“Low Bridge; Everybody Down!” Notes & Notions on the Construction & Early Operation of the Erie Canal Chuck Friday Editor and Commentator 2005 “Low Bridge; Everybody Down!” 1 Table of Contents TOPIC PAGE Introduction ………………………………………………………………….. 3 The Erie Canal as a Federal Project………………………………………….. 3 New York State Seizes the Initiative………………………………………… 4 Biographical Sketch of Jesse Hawley - Early Erie Canal Advocate…………. 5 Western Terminus for the Erie Canal (Black Rock vs Buffalo)……………… 6 Digging the Ditch……………………………………………………………. 7 Yankee Ingenuity…………………………………………………………….. 10 Eastward to Albany…………………………………………………………… 12 Westward to Lake Erie………………………………………………………… 16 Tying Up Loose Ends………………………………………………………… 20 The Building of a Harbor at Buffalo………………………………………….. 21 Canal Workforce……………………………………………………………… 22 The Irish Worker Story……………………………………………………….. 27 Engineering Characteristics of Canals………………………………………… 29 Early Life on the Canal……………………………………………………….. 33 Winter – The Canal‘sGreatest Impediment……………………………………. 43 Canal Expansion………………………………………………………………. 45 “Low Bridge; Everybody Down!” 2 ―Low Bridge; Everybody Down!‖ Notes & Notions on the Construction & Early Operation of the Erie Canal Initial Resource Book: Dan Murphy, The Erie Canal: The Ditch That Opened A Nation, 2001 Introduction A foolhardy proposal, years of political bickering and partisan infighting, an outrageous $7.5 million price tag (an amount roughly equal to about $4 billion today) – all that for a four foot deep, 40 foot wide ditch connecting Lake Erie in western New York with the Hudson River in Albany. It took 7 years of labor, slowly clawing shovels of earth from the ground in a 363-mile trek across the wilderness of New York State. Through the use of many references, this paper attempts to describe this remarkable construction project. Additionally, it describes the early operation of the canal and its impact on the daily life on or near the canal‘s winding path across the state. The Erie Canal as a Federal Project In 1784, George Washington wrote a letter to congress outlining his designs for the infrastructure of the new United States. In regards to the waterways of New York, Washington suggested: Extend the inland navigation of the eastern waters; communicate them as near as possible with those which run westward; open these to the Ohio; open also such as extend from the Ohio towards Lake Erie; and we shall not only draw the produce of the western settlers, but the peltry and the fur trades of the lakes also, to our ports; thus adding immense increase to our exports, and binding these people to us by a chain which can never be broken. Peter Bernstein (Wedding of the Waters) continues the discussion advocating canals: ―In 1796 Robert Fulton published a book on small canals, which he boasted about in correspondence to George Washington a year later. Fulton was fixated on the notion of canals for bringing great quantities of merchandise to market at prices far cheaper than road transportation…in subsequent reports Fulton provided a wide variety of examples from existing routes in the United States and revealed a keen sense of how such reductions in the cost of moving freight can enhance and enrich the process of economic growth.‖ ―Fulton estimated that construction of a canal would cost about $15,000 a mile, a figure remarkably close to the amount spent on building the Erie Canal, where work would not even begin for some time. The primary attraction of moving cargo instead of on a river is in the calm and flat surface over which a canal boat can travel without having to deal with either upstream or downstream currents. A well-built boat floating on water could carry much more freight at no slower speed than a horse-drawn wagon rumbling along a bumpy road. On most canals at that time, boats had no motive power of their own but were pulled along by horses or mules walking on a towpath by the side of the canal, with a boy leading or riding on the horse and a man on board steering the boat. Although this sounds like a poky, primitive means of locomotion, in reality it was the critical technological advantage over travel by road or by river. By allowing the boat to move smoothly along its waters, the canal avoided all the heavy human efforts spent poling boats upstream on rivers and controlling the speed when moving downstream – major obstacles on both the Potomac and the Mohawk. As a result, a canal could carry larger boats, with more cargo-carrying capacity than boats forced to confront the trials of river travel.‖ [pp 115-116] In 1808, Thomas Jefferson agreed with Washington‘s thinking --- at least in theory. A project scope of which Washington was suggesting would require a tremendous amount of time and effort, and red tape. Jefferson‘s reply to the idea of a canal across New York State: ―Here is a canal for a few miles, projected by George Washington, which, if completed, would render this a fine commercial city, which has languished for many years because the small sum of $200,000 necessary to complete it, cannot be obtained by the general government, the state government, or from individuals – and you talk of making a canal 350 miles through the wilderness – it is a little short of madness to think of it as this day.‖ “Low Bridge; Everybody Down!” 3 Just prior to the War of 1812, DeWitt Clinton and Governor Morris meet with President Madison. Mr. Madison receives them coldly. Despite Clinton‘s eloquent pleas for federal assistance in building the canal, the President refuses to lend his support to the project. There‘s no time now to think of internal improvements, he says. Just last month he warned Congress to get ready for war. [Phelan ―Waterway West‖] If New York wanted its canal, federal funding looked out of the question. Funding for the Erie Canal project must come from within the borders of New York State. But first, deteriorating relations with England put the canal debate on hold. New York State Seizes the Initiative Ralph K. Andrist (The Erie Canal) picks up the discussion as it was at the end of the War of 1812: ―The war with Great Britain dimmed the hopes for pushing the immediate construction of the canal forward. The war, however, did emphasize the need for a good waterway; the rotting old locks built by the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company could barely take care of the heavy war traffic. ― ―Unfortunately, the war also gave the opposition time to gather its forces. New York City politicians stubbornly and stupidly opposed the upstate project although common sense should have told them that the commerce brought by the canal could only increase the greatness of their city. Then there were people in the Lake Ontario counties who wanted the canal to end at Oswego on Lake Ontario, instead of going on to Lake Erie and opening east-west traffic. And there were farmers near the Pennsylvania border who saw no reason to pay taxes to help build a waterway so far away from them. But Clinton, always the master politician, promised to run branch canals into other parts of the state and soon had most of the farmers on his side.‖ ―People complained that there was not a chance in the world that a canal 363 miles long could be dug successfully through all that wilderness. The Western Inland Navigation Company which had tried to carry out a much less ambitious program, had been able to complete only a small part of it before it went broke. Another sad example was the Middlesex Canal which ran twenty-six miles from Boston to the Merrimack River; the longest canal in the country at that time. The Middlesex Canal was a marvel and a joy to shippers bringing New Hampshire granite and lumber to Boston markets, but it was a nightmare to its owners, who had to dig into their pockets again and again to pay off its debts. If a twenty-seven mile canal near busy Boston went broke, asked the critics of the Erie Canal, what chance had a ditch that would run hundreds of miles through the wilds of upper New York state?‖ ―But in spite of all the opposition, the pressure for the canal was becoming stronger all the time. New England farmers, thinking about taking up a piece of easily plowed land out in the Indiana or Illinois territories, were fascinated by the prospect of gliding along a smooth waterway rather than facing the difficulties of wearing out horses and axles on a miserable, pot-holed road over the mountains. Eastern merchants were ready to sell axes, buttons, plow-points, cloth, fox traps and a thousand other things to western settlers as soon as economical transportation was available.‖ ―More vocal were the people in almost every town and village along the route of the proposed canal who, throughout 1816, were holding mass meetings to demand that the lawmakers in Albany get busy and do something. Many of the responsible citizens of New York City signed a petition asking for the same canal their own representatives were opposing. Thousands of people in other parts of the state also signed petitions for the canal… In the spring of 1817, the people elected DeWitt Clinton governor of New York by a vote of 43,310 to 1,479. It was the most lopsided vote the state had ever seen. And in voting for Clinton and his political allies, who had made the canal a major issue in their campaign, the people were really voting for the canal itself.‖ ―Later that year, when the all-important bill for funds to build the canal came up in the state legislature, its enemies still fought hard.