October 5, 2003

Canal Opened West

How much would you pay for exclusive access rights to the  historic Erie Canal still functioning nicely between Buffalo and Albany, New York?

A Buffalo developer bought the rights for $30,000 at public auction - the only bidder - but his prize is being challenged this week by the New York Assembly.

The winning bid is characterized a "steal" for a public facility that cost $7 million when it was built over an eight-year period starting in 1817. It launched the most dramatic expansion ever of the United States economy.

The developer plans to cut lateral canals into the old canal for boater access from new housing developments - as are so familiar right here in Charlotte County. Present homeowners along the Erie Canal object.

Railroads in those days were still in the experimental stage. Heavy duty hauling was by wagons and draft animals. Very expensive.

George Washington recognized the need for an inexpensive transportation system and publicly wished Americans had "the wisdom to improve our waterways."

President Thomas Jefferson appointed a Swiss emigrant named Albert Gallatin as Secretary of the Treasury. In 1808, Gallatin drafted a plan for a network of canals, including that which later became the Erie.

New York City Mayor DeWitt Clinton pushed the plan for a canal linking Buffalo on Lake Erie to Albany at the navigable head of the Hudson River.

From there it was an easy tow by steamboats to New York City. Clinton asserted that commerce would flow between Midwest rivers and Great Lakes states to the industrial east coast.

Indeed, in the first year of operation, the canal reduced hauling costs to just 10 percent of the teamster cost. States with access to the Great Lakes boomed along with New York.

Clinton was elected governor of New York in 1817 and obtained a hundred thousand signatures on a petition for the canal. The state legislature appropriated $7 million for the project (about $350 million in today's dollars) - to be repaid with tolls and with taxes against property owners within 25 miles of the canal.  

The federal government declined to help finance the project because it was deeply in debt with bonuses for soldiers in the War of 1812.

Construction of the 353-mile canal began July 4, 1817, at Rome, N.Y., where there was a level stretch on the route. Work also began simultaneously at each end of the route.  

Workmen -- paid 50 cents a day -- turned the earth with picks, shovels and wheelbarrows. A giant tripod and winch yanked trees out by the roots.

 Ordinary soil was thrown to the downhill side of the canal for a tow path. Clay was trundled to soft spots to seal them. Rocks were cut out with gunpowder, handsaws and drills then carried as needed for locks and bridges.

One summer, 28-men died of smallpox. When slogging through the Montezuma Swamp near Syracuse, a thousand men died of malaria.  

Europeans had built some canals, largely by linking existing rivers. Americans had built several, short canals but had no knowledge of the complicated technology requiring locks, canals over rivers and hand-dug waterways.

It is a tribute to American ingenuity that the technology was invented as the engineers and workmen proceeded. When "Roman" lime cement proved to be inadequate for under-water use, canal engineers developed "hydraulic" cement still the standard today.

Specifications for the canal were set at 4 feet deep, 40 feet wide at the top and 18 feet at the bottom - calculated to accommodate boats of 100 tons burden. Boats were held to a maximum 80 feet long, 14 feet wide, draft 4 feet and height above waterline not more than 12 feet.

A typical boat crew included a captain, steersman, cook, deckhand and "hoggees" who drove the teams of mules or horses that pulled the boats on a long towline.

Boys 10 or 11 years old - usually the sons of crew members - were popular hoggees. They could ride one of the animals for 10 or 15 cents a day.  Grown men walked alongside the animals and were paid 50 cents a day.

Barges carried freight. Packet boats were fitted out with a kitchen, dining room and sleeping quarters with three-tier bunks for up to 100 passengers.

The official speed limit was 4 miles per hour. However, packet boats catering to restless passengers were hitched to several horses for shorter intervals. A standard stretch of canal for a team was 15 miles - immortalized by a song, "Fifteen Miles On the Erie Canal." .

In nice weather, most passengers sat on collapsible chairs under umbrellas on the roof of the cabin.  

Bridges over the canal provided not less than 3 feet clearance. When approaching a close clearance, the steersman blew a bugle and sang out, "Low bridge! Everybody down." Passengers would lie flat - with merry comments. Another popular song of the day was "Low Bridge."

In 1845, at the height of canal traffic, there were 4,000 boats on the canal, operated by 25,000 men, women and children. Cargo boats tended to be family owned. Packets were generally owned by companies.

In addition, thousands of "canalers" were employed to operate and maintain the canal as lock tenders, toll collectors, bridge operators, surveyors, repair crews and bank patrollers.

The latter were the "bankwatch" that monitored a 10-mile stretch of canal. They looked for breaks in banks and leaks in "aqueducts" that carried the canal over rivers and valleys. Folks were intrigued to pass over or below other boats.

In addition to farms and factories that thrived on the low freight rates, townspeople prospered as merchants, restaurateurs, hostellers, liverymen and craftsmen.

The net fall from Lake Erie to the Hudson River is 565 feet requiring 77 locks. Six locks were required to take the waterway over a rise of 49 feet at Rome.

Cost of building and operating the canal was recovered by a tax on property within 25 miles -- and by freight weight or number of passengers carried by boats.

At first there was much haggling between boat captains and toll masters over charges. This conflict was solved by two ingenious "hydrostatic locks" - one each at Utica and Syracuse.

These consisted of a chamber that could be emptied by paddle pumps into a down-stream empty chamber. A boat entered the upper chamber and the water level noted. Water was drained from the upper chamber, the boat coming to rest on a cradle.

Water level in the lower chamber was noted and compared to a chart which indicated the amount of water displaced by the boat. Boats displace an exact amount of water equal to the weight of the boat and its contents. Since the weight of water is known, the chart indicated the weight to be charged. No more arguments.

 A Canal Diary

Jonathan Pearson - a young man in 1833 -- traveled on an Erie Canal packet and recorded his observations in a diary:

July 25 - "The moon is waxing toward her full, and every heart beats for joy at the noble scene. How pleasant, too, to see the brilliant lamps of numberless boats passing and re-passing upon the smooth, unruffled surface of the canal, to hear the song of the jolly boatmen or driver boy, to see the boats sweeping by freighted with the riches of the west."

Aug. 5 - "We were underway about 9, altho not 'til after a great deal of pushing and hauling ... . the boats jumping and thumping against one another, each one being desirous of getting to the lock as soon as possible ... the boatmen running to and fro across the deck, blowing the bugles, halloing to the drivers."

Aug. 11 - " On the canal there is no Sabbath. I must say that I have never witnessed so much immorality and vice, profanity and drinking in the same length of time before in my life. Canal men -- as a whole -- are a coarse and untaught set of vagabonds whose chief delight is to carouse and fight."

Success

Work on the canal dragged on for eight years, and over ran the budget by $700,000. Taxpayers, impatient for a return on their investment, termed the project Clinton's Folly.

The three sections of the canal were joined in Oct. 1825. On the 25th, Gov. and Mrs. DeWitt Clinton and other dignitaries left Buffalo on a packet named Seneca Chief. Destination New York City.

As they made their way, the official party was greeted with banquets, cheering throngs, cannon salutes and fireworks. They carried with them a keg of Lake Erie water.

The Seneca arrived on Nov. 4 and was towed immediately to  Sandy Hook amidst a flotilla of gaily decorated boats.  After appropriate speeches, Gov. Clinton poured the keg of Lake Erie water into the Atlantic Ocean as a symbolic Marriage of Waters.

Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell then emptied bottles of water he had collected from the world's major rivers - Ganges and Indus of Asia; Nile and Gambia of Africa; Thames, Seine, Rhine, Elbe and Danube of Europe; Orinoco, La Plata and Amazon of South America; and the Mississippi and Columbia of North America - to signify world wide commerce.

The Erie Canal did have the envisioned impact on commerce, particularly in the Midwest. Population there and in New York boomed. The Erie turned a profit in its first year and steadily made money even with the advent of practical railroads starting with the Baltimore & Ohio's "Tom Thumb" steam locomotive in 1829.

Erie Canal tolls were abolished in 1883 and is a popular facility today for tours, private boaters and hike-bike trails on the old towpaths.

Author: Lindsey Williams

Cutlines

1 - scenic view canal - large

Courtesy of University of Rochester

[ This "View of Erie Canal" by John William Hill painted in 1839 portrays a packet (passenger) boat about to pass under a bridge. Note towing team of three horses and rider, left, and passengers on cabin roof. Freight barge, right, has dropped its towline to allow faster packet to pass. ]

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2 - wood cut of locks - 3 col.

Illustration from Harper's Weekly

[ Canal required 77 locks to accommodate elevation of Lake Erie at Buffalo over the Hudson River at Albany. Most spectacular locks were the five a Lockport carved from solid rock. ]

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3- map of canal route - 3 col.

From America Illustrated 1882

[ Early map of Erie Canal route and elevation profile. Note connections with the Finger Lakes to provide float water and a lateral canal added later from Lake Ontario and Syracuse. ]

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Optional pix

Marriage of the Waters

Aqueduct at Rochester

Horses and barge

Print of canal scene in city