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April 1980

13. NUMBER OF PAGES

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I8 . SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES

19 . KEY WORDS (Continue on reverse side if necessary and Identify by block number)

Canals, Exploration, Intermodal connections, Navigation,

channel improvements, State canal construction,

Railroads, River

Waterway development

2C.. A86TRACT (Csatinue em,. .verse elSa Ft neceeeaay and identify by block number)

This staff paper is .one of a series that chronologically

events in the history of U .S . waterway and port

number one in the series, summarizes the following

records significant

development . The current volume,

major periods : Use of

Waterways in Early America : 1541-1808 ; From the Invention of the Steamboat to

the Civil War : 1811-1867 ; The Great Era of American Canal Building : 1825-1850 ;

and the End of the Canal Building Era : 1836-1871 .
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THE

UNITED SWES

ERWAYS

AND PORTS:

A CHRONOLOGY

VOLUME I

is4i-isn

Robert W. Harrison

April 1980

Staff Paper NWS-80-S1

National Waterways Study 0 U.S . Army Engineer Water Resources Support Center 0 Institute for Water Reso
Copies may be purchased from :

National Technical Information Service

U . S . Department of Commerce

Springfield, Virginia 22151

This report is not to be construed as necessarily representing the

views of the Federal Government or the U . S . Army Corps of Engineers .
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page

Use of Waterways in Early America

From the Invention of the Steamboat to the

Civil War 5

The Great Era of American Canal Building :

1825-1850 10

The End of the Canal Building Era 15
NATIONAL WATERWAYS STUDY

Staff Papers

In the course of the National Waterways Study, the staff of the

Institute for Water Resources will prepare staff papers on a wide range

of subjects related to the waterways, their development and use . These

papers are being made available in preliminary form for purpose of

review and discussion . They are not in their preliminary form official

parts of the National Waterways Study reports .

Questions or review comments on this staff report should be

addressed to Mrs . Arlene L . Dietz, National Waterways Study Manager, at

(202) 325-7141 or to Mr . Robert W . Harrison, Senior Economist, at (202)

325-7420, Institute for Water Resources, Water Resources Support Center,

U .S . Army Corps of Engineers, Kingman Building, Fort Belvoir, Virginia

22060.

i
THE U .S . WATERWAYS AND PORTS : A CHRONOLOGY : VOLUME ONE

One of the earliest and most persistent themes of American history

relates to the development, use and improvement of the natural waterways

including the inland waterways, the Great Lakes, the coastwise trade

routes and the harbors and ports . The period of active canal building,

1825-1850, is also an important part of waterways history . This is a

progress which has taxed the skills and energy of each generation . The

very earliest explorers of North America saw the value of linking the

natural streams and lakes into a system that would promote exploration,

settlement, and economic and social development . Congress through the

National Waterways Study, now underway, seeks new dimensions in which

the waterways and ports may serve transport needs of the United

States . The location and character of U .S . waterways and the volume and

pattern of transport movements in our economy are shown in the maps

prepared for the National Waterways Study .

Volume One of the chronology highlights the early and dramatic

history of waterway and port improvements in the American Colonies and

in the early years of the United States . The story is carried through

the era of canal building .

Many individuals and organizations have been involved in the

development of the waterways, but none for a longer period or more

consistently than the U .S . Army Corps of Engineers . As aids or

guideposts to chronological thinking, events of a political, social, or

scientific character are occasionally added to the chronology as

navigation lights mark the bends of our great rivers and guide sailors

to the safety of our seaports and harbors .
1 . UseofWaterwaysin EarlyAmerica

1541 - The Spanish Explorer, Hernando de Soto, discovered the

Mississippi River and made the first record by a European of

the Mississippi River in flood stage . The exact point of

discovery is not known, but is believed to be in the alluvial

valley below the present site of Memphis, Tennessee .

1607 - English colonists sailed up the James River and made the first

permanent English settlement in America at Jamestown, Virginia,

near present day Williamsburg .

1609 - The Hudson River is navigated by the Dutch ; settled at New

Amsterdam--called New York after 1664 .

1673 Louis Joliet leading the Joliet-Marquette Expedition to the

Great Lakes and Upper Mississippi, discovered that Lake

Michigan could be connected to the Mississippi River by

building a short canal from the Chicago River to the Illinois

River, a tributary of the Mississippi . More than a century and

a half later, in 1836, the State of Illinois started the

Illinois and Michigan Canal, following the general route

suggested by the explorer . The canal was not completed until

1848 .

1676 Samuel Sewell recorded in his diary of October 26 that he

examined a possible route for a canal from Buzzards Bay to Cape

Cod Bay, which would almost cut in half the dangerous sea route

to New Amsterdam. It was 1914 before this short cut was fully

realized by building the Cape Cod Canal, a link in the Atlantic

Intracoastal Waterway .

1678 LaSalle set out on an expedition which made him famous as the

first white man to descend the Mississippi throughout the

greater part of its length to the Gulf of Mexico .

1699 - The French explorer d'Iberville entered the mouth of the

Mississippi River and studied the river probably as far as the

mouth of Red River . He explored the Gulf Coast thoroughly and

established a colony in Biloxi Bay . In 1702 the headquarters

of the colony was moved to Mobile Bay .

1705 - The first recorded cargo was floated down the Mississippi River

containing'15,000 bear and deer hides .

1716 - Virginia Governor Alexander Spottswood entertained the idea of

a water route to the Ohio River by either the James or Potomac

River, but was not able to act on his concept .

2
1717 - Bienville sailed into the Mississippi River and established New

Orleans on the first high ground, which was not high enough and

a levee was required to protect the settlement from Mississippi

River floods . Bienville's engineer, de la Tour built the levee

and engineers have been busy here ever since .

1748 - The Ohio Company of Virginia, a trading company founded in

1748, developed trade routes from Atlantic tidewater to the

Ohio River using the Potomac and Monongahela Rivers for much of

the distance .

1753 - France sent armed forces into the Upper Ohio Valley to protest

plans of the Ohio Company of Virginia, to penetrate the Ohio

River Valley as far as the falls at Louisville . The French and

Indian Wars (1754-1763) followed .

1768 Lieutenant Thomas Hutchins of the Royal British Army was busy

mapping the topography and hydrology of the Tennessee and

Cumberland River Valleys, a task that led to a job later as

"Geographer of the United States of America," and to work with

the Topographical Engineers of the U .S . Army . The "long

hunters" were already in the valley of the twin rivers, trading

in buffalo tallow and hides .

1772 - George Washington, then a member of the Virginia House of

Burgesses, secured passage of an act for opening the Potomac

for navigation from tidewater to Fort Cumberland, Maryland .

Under the act, money could be raised by subscription and

lottery . Merchants of Baltimore opposed a similar act when it

was up in the Maryland Assembly because they feared Georgetown

and Alexandria would get the trade they wished to control .

1773 - Citizens of Richmond promoted improvements on the Potomac and

the James, particularly the building of locks, to facilitate

passage around the rapids at the fall line in these streams .

Funds were raised in the colonies and in Great Britain and the

promoters offered to furnish slave labor to get the work

started .

1779 - Colonel John Donelson, led a flotilla of flatboats and canoes

filled with women and children down the Tennessee River and up

the Cumberland River to settle in middle Tennessee . Several

lives were lost to Indians and to accidents of navigation .

Muscle Shoals and the Suck where the Tennessee breaks through

the mountains were impediments to navigation for a century or

more .

1785 - Representatives of Maryland and Virginia met at Mount Vernon to

settle their differences over the navigation of the Potomac

River and Chesapeake Bay . The agreement they reached is known

as the "Mount Vernon Compact" and had considerable influence on

the management of resources held by two or more states jointly .

3
1789 - The Northwest Ordinance passed in the first session of the

first U .S. Congress declared : "The navigable waters leading

into the Mississippi and St . Lawrence and the carrying places

between the same shall be common highways and forever free . . ."

1793 - John Hancock, Governor of Massachusetts, granted a charter to

Middlesex Canal Company to build a canal connecting Boston

Harbor with the Merrimac River, where there were important

settlements . The company was given authority to sell stock and

collect canal tolls . William Weston, an Englishman residing in

Philadelphia, was engaged to design and build the canal which

was completed in 1803 . It served for 57 years until 1860, when

it was sold to pay the debts of the canal company . The canal

stockholders broke even .

1797 - Waterway improvement on the Great Lakes began in 1797 when the

British "Northwest Fur Company" built the first lock and dam to

carry boats around St . Mary's Falls between Lake Superior and

Lake Huron to eliminate the portage .

Palmyra, Tennessee, on the Cumberland River was designated by

Congress as a port of entry--one of the first on the TransAppalachian frontier . Trade in tobacco was heavy . A tobacco

inspection station was established at Clarksville, Tennessee,

in 1789 .

1798 - The first river gauge was placed on the Mississippi at Natchez

byy order of Governor Winthrop Sargent . Reading of this gauge

continued to 1848 .

1802 - The first congressional appropriations for waterways was made

on April 6 providing $30,000 for erecting and maintaining piers

in the Delaware River .

1803 - President Jefferson concluded the purchase of Louisiana from

France for $15 million . The purchase extended from the

Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from the Gulf of

Mexico to Canada .

1808 Albert Gallatin, U .S . Secretary of the Treasury, submitted a

report "Roads and Canals . . ." to the U .S . Senate . His report

emphasized the importance of long range planning for resources

and public services such as water and transportation . He saw

the multipurpose value of the water resource, as well as the

possibilities of an integration of transport modes such as

roads and canals . He prepared a long list of road and canal

projects to help link New England with the South and the

seaboard states with the interior of the young nation .

Gallatin's report stated clearly the Federal interest in water

resources but this point was hotly debated . The projects he

proposed were, for the most part, carried out over the

4
The Washington made a roundtrip between Louisville, Kentucky,

and New Orleans, Louisiana, in 41 days . The era of great

steamboats on the inland rivers had begun .

1812Washington City was burned by the British .

1815 - President Madison urged the Congress to consider the need for a

national seminary of learning and for roads and canals to be

built under Federal authority .

1817 - The construction of the Erie Canal was started by New York

State . Completed in 1825, it became the most successful of

American canals . The first major water project of the United

States, the Erie Canal was 363 miles long, joining the Hudson

River with Lake Erie, it opened the west to the markets of the

world through New York City . A great wave of canal building

followed .

1820 - The Pennsylvania legislature authorized construction of the

Pennsylvania Turnpike from Wrightsville on the Susquehanna to

Pittsburgh .

Congress appropriated $5,000 for surveys, maps, and charts of

the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers with a view to their

improvements for navigation . National attention was directed

to navigation improvements on the Mississippi River as the

number of steamboats was increasing rapidly on the Mississippi

and its major tributaries .

1823 The Corps of Engineers received its first legislative

assignment for navigation improvements, involving examination

and surveys of the harbor at Presque Isle on Lake Erie in

Pennsylvania .

1824 - The Congress authorized President Madison to have surveys made

" . . .of the routes of such roads and canals as he may deem of

national importance from a military point of view," (known as

the General Survey Act) .

5
The Act of May 24 initiated Federal improvements for navigation

in the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, appropriating $75,000 for

this work . This Act is generally considered as the true

beginning of the Corps of Engineers role in developing the

commercial waterways of the United States .

The Shaker Colony at South Union in Logan County, Kentucky,

began shipment of produce down the Red River, a tributary of

the Cumberland in 1824 . This trade continued until 1842 .

The Corps of Engineers designed and constructed a revolutionary

snagboat using steam power to pull large water-soaked trees out

of the Mississippi River channel . Two experimental suctio

dredges were also designed and built at the same time .

The first harbor improvements were undertaken by the Federal

Government on Lake Michigan at Erie, Pennsylvania ; Cleveland,

Ohio, and other points . Work included breakwaters, jettys,

piers and deepening of harbor entrance channels .

1825 A 92-mile long "raft" of sunken logs and stumps which blocked

the Red River in Louisiana was examined with the idea that it

could be removed by blasting or other means .

Colonel Stephen H . Long constructed a simple wing dam on the

Ohio River near Henderson, Kentucky . This was the first work

on the main stem of a western river for the purpose of

improving the channel for navigation by confining the current

in the river to a narrower portion of the river bed, thereby

increasing the water velocity and the scouring away of bars and

other obstructions through the action of the river itself . The

experiment was successful and similar work was attempted in the

following years on many rivers throughout the nation .

1826 - Work was started on the Pennsylvania Main Line Canal . The

objective was to join Philadelphia with Pittsburgh by a water

route . This proved impractical . A gap of about 26 miles in

the mountain area was left to be covered by an incline railway

which hauled the barges overland . The project was opened in

1834 at a cost of $10,338,133, a record for the time . Charles

Dickens provided the world with . a colorful description of his

travels by the Pennsylvania Main Line Canal .

1828 - Andrew Jackson was elected President of the United States .

The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal was started . This project moved

slowly and it was 1850 before it reached Cumberland,

Maryland . The objective of reaching the Ohio was abandoned .

However, it had a few years of considerable success as a

carrier of coal in barges of up to 100 tons capacity 

Unfortunately, the Great Flood of 1889 wrecked the C&O Canal

6
from beginning to end . Parts of it are today used for a

recreation trip from Georgetown in the District of Columbia

through the Maryland countryside .

Louisville and Portland Canal was constructed, with Federal

aid, around the Ohio River falls at Louisville, Kentucky . Ohio

River navigation benefitted greatly from this work .

Advertisements seeking contractors were placed in newspapers in

New Castle and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for work on a

breakwater and ice breaker in Delaware Bay .

1829 The first survey of the Rock Island rapids in the Upper

Mississippi was made in the interest of navigation by a Corps

of Engineers officer .

1830 - Removal of snags in the main Mississippi River channel was

completed .

The Army Engineers surveyed the harbor at Baltimore,

Maryland . In 1836 Congress approved $20,000 for deepening the

entrance channels here .

1831 A bold attempt was made to improve navigation at the mouth of

the Red River where it enters the Mississippi by making a cutoff of Turnbull Bend . The work was proposed by Captain Shreve

and was called Shreve's Cut-off . This work and a second cutoff made at Raccourci Bend in 1848 by the State of Louisiana

caused great controversy among river engineers .

1832 The first Congressional appropriation was made for improvement

of the Cumberland River below Nashville in the amount of

$30,000 to be used for removal of a dense growth of brush and

trees overhanging the channel, removal of snags and logs

imbedded in the river, blasting of rocks and reefs, and

improvement of the river by construction of wing dams to

confine the channel . The Corps of Engineers carried out this

work .

1836 - Work was started on the James River and Kanawha Canal . The

objective was to join the James River to the Kanawha River

which was finally done by railway . That part of the canal

between Richmond and Lynchburg was quite successful . However,

the flood of 1877 damaged the canal badly and it was soon sold

to a local railroad .

1837 - Appropriations were made for improvement of the Cumberland

River above Nashville . The Upper Cumberland navigation made

possible development of important coal fields .

7
The first Federal efforts were made to understand the passes

and bars at the mouth of the Mississippi River and the needs o

seagoing navigation . Deepening the bar by dredging wit

buckets was recommended by the Corps of Engineers and work wa

subsequently started .

1838The Corps undertook the first work on the Missouri River fo

navigation .

1840 - Steamboats on the Missouri reached Independence, the eastern

terminus of the Sante Fe Trail . Here, goods moving west were

transferred from steamboats to wagon trains .

1841 - Congress authorized the charting of 9,500 square miles of the

Great Lakes system with an initial appropriation of $15,000 to

the Corps of Engineers to carry out the survey work .

1843 - Observations were made to determine the amount of sediment

carried in suspension in the Mississippi River by Professor J 

L . Riddell . Scientific interest in the Mississippi was

growing .

1845 - A convention was held at Memphis, Tennessee, to promote river

improvements for navigation . John C . Calhoun presided and

strongly advanced the viewpoint that flood control and

navigation were both national problems, transcending the merely

local, and worthy of Federal interest . Similar conventions

were held later at Chicago and Cincinnati .

1846 - The possibility of a ship channel to serve Houston, Texas, was

first suggested by local groups .

1849The California Gold Rush of 1849 brought increased traffic to

the California harbors .

1850 After 1850, improvements of waterways in the U .S . were carried

out essentially as a Federal activity. Federal appropriations

for river and harbor work totaled approximately $13 million for

the years 1787 through 1850 .

The Secretary of War directed Charles Ellet, Jr ., of the Corps

of Engineers, to make surveys and report on the Mississippi and

Ohio Rivers with a view to preparation of adequate plans for

flood prevention and navigation . Ellet made the following

recommendations : (1) prevent, cut-offs ; (2) enlarge natural

outlet through Bayou Plaquemine and Atchafalaya Rivers ; (3)

create an artificial outlet through Lake Borgne ; (4) improve

the levee system particularly below the mouth of the Red River 

and (5) construct a system of reservoirs on the Upper

Mississippi and on its principal tributaries to hold

floodwaters .

8
1851 - Work was begun on the "Delta Survey" by Captain Humphreys and

Lieutenant Abbot, Corps of Engineers . Their work "Report Upon

the Physics and Hydraulics of the Mississippi River, Upon the

Protection of the Alluvial Region Against Overflow and Upon the

Deepening of the Mouths, etc . . ." had a profound effect on the

Federal program over the next 50 years .

Ocean shipping hampered by lack of draft over the bars at the

mouth of the Mississippi River .

Water transport on the Colorado River was begun in 1851 to

supply the military post at Yuma, Arizona .

1852 - Federal harbor improvement work on the Pacific Coast begun at

San Diego, California . An embankment was built across the

mouth of the San Diego River in an effort to change its course .

The first direct appropriation was made for improvement of the

navigation of the Tennessee in the amount of $50,000 .

1856 Congress appropriated $330,000 to open and maintain by contract

ship channels through the bars at the mouth of Southwest Pass

and Pass a l'Outre of the Mississippi River . A depth of 20

feet and width of 300 feet was sought . A jetty about a mile

long made of sheet piling failed to deepen the river adequately

and the contractor gave up . Corps of Engineers forces

continued the work and succeeded in obtaining a depth over the

bars of 18 feet .

1861 - Civil War . Navigation improvements fell into disrepair on the

Lower Mississippi . At the end of the war, the costs of

essential repairs to the levee of the Mississippi River were

estimated at about $3,900,000.

1867 Dredging resumed at the mouth of the Mississippi River . The

dredge Essayons worked in Pass a l'Outre and the dredge

McAlister was in Southwest Pass . Both were equipped with large

scrapers but not much progress was reported .

The Corps began the investigation of Mississippi River

headwater reservoirs to provide for river navigation at low

water stages . It was 1880 before a project of headwaters

reservoirs was begun .

9
3 . The Great Era of American Canal Building : L825-1850

In the first section of this chronology of the American waterways,

the small-scale canals constructed during the colonial period were

recognized as important beginnings toward a system of water

transportation which utilized natural streams and connected them by

canals when feasible . But there was little capital in the colonies and

the start toward improving the waterways was slow . By 1800, less than

20 canal projects had been successfully completed . The combined length

of these was probably not over 100 miles . The Middlesex Canal in

Massachusetts and the Santee and Cooper Canal in South Carolina were

probably the' most important canals then in use . The Middlesex allowed

the merchants of Boston to trade with the Merrimack Valley and the

Santee and Cooper did the same for the merchants of Charleston in their

desire to penetrate the important markets along the Santee River system .

The value of canals as practical means of transportation quickly

gained recognition . There was soon a widespread belief that a well

planned canal could bring prosperity to economically stagnant

communities . The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 demonstrated the

marked effect improved transport could have and marks the beginning of

the "canal era" in American transportation . By 1850 over 4,000 miles of

navigation canals had been built at a cost of over $300 million . The

first canals were built by stock companies . After New York State took

responsibility for construction and operation of the Erie, canal

building on a large scale became the responsibility of the individual

states, with only limited Federal assistance in the forms of loans or

grants of land . Only a handful of stock companies remained in the

active canal building business once the state governments became strong

participants . After 1850, the railroads took the lead in transportation

planning . The states frequently sold the canals they had struggled to

build to the rapidly expanding railroad companies . The era of canal

building ended in an atmosphere of defeat and in some cases of

bankruptcy for the states, although several of the economically

successful canals, particularly those forwarding coal to the eastern

seaboard cities, remained active well into the 20th Century . With few

exceptions, the railroads quickly closed the canals they purchased .

1824 - From 1824 to 1834, the canal building in America almost reached

the proportions of a mania . During this period the Delaware

River contributed water to more successful canal projects than

any other stream. Canals using Delaware River water included

the Schuylkill Navigation, the Delaware and Hudson Canal, the

Delaware and Raritan, the Lehigh Valley Canal and the Morris

Canal .

Construction was begun on the Morris Canal which led from Upper

New York Bay to the Delaware River at Phillipsburg ; extended

later to Jersey City and to New York Bay . Nothing was standard

size on this canal . The locks were so small that they could

10
not handle boats carrying more than 25 tons, although traffic

was forwarded from the Lehigh and other canals connecting with

the Delaware . Twenty-three inclined planes were required to

get the Morris Canal boats up and down from Lake Hopatcong,

1600 feet in 90 miles . Fortunately, these were well designed

and worked effectively. Despite all the limitations of the

Morris Canal as originally built, it did an enormous business

in coal movement and was profitable .

1825 - Work was begun on the Lehigh Canal at Mauch Chunk,

Pennsylvania, in April . This canal was 85 miles long,

extending up the Lehigh River from Easton to Mauch Chunk and

later extended to Stoddartsville . The Lehigh was well built ;

its management overcame many difficulties . Some of the worse

were caused by floods .

The Delaware and Hudson Canal Company sold all of its stock

subscription in one day, January 7, 1825 . The 108 miles of

canal from the Hudson River to Honesdale, Pennsylvania, was

completed in the fall of 1828, but there was still a large

aqueduct to be built across the Delaware River and there was

some question as to whether a canal could be built all the way

to the anthracite deposits the canal company hoped to exploit

through shipment to seaboard markets . After study, inclined

planes were developed to bring the coal to the canal head and

the great engineer, John A . Roebling, built a suspension

aqueduct across the Delaware to carry the coal barges . The

Delaware and Hudson Canal became one of the wealthiest in the

nation, largely by moving Lackawanna coal to the wharves of

Manhattan . It reached its peak in 1872 when it carried about

3 million tons of coal .

Ground breakings were held on the 4th of July and 5th of July

for Ohio's two greatest canal ventures : the Ohio and Lake Erie

Canal which joined Lake Erie at Cleveland with the Ohio River

at Portsmouth, and the Miami and Erie Canal which in its first

phase linked Cincinnati, on the Ohio, to Dayton . Later the

Miami and Erie Canal was carried north to Toledo and to the

junction with the Wabash and Erie Canal, the principal canal

project of the State of Indiana . DeWitt Clinton of New York

was principal speaker at both the Ohio ceremonies in

recognition of the importance of the New York Erie Canal to the

two Ohio canal projects . Ohio farmers and merchants hoped to

gain some of the rewards of the eastern market which New York

State was receiving in such abundance through full utilization

of the Erie Canal .

1828 - In October 1828, the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company opened

108 miles of canal from the Hudson River to Honesdale,

Pennsylvania, on the Delaware having 107 locks, 22 aqueducts,

100 bridges .

1 1
Congress made a grant to Ohio of 500,000 acres to help the

State carry out its canal building program . Other Federal land

grants followed, eventually totalling 1,230,000 acres to Ohio .

1829 . The Miami and Erie Canal was opened from Cincinnati to Dayton 

There was heavy use of this canal from the start, greatly to

the economic advantage of Cincinnati, Ohio . The demand was

strong for its extension to Lake Erie but the State of Ohio was

having difficulties finding the funds to complete the Ohio and

Erie Canal, its greatest canal project .

1830 Railroad track in the United States totalled 23 miles . By 1840

it had risen to about 3,000 miles, but in many communities the

steam engine was still looked on as an agent of the devil . On

many lines trains did not run on Sundays .

Work was begun on the Delaware and Raritan Canal with Canvass

White from the "Erie School of Canal Engineering", as chief

engineer. This was probably the best planned canal in

America . It ran from the estuary of the Raritan River at New

Brunswick to Bordentown on the Hudson . This was a large canal,

80 feet wide and 8 feet deep . Its use was great from the start

and in a few years it was enlarged . The Delaware and Raritan

Canal captured much of the freight carried by wagon companies

operating between Philadelphia and New York since early

colonial times .

1832 On December 1, the Ohio and Erie Canal was completed as the

lock gates at Portsmouth, Ohio, were opened and the first

flotilla of boats passed into the Ohio River from Lake Erie 

The canal had cost the state $7,904,000, about twice the

original estimates . Engineers with experience on the Erie

Canal, notably David Bates, built the Ohio and Erie Canal and

it worked well . Bates built feeders on the Portage Summit

which proved essential, but added considerably to the expense

of the canal . Earnings on the Ohio and Erie were good and in a

few years tolls exceeded $100,000 annually, reaching a peak i

1851 when over $430,000 was collected .

1833 - Work was begun on the extension of the Miami and Erie Canal to

Toledo on Lake Erie . This extension cost over $8 million .

1834 - The Pennsylvania Main Line Canal was officially opened . The

Main Line Canal joined Columbia on the Susquehana with

Pittsburgh at the head of the Ohio River . It was one of the

longest canals . The cost to the state was about $10 million 

In the higher mountains, a portage railroad 37 miles long

carried the barges over the higher peaks .

1 2
A railroad powered by horses was built from Philadelphia to

Columbia where passengers entered packet boats for the journey

over the Main Line Canal to Pittsburgh . By use of the first

class packet boats the Philadelphia to Pittsburgh trip was

frequently made in 6 days . Immigrants moving west to take up

land went by slower and cheaper boats . Passenger traffic

exceeded all expectations in volume and in revenue production .

1835 The James River and Kanawha Canal Company was organized and

made an aggressive start . In 1836 over 1,400 slaves were busy

digging on this canal . By 1837 the number had been increased

to 3,000, housed in tents . That part of the canal from

Richmond to Lynchburg was opened in 1840 . The first boat

through the canal was the William Henry Harrison .

1840 By 1840 the Union Canal connecting the Schuylkill with the

Delaware River represented an investment of $6 million .

Pennsylvania anthracite coal was the principal commodity moved .

The Morris Canal Company completed enlargements to the canal,

and to locks and inclined planes in order to move the great

volume of coal in demand at New York . The Morris had no

passenger traffic and wanted none .

1844 - Although the railroads were expanding into the coal moving

business, the canals held their own . The Delaware and Raritan,

the Delaware Divison of the Pennsylvania system, and the Lehigh

system were interconnected . All required enlargements so great

was the need to move anthracite coal . The Schuylkill

Navigation also shared in this prosperity .

1845 The Miami and Erie Canal was completed to Lake Erie . The

improvement of the Grand Reservoir, a natural lake required to

feed the canal, delayed the project for several years .

Exclusive of 25 miles of feeder canal, the Miami and Erie was

248 miles long . Once in operation, the Miami and Erie provided

profitable and a durable competitor with railroads which

paralleled its route . Packet service on the Miami was equal to

that on New York's Erie . The passenger boats were of high

quality, even luxurious . Speed was kept up .

1847 By 1850, the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal was moving half a

million tons of coal annually in barges . By 1870 the gross

tonnage rose above one million tons . In 1919 the United States

bought the canal and made it into a ship canal .

1850

The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal finally reached Cumberland,

Maryland . The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad had already arrived .

1 3
1855-60 By 1860 annual shipments on the Morris Canal reached ove

700,000 tons, mostly antracite coal, but also malable pig iro

from the new furnaces in northern New Jersey .

1857 Railroad competition begins to hurt the canals . By canal it

took 4 days to move coal from the Delaware River to tidewater

at Jersey City. By rail it took 5 hours . The Morris and Essex

Railroad, the Lehigh Valley Railroad, the New York and Erie,

Central Railroad of New Jersey, and the Delaware and Lackawanna

Railroad were all seeking the lucrative coal trade .

The Pennsylvania Railroad bought the Pennsylvania Main Line

Canal and turned it into a carrier of slow freight . The

railroad paralleled the canal for much of its distance .

1860 The Lehigh Canal had a peak year, moving 1,338,875 tons of

anthracite coal . The Lehigh was a long-lived canal . Mules

moved along its towpath well into the 20th Century . Toward the

end of its life, it got a temporary reprieve by the increased

traffic in waste coal dredged from the . bed of the Lehigh River 

Tolls of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal topped $1 million, made

largely from moving large volumes of coal . Bigger and bigger

boats--up to 100 tons--became the rule . A line of fast packet

boats was also established from Hagerstown to Georgetown . The

C&0 started downhill economically in the late 1870's .

1869

The Schuylkill Navigation was leased to the Reading Railroad

for 999 years .

1871 The Morris Canal was leased to the Lehigh Valley Railroad for

999 years . This arrangement lasted to 1903, when the railroad

got the state of New Jersey to take over the canal which was

not longer profitable and needed repairs . The state operated

the Morris at a loss for many years, finally abandoning it in

1924, cutting the banks and draining the canal . The stone

viaduct over the Passaic River at Little Falls was blown down

with dynamite .

1878 - The James River and Kanawha Canals were sold to the Richmond

and Allegheny Railroad after being severely damaged by the

flood of 1877 .

1924 - The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal was purchased by the Western

Maryland Railroad .

1 4
4 . EndoftheCanal Building Era

The economic panic of 1837 brought many canal building projects to

a standstill . The frontier states suffered most . Indiana and Illinois

had invested heavily in canal and railroad projects ; they were almost

bankrupt after 1837, a condition which only improved gradually over the

next decade . The great hopes of the canal building era died out

quickly . When prosperity returned, the railroads took over .

Two major projects on the frontier illustrated the diverse fate of

American waterways of the 19th Century . Indiana entered the union in

1816 and planned to attract settlers to its thinly populated domain by a

program of canal building. After a number of false starts, agreement

was reached with Ohio for joining the Wabash River with the Maumee as

the first step toward a great canal which would link Lake Erie at Toledo

with the Ohio by way of Fort Wayne, Lafayette, Terre Haute, and

Evansville on the Ohio River . Called the Wabash and Erie Canal, this

canal was joined by Ohio's Miami and Erie Canal, making for a connection

with many Ohio towns, including Cincinnati . As outlined below, this

canal came to a quite dismal end .

The same year that Indiana started work on the Wabash and Erie,

Illinois undertook to join Lake Michigan with the Mississippi River by

digging a canal connecting the Chicago and Illinois Rivers, a major

tributary of the Mississippi . Joliet had envisioned such a connection

in the 17th Century and Gallatin endorsed the concept in his report of

1808 . The Illinois •and Michigan Canal proved to be an expensive

undertaking for the new state of Illinois . A lake-level canal was

planned with six locks, but economic conditions delayed work and after

the panic, plans were drawn for a cheaper, summit-level canal . It was

12 years before the Illinois and Michigan Canal was completed . Its

first six year were very successful, but it became a drain for the waste

of Chicago and declined as a transport route for both passengers and

freight . In the early 1870's the canal was deepened to carry off sewage

more effectively. The enlargement was only useful temporarily, and in

1882 work was begun on a new canal to serve a dual purpose--navigation

and drainage--of the Chicago area . This work was finished in 1900 and

called the Chicago Drainage Canal . The Illinois waterway today follows

this route .

1836 - The first 32 miles of the Wabash and Erie Canal was opened from

Fort Wayne, Indiana to Largo, Indiana .

On the 4th of July, ground was broken on the Illinois and

Michigan Canal . This canal, connecting Lake Michigan with the

Mississippi River, ultimately proved to be one of the most

important links in the national waterways of the United States .

1837 - The economic panic of 1837 delayed canal work on the frontier .

15
1841 The Wabash and Erie Canal was opened from Fort Wayne t

Lafayette, Indiana . Although there were only limited markets,

farmers for miles around brought produce and grain to ship 

Passenger boats soon appeared .

1842 The Wabash and Erie Canal was opened from Toledo, Ohio, t

Lafayette, Indiana, 240 miles . The event was hailed as th

beginning of economic recovery .

1848 The Illinois and Michigan Canal was completed . The first si

years were prosperous . Freight and passenger traffic were

heavy . In 1854, with the opening of the Rock Island Railroad,

the packet boats went out of business . Some of the freight wa

also lost to the railroads, but for 20 years the canal wa

prosperous and had a tremendous impact on the State .

1849 - The Wabash and Erie Canal reached Terre Haute, Indiana .

1856 - The Wabash and Erie Canal reached Evansville on the Ohio River,

completing the 458 miles from Toledo, Ohio . The Wabash and

Erie held the record for length among American canals .

1860 - The Wabash and Erie remained opened for its whole length only

four years . In 1860, the canal below Terre Haute was closed 

It did not pay its way . Tolls decreased soon on other segments

due largely to competition from the Chicago, New Albany an

Louisville Railroad .

1871 The idea of using the Illinois and Michigan Canal as a cheap

way of disposing of Chicago's sewage was proposed . Canal

historian Drago says : "Work began at once and by 1871, at a

expense of $3,000,000, the canal had been reduced to the lake

level and Lake Michigan water was sweeping away from Chicago

and down upon the countryside of the Illinois River Valley an

endless stream of sludge, garbage, animal and human excrement,

befouling the air and turning the once, clear and placid canal

into a poisonous latrine . To hurry the scum along, the big

pumping station at the sumit level had been reactivated . The

wonder was that boats continued to ply the canal . Tolls were

lowered but business declined .

. . .That deepening the old canal was not going to solve growing

Chicago's drainage problems became obvious within a few

years . By 1881 the channel had collected so much filth from

the city's sewage that it had become putrid, giving off a

stench that was intolerable to anyone within miles of it 

Something had to be done . To meet a situation that was

becoming desperate, the Commission took some basic steps . To

assure the city clean water it moved the intake cribs a mile

further out into Lake Michigan and at the same time began

dredging a new channel from the mouth of the Chicago River to

1 6
the Illinois, and down that river to its confluence with the

Mississippi at Grafton, deep and wide enough to permit the

passage of steamboats .

This, of course, was to become the dual purpose--navigation and

sanitary--Chicago drainage canal ." 1

1 Drago, Harry Sinclair, Canal Days in America, New York, 1972, p 266 .

17

it U .S . GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1980 O- 624-676/1712 REGION 3-1