Читать книгу Highways and Highway Transportation - George R. Chatburn - Страница 54

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—Canals had shown their usefulness in England and other European countries, for transporting the internal commerce cheaply and efficiently; it was but natural, therefore, that they should be considered in the United States. The first canal was in Orange County, New York, and was used for transporting stone as early as 1750. Numerous short canals were constructed in Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts prior to 1810, but the peak of canal building came after this date. The first lock used in the United States was part of a canal extending from the Schuylkill River to the Susquehanna in Pennsylvania.

New York, seeing the trade of the Northwest Territory going to Philadelphia on account of the turnpikes which had crossed the Alleghanies through state and private means, was anxious to do something to get control. An agitation for a canal joining the Hudson River with Lake Erie or Lake Ontario consummated in a commission, 1810, headed by Gouverneur Morris, to investigate the question of building one or both of the canals which seemed feasible, namely (1) from Albany up the Mohawk and westward to Lake Erie near Buffalo; (2) from Albany to Lake Champlain, thence an opening to the St. Lawrence, which had already been surveyed. In 1812 a second commission was formed which included with Morris, such men as De Witt Clinton, Robert Fulton, and Robert R. Livingston. An endeavor was made to secure Congressional aid. The war coming on no action was taken, but the demands for the canal continued. To the energy and political ability of DeWitt Clinton is attributed the final success of the enterprise. When he was elected governor in 1816 he made this the paramount effort of his administration. He stirred public interest by addresses and presented a convincing memorial to the legislature. He argued that “As a bond of union between the Atlantic and western states it may prevent the dismemberment of the American empire. As an organ of communication between the Hudson, the Mississippi, the St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes of the north and west, and their tributary rivers, it will create the greatest inland trade ever witnessed. The most fertile and extensive regions of America will avail themselves of its facilities for a market. All their surplus productions,” he prophesied, “whether of the soil, the forest, the mines, or the water, their fabrics of art and their supplies of foreign commodities, will concentrate in the city of New York, for transportation abroad or consumption at home. Agriculture, manufactures, commerce, trade, navigation and the arts,” he continued, “will receive a corresponding encouragement. That city will in the course of time become the granary of the world, the emporium of commerce, the seat of manufactures, the focus of great moneyed operations, and the concentrating point of vast, disposable and accumulating capitals, which will stimulate, enliven, extend, and reward the exertions of human labor and ingenuity, in all their processes and exhibitions. And before the revolution of a century, the whole island of Manhattan, covered with habitations and replenished with a dense population will constitute one vast city.”[47]

As bombastic as this may seem his predictions have been more than realized and the realization began with the completion of the canal to Buffalo in 1825. There grew up along its way the great cities of Buffalo, Rochester, Albany, and scores of smaller ones. The products of the entire west did seem to flow through it, for the tolls are said to have been a half million dollars per year immediately upon its completion and over a million by 1830.[48]

This the largest canal project in the United States is still in use. As first constructed, it was 40 feet wide at the top, 4 feet deep, and was navigable for 76-ton boats. It was later enlarged to a general width of 70 feet and depth of 7 feet, navigable for boats of 240 tons burden. Some of the locks had been replaced by power lifts; the transfers are more quickly made.

The increase of New York’s prestige of course diminished that of Philadelphia. Pittsburgh was, too, growing up at the head of Ohio River navigation and in the coal and iron regions of Pennsylvania.

While numerous canals had been constructed by private enterprises an extensive system of canals was begun under an act of 1825, to connect Philadelphia with Pittsburgh as well as other objective points. Jealousies sprang up over the state, as usually do with any improvement. Always one part thinks the other is getting more than its just share. But notwithstanding, nearly a thousand miles of canals have been constructed in Pennsylvania, some of which washed out and were never replaced, some were abandoned and some are still in operation. In Ohio two canals were built by the state from Lake Erie to the Ohio River, over 400 miles in all. One of these extended from Toledo through Defiance, St. Mary’s, and Dayton to Cincinnati; the other from Cleveland through Akron, New Philadelphia, Coshocton, Newark, Columbus, Chillicothe, to Portsmouth. Branch lines were run down the Muskingum to Marietta, down the Hocking to Athens, and from Junction westward to Antwerp to connect with the Indiana canal system. Making a total for Ohio about 1000[49] miles. In Indiana the Wabash & Erie Canal, begun about 1834, was constructed through Fort Wayne, LaFayette, Terre Haute to Evansville, in 1853, on its way to the Ohio River. By this time the railroads had paralleled its course and its trade had practically ceased.

One of the earliest projects, said to have had the backing of President Washington, culminated, eventually, in the Chesapeake & Ohio canal extending from Georgetown, the upper limit of tidewater on the Potomac, to Cumberland. After numerous efforts and years of talking, representatives of Maryland, Virginia, District of Columbia, and Pennsylvania met in a convention in the city of Washington and passed resolutions stating that “Whereas the connection of Atlantic and Western waters by a canal leading from the city of National Government to the River Ohio ... is one of the highest importance to the states ... Resolved that it is expedient to substitute for the present defective navigation of the Potomac River, above tidewater, a navigable canal from Cumberland to the eastern base of the Alleghany and to extend such canal as soon thereafter as practicable to the highest constant steamboat navigation of the Monongahela or Ohio River.” Jealousies between the states delayed matters somewhat, but in 1825 the proponents obtained governmental participation. Delays occurred for various causes, but in 1828 Congress authorized the U. S. treasurer to subscribe for $1,300,000 worth of stock and went further and guaranteed subscriptions made by the towns of Washington, Georgetown, and Alexandria to the amount of $1,500,000. The United States had then once more endorsed the policy of spending national money for internal improvements, and had become a partner in a canal proposition. Building proceeded slowly. Many difficulties were encountered. Opponents fought it in the legislatures of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, as well as in Congress. In two years the money was gone and the canal not completed. Maryland extended further aid, and then still more aid by the help of which the canal was completed to Cumberland in 1850. In 1870 efforts were made to have the Government carry the canal on to the Ohio River, but the plan was never consummated. This canal is still in use, the bulk of its traffic being coal brought down to Washington.

Canals were constructed in many other states, but they need not here be followed in detail. Illinois was connecting Chicago with the Mississippi River; Massachusetts built artificial ways about falls and rapids; New Jersey connected the Hudson with the Delaware; and numerous other schemes were carried out.