that our communication with those vast countries (considering Fort Pitt as the port of entrance upon them) is as easy and may be rendered as cheap, as to any other port on the Atlantic tide waters."Pennsylvania, lying between Virginia and New York, occupied a peculiar position.Her Susquehanna Valley stretched northwest--not so directly west as did the Potomac on the south and the Mohawk on the north.This more northerly trend led these early Pennsylvania promoters to believe that, while they might "only have a share in the trade of those [the Ohio] waters," they could absolutely secure for themselves the trade of the Great Lakes, "taking Presq' Isle [Erie, Pennsylvania] which is within our own State, as the great mart or place of embarkation."The plan which the Society proposed involved the improvement of water and land routes by way of the Delaware to Lake Ontario and Lake Otsego, and of eight routes by the Susquehanna drainage, north, northwest, and west.A bill which passed the Legislature on April 13, 1791, appropriated money for these improvements.
Work was begun immediately on the Schuylkill-Susquehanna Canal, but only four miles had been completed by 1794, when the Lancaster Turnpike directed men's attention to improved highways as an alternative more likely than canals to provide the desired facilities for inland transportation.The work on the canal was renewed, however, in 1821, when the rival Erie Canal was nearing completion, and was finished in 1827.It became known as the Union Canal and formed a link in the Pennsylvania canal system, the development of which will be described in a later chapter.
In New York State, throughout the period of the Old French and the Revolutionary wars, barges and keel boats had plied the Mohawk, Wood Creek, and the Oswego to Lake Ontario.Around such obstructions as Cohoes Falls, Little Falls, and the portage at Rome to Wood Creek, wagons, sleds, and pack-horses had transferred the cargoes.To avoid this labor and delay men soon conceived of conquering these obstacles by locks and canals.As early as 1777 the brilliant Gouverneur Morris had a vision of the economic development of his State when "the waters of the great western inland seas would, by the aid of man, break through their barriers and mingle with those of the Hudson."Elkanah Watson was in many ways the Washington of New York.He had the foresight, patience, and persistence of the Virginia planter.His "Journal" of a tour up the Mohawk in 1788 and a pamphlet which he published in 1791 may be said to be the ultimate sources in any history of the internal commerce of New York.As a result, a company known as "The President, Directors, and Company of the Western Inland Lock Navigation in the State of New York," with a capital stock of $25,000, was authorized by act of legislature in March, 1792, and the State subscribed for $12,500 in stock.Many singular provisions were inserted in this charter, but none more remarkable than one which stipulated that all profits over fifteen per cent should revert to the State Treasury.This hint concerning surplus profits, however, did not cause a stampede when the books were opened for subscriptions in New York and Albany.In later years, when the Erie Canal gave promise of a new era in American inland commerce, Elkanah Watson recalled with a grim satisfaction the efforts of these early days.The subscription books at the old Coffee House in New York, he tells us, lay open three days without an entry, and at Lewis's tavern in Albany, where the books were opened for a similar period, "no mortal" had subscribed for more than two shares.
The system proposed for the improvement of the waterways of New York was similar to that projected for the Potomac.A canal was to be cut from the Mohawk to the Hudson in order to avoid Cohoes Falls; a canal with locks would overcome the forty-foot drop at Little Falls; another canal over five thousand feet in length was to connect the Mohawk and Wood Creek at Rome; minor improvements were to be made between Schenectady and the mouth of the Schoharie; and finally the Oswego Falls at Rochester were to be circumvented also by canal.All the objections, difficulties, and discouragements which had attended efforts to improve waterways elsewhere in America confronted these New York promoters.They began in 1793 at Little Falls but were soon forced to cease owing to the failure of funds.Under the encouraging spur of a state subscription to two hundred shares of stock, they renewed their efforts in 1794 but were again forced to abandon the work before the year had passed.By November, 1795, however, they had completed the canal and in thirty days had received toll to the amount of about four hundred dollars.
The total actual work done is not clearly shown by the documents, but it is evident that the measure of success achieved was not equaled elsewhere on similar improvements on a large scale.From 1796 to 1804 the tolls received at Rome amounted to over fifteen thousand dollars, and at Little Falls to over fifty-eight thousand dollars--a sum which exceeded the original cost of construction.Dividends had crept up from three per cent in 1798to five and a half per cent in 1817, the year in which work was begun on the Erie Canal.
