Erie Canal’s Importance

Today’s installment concludes Erie Canal Opens,
our selection from The Building of the Erie Canal essay by William H. Seward published in .

If you have journeyed through all of the installments of this series, just one more to go and you will have completed a selection from the great works of six thousand words. Congratulations! For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in Erie Canal Opens.

Time: 1825
Place: New York City

The primary design of our system of artificial navigation, which was to open a communication between the Atlantic and the Great Lakes, was already, he observed, nearly accomplished, but would not be fully realized until Lake Ontario should be connected with the Erie Canal and with Lake Champlain, and the importance of these improvements would be appreciated when it was understood that the lake coast, not only of this State, but of the United States, was more extensive than their sea- coast. The next leading object, he remarked, should be to unite the minor lakes and secondary rivers with the canals and to effect such a connection between the bays on the seacoast as would insure the safety of boat navigation against the tempests of the ocean in time of peace, and against the depredations of an enemy in time of war.

The public debt for canals in 1825 amounted to seven and a half million dollars — all of which, it must be recorded to the honor of the State and the country, had been borrowed of Ameri can capitalists — and the annual interest thereon, to three hundred seventy-six thousand dollars. The Governor estimated that the tolls for the year would exceed three hundred ten thousand dollars; that the duties on salt would amount to one hundred thou sand dollars, and that these, with the other income of the canal fund, would produce a revenue exceeding, by three hundred thousand dollars, the interest on the canal debt. He stated also that ten thousand boats had passed the junction of the canals near tide- water during the previous season. Remarking that the creative power of internal improvement was manifested in the flourishing villages which had sprung up or been extended; in the increase of towns; and, above all, in the prosperity of the city of New York. And noticing the fact that three thousand buildings had been erected in that city during the preceding year, Clinton predicted that in fifteen years its population would be doubled, and that in thirty years that metropolis would be the third city in the civilized world, and the second, if not the first, in commerce.

Adverting to the efforts which Ohio was making to connect Lake Erie — which, he remarked, might now be regarded as a prolongation of the Erie Canal — with the Ohio River, he declared that he should welcome the commencement and hail the consummation of that work as among the most auspicious events in our history; and he closed his review of the condition and prospects of the State with this exclamation:

How emphatically does is behoove us, in the contemplation and enjoyment of these abundant blessings, to remember that we derive them all from the great Fountain of Benevolence!”

The canal commissioners, alluding to the pressure of business on the eastern section of the canal and the probability of its rapid increase, announced to the Legislature that it would be necessary before long to exclude passenger-boats from this part of the line, unless double locks were made through the whole distance, and remarked that even then the crowd of boats in the spring and fall would produce great inconveniences and delay. Reasoning that in many places it would be almost impossible to construct double locks, and that in others it would be attended with great expense, they inferred that in a very few years it would be proper and perhaps indispensable to make a par allel canal along the valley of the Mohawk. They showed that, in 1820, the tolls of ninety-four miles of the Erie Canal were $5,000; in 1821, on the same distance, $23,000; in 1822, on one hundred sixteen miles, $57,000; in 1823, on one hundred sixty miles, $105,000; and in 1824, on two hundred eighty miles, had reached the sum of $294,000. They submitted tables, in which they estimated the tolls on a basis of the increase of the population and the progress of agricultural improvement, and predicted that in 1836 two millions of people would be within the influence of the Erie Canal; that its tolls would in that year reach the sum of $1,000,000; and that, if the rates should not be reduced, they would amount in 1846 to $2,000,000, and in 1856 to $4,000,000.

At this session Samuel Dexter Jr. introduced a bill into the Assembly for exploring a route to connect the waters of the Black River with the Erie Canal; Jacob Adrian Van Der Heuvel brought in a bill to construct a canal from Potsdam, in St. Lawrence County, to the Oswegatchie, and to improve the navigation of that river; and Thurlow Weed proposed a survey with a view to connect the Allegheny River at Olean with the Erie Canal at Rochester, by a navigable communication through the valley of the Genesee River. Laws were passed at the same session authorizing the construction of the Cayuga and Seneca Canal, adopting the Oswego Canal as a State work, and providing for surveys for most of the other improvements recommended by the Governor; and the Legislature, in view of the approaching completion of the main arteries of the system of inland navigation, directed that all the laws, reports, and documents relative to the canals, requisite for a complete official history of these works, with necessary maps and profiles, should be carefully collected and published. This duty was performed with much accuracy by a legislative committee, with the assistance of John Van Ness Yates, then Secretary of State, who had been one of the most constant and efficient friends of the policy, of whose history he thus became the guardian.

On October 26, 1825, the Erie Canal was in a navigable condition throughout its entire length, affording an uninterrupted passage from Lake Erie to tide-water in the Hudson. Thus in eight years artificial communications four hundred twenty-eight miles in length had been opened between the more important inland waters and the commercial emporium of the State. This auspicious consummation was celebrated by a telegraphic dis charge of cannon, commencing at Lake Erie, and continued along the banks of the canal and of the Hudson, announcing to the city of New York the entrance on the bosom of the canal of the first barge that was to arrive at the commercial emporium from the American Mediterraneans.

Borne in this barge, De Witt Clinton and his coadjutors enjoyed the spectacle of a free people rejoicing in the assurances of prosperity increased and national harmony confirmed ; and were hailed, in their passage through towns and cities they might almost be said to have called into existence, with the language of irrepressible gratitude and affection.

This ends our series of passages on Erie Canal Opens by William H. Seward from his essay The Building of the Erie Canal. This blog features short and lengthy pieces on all aspects of our shared past. Here are selections from the great historians who may be forgotten (and whose work have fallen into public domain) as well as links to the most up-to-date developments in the field of history and of course, original material from yours truly, Jack Le Moine. – A little bit of everything historical is here.

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