Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-03-15
.rRoM A STAFF CORRESPONDENT

OS6oA GuOhOAsdACAd
FROM A STAFF CORRESPONDENT
MoRGANTowN, W. VA, March IA
"And so your trans-Allegheny towpath
would end here?"
"No, sir"
"Where, then? Possibly in the glades of
Laurel Hill over wonder on the Cheat
river?"
''No, sir"
why, sir, 1 certainly could not have
misunderstood what 1 read about this
scheme 1t was to be a canal from Cumber-
land to Morgantown to connect the Chesa-
peake and Ohio Canal with the Mononga-
hela river. Is not that right?"
"Yes, sir, it is.''
"Well, of course, then, the towpath
would end at Morgan"
"No, sir. That is where you make the
mistake. 1t is true the canal would end at
Morgantown, but the tow-path-I think you
said the 'tow-path, sir?'
Certainly, said the tow-path! How in
the name of common sense are you going to
bring the canal to Morgantown without lay
ing tow-path beside it?'
CANALS OF THE FUTURE.
"Ah, 1 see now. 1 was afraid your
thoughts were clouded by the darkness of
the early canal days. No, the tow-path
will not end at Morgantown, neither will it
begin at Cumberland. In fact, there will
be no tow-path at all, but there will
be canal all the same. Edward Bellamy
failed to look backward on the subject Of
canals. He could get out a second edition of
his famous book on this alone. telling about
how screw-propeller steam canal boats were
successfully used on the rock-walled canal
over the Alleghenies before all the mules
of the Erie Canal had yet died of. And
then he could sketch the decay Of the steam
canal boat and describe the operation of
electric boats climbing the briery noun
tain from the Potomac valley, and Sizing
and whirring down the western slope to the
Monongaheia.
eff overhead wires pull ponderous street
the friction of iron wheels and steel rails,
the people Of the year 1000 may ask Why
were we SO long about erecting overhead
wires for the softly-gliding canal boat You
are quite sure you used the word towpath
in connection with the proposed trans
Allegheny canal, are you, my friend ?"
MoRGANTowN's UNIQUE POSITION.
Ny travelling companion's Imagination
might have taken higher flights, but the
supper bell of the Wallace House Just at
that moment gave the cynical holder of
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad stocks and
bonds convenient means for escape.
Leaving the canal to the future (and the
Maryland Legislature) and the problems of
its construction TO the engineers, 1 inter
viewed Morgantown business men as to
what they desired most, railroads or water
ways, and their answer-"We want both
brings us down to the things which exist
to-day
Since last December Morgantown has
been striking example of the influence
which water navigation has upon railroads.
In that month the dam highest up the Mo-
S,
and ever since then steamboats, have been
plying between Pittsburg and Morgantown.
The river voyage is los miles.
Low FREIGHT RATES.
The shortest possible railroad route from
Pittsburg to Morgantown is on the Balti-
more and Ohio via the Wheeling division,
and that is 173 miles long. Notwithstand-
ing this great difference between the two
re1e - L =
packets began to discharge Pittsburg freight
at Morgantown the railroad company low
cred its freight rates one-third, meeting the
river tariff. Now the business men of Nor
gantown have a healthy competition for
their freight, which they did not have prior
to December, and those who prefer railroad
carriage have much lower rates.
L asked Captain Adam Jacobs, master of
the packet James G. Blaine, ii the steady
maintenance, year after year, OF the line of
steamers on the Monongahela river. in face
OF the railroad development in that valley
as lar south as Brownsville, had not oper-
ated to keep railroad rates down, and in this
way penehted the shippers of the valley.
STRIKING ILLUSTRATION.
Undoubtedly it has," replied Captain
Jacobs. Here is forcible illustration of
that TACT Some time ago the Secretary of |
the U Onlteo States Treasury notified the Off |
GERS OF this packet line that we yould have |
TO stop carrying oil barrels to and from
GREENSBORO. 1t was purely a technical |
point he raised, these being passenger |
steamers, and in few mouths he modified |
his order. But just as soon as we stopped |
carrying the oil barrels, up went the rail-
road freight rates on them. We had carried
them for cents. The railroads Instantly
raised from to Is cents. / have no doubt |
that were the railroads to have a similar
opportunity on other lines of freight which
we carry they would increase rates lust as
quickly.
GAS it is now, rates BY either rail or river
are about the same, and yet we carry the
bulk of the freight between Pittsburg and |
and all of il for points above
where railroads DO not exist |
A tranS-Allegheny Canal would bring into
he Monongahela Valley enormous COM
nerce.
THE, RIVER COULD STAND 1T.
"These grand locks and dams, planting
he head Of Western river navigation in the
heart o. the mountains, are too perfect and
extensive for a merely local commerce. The
Money can lift that proposed canal over the
mountain peaks from Cumberland. 1t is
thoroughly practicable"
When the Pittsburg, Virginia and
Charleston was completed to Monongahela
City it charged 25 cents per hundred for
irygooos freight. Now il carries it for II
,ents.
These recent examples of a water way
egulsting the freight tariffs of rsilrods, have