The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1870-05-26
Sturgeon Bay ship Canal.
From the Green Bay Advocate.

sTaE rom the GTceu Day AONOcGle.
The following is the reporteof the com
mittee on Public Lands in the House of
Reps, . to whom was referred the bill
kgranting additional lands in aid Of the
sturgeon Bay Ship Canal. We learn
that there is good reason to believe that
tile bill will pass at this session.
The documents and testimony pro-
duced before your committee show that
in April, 1854, the Legislature of the
State Of Wisconsin, passed an act incor-
Ip0rating 4 he Sturgeon Bay and Lake
Michigan Ship Canal and Harbor Com
pany, with power to raise a cssb capital
to the amount of $250,000
In june 1866. Congress passed an act
granting to the State of Wisconsin two
hundred thousand acres of public lands
TO aid Including the work. 2AU
In March, 1863, the Legislature Of Wis
consin passed an act accepting said grant
of lands, and concerring the same on the
aforesaid company, providing in said act
that the lands SO conferred should be
conveyed to said company Gully in pro-
portion us the building of the canal pro
crossed and was accepted by the gov
error OF the State, whereupon the said
Company. being duly organized under
the aforesaid State law proceeded to
open and survey the route OF the pro,
posed canal.
In the summer of 1867 the company
organized surveying party, under Mr.
J. p. Thompson, an engineer, who after
three months labor, reported to the com
pany, with elaborate plans and estimates
of the work to be done, and from which
it appears that there will have to be re
moved by digging and dredging $780,
$50 cubic yards Of excavations, and that
the cost of removing the, same, and of the
breakwater in Lake Michigan, will be
$658,72O. IN =
With these estimates and plans, the
company invited proposals from Mr. J, ]
Dull and other contractors, who, aft er ex-
aiming the land grant which was offered
enter upon the work, the means at the
disposal of the company in lands and
cash being by them deemed insufficient.
The said company, and the State of Wis
consln, through her legislature, together
with the Board of Trade of the City of
Chicago, Chamber of Commerce of the
City of Milwaukee, and the Bos rd of
Trade OF the City of Green Bay, all of
which bodies have memorialized Con
gres to aid this wcrk, unite in appealing
to Congress for an additional grant of
the public lands to complete the canal
and harbor.
The report of the engineer shows that
the character of the soil to be removed
is a sort of quicksand, and this IS urged
as q reason for not commencing to exca-
yate until the Safe possesses or is assured
ct the full means necessary for its com
pletlon, on the ground that to begin
working in that kind of soil OF so shift
ing nature, and having to suspend
work for want of means to go on, would
endanger the work done, if not prove a
total loss of the expenditure. made
Your committee find upon examination
OF the maps and plans submitted to them
that Sturgeon Bay Is kind of lake,
lying between Green Bay and Lake
Michigan, separated from the lake by
a portage of about one and halt miles
III extent, through which it is proposed
to cut the canal to connect Green Bav
with the lake. Sturgeon Bay is eight
miles long by half a mile to two miles
wide, perfectly land-lucked. and affords
capacious harbor of refuge for vessel,
seeking shelter from the storms of Green
Bay ard on Lake Michigan through this
ship-canal
1t. is shown that the opening of this
canal will effect saving of nearly two
hundred miles of dangerous navigation
round by Deaths Door the present
channel from the9 lake into Green Bay,
on yoyage-from Chicago to Green Bay
and return or equal to about one fourth
of the entire distance.
1t is also shown that the commerce of