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��HISTOKY OF OHIO.
��for the appointment of a committee of five mem- bers to take into consideration so much of the Governor's message as related to canals, and see if some feasible plan could not be adopted whereby a beginning could be made, was (juiekly adopted.
The report of the committee, advising a survey and examination of routes, met with the approval of the Assembly, and commissioners were ap- pointed who were to employ an engineer, examine the country and report on the practicability of a canal between the lakes and the rivers. The com- missioners employed James Geddes, of Onondaga County, N. Y., as an engineer. He arrived in Columbus in June, 1822, and, before eight months, the corps of engineers, under his direction, had examined one route. During the next two sum- mers, the examinations continued. A number of routes were examined and surveyed, and one, from Cleveland on the lake, to Portsmouth on the Ohio, was recommended. Another canal, from Cincin- nati to Dayton, on the Miami, was determined on, and preparations to commence work made. A Board of Canal Fund Commissioners was created, money was borrowed, and the morning of July 4, 1825, the first shovelful of earth was dug near Newark, with imposing ceremonies, in the presence of De Witt Clinton, Governor of New York, and a mighty concourse of people assembled to witness the auspicious event.
Gov. Clinton was escorted all over the State to aid in developing the energy everywhere apparent. The events were important ones in the history of the State, and, though they led to the creation of a vast debt, yet, in the end, the canals were a benefit.
The main canal — the Ohio and Erie Canal — was not completed till 1882. The Maumee Canal, from Dayton to Cincinnati, was finished in 1834. They cost the State about $(i,()0((,000. Each of the main canals had branches leading to important towns, where their construction could be made without too much expense. The Miami and Mau- mee Canal, from Cincinnati northward along the Miami River to Piqua, thence to the Maumee and on to the lake, was the largest canal made, and, for many years, was one of the most important in the State. It joined the Wabash Canal on the eastern boundary of Indiana, and thereby saved the construction of many miles by joining this great canal from Toledo to Evansville.
The largest artificial lake in the world, it is said, was built to supply water to the Miami Canal. It exists yet, though the canal is not much used. It
��is in the eastern part of Mercer County, and is about nine miles long by from two to four wide. Tt was formed by raising two walls of earth from ten to thirty feet high, called respectively the east and west embankments ; the first of which is about two miles in length ; the second, about four. These walls, with the elevation of the ground to the north and south, formed a huge basin, to retain the water. The reservoir was commenced in 1837, and finished in 1845, at an expense of several hundred thousand dollars. When first built, dur- ing the accumulation of water, much malarial disease prevailed in the surrounding country, owing to the stagnant condition of the water. The citi- zens, enraged at what they considered an innova- tion of their rights, met, and, during a dark night, tore out a portion of the lower wall, letting the water flow out. The damage cost thousands of dollars to repair. All who participated in the proceedings were liable to a severe imprisonment, but the state of feeling was such, in Mercer County, where the offense was committed, that no jury could be found that would try them, and the afi"air gradually died out.
The canals, so efficacious in their day, were, however, superseded by the railroads rapidly find- ing their way into the West. From England, where they were early used in the collieries, the transition to America was easy.
The first railroad in the United States was built in the summer of 182(3, from the granite quarry belonging to the Bunker Hill Monument Associa- tion to the wharf landing, three miles distant. The road was a slight decline from the quarry to the wharf, hence the loaded cars were pro pelled by their own gravity. On their return, when empty, they were drawn up by a single horse. Other roads, or tramways, quickly followed this. They were built at the Pennsylvania coal mines, in South Carolina, at New Orleans, and at Baltimore. Steam motive power was used in 1831 or 1832, first in America on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, and in Charlestown, on a railroad there.
To transfer these highways to the West was the question of but a few years' time. The prairies of Illinois and Indiana offered superior inducements to such enterprises, and, early in 1835, they began to be agitated there. In 1838, the first rail was laid in Illinois, at Meredosia, a little town on the lUinois River, on what is now the Wabash Railway.
"The first railroad made in Ohio," writes Caleb Atwater, in his "History of Ohio," in 1838, "was finished in 1836 by the people of Toledo, a town
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