The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1888-05-25

thrown to the IIavrc dc Grace whale. What
was done meanwhile, if anything, by means
of the lottery scheme, towards cleaning out
the bed of the river, there is nothing To
show.
In 1899 it was enacted that the State loan
to the company $4,000 in specie nquartcrly
payments, the company bonding, with Sc
curity, for the payment of six per cent for
ten years; when the principal was to be paid.
In 1901 the company were alowCdto add ten
more shares. In 1903 authority was given
by the Assembly to increase the tolls already
determined on for the Canal-thc increase
not to exceed quadruple the previous sums.
This act was passed in consideration of the
REIMBURSEMENT by the company, of the half
tolls before allowed them The rcinQuish-
ment was probably another tub IA smaller
one thrown ont to the same whale. The
canal was widcned about 1910, So rs to nd
nit arkS and RATS, an Improvement which
partly increased its utility.
A supplement fist rcCitcs that the COM
pany was then in debt to an amount beyond
their corporate funds; that the Sheriff of
Cecil county had sold the canal at the in
stance of the bank of Maryland that Samuel
Sterrett (SeCretary Of the company and
others had purchased the canal but there be-
ing doubts about tho validity of the
sale The purchasers consented 10 re-
iinquish their right, that the work
might be rcsod, to pay the com
pany's debts. This sale being effected, the
new purchasers took the place, us body
corporate, OF the former proprietors, with all
their rights and privileges. In 1928 OCCcm-
Der SESSION. the Assembly, on petition of
the company, appointed five commissioners,
all of Cecil county, to mark ont their lands,
(which had suffered much injury for want of
proper enclosures" These commissioners,
having, rs their surveyors, Robert Mills, of
Baltimore City, and Henry lIolingswOrth,
of Cecil, and beginning at the head of the
canal, finished during the winter the WORK
assigned them, having run nearly two hun
dred courses. There seems TO have been only
one man who disputed the correctness or JUS
ticc of this survey, and he, two years later, on
receiving $500 us compensation from the
withdrew the cavcat Which he had
entered.
After the completion of the canal in 1905,
but more especially after twas widcned, five
years later the timber and the agricultural
products which were brought down the river
mainly on arks and RATS, and much the
greater part of which had heretofore stopped
on the Hartford side at Bells Tor Smith's)
Ferry, now Lapidum-were taken through
the canal to Port Deposit-then Creswclls
Ferry. Hence the citizens of Hartford APP
prccating the importance of n permanent
munication-uvailabe at all Seasons
with the canal on the Cecil side, naugurated
the project of bridging the Susquchannn,
which was accomplished some ten years later,
the war with Great Britain interfering, during
which nothing could he done in the matter.
Of course the facilities afforded Try the bridge
To large portion of the citizens OF Hartford,
nnd especially TO the farmers, postponed once
more the project of competing canal along
the western bank ofthe river.
From the above facts it appears that the
Susquchnnna canal, although the first actually
begun in the United States, was among the
very slowcst in its progress to completion
making on an average only one mile in two
years
IhUtui"nt monies, HdScctr rdiculHS mus"
May 1911, 1888. G. w. ARCHER.