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R 
 
THE ERIE CANAL: 
 
 ITS 
 
 ORIGIN, 
 
 ITS SUCCESS, AND ITS NECESSITY 
 
 A PAPER 
 
 READ BEFORE THE BUFFALO HISTORICAL CLUB 
 
 February 3, 1868, 
 
 By MERWIN S. HAWLEY, Esq. .. i^.^AukLu 
 
 Printed for Private Circulation. 
 
SSSK'^l^-H.S^^'^- i,ijr»«i 
 
 josEi'H Warren & Co., Printers, 
 
 Courier Office, Buffalo, N. Y. 
 
 t i 
 
Our Grand Erie Canal has been a prolific theme 
 for statesmen and politicians, for orators and essayists, 
 during more than half a century. The visions of wealth 
 and greatness that would result from its construction, to 
 our common country, and especially to our own State, 
 which filled the mind of him who first published to the 
 world the project of such a canal, have been eagerly 
 adopted by those who became its advocates. The poli- 
 tician at the caucus, the legislator in the Capitol, and 
 those occupying seats of authority, have been alike emu- 
 lous of being regarded as its special champions. 
 
 Considerations of political economy, and of political 
 and commercial supremacy, in all their various phases, 
 have been urged and repeated in favor of its original 
 construction, and of its subsequent enlargement; and 
 of yet further enlarging and perfecting its capacity, as 
 the increase of its business and the wealth of the coun- 
 try — foretold by its projector — have demonstrated to be 
 necessary. 
 
 It was not so from the beginning. 
 
 The first promulgation of the project met with such 
 derision that its author was deemed a visionary enthu- 
 siast, and the publication of the project was nearly 
 strangled at its birth. The first successful movement in 
 regard to it in the Legislature was treated in much the 
 same manner; a few hundred dollars being appropriated 
 
to defray the expenses of exploring, by the affirmative 
 votes of some who declared that they voted for the 
 small amount, because it could not do any harm and 
 might be productive of some good. And when, after 
 long delay and protracted opposition, and much of that 
 opposition from the city which has derived a large share 
 of its benefits, the A ct of April 15th, i8x7awas passed 
 by the Legislature, committing the State to the canal 
 policy, the whole scheme narrowly escaped destruction 
 in the Council of Revision. 
 
 Nor did opposition to the project disappear immedi- 
 ately after the State entered upon the momentous work ; 
 but the progress made by the judicious efforts of those 
 charged with its management, and the far-seeing policy 
 and self-denying labors of the chief executive officer of 
 the State, gradually brought the scheme into general 
 favor, and the story of the beginning, progress and 
 completion of the canal, will perpetuate honors to the 
 memory of Clinton, so long as the waters of Erie shall 
 flow into that channel of commerce. 
 
 The celebration of the completion of the middle sec- 
 tion, on the 4tli of July, 1820, three years from the day 
 of its commencement, was the culminating point where 
 opposition ceased or was disarmed; and the resources 
 of a united people were thenceforth devoted to the 
 accomplishment of an enterprise which was expected 
 greatly to increase the wealth and the happiness of all 
 the people, and secure to the State, in all coming time, 
 a high and controling position in the trade and com- 
 merce of the North American continent. 
 
 But previous to this a disposition had been mani- 
 fested to learn about the "Origin of the Canal," and 
 
who was its first projector, who had first proclaimed to 
 the world the feasibility of such a project, had pointed 
 out the route, had estimated the expense, had foretold 
 the great and varied benefits that would result from it, 
 and had urged the importance of it upon the attention 
 of the public. 
 
 Colonel Robert Troup, in the Geneva Gazette of 
 December 15, 1819, writes: 
 
 "The successful progress of the Erie Canal and the immense ben- 
 efits likely to arise from its completion, have lately excited a lauda- 
 ble curiosity to know who was the projector of the canal policy in 
 this State. A just regard to the reputation of the State, seems to 
 require that the projector should be favored with some decisive proof 
 of public gratitude." 
 
 Colonel Troup, when writing in December, 1819, main- 
 tained with much confidence that Elkanah Watson was 
 the projector; but as Mr. Watson, in 1820, disclaimed 
 being the projector of the Erie Canal, claiming only 
 that he projected the lake canal policy which produced 
 the Act of March, 1 792, chartering the " Western Inland 
 Lock Navigation Company," Col. Troup, in his letter 
 of February 8. 1822, addressed to the Hon. Brockholst 
 Livingston, to quote his own language: "Abstains from 
 bestowing on Mr. Watson any credit for that sublime 
 effort of human intellect which projected the canal route 
 to lake Erie," and he adds, "As this sublime effort is 
 pregnant with incalculable benefits to the State, I bow 
 with sentiments of profound respect and gratitude, to 
 the man whose genius had the capacity to conceive and 
 usher into public notice, the design of a work so stu- 
 pendous." 
 
 Various < ^ lims were put forth to the honor of being 
 the first to "suggest" such a project, or being the first 
 
6 ' 
 
 who had "talked of it" — and for the honor of being its 
 first "projector" — and it is not surprising, perhaps, that 
 some claims of this character were made, which are not 
 well supported by the acts and promulgations of the 
 person in whose behalf the claim is made. 
 
 Many distinguished names are entitled to lasting hon- 
 ors for the services they rendered during the incipient 
 movements and the whole progress of construction, and 
 to none more, than to those who so successfully per- 
 formed the essential part of engineers. 
 
 In seeking for the facts on which the claim of being 
 the "first projector" is to be sustained, (if sustained at 
 all,) we necessarily look for what was said, or written, or 
 done by the person ; and his writings, or other promul- 
 gations, made known or recorded at the time of their 
 occurrence, must be conclusive. And if any doubt 
 exist in regard to his meaning, or as to what.was in the 
 mind of the person when n.aking any particular expres- 
 sion, his subsequent writings on the same subject afford 
 the best explanations of which they are susceptible. 
 Especially will such evidences have a controling influ- 
 ence in our minds when seeking for the truth, over 
 statements made from memory only, after the decease of 
 the person, and twenty or fifty years after the incident 
 is stated^ have occurred. 
 
 The Paper which I had the honor to read before this 
 Society on the 21st February, 1866, briefly notes or 
 indicates the principal facts necessary to a solution of 
 the question: Who was the first projector of the canal? 
 Showing that in the year 1724 Cadwallader Golden sug- 
 gested that there might be found a continuous inland 
 water communication between the Oswego river and 
 Lake Erie; that in 1797 Gen. Philip Schuyler and an 
 
English engineer, William Weston had "talked of" a 
 water communication through the State to Lake Erie, 
 keeping the interior, if it were practicable, which tliey 
 doubted; showing also the facts and circumstances 
 relied upon to sustain the claim made by friends of 
 Gouverneur Morris, since his decease, that he was the 
 "first projector;" also showing briefly the writings of 
 Jesse Hawley on the subject; and the action of the 
 Legislature on the motion of Joshua Forman. 
 
 The Papers written by Jesse Hawley, and signed 
 '* Hercules," the first of which was published in Pitts- 
 burg, Penn., in the newspaper called the Commonwealth^ 
 on the 14th January, 1807, and subsequently in the Gen- 
 esee Messenger^ at Canandaigua, in this State, beginning 
 in October, 1807, and extending to fourteen numbers — 
 some of which newspapers are now in the archives of 
 this Society through the courtesy of the Hon. T. T. 
 Flagler, of Lockport, are the first publications of the pro- 
 ject for this canal. 
 
 Those Papers, after pointing out the feasibility of a 
 canal on nearly the identical line now occupied by it, 
 recommending its size to be one hunti ed feet wide and 
 ten feet deep, estimating its cost with great accuracy, and 
 in many ways urging public attention to its importance 
 and the propriety of an actual survey, proceed to point 
 out other important improvements in other States, some 
 of which have since been constructed ; among which 
 are the Ohio Canal, the Wabash Canal, the St. Marie 
 Canal, to open navigation into Lake Superior, the Fox 
 and Wisconsin rivers connection, the Illinois and Mich- 
 igan Canal, the Canal around the falls of the Ohio 
 river, etc. 
 
8 
 
 Mr. Hawley originally "intended to deposit those 
 papers in the archives of the office of the Secretary of 
 State, in order to preserve the evidences of his claim to 
 the first writings on the subject," but they are, by his will, 
 deposited with the Historical Society of the city of New 
 York. He writes, " I claim the original and the first 
 publication of the overland route of the Erie Canal." 
 
 Again Mr. Hawley writes in the Daily Democrat 
 newspaper of Rochester, October 6, 1835, as follows: 
 
 "To THE Public. — The purport of the following letters will suffi- 
 ciently explain their ol)ject. While their originals are intended to be 
 preserved, they are published at the present time to establish their 
 authenticity hereafter, and also to. give the present age an oppor«^u- 
 nity to rectify any supposed errors therein. In order to aid their 
 circulation in this paper, extra copies will be sent to many public 
 men and personal friends." 
 
 The letters which followed contained various evi- 
 dences of the correctness of his claim, and closed in 
 the Daily Democrat of October 10, 1835, with the fol- 
 lowing: 
 
 "To THE Public. — I now reassert my claim to the original concep- 
 tion of the project of the overland route of the Erie Canal, * * * 
 and also state that the imputations to the contrary, communicated to 
 Dr. Hosackby some of his correspondents, were altogether inaccurate, 
 and must have originated in forgetfulness or misapprehension. I do 
 not wish to be understood as saying that I was the first or the only 
 person who conceived the idea. I merely mean to say that with me 
 it was a native thought, without having been suggested or communi- 
 cated to me by any person, and that I was the first person who wrote 
 and published the project." 
 
 Colonel Troup, in his letter to Brockholst Livingston, 
 of February 8, 1822, already referred to, says, "In 
 October, 1807, Jesse Hawley commenced the publica- 
 tion in the Ontario Messenger, of a series of essays in 
 
9 
 
 it those 
 etary of 
 claim to 
 • his will, 
 r of New 
 the first 
 anal." 
 Democrat 
 lUows: 
 
 i will suffi- 
 uled to be 
 blish their 
 n oppor«:u- 
 ) aid their 
 any public 
 
 ous evi- 
 
 :losed in 
 
 the fol- 
 
 lal concep- 
 
 * * « 
 
 inicated to 
 naccurate, 
 ion. I do 
 r the only 
 t with me 
 communi- 
 who wrote 
 
 inffston, 
 
 s, 
 
 In 
 
 publica- 
 ssays in 
 
 favor 0^ opening a canal to Lake Eric, which was the 
 first public annunciation of the present system." 
 
 Governor DeWitt Clinton writes, " The first hint on 
 this subject which I have seen in print was suggested 
 by Jesse Hawley. * * * On the 27th of October, 
 1807, he commenced a series of essays on internal navi- 
 gation, over the signature of ' Hercules,' in the Ontario 
 Messenger, which extended to fourteen numbers." And 
 Governor Clinton said to Judge Benjamin Wright, "the 
 essays of ' Hercules,' in the Ontario Messenger, were the 
 first suggestions in a tangible shape which he could find 
 of the origin of the canal." 
 
 Elkanaii Watson, writing in 1 819, says, " I have not 
 been able to trace any measure, public or private, tend- 
 ing towards this great enterprise, (the Erie Canal,) till 
 the 27th of October, 1807, when an anonymous publi- 
 cation under the signature of * Hercules' appeared in the 
 Genesee Messenger, which is attributed to Jesse Hawley, 
 Esq. These valuable essays continued through a course 
 of fourteen weekly numbers, to March 2, 1808. They 
 are evidently original, and they display deep research 
 and views vastly extended — indeed, they may be pro- 
 nounced prophetic, in striking out nearly the track of 
 the route of the canal v/hich has since been adopted." 
 
 Since the reading of the Paper before this Society on 
 the 2ist February, 1866, hereinbefore alluded to, excep- 
 tions to the claims of Jesse Hawley have been made 
 by George Geddes, Esq., who, in a Paper read before 
 this Society, on the 4th of February, 1867, claims that 
 Gouverneur Morris was the projector of the canal ; and 
 so confident is Mr. Geddes in the correctness of his 
 theory, that he seems to think it presumptuous for any 
 one to "claim the honor of first proposing the interior 
 
10 
 
 route, without having received the suggestion «is coming 
 irom Mr. Morris;" and that objecting to the claim made 
 in behalf of Mr. Morris is "caviling." He also says 
 that "recently very groundless claims to this honor have 
 been revived." 
 
 The theory of Mr. Geddes is founded upon a letter 
 from Governor Morgan Lewis to Hermanus Bleecker, 
 dated May 26th, 1828; the letter from Mr. Morris to 
 John Parish, dated December 20th, 1800; the letter 
 from Simeon DeWitt to William Darby, dated February 
 25th, 1822; the letter of James Geddes to V7illiam 
 Darby, dated February 22d, 1822; and the fact as stated, 
 that '.' Mr. Morris was a projector, he had seen canals in 
 Europe," etc. 
 
 The propositions of Mr. Geddes are ingeniously sup- 
 ported, 'and with as much consistency, apparently, as 
 could be exercised, while omitting all reference to Mr. 
 Morris's writings, except the one letter already alluded 
 to; and he builds up the following quadrangular column, 
 that Mr. Morris told Mr. DeWitt of the project in 1803; 
 that DeWitt told it to James Geddes in 1804; that Mr. 
 Geddes told it to Jesse Hawley in 1806, or as Mr. 
 Geddes afterwards states, in 1 805 ; and says that James 
 Geddes was so impressed with the statement he had 
 heard from Mr. DeWitt, that he formed public opinion, 
 until in 1807, Joshua Forman was elected to the Assem- 
 bly as a "canal man;" and to support the claim, that Mr. 
 Forman's election as a " canal man " was based on the 
 idea of a direct overland canal to Lake Erie, Mr. Geddes 
 quotes from the recollections of Judge Strong, now 85 
 years old, of what occurred in 1804; from a letter writ- 
 ten by Thomas Wheeler in 1846, giving some of his 
 recollections of occurrences in 1807; ^"»^ some state- 
 
11 
 
 ments by Mr. Gillchres, giving his recollections of 1806. 
 All these vague statements are from recollections of 
 scenes many years previous, and but faint allusion to an 
 overland canal is maae in any of them. 
 
 The promulgations of Mr. Morris do not sustain the 
 claim that he was the projector of the Erie Canal. A 
 correct interpretation of what he said and wrote fails 
 to show that he had any conception of such a project 
 until the year 18 10, when, as one of the seven commis- 
 sioners appointed that year to make explorations, in a 
 consultation of all the commissioners, at Rome, July 12, 
 1 8 10, Mr. Morris expressed himself in favor of an over- 
 land canal. Mr. Geddes says, after relating this inci- 
 dent, " Though Mr. Morris had been considering the 
 subject of a water communication from the great lakes 
 to the Hudson ever since 1777, (thirty-three years,) and 
 had visited the canals of Europe, he had not arrived at any 
 true conception of what the face of the country would 
 permit of being done." And Mr. Morris writes to 
 Mr. Henry Latrobe, April 25th, 18 10, advising of the 
 appointment of those seven commissioners, and adds, 
 " I hope the business may be effected in a proper manner, 
 *■ * * * but I fear our minds are not yet enlarged 
 to the size of so great an object." 
 
 The commissioners had with them in that tour of ex- 
 ploration the essays of Mr. Hawley, signed " Hercules," 
 a long letter from Joseph ElHcott, giving information of 
 the country between the Niagara and Genesee rivers, 
 with an explanatory map, and the report by James 
 (jcddes of his surveys in 1808, made in pursuance of 
 the motion of Judge Forman; and it is probable that the 
 thirty-three years consideration of the subject by Mr. 
 Morris enabled him to perceive the value of those 
 
12 
 
 documents, and thus prompted him to put himself on 
 record in favor of an overland canal to Lake Erie. 
 
 An expression of Governor Seward, in the introduc- 
 tion to his Natural History of New York, is quoted by 
 Mr. Gcddes and others, in support of the claim in behalf 
 of Mr. Morris; but as Governor Seward takes a quota- 
 tion from Mr. Morris's letter to John Parish, in Decem- 
 ber, 1800, as the ground of his opinion, he adds no 
 strength to the claim beyond that afforded by the letter. 
 
 Cadwallader D. Golden, in his memoirs of the canal, 
 gives a brief and impartial statement of the views de- 
 duced from Mr. Morris's letter to John Parish, and from 
 Mr. DeWitt's letter to William Darby, and comes to the 
 conclusion that Mr. Morris contemplated only the route 
 by Lake Ontario, with a ship canal around Niagara Falls, 
 as provided by the Act of 1798, incorporating the 
 Niagara Company. 
 
 Under an "errata" on a fly-leaf at the end of the vol- 
 ume, Mr. Golden says, " It is due to Mr. Morris to 
 mention that since the Memoir was written, the author 
 has ascertained that when, in the year 1800, Mr. Morris 
 suggested the practicability of enabling ships to sail 
 from London into Lake Erie; and when, in 1803, he 
 spoke of 'tapping Lake Erie,' he undoubtedly contem- 
 plated a water communication directly from that lake to 
 the Hudson." 
 
 Mr. Golden probably received this information from 
 some person interested and the kindness of his heart, 
 prompting him to honor the memory of his departed 
 friend, he affixed the above paragraph to a fly-leaf, appa- 
 rently after a portion of the edition had been printed. 
 He tould not have derived the information from Mr. 
 writings, as we shall presently see. 
 
 'O''' 
 
13 
 
 Dr. Hosack, who investiga*^ed this subject more thor- 
 oughly than any other writer, gives ft as his opinion that 
 it is "questionable how far Mr. Morris, (notwithstanding 
 his conversation with Simeon DeWitt in 1803,) l^^d, 
 prior to 18 10, when he was appointed one of the Canal 
 Commissioners, seriously contemplated any other com- 
 munication between the Hudson and Lake Erie, than 
 the route by Oswego and Lake Ontario." 
 
 Dr. Hosack expresses some disappointment that the 
 family of his old friend Mr. Morris did not furnish him, 
 on his application, the "documents" to sustain the views 
 that had been imputed to him. 
 
 Mr. Morris was a man of rare qualities. He held 
 several important and honorable public positions, and 
 his liberal education derived improvement from his ex- 
 tensive travels. He is said to have been a "projector." 
 He had the superintendence of a large tobacco business 
 in Vi -ginia, in connection with Robert Morris (who was 
 not a family relative); and some dealings with French 
 traders, which he had "projected," gave him occasion to 
 go to France jn December, 1788, to institute legal pro- 
 ceedings there to enforce payments. 
 
 While in France, Mr, Morris projected a sale of 
 twenty thousand barrels of flour, to the French gov- 
 ernment, which resulted in loss. He also projected, in 
 connection with some capitalists in Holland, extensive 
 speculations in the United States securities, which the 
 French Minister of Finance was desirous to realize upon 
 as the troublesome times of the French Revolution besan 
 to be felt. A very important part of his business, also, 
 w^as to find purchasers for some wild lands belonging to 
 himself, Robert Morris and others, lying mostly in the 
 State of New York, in the county of St. Lawrence. 
 
J 
 
 / 
 
 u 
 
 • Mr. Morris and M. Leray de Chaumont having real- 
 ized by loans from M, Necker, thirty-eight thousand dol- 
 lars on their bonds Secured by lands in this country, 
 which investment M. Necker seems to have made for the 
 benefit of his daughter Madame de Stael, she prevailed 
 upon her father to appropriate twen . y thousand dollars 
 for the purchase of lands in America for herself direct; 
 in pursuance of which a purchase of twenty-three thou- 
 sand acres was made in St. Lawrence county, New York, 
 under the direction of M. Necker, by M. Leray, with 
 the advice of Mr. Morris, who was consulted as being a 
 friend to the parties, and, owning lands in the same 
 vicinity, was well acquainted with their value. 
 
 Mr. Morris returned from Europe in December, 1 798. 
 In the summer of i 800 he made the journey which he 
 so glowingly described in his letter to John Parish, dated 
 at the city of Washington, December 20, 1800, which 
 has already been alluded to. In that letter he says, 
 "In July last I left home to visit some property of my 
 own, and some which was confided to my care by others, 
 in the northern part of the State of New York, I went 
 by way of Albany and the lakes George and Champlain, 
 to Montreal." From Montreal " we took boat and went 
 up the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario, and along the 
 south side of that lake to Niagara; thence by land to 
 Lake Erie, and so back again." "After one days' re- 
 pose at Niagara, we went to view the Falls; * * * 
 from the Falls towards Lake Erie, along the bank of 
 Niagara river, * * * ^ve proceed to Fort Erie." " Here 
 * * * I saw riding at anchor nine vessels, the least of 
 them one hundred tons. * * * Does it not seem like 
 magic ? * * * Hundreds of large ships will in no 
 distant period bound on the billows of those inland seas. 
 
15 
 
 At. this point commences a navigation of more than a 
 thousand miles. Shall I lead your astonishment to the 
 verge of incredulity? I will. Know, then, that one- 
 tenth of the expense borne by Britain in the last cam- 
 paign, would enable ships to sail from London, through 
 Hudson's river, into Lake Erie." Writing of taxes and 
 finance, in the same letter, Mr. Morris says, "In 1760 
 there was not, perhaps, ten thousand dollars of specie in 
 this country. At present, the banks in Philadelphia 
 alone have above ten millions to dispose of, beyond the 
 demand." 
 
 We will hope that those banks are relatively as rich 
 in specie funds at the present time. 
 
 The expressions here quoted, particularly that relating 
 to ships sailing through Hudson river into Lake Erie, 
 have been treated as the sin'e foundation of a claim to 
 his being the projector of the Erie Canal ; although he 
 was well aware of the existence and operations of the 
 Western Inland Lock Navigation Company, for improv- 
 ing the navigation between Schenectady and Oswego 
 by the Mohawk river and Oneida lake and river, and he 
 was, of course, well advised of the legislative action two 
 years previously, incorporating the " Niagara Company," 
 for the purpose of constructing a ship canal around 
 Niagara Falls. 
 
 The truth Is, as we will soon see, that Mr. Morris 
 could not have had in his mind, when writing those 
 expressions, any other route to Lake Erie than the one 
 by Lake Ontario and Niagara river; for his own subse- 
 quent writings on the subject, which are clear and un- 
 ambiguous, are the best explanations of any ambiguity 
 in the expressions just quoted. 
 
1(» 
 
 But first, let us look at one or two other incidents that 
 are claimed as furnishing supporting evidence to the 
 theory that Mr. Morris meant the Erie Canal. 
 
 The first is of an earlier date, which is a letter written 
 by Governor Morgan Lewis to Hermanus Bleecker, 
 dated May 26, 1828, written in reply to a letter from 
 Mr. Bleecker asking him to write out his recollections 
 of some remarks made by Mr. Morris, when at General 
 Schuyler's headquarter^ at Fort Edward in 1777. 
 
 Governor Lewis writes that Mr. Morris was sanguine 
 of our success in the war, " and spoke in animated terms 
 of the rapid march of the useful arts through our coun- 
 try when once freed from a foreign yoke. One evening 
 he announced in language highly poetic, that at no very 
 distant day 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." 
 
 Governor Lewis was seventy-four years old when he 
 wrote that letter, giving his recollections of the language 
 used by Mr. Morris fifty-one years previously ; and when 
 we call to mind the ardor of feelings that would naturally 
 arise in the mind of a youthful officer in the army on 
 receiving a visit from his friend and classmate, and that at 
 the time of writing, the canal, unthought of in those ear- 
 lier days, was in the full-tide of success and popularity, 
 and that Governor Lewis writes entirely from recollec- 
 tions, and does not pretend to quote a word as being Mr. 
 Morris's language, we will necessarily make some allow- 
 ance for his interest in behalf of his early friend, and give 
 such weight to the statements, as, in connection with 
 other evidences, they shall seem entitled to. 
 
 Another incident, stated from memory and second- 
 handed, some thirty years after it is said to have occurred 
 
17 
 
 has been related to support the claim in behalf of Mr. 
 Morris. It is said to have been communicated by 
 S. DeWitt Bloodijood as obtained from Mr. K. K. Van 
 Rensselaer. It is, that at a dinner party in Washington, 
 soon after the date of Morris's letter to John Parish, the 
 locality of the seat of government was discussed, and 
 Newburg, on the Hudson river, was suggested as a 
 proper place. 
 
 Mr. Morris said, " Yes, this would have been the 
 place, and the members of Congress could have come 
 from all parts by water." "Come by water!" exclaimed 
 the company, " but how .?" " By tapping Lake Erie and 
 bringing its waters to the Hudson." " How could you 
 bring them?" "By an inclined plane." "But that 
 would be too expensive." " Well, then," said he, " ther6 
 is a water-table which can be found." 
 
 This story is probably from the lively imagination of 
 some ardent friend of Mr. Morris, — and its invalidity, so 
 far as furnishing evidence of Mr. Morris being the pro- 
 jector of the Erie Canal, — and the invalidity of the views 
 drawn from the letter of Morgan Lewis, as well as the 
 great mistake made, and often repeated, in claiming that 
 in his letter to John Parish, from which extracts have 
 been made, Mr. Morris foretold the Eric Canal, are all 
 conclusively shown by Mr. Morris himself, in his letter 
 to General Henry Lee, dated January 22d, 1801. Gen- 
 eral Lee had written to Mr. Morris, on the sixteenth of 
 January, asking him to write out fully his views in re- 
 gard to improvements of the country by additional water 
 communications, and Mr. Morris, after gracefully ac- 
 knowledging the receipt of the letter, says, "I will 
 sketch out to you a general idea of what has occurred 
 
 8 
 

 18 
 
 to my observation and reflection respecting the com- 
 merce of our interior country, the political consequences 
 which may result from it, and the means we possess of 
 rendering that commerce and those consequences favor- 
 able to our Government and propitious to our future 
 prosperity." And he proceeds to show the natural out- 
 let to the ocean by the Mississippi and St. Lawrence 
 rivers, the political and commercial importance to the 
 country of improvements in the interior, and says: 
 
 "If we improve the means held out to us by the beneficent hand 
 of Nature, we may obtain for ourselves all the advantages now en- 
 joyed by foreign and rival powers. Nay, we may procure for our 
 mercantile fellow-citizens much greater advantages. * * * The 
 navigation between the Hudson and Lake Ontario, by the Mohawk 
 and Wood Creek has been feebly and faintly attempted by a private 
 company. * * * in my opinion, nothing short of the conveyance 
 of a vessel of one hundred tons * * * is worthy of public attention. 
 * * * But you will ask me if this be possible. I answer, that as far 
 as I can judge from observation and information, it is not only prac- 
 ticable but easy, though expensive. To show this I need only say 
 that Lake Ontario is considerably higher than the Hudson, that the 
 shores of that lake and the river flowing out of it, are not high, that 
 it furnishes an immense but equable stream of water, and that no 
 mountains intervene. An inclined plane may, I believe, be found 
 from the Ontario to the Hudson, but to Lake Champlain it most 
 certainly exists." 
 
 This letter is unambiguous and shows what were the 
 views of the writer. It was written several weeks after 
 the date of the letter to John Parish from which our 
 previous quotations were made, and it is in itself, evi- 
 dence that the writer of it had no definite conception of 
 the interior overland route to Lake Erie. 
 
 Mr. Morris wielded the pen of a ready writer; his 
 mind was clear and comprehensive, and he would never 
 have written that letter and omitted saying in it, any 
 
 ''1^ 
 
19 
 
 the 
 
 ifter 
 
 our 
 
 evi- 
 
 11 of 
 
 word about a direct canal through the interior to Lake 
 Erie, if he had had any conception in his mind of the 
 feasibility of such n project. 
 
 Here, in all probability, is to be seen the reason why 
 the family of Mr. Morris declined to give Dr. Hosack 
 access to his writings, that the documents relating to a 
 canal might all be published in his " Memoirs." 
 
 Mr. Morris was desirous of having a water communi- 
 cation opened that would give access to the eastern 
 markets, from his lands and those of his friend Madame 
 de Stael, lying in St. Lawrence county, without encoun- 
 tering the tedious journey by land, through the new and 
 unopened country that lay between them and the tide- 
 waters, as his letter to General Lee clearly shows; and 
 his subsequent acts and writings in regard to im- 
 provements in the interior, are directed to this end. 
 
 In September, 1803, he made a journey, by way of the 
 Mohawk river, Oneida and Ontario lakes, to St. Law- 
 rence county, to see his lands there. Stopping over 
 night in Schenectady, on his way up, he had an inter- 
 view in his hotel, with Simeon DeWitt, who was Sur- 
 veyor-General of the State; and, as Mr. Morris was 
 in' crested in procuring some improvements that would 
 be beneficial to his lands, and as the novel project of 
 locking up and around the falls of Niagara had recently 
 been authorized by the Legislature, and as neither the 
 Western Inland Navigation Company nor the Northern 
 Inland Navigation Company, (the latter designed for 
 opening communication between the northern section 
 of Hudson river and Lake Champlain,) were affording 
 facilities for business to the extent that had been ex- 
 pected of them; the conversation of the two gentlemen 
 
20 
 
 i!l!i 
 
 naturally turned upon improving the means of inter- 
 course with the interior. No records are furnished us 
 of what they said, and as the conversation was of that 
 free and informal kind by which they pleasantly whilcd 
 away the evening, it is not probable that either of them 
 made any notes of what was said, or expected ever to 
 have occasion to refer to it again. 
 
 In 1822, however, the Erie Canal had not only been 
 projected, but after hard struggles, it was nearly com- 
 pleted, and was very popular throughout the State and 
 elsewhere; and Mr. DeWitt, in a letter, dated February 
 25th, 1822, to William Darby, who had requested mate- 
 rials to be introduced into the Encyclopedia, writes as 
 follows, among other things: 
 
 "A considerable discussion * * * has appeared in print 
 about tlie origin of tlie Erie Canal, with the view of ascertaining who 
 is most entitled to the honor of it. * * * The merit of first start- 
 ing the idea of a direct communication by water, between Lake Erie 
 and Hudson's river, unquestionably belongs to Mr. Gouverneur 
 Morris. The first suggestion I had of it was from him. In 1803, I 
 accidentally met with him at Schenectady. We put up for the night 
 at the same inn, and passed the evening together. Among the 
 numerous topics of conversation to* which his prolific mind and 
 excursive imagination gave birth, was that of improving the means of 
 intercourse with the interior of our State. He then mentioned the 
 project of tapping Lake Erie, as he expressed himself, and leading 
 its waters in an artificial river directly across the country to Hudson's 
 river. * * * Considering this as a romantic thing and character- 
 istic of the man, I related it on several occasions. Mr. Geddes now 
 reminds me that I mentioned it to him in 1804, when he was here as 
 a member of the Legislature ; and adds that afterwards when in com- 
 pany with Jesse Hawley, it became a subject of conversation which 
 probably led to inquiries that induced Mr. Hawley to write the essays 
 which afterwards appeared in newspapers, on the subject of carrying 
 a canal from Lake Erie to Albany, through the interior of the country 
 without going by the way of Lake Ontario." 
 
n 
 
 After relating the action of the Legislature on the 
 motion of Judge Forman in 1808, directing surveys 
 to be made, Mr. DeWitt continues and says, " he com- 
 missioned James Geddes to make the surveys, and 
 instructed him to survey two different routes for a canal 
 from Oneida Lake to Lake Ontario, one byway of Oswego 
 river, and one by Salmon river, which runs into Lake 
 Ontario some distance east of Oswego (in the town 
 of Mexico)." Mr. Geddes was instructed next to level 
 around the Niagara Falls and ascertain the best line for 
 a canal from above the Falls to Lewiston, and Mr. 
 DeWitt says in ,the letter, " I had received such infor- 
 mation from Mr. Joseph Ellicott * * * as satisfied 
 me that a canal was practicable from the Niagara to the 
 Genesee river;" hence Mr. Geddes was instructed that 
 he need not make surveys in that section. 
 
 This letter of Mr. De Witt's was written about nineteen 
 years after that interview with Mr. Morris in Schenec- 
 tady, entirely from memory, and it does not pretend to 
 quote from Mr. Morris a single word, but it italicises the 
 words tapping Lake Erie; and during the interval of time 
 very much had been said and written, by many persons, 
 in regard to canals. 
 
 That Mr. DeWitt labored under forgetfulness or mis- 
 apprehension, or else drew upon his imagination, w ' en 
 writing that letter and stating that Mr. Morris spoke 
 " of tapping Lake Erie and leading its waters directly 
 across the country to the Hudson, and that he is unques- 
 tionably entitled to the merit of first starting the idea of 
 such a canal," will appear by our following Mr. Morris a 
 little further on that journey. At Rome he had a con- 
 versation with Charles C. Broadhead, an engineer, on 
 the subject of canals, and, as Mr. Broadhead says, " Mr. 
 
f 
 
 23 
 
 Morris inquired very particularly as to the situation and 
 soil of the land along the Oneida lake and the banks 
 of the Oneida and Oswego rivers, and the country 
 lying between the Oneida and Ontario lakes;" and Mr. 
 Broadhead continues, "if I mistake not, he spoke of the 
 waters of the Salmon river and Bruce's Creek, the former 
 empties into Lake Ontario, and the latter into Oneida 
 Lake. * * * It is my impression that Lake Erie 
 was not mentioned in this conversation. After answer- 
 ing Mr. Morris's inquiries as far as I was able, he 
 declared he would give five hundred dollars to be a 
 member of the Legislature that year, that he might get 
 a law passed for a canal from the Hudson river, and 
 I think I cannot be mistaken when I say to Lake 
 Ontario." 
 
 Mr. Morris here i lows the same interest for improve- 
 ments to communicate with his lands in St. Lawrence 
 county, that was indicated in his letter to General Lee, 
 two years previously; and in that interview with Mr. 
 Broadhead, is not manifested any conception of an idea 
 of a canal through the interior to Lake Erie, as Mr. 
 DeWitt, nineteen years afterward, imagined he had done 
 at Schenectady. 
 
 A little further on his journey, at Three River Point, 
 the same views are unmistakably indicated by Mr 
 Morris's writing in his diary, September 12th, 1803, (^^ 
 Mr. Morris kept a diary many years.) Of a canal he 
 writes, " it should be taken from the head of Onondaga 
 river and carried on the level as far east as it will go, 
 and if practicable, into the Mohawk river. * * * 
 This canal, I think, should be five feet deep and forty- 
 five feet wide. A branch might easily he carried to 
 Lake Ontario." Not a word was written about Lake 
 
 Itil!!l 
 
23 
 
 go, 
 
 Erie, nor about a canal of any kind to any place west 
 of Onondaga river; and it is not to be supposed that, 
 considering the fluency with which Mr. Morris wrote, he 
 would have omitted any allusion to an overland canal to 
 Lake Eric, if he had had any conception of one in his 
 mind. 
 
 Thus we see that the ambiguity in Mr. Morris's letter 
 to John Parish, and the vague and romantic recollections 
 of Mr. DeWitt in his letter to William Darby, can not be 
 reconciled with Mr. Morris's letters, his diary, and his 
 actions, and with his conversation with Mr. Brodhead — 
 except on the theory that he meant, as he wrote, a water 
 communication from Lake Ontario to the Hudson river; 
 and to this view all his writings and actions point with 
 entire harmony. If he used the expression, tapping 
 Lake Erie, in his conversation with Mr. DeWitt, he of 
 course referred to the project for a canal around Niagara 
 Falls. 
 
 James Geddes, in a letter to William Darby, of Feb- 
 ruary 22, 1822, says, "in the winter of 1804, I learned, 
 for the first time, from the Surveyor- General, that 
 Gouverneur Morris in a conversation between them the 
 preceding autumn, mentioned the scheme of a canal from 
 Lake Erie across the country to the Hudson river," and 
 that it made a great " impression " on his mind. 
 
 This letter is written from memory, eighteen years 
 after the incident is stated to have occurred, and the 
 misapprehension under which it was written is seen in 
 the fact, as herein shown, that Mr. Morris could not have 
 mentioned the scheme of a canal from Lake Erie across 
 the country, but that in 1803 he was devising a plan for 
 a canal from Onondaga river to the Mohawk, and also 
 
 
 ( 
 
24 
 
 down to Lake Ontario; a scheme which, in the isolated 
 condition of Onondasfa countv at that time was well 
 calculated to excite the attention of her people. 
 
 Judge Geddes was, in 1804, a member of the Legisla- 
 ture. Mr. DeVVitt was Surveyor-General of the State, 
 and Mr. Morris had held several high official stations. 
 All of them were public men, and public spirited men, 
 and it is not probable that they all would have omitted 
 or neglected the opportunity to bring the scheme before 
 the public, if they had been " impressed" with the impor- 
 tance of such a work as a canal through the interior 
 from Lake Erie, or had entertained any conception of 
 the feasibility of such a project. 
 
 Thus we see that the basis on which the claim is 
 founded that Mr. Morris was the projector of the Erie 
 Canal, proves to be unsound ; and of course the struc- 
 ture built upon it mtlst fail. If Mr. Morris were now 
 living, it is probable that his honorable impulses would 
 constrain him, as did Elkanah Watson, to announce that 
 he designed canaling between the Hudson river and 
 Lake Ontario, and around Niagara Falls, and did not 
 contemplate a direct canal through the country to Lake 
 Erie. 
 
 Judge Geddes and Jesse Hawley, in their letters to Dr. 
 Hosack, in 1828, (each one writing without the knowledge 
 of the other,) agree in regard to the time of their inter- 
 view in Geneva, that it was "in the winter of 1806," "the 
 winter before he wrote his essays ;" and it is written that 
 the testimony of two men is true. But Judge Geddes 
 claims to have "perfect recollection of informing Mr. 
 Hawley of the project," and has "no doubt but that I 
 informed him the idea came from Mr. Morris." And 
 Mr. Hawley writes: " I do not recollect that any mention 
 
25 
 
 was made of the canal when we met in Geneva. If 
 there was, I presume that I first spoke of it. * * * 
 I afterwirds saw Mr. Geddes at his house in Onondaga, 
 in 1811, when we conversed on the subject, I beheve for 
 the first time." And in 1835, Mr. Hawley writes: "With 
 me, it was a native thought — without having been sug- 
 gested or communicated to me by any person." When 
 Judge Geddes wrote that letter to Dr. Hosack, he knew 
 he was writing for history, and would be more likely to 
 be correct in his dates than when writing a newspaper 
 paragraph in 1835, in which he says his visit to Geneva 
 was in 1805, instead of 1806. But as we have seen, his 
 impression that he communicated the idea of the Erie 
 Canal, must be confounded with the interest which he 
 and others naturally took in the project of a local canal, 
 which Mr. Morris indicated in his diary. 
 
 The Paper read by George Geddes, Esq., maintains 
 that Judge Geddes was so deeply impressed with the 
 idea of a direct overland route for a canal — as coming 
 from Mr. Morris — that he did not rest, but formed public 
 opinion until 1807, when Judge Forman was elected to 
 the Legislature as a "Canal man" "on the question of a 
 canal across the country, not by Lake Ontario;" and says 
 Judge Forman was an eminent lawyer and an accom- 
 plished scholar, and his grace of person and manner 
 gave him much influence with his associates. He was 
 President of the village of Syracuse in 1825. 
 
 This accomplished gentleman, on whom the argument 
 of Mr. Geddes centres, wrote to Dr. Hosack on the sub- 
 ject of the Erie Canal, October 13, 1828, from which 
 letter I quote as follows: 
 
26 
 
 I il I 
 
 "On taking my seat as member of Assembly for the county of 
 Onondaga, at the session of 1807-8, my bookseller banded me seve- 
 ral copies of 'Rees's Cyclopedia,' to which I was a subscriber. I 
 had early been acquainted with the projected works of the Inland 
 Lock Navigation Company, from the Hudson river to Lake Ontario, 
 and had seen in the statute book an Act to incorporate a company to 
 lock up the Niagara Falls from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. In read- 
 ing at my leisure in the article ' Canal,' an account of the numerous 
 canals and improved river navigation in England, I soon discovered 
 Ithe relative importance of the former over the latter. Applying this 
 (to our interior, I. perceived how much more the country would be 
 benefited by a canal than by the works contemplated ; and * * * 
 it occurred to me that if a canal v.'as ever made to open a communi- 
 cation from the Hudson to the western lakes, it would be worth more 
 than all the extra cost to go directly through the country to Lake 
 Erie. * * * Sitting with Judge Wright and General McNiel, my 
 room-mates, I broached the subject to them. At first, Judge Wright 
 /objected that it would be folly to make a canal one hundred and fifty 
 miles abreast of a good sloop navigation in Lake Ontario. * * * 
 The subject was freely discussed. Judge Wright gave in to the plan, 
 and it was agreed by all that the project was of immense importance, 
 and that measures ought to be taken to ascertain its practicability. I 
 drew up the resolution, which Judge Wright agreed to second." 
 
 From that resolution sprung the legislative action 
 under which the first surveys were made, by Judge 
 Geddes, in 1808. 
 
 Judge Forman does not write as if he had been 
 " elected to the Assembly as a canal man, on the ques- 
 tion of a canal across the country, no^ by Lake Ontario;" 
 but, entirely inconsistent with such an idea. In his 
 argument in support of the motion which he introduced, 
 he pointed out nearly the same route for a canal as had 
 been delineated in the first number of the "Hercules" 
 papers by Mr. Hawley, published in Pittsburg, and in 
 the second number, published in Canandaigua. Judge 
 Forman continues : 
 
 t ■ 
 
27 
 
 1 
 
 " I conversed frequently during the season, with Judge Geddes, 
 and explained to liim my views on the subject of the interior route." 
 
 * * * " I should have been satisfied, so far as I am concerned, 
 had not the Surveyor-General, in a letter to William Darby, given a 
 new turn to the investigation, * * giving an impression that my 
 resolution had grown out of that suggestion of Gouverneur Morris. 
 
 * * * Mr. Morris had tra\eled and seen canals in other countries, 
 and no doubt had bright visions of the future improvemerts of this 
 country • * * * but it was nowise probable that he vicA/ed them 
 as works to be accomplished in his day, or, as a patriot, ne would 
 have proposed the subject to the Legislature. * * His suggestions 
 
 * * had no more effect in producing the canal, than the ancient! 
 poet's song of the ' Fortunate Islands beyond the Atlantic Ocean ' 
 had in producing the discovery of America." 
 
 The resolution introduced into the Assembly by Judge 
 Forman in 1808, resulted in directing the Surveyor- 
 General to cause a "survey to be made of the rivers, 
 streams and waters, in the usual route of communication 
 between the Hudson river and Lake Erie, and such 
 other contemplated route as he may deem proper," thus 
 leaving the whole matter very much in his discretion • 
 and that Mr. DeWitt was not at this time very much 
 impressed with such views as he writes, in 1822, had 
 been communicated to him by Morris in 1803, is seen 
 by his instructions in regari to making that survey, 
 given to James Geddes, under date of June nth, 1808, 
 already stated; which read as if he exercised the dis- 
 cretion given him to promote the object which Mr. 
 Morris had in view in his journey by way of Oswego, in 
 1803, to his lands in St. Lawrence county; for the first 
 thing he instructed Mr, Geddes to do was to look for 
 the best place for a canal from Oneida Lake to Lake 
 Ontario, in the town of Mexico. And Judge Geddes is 
 not so much impressed in behalf of an interior route to 
 Lake Erie as to offer any remonstrance against expend- 
 
!i liii I 
 
 28 
 
 ing the time and the money appropriated for those 
 surveys, ahnost exclusively upon the Ontario route. 
 
 And that Mr. DeWitt labored under some forgetful- 
 ness or misapprehension in regard to this matter, is con- 
 clusively shown by an incongruity he perpetrates in his 
 instructions to Judge Geddes in 1808, and in his letter 
 to Mr. Darby in 1822, stating in the first that "As 
 Joseph Ellicott has given me a description of the country 
 from Tonnewanta Creek to the Genesee river * * * 
 it is important to have exploration continued to Seneca 
 river. No leveling or survey of it will be necessary for 
 the present, * * * a view of the ground only, with 
 such information as may be obtained from others, is all 
 that can now be required of you." And. in the letter to 
 Mr. Darby he says, " I had received such information 
 from Joseph Ellicott, etc." 
 
 That information and description of the country was 
 sent to Mr. DeWitt several weeks after his instructions 
 were issued to Mr. Geddes, which was the nth of June, 
 1808, and Mr. Ellicott's communication of that valu- 
 able information is dated Batavia, July 30th, 1808, and 
 begins by acknowledging ihe receipt of Mr. DeWitt's 
 letter of June 13th, 1808, in which Mr. DeWitt asks for 
 the information, which Mr. Ellicott then proceeds to 
 give. 
 
 The Legislature of 1 810 appointed Gouverneur Morris, 
 DeWitt Clinton, and five others, a board of commissioners 
 "for exploring the whole route for inland navigation from 
 Hudson's river to Lake Ontario and Lake Erie." That 
 board of commissioners entered upon their duties on 
 the ist of July following, having with them the writings 
 of Jesse Hawley on the subject of a canal, and other 
 valuable documents, as we have seen ; and Mr. Morris, 
 
29 
 
 while on that tour of exploration, on the 12th of July, 
 1 8 10, put himself on record for the first time in favor 
 of a direct overland canal to Lake Erie. 
 
 What followed, in the complex and protracted prelim- 
 inaries, in the beginning, the progress and completion of 
 that gigantic work, has been delineated before this Society 
 on previous occasions. 
 
 We have seen that the canal was "projected;" and 
 while we cannot claim for any person that he was the 
 first or only one who "conceived " the idea, yet, that the 
 views promulgated in the " Hercules " papers by Jesse 
 Hawley in 1 807, were original, native thoughts with him, 
 and the first publication of such a project, is too well 
 established to need further elucidation. 
 
 After many delays and much anxiety in behalf of the 
 Canal, the State finally entered upon the work of its 
 construction on the 4th of July, 181 7, and its completion 
 on the 26th of October, 1825, was announced by such a 
 feu dejoie as had not been previously known in any age; 
 and we are witnesses to-day, that the predictions of its 
 effects upon our country and people, made by its earliest 
 advocates, have been more than realized. 
 
 To recount its influence in attracting the husbandman ' 
 from all parts of the world to cultivate the rich unbroken 
 soil of the vast country west of us, in inviting the me- 
 chanic and the enterprizing trader, the men of science 
 and the political economist, to occupy that broad domain, 
 and organize States, build up towns and cities, and ex- 
 tend the blessings of civilization, would be only repeat- 
 ing what has many times been said. 
 
 To narrate the growth and extent of the material and 
 social prosperity that is traceable directly to the Erie 
 Canal would tax the capacity of man to appreciate them. 
 
 %\ 
 
 nJP ^.A //^-' 
 
30 
 
 ii 
 
 Not a State in what we call the West, nor one of the 
 many opulent cities in that region, but owes its organic 
 existence or its prosperity to the influence of that great 
 work. 
 
 In 1825 the cities of St. Louis and Cincinnati would 
 have smiled derisively upon any proposition that within 
 the ensuing generation they would be eclipsed by a city 
 on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan, which 
 then had no existence. The cities of Chicago, Mil- 
 waukee, Toledo and others may be said to have been 
 born of the Canal. 
 
 Our own city, with its broad and extensive avenues, 
 its humane and benevolent institutions, its gorgeous 
 buildings, its wealth and population, and, above all, its 
 magnificent ships and extensive commerce, is a proud 
 witness of the propriety of the undertaking, and of the 
 success which has followed it. The first wheat brought 
 to this port — two thousand five hundred bushels in 1828 
 — found no market here; the trade which the Canal in- 
 spired had not then been put into action. The arrivals 
 of grain and flour in a single year recently have been 
 equal to nearly seventy three million bushels. 
 
 The tolls paid to the State on property shipped on 
 the Canal from this port in any one year as late as 1840, 
 scarcely exceeded three hundred thousand dollars. They 
 have since exceeded three million dollars in a single year. 
 
 The benefits resulting from the Canal have been felt 
 and enjoyed in every county and town throughout the 
 State; the increase in the value of all real property 
 being in the aggregate many times greater than the cost 
 of its construction. 
 
 The city of New York, in whose growth and pros- 
 perity we take a just pride, has derived from this Canal 
 
31 
 
 greater benefits, perhaps, than any other city. Her pop- 
 ulation in 1820, being about one hundred and twenty 
 thousand, and at the present time over one million, the 
 value of her real and personal property, as recentl}!' as 
 1845, reported at about two hundred and forty million 
 dollars, and at the present time over one billion dollars — 
 the magnitude of her trade and commerce, her imports 
 and exports in the year 1867, aggregate over five hun- 
 dred and sixteen million dollars; her supremacy over 
 every other seaboard city — all attest that to her the 
 Canal has been, and 7iow is, "a river of gold flowing into 
 her lap." 
 
 It is not the locality merely of the city of New York 
 that has secured to her such prosperity and enabled her 
 to absorb the growing business of other cities, and make 
 them pay tribute to her. Other seaboard cities north 
 and south of her have spacious harbors, and are as 
 accessible to all the interior country by railroads as New 
 York, but they have no Erie Canal tributary to them. 
 As the Canal has been the source of her prosperity in 
 years past, so it is the main reliance for her continued 
 enjoyment of this high position in the years to come. 
 
 No city can long maintain the controling position she 
 occupies in regard to the foreign commerce of the coun- 
 try without the supplies steadily and certainly furnished 
 by this interior and never-failing source. 
 
 The financial success of the Canal is without a parallel 
 in the history of similar enterprises. Besides the great 
 increase of material wealth it has brought to all parts 
 of the State, its own account of receipts and expendi- 
 tures, including its construction, repairs, enlargement 
 and improvements, with interest to September 30th, 
 1866, as reported by the Auditor of the Canal Depart- 
 
 
 r 
 
 I 
 
i i» 
 
 32 
 
 ment, shows a cash balance to its credit of about forty- 
 one and one-half millions of dollars. 
 
 The State canal debt, which has sometimes been 
 urged as a formidable objection to any further outlay 
 upon canals, is the offspring of a laudable desire to 
 promote the local as well as the general interests of the 
 State, that has prevailed in the administration of State 
 affairs, and which led to the construction of various local 
 canals, none of which have been financially successful, 
 though of great and lasting benefits to the people of their 
 immediate locality ; and the canal debt now resting upon 
 the State is the result of the construction of those canals, 
 the benefits of which pertain to the particular localities ; 
 and those localities might reasonably be expected to be 
 foremost in a movement to pay off that debt by a general 
 and equal tax upon all the property of the State, rather 
 than allow the debt to be any impediment in the way of 
 \ further improving and perfecting the capacity of the 
 i Erie Canal to the extent of enabling it to do all the 
 business that may be offered to it, and at such moderate 
 charges that no other route shall be able to compete 
 with it. 
 
 Since the original construction of the Canal its prism 
 has been enlarged and its capacity greatly improved. 
 The tonnage of boats navigating it was originally from 
 thirty-five to forty tons; now, boats of two hundred and 
 fifty tons make their voyage through its waters ; but yet 
 its size is not that of one hundred feet wide and ten feet 
 deep, as was recommended in the essays of " Hercules." 
 Such a canal, with locks of corresponding dimensions, 
 if constructed without delay, would put to rest all ques- 
 tion of its utility or supremacy. 
 
3;^ 
 
 The great and rapid increase of the business of the 
 country, springing directly from the construction of the 
 Canal, brought into existence numerous railroad enter- 
 prises, and there are now as many as five or six through 
 lines of railroads engaged to the extent Oi their capacity 
 in this inland commerce; and yet so great has been the 
 increase of the productions of the country that, with all 
 the increase of facilities for transportation, they are not 
 sufficient to meet the demands upon them; and in the 
 clamor for additional facilities and greater speed, we 
 occasionally hear of more railroads being projected, and 
 See the Canal partially overlooked or entirely ignored. 
 
 As a people, we are "faster" than were those of fifty 
 years ago. We think and move faster than they; we 
 transact more business, and amass greater wealth, and 
 are impatient of restraint or delays; but let us not over- 
 look the fact that it would be physically impossible to 
 transact the business of this vast interior commerce by 
 railroads. The electric telegraph will flash our commer- 
 cial messages instantaneo&sly from San Francisco to 
 New York, but it cannot transport one bushel of wheat. 
 The fleetest horses of Arabia could not be made the 
 beasts of burden to perform a heavy carrying trade. 
 Neither can the railroads, though adapted to the speedy 
 transportation of persons and much of the merchandise 
 and products of the country, perform the immense and 
 heavy freighting business between the West and the 
 East. The main reliance is upon our Canal ; and we 
 read with some surprise an editorial in ^o well informed 
 a newspaper as the New York Times, in July last, oppos- 
 ing further appropriations to the canals, and saying, 
 "Water transportation of every kind is rapidly losing its 
 influence in our trade with the interior. * * * Xhe 
 6 
 

 84 
 
 day of the canals has gone by — they havL* accomplished 
 their work, and can now be relieved by the superior 
 system of transportation," the railroads. 
 
 We might suppose the editor had been romancing, 
 and expect he would next wiite, (after a pleasant moon- 
 light drive through Central Park,) that the "sun" is an 
 old played-out institution, its heats have become too 
 oppressive, and we can well dispense with it. The moon 
 is more pleasant, and the comforts it supplies are an im- 
 provement upon the old system. 
 
 The sun is scarcely more necessary to supply those 
 essential elements of our existence and welfare, reflected 
 by the moon, than is the Canal to sustain the commercial 
 supremacy of New York, as well as the prosperity of the 
 railroads engaged with it in carrying on this commerce. 
 
 If it were possible for the city of Boston to become 
 the outlet of this Canal, and secure its constantly flowing 
 stream of supplies into her own lap, instead of enriching 
 New York, she would soon reinstate the Cunard steam- 
 ships at her wharves, and would not feel a necessity for 
 inviting her neighboring merchants to meet her in con- 
 vention and devise the ways and means for checking the 
 decline of her commercial influence and relative position. 
 
 This interior commerce, which enriches all who man- 
 age it, is too great a prize to escape the efforts of oppos- 
 ing and competing interests to draw it to other channels, 
 and we see capital and enterprise employed with such 
 well directed energy as merits success, to divide this 
 trafiic with ^ew York, and appropriate a part of the 
 golden stream to other and foreign cities. The pro- 
 jected improvements for business on the Mississippi 
 river, by means of barges and of elevators at New 
 Orleans, it is claimed, will draw to that channel a large 
 
85 
 
 bed 
 rior 
 
 :ing, 
 oon- 
 ,s an 
 too 
 noon 
 n im- 
 
 those 
 ected 
 ercial 
 of the 
 Tierce, 
 scome 
 [owing 
 idling 
 steam- 
 iity for 
 in con- 
 ing the 
 osition. 
 lO man- 
 oppos- 
 annels, 
 h such 
 de this 
 of the 
 he pro- 
 sissippi 
 at New 
 a large 
 
 volume of the property that has heretofore sought an 
 eastern market by way of this Canal, and thus enrich 
 the shipping; interests on that river and the city of New 
 Orleans, at our expense. 
 
 Our neighbors of the Dominion of Ontario were 
 early alive to the importance of securing a portion of 
 this growing commerce, and they constructed the Wel- 
 land Canal, which has for many years diverted no incon- 
 siderable share of this flowing wealth to a foreign chan- 
 nel; and their efforts to this end have not abated. They 
 have constructed extensive lines of railroads, improved • 
 the navigation of their rivers, and projected other works 
 of yet greater importance, as connected with this com- 
 merce. If they shall construct the Georgian Bay and 
 Toronto Canal, and make the Ottawa River Improve- 
 ment to Montreal, (especially the latter,) before our Canal 
 is perfected by enlarging its locks and securing a greater 
 depth of water, they will succeed in diverting a larger 
 amount of our legitimate traffic than we can afford to 
 lose. A small portion only of shipments on Lake On- 
 tario find their way to New York, and shipments by the 
 Ottawa river route must of necessity pay their tribute to 
 the cities of Montreal and Quebec. 
 
 One of the leading objects in view with all those men 
 who early advocated the improvement of water commu- 
 nication between the interior and tide waters, was to 
 secure this commerce to our own people, and build up 
 our own cities with the products of our enterprise and 
 capital, rather than allow it to be appropriated by our 
 foreign neighbors. These views were deeply impressed 
 upon the mind of that good and loyal Briton, Cadwallader 
 Colden, as early as the year 1 724, and they were repeated 
 
86 
 
 by Sir Henry Moore, by General Washington, George 
 Clinton, and every other writer in favor of internal im- 
 provements, clown to the time of our Canal. 
 
 We are now in the enjoyment of the high position 
 which the construction of the Canal was expected to 
 confer upon us; and the benefits it bestows on other 
 States, and upon the nation at large, justly entitle New 
 York to the appellation of the " Empire State." It has 
 been said, by good authority, that the struggle we recently 
 encountered with armed rebellion could not have been 
 successfully carried on but for the sinews of war, the 
 wealth, derived from the productions of the country, 
 through the facilities which this Canal afforded. 
 
 If we have not secured, to the full extent, the advan- 
 tages which the Canal might yield to us, it behooves us 
 to look for the cause and apply the remedy. If any 
 portion of this inheritance is in danger of being wrested 
 from our hands by competing inl -ests, as wise men 
 possessed of the ability to preserve it, we will not fail to 
 counteract such efforts by the legitimate means at our 
 command. Such danger is not to be encountered by 
 the competition of the railroads. The interests of these 
 roads and of the Canal are reciprocal. The roads would 
 not have come into existence but for the stimulus sfiven 
 by the Canal ; and now, both of the systems are to a large 
 extent deiDcndent each upon the other. 
 
 It is the competition which may arise from other 
 water routes of transit, that may prejudice or put in 
 jeopardy the interests centred in our Canal; and towards 
 this should our counteractinoj efforts be directed. 
 
 Such improvements of the Canal as will secure to it a 
 steady supply of water to the greatest depth admissible, 
 and an enlargement of its locks to a corresponding 
 
37 
 
 large 
 
 extent, with a schedule of tolls as low as would suffice 
 to pay the interest on the cost of the improvements, and 
 an economical administration of its aftairs, would enable 
 the Canal to neutralize all competition and secure its 
 supremacy over the commerce of the northern States. 
 Whatever be the necessary expense, the importance 
 of such improvement demands immediate attention. 
 A large debt resting upon the State, incurred in the 
 progress of its internal improvement policy, is put forth 
 as a reason for withholding further appropriations for 
 canals. P>ut that argument cannot apply to this Canal, 
 which, as we have seen, is rich in funds to the extent of 
 ■ many millions of dollars. 
 
 It has also been gravely urged in the Constitutional 
 Convention, by a member from the city of New York, that 
 the State should sell the Canal! Not because it has not 
 accomplished all that was predicted for it, not for any 
 financial delinquency, but because, as stated, it is impos- 
 sible to secure an honest administration of its affairs!, 
 The philosopher who urged this proposition, doubtless 
 predicated his argument on the doctrine of total deprav- 
 ity, and he should have followed his logic to its legiti- 
 mate conclusion, and proposed that the Convention be 
 dissolved, because constitutions and laws are worthless, 
 it being impossible to secure an honest administration 
 of them ! 
 
 We cannot afford to allow the supremacy of the Canal 
 to be put in jeopardy. A due regard to the future 
 welfare of our own city will not permit it, — the agricul- 
 tural interests of our State, toits remotest corners, can- 
 not afford the risk ; — the city of New York, least of all, 
 can afford thus to jeopardize its commanding position. 
 Our railroads themselves cannot afford to lose the invig- 
 
 ;,, 
 
38 
 
 orating influence their business receives from this con- 
 troh'ng soufce. 
 
 Better that the present debt and the expense of further 
 improvements be paid by a tax on all the property of the 
 State, and the tolls placed at the lowest rate consistent 
 with the necessary current expenditures, than suffer a 
 diminution of the jjolden stream. 
 
 We are not such degenerate sons of our fathers that 
 we are unable to appreciate and preserve this rich heri- 
 tage, — the result of their wisdom and enterprise, — and 
 we must carry out to perfection that which they so 
 auspiciously begun, and in which they achieved such 
 signal success, and thus secure to our successors the 
 benefits that will follow, and to our State the high dis- 
 tinction she has earned, through all coming time.