Waterbury Democrat., 1902-02-15

Not only did the tolls pay adequate interest upon the $7,500,000 invested by the state in the construction of the waterway, but within some three years time had repaid to the state the whole cost of construction. Con- sidering the extent of western popu- lation at that time, time when west meant western New York, Ohio, a few scattered settlements in Michi- gan and Indiana, the traffic was enor- nous. But that was before the days of railroads. It was not until two years after the canal was opened that the first railroad in this country was completed, and it was many years later before railroad construction and equipment had advanced to such an extent that it could successfully compete with even the small capacity offered by the miniature barges which the canal could carry.
 The building of the Erie canal with out doubt exerted a wonderful infiu- ence in the development of the cen tral states, and the location of the great cities of these states. Previous to it's construction the settlers who had pushed westward and began the development of the territories out of which the greatest states of the union were to be constructed. looked upon the navigable rivers as the only means of practical communication with the markets of the world. For this reason they settled along the banks of the Ohio and Mississippi and tributary streams that they might float the products, of their farms down these streams to the gulf and ship from there to the markets of Europe. The great lakes offered noth- ing excepting means of internal transportation for which there was no demand. Cincinnati, St. Louis. New Orleans and other Mississippi and Ohio river towns were looked upon as the great metropolises of the terri tory that was being so rapidly popu- lated. The great cities of the lakes were most of them unthought of un- til the Erie canal had offered a means of communication between the lakes and the ocean. The completion of the canal soon deprived the Mississip- pi of it's pree eminence as a grain car Tier, and made the way across New York state the natural line of com munication between the growing set dement's of the central states with the outside world.
 While it was the Erie canal that ac- complished this transformation in the central states it has been the rail- roads built almost along the line of the canal that have continued it. And as the number and capacity of the railroads have increased the useful ness of. the canal as a carrier for cen- tral and western commodities has de- creased. The agricultural, like the other traffic of the canal, as well as New York, failed utterly Jo compete with the railroads, and their traffic, despite greatly decreased freight rates, lessened tolls, and largely di- unfinished elevator charges, has con- stantly decreased. The general use Of the canals has declined rapidly. To find a year with as small traffic as 1898 for all New York canals we must go as far back as 1857, or if we except that panic year, as far back as 1850, while for the Erie canal we must 20 back to 1860. In the case of agTi- 1ural products the conditions are still worse. Tn 1899 there were 62o,- pos tons of agricultural produce car