Plans for Erie Canal to Be Part of National System of Waterways

He noticed that efforts on the part of Illinois to connect the river of that name with Lake Michigan, and those of Ohio to unite with Lake Erie the river which formed her southern boundary, commending those efforts to the munificent patronage of the National Government and the favor able countenance of New York.

Continuing Erie Canal Opens,
our selection from The Building of the Erie Canal essay by William H. Seward published in . The selection is presented in six easy 5 minute installments. 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

Governor Clinton, in 1822, referred in his speech to the difficulties and embarrassments which had been encountered with regard to the most eligible routes for the canals, and the most proper designations for the termini of the Erie Canal, assuring the Legislature, however, that the Canal Board had not been led astray by local considerations or ephemeral expedients, and that they would be able to combine the accommodation of flourishing cities and villages with the promotion of the general convenience and welfare. He noticed that efforts on the part of Illinois to connect the river of that name with Lake Michigan, and those of Ohio to unite with Lake Erie the river which formed her southern boundary, commending those efforts to the munificent patronage of the National Government and the favor able countenance of New York. He recommended also the institution of a board of public improvements, to be composed of enlightened and public-spirited citizens, and invested with power to establish and facilitate all useful channels of communication and all eligible modes of improvement. The tolls on the portion of the Champlain Canal which had been completed amounted in the previous year to one thousand three hundred eighty-six dollars.

The Legislature at this session directed the canal commissioners to open a boat navigation between the village of Salina, Onondaga Lake, and the Seneca River. These improvements, when completed, together with those previously directed, created an artificial canal from the Erie Canal to Lake Ontario, and constituted a portion of what afterward became known as the Oswego Canal. Acts were also passed to encourage the construction of harbors at Buffalo Creek and Black Rock, and to adapt the Glens Falls feeder of the Champlain Canal to boat navigation.

On January 1, 1823, the Government went into operation under the new State constitution, Joseph C. Yates having been elected to the office of governor. The constitution declared that rates of toll not less than those set forth by the canal commissioners in their report of 1821 should be collected on the canals, and that the revenues then pledged to the canal fund should not be diminished nor diverted before the complete payment of the principal and interest of the entire canal debt, a pledge which placed the public credit on an impregnable basis.

It appeared at the commencement of the session of the Legislature in 1823 that the public debt amounted to five million four hundred twenty-three thousand five hundred dollars, of which the sum of four million two hundred forty-three thousand five hundred dollars was for moneys borrowed to construct the canals. The commissioners reported that boats had passed on the Erie Canal a distance of more than two hundred twenty miles, and that as early as July 1st ensuing that channel would be navigable from Schenectady to Rochester. The tolls collected in 1822 upon the Erie Canal were sixty thousand, and upon the Champlain Canal three thousand six hundred twenty- five dollars. The improvements of the outlet of Onondaga Lake had been completed, and the Glens Falls feeder was in course of rapid construction. Among the benefits already resulting from the Erie Canal, the commissioners showed that the price of wheat west of the Seneca River had advanced 50 per cent. To appreciate this result, it is necessary to understand that wheat is the chief staple of New York, and that far the largest portion of wheat-growing in this State lies west of the Seneca River. Attempts were again made in both branches to provide for collecting the local tax. The proposition was lost in the Senate by a vote of nineteen to ten, and in the Assembly by a division of sixty-five to thirty-one.

The Legislature expressed by resolution a favorable opinion of the inland navigation which New Jersey proposed to establish between the Delaware and Hudson rivers. A loan of one million five hundred thousand dollars was authorized for canal purposes, a survey of the Oswego River was directed to be made, and estimates of the expense of completing the canal from Salina to Lake Ontario. An association to construct such a canal was incorporated, and authority given to the commissioners to take the work when completed, leaving the use of its surplus waters to the corporators; and the eastern termination of the Erie Canal was fixed at Albany.

The canal commissioners reported in 1824 that the Champlain Canal was finished; that both canals had produced revenues during the previous year of one hundred fifty-three thou sand dollars; and that the commissioners had decided that the Erie Canal ought to be united with the Niagara River at Black Rock and terminate at Buffalo.

Myron Holley now resigned the office of canal commissioner; and laws were passed appropriating one million dollars for canal purposes, and directing a survey for a canal from Lake Cham- plain to the St. Lawrence, with a view to complete the inland navigation between that river and the Hudson.

On April 25, 1824, John Bowman presented to the Senate a concurrent resolution that “De Witt Clinton, Esq., be and is hereby removed from the office of canal commissioner”; and it was carried on the same day through the Senate, by a vote of twenty-one to three, and through the Assembly by a vote of sixty-four to thirty-four.

As soon as partial navigation of the canals had commenced, the Government of the United States asserted a pretension to exact tonnage duties thereon. The Legislature of New York State, at its adjourned session, instructed its Senators and Representatives in Congress to use their utmost endeavors to prevent such unjust and impolitic exactions; and the claim of the Government of the United States, although not formally relinquished, has never since been urged.

On the reassembling of the Legislature in January, 1825, De Witt Clinton, who, in November of the preceding year, had been again called to the office of governor, congratulated the Legislature upon the prospect of the immediate completion of the Erie Canal, and the reasonable certainty that the canal debt might soon be satisfied, without a resort to taxation, without a discontinuance of efforts for similar improvements, and without staying the dispensing hand of Government in favor of education, literature, science, and productive industry. Earnestly renewing his recommendation that a board of internal improvement should be instituted, he remarked that the field of operations was immense, and the harvest of honor and profit un bounded, and that, if the resources of the State should be wisely applied and forcibly directed, all proper demands for important avenues of communication might be satisfied.

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