Norwich bulletin., 1922-11-25

means for water-borne transportation l facilities for this community.
 Read Letters From Shippers.
 President Lerou read the following letters from the Norwich lumber firm of H. r. & A. J. Dawley. the Nv York transportation firm of James F. Mcclure and the Norwich coal and lum- Der firm of The Edward Chappell Co:
 Norwich. Conn.,. Nov. g. i-2 Chamber of Commerce. Norwich, Conn
 Gentlemen: Our annual tonnage re- ceipts by vessel amount to 12.oGO t0 I4.O0U tons. We find it very hard and expensive to charter vessels on account of the shallow water in the Thames river. At present there is but four teen feet at low tide. and this is not enough as very few vessels are built today to draw less than eighteen feet.
 If the channel is dredged to sixteen feet deep and two hundred feet wid" we could charter vessels drawing eighteen feet of water and get these vessels to our dock on high tide as we have dredged from the main channGS z our dock to take in eighteen feet draft vessels, this we did last year expecting the government would dredge the chan nel to sixteen feet low water
 We certainly must have deeper channel or shift our business to a Sound port with more water.
 Respectfully yours,
 1T. F. & A. J. DAwLEY
 No. 1. Broadway, New York.
 New York City. Nov. 2S. 1922 Mr. John ORourkc Secretary of the
 Chamber of Commerce, Norwich
 Conn.
 Dear S1r:-Iour telephone ut recent date regarding the public meeting to b. held in Norwich. Conn, for the irr- 1 provement of the Thames river would say that on account of a very pressing engagement the writer will be unable to attend, which I regret very much. l have in my younger day; been mas ter of barges that carried coal all along the Thames river from New London, to Norwich and always found it very diff cult to get up the river on account the i river being so shallow also was | manager of a company that did the water transportation to Norwich for 1 some eleven years. Since being in bus ! mess for myself for the last fifteen years l have done all the work for the 1 Edward Chappell Coal Co., which ton ] mage will reach from forty to fifty 1 thousand tons a year. Also put sume | tonnage up for John A. Morgan & Sons and for the John Peckham Coal Go i There is no river in my estimation ! where transportation is carried or that , needs more attention than the Thame 1 river. On account of the various tur2. and lack of water it makes it very diff ! cult to navigate. I think that W. i should have d depth of sixteen feet ;i- least at low water and a width of about two hundred foot channel. I have SO i licited the opinion of all transportation | who navigate on the Thames river anr lthey all agree that sixteen foot dept and about two hundred foot channe | would be about what the Thames rive, needs. The lack of attention given ', | the development of all small seaporti has been very disastrous to tranSporta
 tion and very inconvenient to the bust
 ness men who happened to be located i
 these ports, and l think that ttIe tim
 is here when every citizen should ex ert all their power that he possesses fo
 the development of deeper water. Very truly yours,
 | J. F. M'GC71:.--.
 November 23, 1922.
 John J. O'Rourke, Secretary,
 Chamber of Commerce,
 Norwich, Conn.
 Dear Sir: In connection with VOLT re
 quest for information regarding ou
 tonnage on the Thames river and thu necessity for a deeper channel we wisl
 to advise you as follows:
 During the last eight or ten year our coal and lumber tonnage up the rive
 has varied from about 21,OGO net ton
 to 35,00O net tons making an averag yearly tonnage into Norwich of approx lmately 27,000 net tons by water. We have found it increasingly difficul to obtain vessels to come to Norwic
 with both coal and lumber. We used | obtain small boats for coal carrying ap
 proximately 800 to 600 tons which ha a draft of about ten feet and boats c this size were. fairly plentiful . For the last five years these srna boats have been disappearing and hay have been replaced by larger boats, s I. that even from New York ports at tn
 present time, it is difficult to get boa e carrying less than 700 to 500 tons an
 drawing in most cases slightly mor
 than 13 feet.
 II IFrom the southern coal ports the sir V uation is very much the same only o
 a larger scale and the ordinary boat a obtainable today from these ports dra r IS to F feet of water and if you aI n fortunate enough to find anything smal CT you are compelled to pay decidedl l. higher rate.
 f We believe finally that we should ha1 = Ia channel to Norwich Is feet deep an d approximately 200 feet wide and we a . so believe that the tonnage availab a warrants any necessary expenditure { e obtain this result.
 As an example of our difficulty in ol 7 taining lumber by water, let us cite yo q a comparison. In the year 1914 W F bhandled approximately 3,00O,00O boar n feet of lumber beside other building m; = terial and 1,620,60O feet feet, or abol r 1900 tons of lumber, came by watt a which was over one-third of the \roug = lumber handled. At that time it ws - fairly easy to get small schooners whic n could come up this river.
 IF Last year from January 1, 1921, = January 1, 1922, out of approximatel
 2,7oe, 900 feet of rough lumber handle D by us, 1S0,300 feet or slightly over 2( t tons came by water because it was a fl most impossible to get schooners at ar S reasonable rate which could get up u ' river.
 We trust that you will be successf Ia in this move for a deeper channel { r we believe that the stirring times V, the last five years have shown that 0, Ia transportation facilities will not respor ,s to an emergency and 1t seems wilful ia negligent to ignore such means
 transportation as a river like the Tham :, which is right at our doors. -a1 If we can give you further informatic
 we shall be glad to do so and the writ ,,a expects to be at tho hearing tomorro ,s and will be glad to answer any duestio, d on which he has. information. d Very truly yours,
 l. Tine Edward ChappelI COMPANY, sF Luefus BRIGGS, + ffasd ts FiHd Small sshseaess ,r Willis Austin ef the Edward 6haFP' . Ga. Fead a letter fFem Robert B: sizeF