango.
4. From Philadelphia to Presqu'Isle, by the west branch of Susquehanna, Sinnemahoning and Toby's creek.
5. From the tide waters of Susquehanna to Pittsburgh.
6. From the tide waters of Potomack, at George Town, to Pittsburgh
7. From Conedessago lake to New York
8. From the middle of the Genessee country to New York"
The Pennsylvania Assembly responded liberally to the appeal of Robert Morris's society, and appropriated, April 13, 1791, £22,220 for the improvement of Pennsylvania rivers; the largest appropriations were for the "Susquehanna, from Wright's ferry to the mouth of Swatara creek, inclusive" £5,250; "For the river Delaware," £3,500; "For the river Schuylkill," £2,500; Conemaugh, £2,800; Allegheny, £150; and Lehigh, £1000.[4] Thus it will be seen that the improvement of rivers was firmly considered to be one of the important undertakings of the day.