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University Library 1993.ORIGIN AID HISTORY
OF THE •
MEASURES THAT LED TO THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE
ERIE CANAL
“ Amicus Plato—Amicus Socrates
Sed Magis Arnica veritas.”
WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF THE BUFFALO HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
BY GEORGE GEDDES.
1866.
SYRACUSE :
SUMMERS & COMPANY, 22 EAST RAILROAD STREET.
1866.ORKilX AXI) HISTORY
OF THE
LED TO THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE
ERIE CANAL.
t>n the fourth day of July, 1817, with much
'ceremony, the construction of the Erie Canal
was commenced at Rome, on that summit that
divides the waters that find their way on the
one side by the St. Lawrence and on the other
by the Hudson to the ocean.
On the 26th day of October, 1825, the com-
pletion of the canal was celebrated. In the
•short period of eight years and about four
months the mighty work of connecting the
great lakes with the ocean by a safe and conven-
ient navigation had been accomplished. The
high officers of the State, accompanied by many
x>f the leading friends of the canals, embarked on
its waters for the ocean amid the roars of artil-
lery that carried the glad tidings from gun to
gun, from the shores of the lake to the walls of
Fort La Fayette in New' Yoik harbor. Such a
salute of artillery, formed in a battery five hun-
dred miles long, the world had never heard be-
fore—and never before had there been such an
occasion. It was to celebrate one of those vic-
tories of peace that all men saw must determine
and make certain the future glories of this new
nation.
On the decks of the flotilla that then took its
departure from Lake Erie stood men who had
first taught the public and educated it up to the
courage that had dared the enterprise j—men
Who had suffered obloquy and contempt as the
wildest of visionaries ;-r-men who had been Te*
viled and had all manner of evil spoken of them
for having led the State to undertake a project
so vast that it was said of it that the utmost en-
ergies of the mightiest empire would only be
sufficient for its accomplishment.
Prominent among these men was De Witt
Clinton—who more than any other man had
staked everything on the success of the canal—•
who had suffered more in abuse—who had de-
voted more unpaid time—who had spent more
of his own money than any other man—now
Governor of the leading State of this mighty
nation, surrounded by a people who were proud
to do him honor, who appreciated the victory
that his statesmanship had at last won over all
gainsayers, and felt that henceforth his fame
was secure.
We who have seen this canal in operation for
nearly all our lives, can hardly appreciate the
difficul ties that surrounded its early bistory. The
population of the whole State did not at the
commencement of the construction of the canal *
equal that of the city of New York at this day.
The wealth of the people was in still smaller
proportion to that which now undertakes great
works. Engineering as a profession had no,ex-
istence in the country. Canals the people had
never seen. The agricultural interesta of the
eastern part of the State, where was the great-
»2
eat population and the seat of political power,
greatly feared the competition that the grain-
growing capacity of the then far-famed Genesee
County would give them in the cities—and
strange as it now appears, the seaport that the
canal was soon to make the commercial center of
the world, was most obstinate in its opposition.
Political parties took ground in regard to the
canal policy of the State, and arrayed the blind
ignorance that parties wield against it. Many
men that the world called good and wise re-
fused to aid, and in many cases violently op-
posed it. The great sage of Monticello, when
asked to give it his assistance, said that it was a
hundred years too soon to undertake such an
enterprise. The nation, that owned a vast do-
main, then wild and unsettled, that the canal
was to make into powerful States, most posi-
tively refused to give the least part of its sur-
plus wealth or of its unsaleable lands, to aid in
the work. Single handed the State undertook
the enterprise, and through evil and good re-
port, depending on our own citizens for commis-
sioners, engineers and contractors, .in an incon-
ceivably short time the work was accomplished,
and on the flotilla that started from Buffalo on
the 26th day of October, 1825, to mingle the
waters of Lake Erie with those of the Atlantic,
were borne the men who had so successfully
consummated the mighty enterprise. The im-
portance of the Erie Canal was not then over-
rated. Railroads were little known, and would
be still far behind their present development
among us but that the canal, having first opened
the country, made railroads possible and profit-
able—and to whatever extent railroads may
hereafter be constructed the Erie Canal will
still remain the great regulator of the prices of
transportation from the west to the east. Re-
maining the property of the State—free to the
navigation, with equal tolls, of every man’s
bo it, no combination can be made to keep up
the prices of transportation, as they might have
been kept up, but for the canal owned by the
State. Calm and sober reflection, now that
more than forty years have elapsed since
we have used the canal, must admit that the re-
joicings that attended the voyage of the first
boats all the way to the sea were justified by
the occasion, and all future ages must award to
the men who brought this canal into being the
high meed of Public Benefactors.
A synopsis of the early history of the canal
will be attempted in the following pages.
In 1724, Cadwallader Colden, then Surveyor-
General of the Province of New York, in his re-
port to Governor Burnet, after having men-
tioned the communication into Lake Ontario by*
the Onondaga river, says: “ Besides the pass-
age by the lakes, there is a river which cornea
from the country of the Senecas, and falls into
the Onondaga river, by which we have an easy
carriage into the country, without going near
Cataraqul (Ontario) Lake. The head of this
river goes near the Lake Erie, and probably
may give a very near ^passage into that lake,
and more advantageous than the way the French
are obliged to take by the great falls of Jagara
(Niagara).” (Colden’s Memoir, p. 28.)
This is doubtless the first recorded specula-
tionin regard to a water communication between
the Mohawk river and Lake Erie across the in-
terior of the country, and avoiding Lake Ontario
entirely. It was but the expression of a hope
that a more safe, as well as convenient way
might be found to the trade of the upper Lakes
than .that frequented by the French, and made
dangerous to the frail boats then employed in
the fur trade by the storms of Lake Ontario* and
was doubtless abandoned by the Surveyor-Gen-
eral when he had acquired more knowledge of
of the country. In 1847 he published a history
of the Five Nations of Indians, containing a mapt*
on which the Genesee river is quite accurately
laid down as running across'the country between
the Seneca river and Lake Erie ; showing that
there could be no such line of navigation, usiqg
the natural water courses, as in 1724 he hoped
might exist. In the report of the Surveyor-
General in 1724 is described the portage or car-
rying place, between the Mohawk and Wood
Creek, where the village of Rome now stands.
He said the portage was three miles loDg, ex-
cept in very dry weather, when goods must be
carried two miles further.
Carver, who traversed the lake country one
hundred years ago (1766), says that a water
passage between the Mohawk and Wood Creek
was at that time effected by sluices (Colden, p,
12), and in 1768 Sir Henry Moore, in a message
to the Colonial Legislature, proposed to remedy3
the obstructions to the navigation of the Mo-
hawk, between Schenectady and Fort Stanwix
(now Rome), by sluices, like those in the great
t^nalof Languedoc in France. (Colden, p. 13.)
Thus it appears that while we were but a col-
ony of Qreat Britain the subject of improving
the natural water courses between the Hudson
and. the great lakes was a matter that attracted
and received the attention of the Government,
and as soon as we had secured our national in-
dependence the subject was still more vigorous
ly pressed on the public attention.
In 1784, and again in 1785, Christopher Colies,
of the city of New York, memorhlized the Leg-
islature, and procured an appropriation of one
hundred and twenty-five dollars to enable him
to examine the Mohawk river, with a view ioits
improvement (Clark’s Onondaga, p. 61, vol, 2),
and in 1786 Jeffrey Smith, a member of the
Legislature, asked leave to introduce a bill for
the improvement of this navigation, and for “ex-
tending the same, if practicable, to Lake*Erie.”
(Turner’s Holland Purchase, p. 619 )
In 1791, Governor George Clinton, in his
speech to the Legislature, urged the necessity
of improving the natural water channels, so as
to facilitate communications with the frontier
settlements, and in that year a law was passed
to authorize the Commissioners of the Land
Office to survey the portage at Rome and the
Mohawk to the Hudson for improvement by
locks, and one hundred pounds were appropria-
ted for the object. (State Engineer’s Report,
1862, p. 619 )
The survey was made by Abraham Harden-
burgh, under ihe advice of William Weston, an
English Engineer. (Clark s Onon , p. 51, vol.
2.) The Commissioners who had charge of the
work were Elkanah Watson, General Schuyler
and Goldsbrow Banyer. (State Engineer’s Re-
port, p. 91.)
The Commissioners made a report so favora-
ble that the Legislature on the 30th of March,
1792, passed an act incorporating the “ Western
Inland Lock Navigation Company,” with power
to open a lock navigation from the Hudson to
Lakes Ontario and Seneca. By the same act
the “ Northern Inland Lock Navigation Com-
pany ” was incorporated, with power to make a
lock navigation from the Hudson to Lake Cham-
plain. (State EQoineer’s Report 1862, p. 92.)
The capital stock of each of these companies
was at first fixed at twenty-five thousand dollars ;
afterwards the capital of the Western Company
was raised to $300,000.
In 1795 the State subscribed ten thousand dol-
lars, and in 1796 loaned $37,500, taking a mort-
gage on the Little Falls canal and locks—and
the company in 1813 had expended $480,000.
This large expenditure of mou*y proved to be
of very little utility. As early as 17T6 the navi-
gation was opened from Schenectady to Seneca
Lake for boats of sixteen tons burthen, in favor-
able stages of the water in the rivers—hut the
locks being constructed of wood and brick soon
failed and had to be rebuilt. The tolls were
52 cents on a barrel of flour for a hundred miles,
and for a ton of goods for the same distance
$5.72. (State Engineer’s Report, p. 93.) The
high tolls and other expenses of this navigation
were so onerous that land carriage on the poor
roads of that day still continued to be the usual
mode of communication between the interior ^
and the seaboard.
In 1778 a company was incorporated to make
a canal around the fa Is of Niagara, but nothing
was ever done under the law.
The Western Company employed Mr. Weston,
the English Engineer to examine the Oswego
river, and he reported the “ navigation from Os-
wego Falls to Lake Ontario as hardly suscepti-
ble of improvement by means of canalliog,” and .
iQ 1808 the company surrendered to the State
all their right to improve this river—and thus
the leading object of the company, connecting
the Hudson with Lake Ontario, was formally
abandoned.
The history of both the Western and Northern
Internal Lock Navigation companies is but a re-
petition of failures, and a record of disappointed
hopes. The friends of internal improvements in
the interior and western parts of the State,by the
end of the last century, ceased to look to the
Western Company as likely to furnish any relief
to their over-burthened cost of transportation.
The statesmen of that day despaired of any ad-
vancement of the population and dignity of the
State to be brought about by this abortive en-
terprise (Hoosack’s Memoir, p. 381.)
Most naturally discussions in regard to what
measures could be adopted to enable the owoe *s
of the rich lands of the interior to find their4
markets, at a reasonable cost, were constant
among the public men at the beginning of this
century. One of these discussions led to impor-
tant results. Gouvemeur Morris and Simeon
DeWitt met in Schenectady in 1803, and passed
an evening in a free interchange bf views. The
means of intercourse with the interior, was an
important topic. Mr. Morns “ mentioned the
project of tapping Lake Brie, aj he expressed
himself* and leading its waters, in an artificial
river, directly across the country to Hudson’s
River.” To this Mr. DeWitt very naturally op-
posed the intermediate hills and valleys, as in-
superable obstacles. Morris’s answer was, in
substance, labor mprobus omnia, v intit} and that
the object would justify the labor and expense,
whatever it might be. “ Considering this as a*
romantic thing,” says Mr. DeWitt, “I related it
on several occasions.” (DeWitt’s Letter, Canal
Laws, Vol* 1, p. 39.) Simeon DeWitt had then
long been Surveyor General of the State, and
was well acquainted with its topography to the
west bound^ of the Military Tract, but owing t&
the fact that so much ol the State as'lies west
of that tract was owned in large grants by com-
panies that bad made their own surveys, and had
their own land offices, he possessed no especial
advantages, growing out of his position, of
knowing anything of the formation of the coun-
try west of the military lands; and he very nat-
urally supposed that the rivers ran in deep val-
leys to Lake Ontario, and that between them
w^ere ranges of high hills. ! He was a man of
caution, and dealt in facts, and had little or noth-
ing of the extravagant in his nature. Mr. Mor-
ris was a man of an entirely different stamp.
He was a projector. He had seen canals in Eu-
rope, and knew their utility, and he had seen
Lake Erie, and had long entertained the opinion
that ships were some time to sail from London
by the way of the Hudson to this inland sea.
In* view of the mighty results that would flow
from a canal, all obstacles were but trivial in
his mind, and hills and valleys, in his ardor,
were swept away in the argument by a Latin quo-
tation. As early as 1777, Mr. Morris had pub-
licly expressed his views in regard to internal
improvements. “ After the evacuation of Ticon-
deroga, when our scattered forces had been con-
centrated at Fort Edward, Mr. Morris arrived
at General Schuyler’s headquarters, on a mission
from the Committee'of General Safety, of this
State/’ Governor Morgan Lewis (Hoosatfk, p,
250) describes him as never doubting the
mate triumph of our arins, and frequent!/ de-
scanting with great energy on what he termed
“ the rising glories of the Western world,” and
announcing “ that at no distant day the waters,
of the great Western inland seas would, by the
aid of man,4 break through their barriers and
mingle with those of the Hudson.” “I recollect
asking him,” says Governor Lewis, “ how they
were to break through the barriers. To which
he replied, that numerous streams passed them
through natural channels, and that artificial onefe
•might be conducted by the same routes.”
In 1800 Mr. Morris visited Lake Erie, and in
December of that year wrote a letter to his friend
John Parish, then of Hamburg, giving an ac-
count of his journey (Hosack, p; 257.) Of Ni-
agara River, above the Falls, he says: “A
quiet, gentle stream laves the shores of a coun-
try leVfel abd fertile. Along the banks of this
stream, which, by reason of the islands in It,
appears to be of moderate size, we proceed to
Fort Erie. Here again the boundles waste of
waters fills the mind with renewed astonish*
ment; and here, as in turning a point of wood,
the lake broke on my view, I saw riding at an-
chor nine vessels, the least of them 100 tons*
Can you bring your imagination to realize this’
scene 1 Does it seem like magic 1 Yet th&
magic is but the early effort of victorious indus-
try. Hundreds of large ships will in no distant
period bound on the billows of those inland
seas. At this point commences a navigation of
more than a thousand miles. Shall I lead yoar
astonishment to the verge of incredulity 7 I
will. Know, then, that one-tenth of the expense
borne by Britain in the last campaign would
enable ships to sail from London through Hud-
son’s River to Lake Erie. As yet, my friend, we
only crawl along the outer shell of our country.
The interior excels the part we inhabit in soil,
in climate, in everything. The proudest empire
in Europe is but a bauble compared to what
America will be, must be, in the coorsd of two
centuries, perhaps of one.”	.
This shows how strongly Mr. Morris had at
this early day become impressed with the great
scheme of uniting Lake Brie with^ tide-water by
a canal.5
Among the men to whom Mr. DeWitt re-ated
the conversation at Schenectady, setting forth
what he called Mr. Morris’s “romantic” scheme,
was a land surveyor, who had made his home
amid the wilds of Central New York. In 1794
he had come from Pennsylvania in boats
loaded with kettles for boiling salt; up the Sus-
quehannah river to the Chemung and its branch-
es, to the portage at Bath; then by the way of
Crooked and Seneca Lakes, and the rivers to
the Salt Springs, where he had made salt and
surveyed and cultivated land, until his neigh-
bors had sent him to Albany to legislate for
them in the year 1804. Mr. DeWitt had long
known this man as one of his most trusted
deputy surveyors, and quite naturally told him
of the “ romantic” scheme of Morris.
This surveyor, James Qeddes, says in a letter
to Dr. Hosack (1 Hosack, p. 235), “The impres-
sion made on my mind was vivid; the saving of
so much lockage” (by avoiding the' descent to,
end the ascent from, Lake Ontario), “ struck me
as a grand desideratum. I had then been ten
years in this country, a wilderness at that time;
but partly penetrated, had a knowledge of the
chain of swamps which stretch across the coun-
try from Montezuma to the Mohawk river, and
readily entertained some idea of the practica-
bility of the project.” He says in his letter,
dated February, 1822: “ The idea of saving so
much lockage, by net descending to Lake On-
tario, made a lively impression on my mind, by
which 1 was prompted on every cccason to en-
quire into the practicability of the project” (Ca-
nal Laws, vol. 1, p. 42.)
Mr. Qeddes lived near the center of the State,
‘and all his interests were connected with the
growth and prosperity of the country in which
he had made his home, and untiringly he press-
ed his investigations as to the character of the
surface of the country west of the great chain
of swamps. Extensive correspondence was re-
sorted to with land agents, surveyors, and other
men who, it was supposed, might be able to give
information, and every available map consulted.
He did not rest with this; he formed public
opinion, and agitated the subject, until, in 1807,
it had become a theme of so great interest in
Onondaga county, that it became the turning
point of local politics (see Appendix A.) J udge
Joshua Forman, a citizen of that county, was one
of those extraordinary men who possess the
power of persuading other men to adopt their
views and opinions to such an extent that they
direct public opinion in the communities in
which they live. A graduate of Union College,
and a pupil in the study of the law of Samuel
Miles Hopkins, he had added to the bountiful
gifts of nature the accomplishments of a scholar ;
to these were joined a singular grace of person
and manner. Ardently advocating the canal
scheme, he was by common consent selected to
go the Legislature to procure an appropriation
of money to make surveys. In politics he was
a Federalist, and his county was strongly against
that party. To overcome this difficulty, leading
Federalists and Democrats came together and
formed a “ Union ticket” for the Assembly, con*
sisting of John McWhorter (Democrat), and
Joshua Forman (Federalist.) JTo give it strength
it was headed “ Canal Ticket ” ( Clark, vol,
2, p. 72.) Prominent in its support were Doctor
William Kirkpatrick, then a Democratic member
of Congress and Superintendent of Onondaga
Salt Springs, and Thomas Wheeler, of the same
side of politics, acting in concert with leading
Federalists, including James Qeddes and Elisha
Alvord, and so strongly was the ticket pressed
that, at SAlina, Mr. Forman received 110 votes
and only two were given against him ( Thomas
Wheeler’s Letter and Ira Gillchre’s Personal
Communications.) His election was triumphant
(see Appendix B.) Thus the leading men of
Onondaga laid aside party, and united in send-
ing to the Assembly by far the best man the
county had, to do the service then required.
The example then set of ignoring party claims
was often followed in the many bitter contests
that were afterwards encountered. This election
was held in April, 1807. Six months afterwards,
on the 27th day of October, appeared the fir|t
number of a series of articles, in the Ontario
Messenger, signed “ Hercules,” and written by
Jesse Hawley, strongly advocating the construe*
tion of a canal on the interior route (see Appen*
dix C.)
On the 4th day of February, 1808, Judge
Forman, in the Assembly, called up for consid-
eration a joint resolution which he had pre-
viously submitted, and which was in the follow-
ing words: “Resolved (if the honorable the
Senate concur herein), That a joint committee6
be appointed to take into consideration the pro-
priety of exploring and causing an accurate sur-
vey to be made of the most eligible and. direct
route for a canal, to open a communication be-
tween the tide waters of the Hudson River and
Lake Erie, to the end that Congress may be en-
abled to appropriate such sums as may be nec-
essary to the accomplishment of that great na-
tional object, and ia case of such concurrence,
that Mr. Gold, Mr. Gilbert, Mr. Forman, Mr.
German and Mr. Hogeboom, be a committee
on the part of this House.” The fruit that this
resolution bore, was the canals of the State of
New York.
On the 21st day of March, Mr. Gold, from the
joint committee, reported the resolution so
amended as to order the Surveyor General “ to
cause an accurate survey to be made of the
rivers, streams and waters (not already accu-
rately surveyed), in the usual route of commu-
nication between the Hudson River and Lake
Erie, and such other contemplated route as he
may deem proper, and cause the same to be de-
lineated on charts or maps for that purpose ac-
companying the same, with the elevations of
the route, and. such explanatory notes as may
be necessary for all useful information in the
premises, of which one copy shall be filed in the
office of Secretary . of this State, and another
transmitted to the President of the United
States, which the person, administering the gov-
ernment of this State is requested to do.” The
Senate concurred on the 6th of April, and on
the 11th of April six hundred dollars were ap-
propriated to enable the Surveyor Goneral to
“carry out the resolution.
To Judge Forman belongs the credit of pro-
curing this first Legislative action looking to
the construction of a canal directly from the
Hudson to Lake Erie. He displayed great tact
in the management of the matter, and though
his resolution was in the first instance received
with* derision, he made , a very able speech,
showing that he was fully informed on the sub-
ject of canals generally, and sketched the route,
•* following the valley of the Mohawk to Rome,
then the valley of Oneida and Seneca rivers to
tie head of Mud Creek ; from the west, from
the Niagara up Tonnewanda and down Allen’s
Creek to the Genesee.river” (Hosack, p. 345-
see Forman’s letter there.) He estimated the
cost at $10,000,000, which he said was a “ bag-
atelle to the value of such a navigation.” The
expressions of ridicule with which the proposi-
tion was at first received, were no longer heard,
but the ground on which some members said
they voted for the resolution, was “ that it could
do no harm, and might do some good.”
It will be observed that 4,he resolution, as
passed, is unlike the one introduced, in this ;
Directions are given to survey the usual routes
of communication, and only by the words “ such
other routes as he may deem proper,” meeting the
object of the mover. The joint committee could
not be induced to take the responsibility of so
wild a project; they only left a chance of its be*
ing examined at the discretion of the Surveyor
General. The very small sum appropriated was
in itself proof that but little Was expected to be
done, and that was probably doled out to silence
the importunities of the persistent represefita-.
live of Onondaga.
Such was the reception given by the Legisia-.
ture to the Erie Canal, when first presented for
its consideration.
It had been a part of the plans of the men of
Onondaga, that Mr. Geddes should make the
surveys, and the Surveyor-General readily ap^
pointed him to do the work ( Ira Gillchre’s
and James Geddes’ personal communications to
author.) On the 11th of June, 1808, the Sur-
veyor General wrote Mr. Geddes, saying, “ as
the provision made for the expenses of this busi-
ness is not adequate to the effectual exploring
of the country, you will, in the first place, ex-
amine what may appear to be the best place for
a canal from Oneida Lake to'Lake.Ontario in
the town of Mexico, and take a survey and level
of it;—also whether a canal cannot be made be-
tween Onfeida Lake and Oswego, by a route in
part to the west of the Oswego River, so as to
avoid those parts along it where it will be im-
practicable to make a good navigation. The
nexi object will be the ground between Lake
Erie and Lake Ontario, which must be exam-
ined with a view to determine what will be the
most eligible track for a canal, from below the
Niagara Falls to Lake Erie. If your means will
admit of it, it would be a desirable thing to have
a level taken throughout the whole distance be-
tween the two Lakes. As Mr. Joseph Ellicott
has given me a description of the country from7
Tonnewanda Creek to the Genesee River, and
pointed out a route for a canal through that
tract, it is important to have a continuation of it
explored to the Seneca River. No levelling or
survey of it will be necessary for the present
(because the appropriation will probably by this
time be expended.) It must be left as a work
by itself, to be undertaken hereafter, should the
Government deem it necessary. A view of the
ground only, with such information as may be
obtained from others, is all that can now be re-
quired of you.”
Mr. Geddes at once commenced his explora-
tions in accordance with these instructions of the
Surveyor General, and made careful surveys of
both the routes proposed from Oneida Lake to
Lake Ontario, and then went to the Niagara
River, and leveled around the Falls, determining
with great accuracy the whole descent in the
river.
This whole survey of the Ontario route was
not an agreeable work for Mr. Geddes, as his
views were all directed to the finding of a line
over which a canal could be made that would
save the lockage down to Lake Ontario, and
then up to the Romo summit ; nevertheless,
he executed the work as faithfully as it
could -have been done, bad he entertained
no other views than making a canal by that
route. He spent the season and the money in
this teork, and thus carried out his instructions,
but be had not accomplished the object that he
hud for years been aiming at In his letter to
Mr. Darby, of February 22, 1822, published in
the Canal Laws, he says: w The f-pot of great
difficulty and uncertainty respecting our inland
route remained unexamined,—to wit: the tract
fcettVedh Genesee River and Palmyra, of head
waters of Mud Creek,-^-and the hopes from a
View of maps discouraging indeed. Where was
the water to be got for locking over the high land
that Was supposed to rise between Genesee River
and Mud Creek 1 All knowledge of an interior
rente was incomplete wbiledhis piece of country
remained unknown. In December of that year I
agdin left home for the above object, and after dis-
covering at the west end of Palmyra that singu-
lar brook which divides, running part to Oswego
fipd part to the Irondequot Bayy-I leveled from
this spot to the Genesee River, and to my great
joy and surprise found the level of the river far
elevated above the spot where the brooks parted,
and no high lands between. But to make the
Genesee River run down Mud Creek, it must be
got over the Irondequot Valley. After leveling
from my first line one and a half mile up the
valley, I found the place where the canal is now
making across that stream. * * *. The pas-
sage of the Irondequot valley is on a surface not
surpassed, perhaps, in the world for singularity.
The ridges along the top of which the canal is
carried, are in many places of just sufficient
height and width for its support. * * * When
the work is finished, the appearance to a
stranger will be that nearly all these natural
embankments are artificial works. * * * The
surface of the foundation of the arch for the
stream to pass through, is just seventy feet be-
low the top water line of the canal. * * *
W ile traveling the snowy hills in December,
1808,1 little thought of ever seeing the Genesee
waters crossing this valley on the embankment
now constructingover it. I had, to be sure^
lively presentiments that 'time would bring about
all I was plalming; that boats would one day
pass along on the tops of these fantastic ridges;
that posterity would see and enjoy the sublime
spectaclebut that for myself, I had been born*
many, very many years too soon. There are
those, Sir, who can realize my feelings on sjich
an occasion, and can forgive if I felt disposed to
exclaim Eureka, on making this discovery.
How would the great Brindley, with all his
characteristic anxiety to avoid lockage, have
felt ia such a case, all his cares at an end
about water to lock up frcm the Genesee River,
finding no lockege required,7? Boats to pass
ever these arid plains, and along the very tops
of these high ridges, seemed like idle tales to
every one around me.”
Early in the year 1805, Mr. Geddes had seen
a map of the country west of the Genesee riVer,
that led him to believe that a route could be
found there without difficulty ; and Mr. Ellicott
had, in his letter, referred to by Mr. De Witt,
pointed out the route that appeared tb him the
best and bad given such information, that no
fears were entertained as to that part of the
country. The great obstacles had been looked
for between the Genesee rivet and the waters of
the Seneca. The discovery of the passage of8
the Irondequot reaily solved the whole ques-
tion.
It is quite common for men possessing much
information in regard to the history of the canal,
to say that its practicability was determined by
the expenditure of the small sum of six hundred
dollars—which was the sum the State appropri-
ated for making the sarvey and the maps and
report of 1808. The true statement of the case is
this: the sum appropriated by the State was ex-
pended under the instructions of the Surveyor-
General in determining the ineligibility of the
Lake Ontario route. The eligibility of the in-
terior route wafe determined at the cost of sev-
enty-three dollars, advanced by the Engineer
from his own funds, and afterwards paid him
by the State.
On the 20th day of January, 1809, Mr. Ged-
des submitted his report the Surveyor-General,
and Mr. Dewitt said of it, in his letter to Mr.
Darby, that it marked out a route “ almost pre-
cisely in the line, which, after repeated, elabo-
rate and expensive examinations, has been final-
ly adopted.” He continues: “ Th'us then was,
by the operations of 1808, the fact satisfactorily
established, that a canal from Lake Erie to Hud-
son’s river was not only practicable, but practi-
cable with uncommon facility.” (Canal Laws,
vol. 1, p. 40,41.)
This report of Mr. Geddes occupies twenty-
five pages of the first volume of the official his-
tory of the canal (Canal Laws, vol. 1, from p.
13 to 38), and shows that the whole subject had
been carefully considered. The route proposed
by the way of the Tonnewanda swamp Mr. Elli-
cott supposed would have a summit not more
than twenty feet above the mouth of Tonnewanda
Creek, and not more than ten feet above Lake
Erie, and that Oak Orchard Creek and some
other streams would furnish sufficicient water
to supply this summit.
Mr. Geddes saw the objections to encounter-
ing this summit, and suggested there may be
“ found some place in the ridge that bounds the
Tonnewanda valley on the north, as low as the
level of Lake Erie, where a canal may be led
across, and conducted onward, without increas-
ing the lockage by rising to the Tonnewanda
swamp” (Canal Laws, vol. 1, p. 32.) In this
conjecture he proved to be substantially cor-
rect, and subsequent investigation showed that
the Tonnewanda Summit was seventy-five feet
above Lake Erie.
It may be well to remark here, that but for
the finding of a route out of the Tonnewanda
valley to the north, and thus keeping below the
level of Lake Erie, the canal could never have
been successful. The supply of water on the
Tonnewanda summit would have proved insuf-
ficient to transact the business of the canal be-
fore the lapse of many years; and if this had
not proved to be so, it is very doubtful whether
the one hundred and fifty feet of extra lockage
would not have been looked upon as too for-
midable in tho first cost, and as an obstruction
too serious to navigation, to have given any
preference to the interior route over that by way
of Lake Ontario. The same may be said in re-
gard to the Irondequot embankment. But for
those natural ridges, that now look like the work
of man, we can hardly suppose that the public
mind would have been brought up to hazarding
the immense expenditure that would have been
necessary to have constructed an entire embank*
ment. The real object of Judge Forman’s joint
resolution was accomplished, so far as to estab-
lish the practicability of a canal by the interior
route. The next thing to be done was to pro*
vide the money necessary to do the work. Ho
had recited in his resolution, the message of Mr.
Jefferson to Congress, in which the President
recommends that the surplus moneys of the
Treasury, over and above such sums as could be
applied to the extinguishment of the national
debt, be appropriated to the great national ob-
jects of opening canals and making turnpike
roads. Believing this recommendation bad
been made in good faith, and that either the
whole work would be assumed by the nation, or
that, at the least, it would aid in it, Judge For-
man, in January, 1809, made a journey to
Washington to lay the project before Mr. Jeffer-
son. Introduced by his representative in Con*
gress, the same William Kirkpatrick who had
aided so much in electing him on the Onondaga
“ Canal Ticket,” he stated that the State of Hew
York had\ explored a route for a canal, that,
once constructed, would people the whole North*
western Territory, and he fnlly set forth the ad*
vantages of such a canal to the whole country^
in peace and in war. After hearing attentively,
the President replied that it was a very* fineproject, and might be executed a century hence.
u Why, sir,” he said, “here is a canal of a few
miles projected by General Washington, which,
if completed, would render this a fine commer-
cial city, which has languished for many years,
because the small sum of two hundred thousand
dollars necessary to complete it cannot be ob-
tained from the General Government, the State
Government, or from individuals, and you talk
of making a canal 350 miles through the wilder-
ness ! It is little short of madness to think of
it at this day.” In a letter to Governor Clinton
in 1822, Mr. Jefferson alludes to this interview,
and says : 1 ‘ Many, I dare say, still think with
me that Npfa York has anticipated, by a full
century, the ordinary progress of improvement.
I!his great work suggests a question, both cu-
rious and difficult, as to the comparative capa-
bility of nations to execute great enterprises.
It is not from greater surplus of produce, after
supplying their own wants, for in this New York
is not beyond some other States: is it from
other sources of industry additional to her pro-
duce 1 This may be : or is it a moral superior-
ity—a sounder calculating mind, as to the most
profitable employment of surplus, by improve-
ment of capital, instead of useless consumption 1
I should lean to this latter hypothesis, were, I
disposed to puzzle myself with such investiga-
tions” (Hosack, p. 348.)
Mr. Forman returned from Washington dis-
appointed, but not discouraged. He knew that
the report of the survey of 1808 furnished the
materials for a successful agitation, and he and
his coadjutors gave no rest to the public mind.
Simeon DeWitt says: “The favorable light in
which this year’s work presented the projected
enterprise, after encountering prejudices from
Various sources, and oppositions made for va-
rious reasons, induced the Legislature, in 1810,
to organize a board of commissioners, with pow-
ers and means to prosecute the business” (Canal
Laws, vol. 1, p, 41.) In a letter to Doctor Ho-
sack, dated in 1828, Judge Forman says: “ The
report of Judge Geddes proved beyond a doubt
the practicability of a canal on the interior route,
and put at rest all further question of the one
through Lake Ontario” (Hosack, p. 348.) Ed-
ward P. Livingston, who was a member of the
New York Senate from July, 1808, to 1812, says
*n his letter to Doctor Hosack: “ The report of
Mr. Geddes, in 1809, led the public mind more
generally to think on the subject, and in 1810
Mr. Platt introduced his resolutions into the
Senate” (Ibid, p. 395.)
Judge Platt lived in Oneida county, and had
been elected to the Senate of the State in 1809
and appears, by his letter to Dr. Hosack (page
382 of his memoir), to have been moved to intro-
duce his resolution by the efforts of Thomas
Eddy, who was one of the directors of the
Western Inland Lock Navigation Company, to
have a law passed in aid of that company. Mr.
Platt felt that tho time had come for the State
to assume the whole subject of improving its in-
ternal navigation, and that a canal—not the re-
moval of bars and obstructions from the beds
of rivers, and the making of locks around the
rapids—was the object at which the public
should aim; that rivers and lakes should be
made serviceable to feed a canal that should
reach from Lake Erie to tide-water, if such could
be made. It took a night’s argument to bring
Mr. Eddy to see the force of this view; but once
convinced, he became a zealous and useful
friend of such a canal.
The resolution was drawn up for the appoint-
ment of commissioners with power to examine
the whole sabject and report their views to the
Legislature. It was introduced on the 13th day
of March, and by the 15th had passed both
houses by unanimous votes—such had been the
progress in public opinion in the short time that
had elapsed since Judge Forman’s movement
had been received with derision.
The resolution was drawn up with a view to
place on the Commission men of commanding
talents and position belonging to both political
parties, whose services should be given without
compensation, When the resolution was intro-
duced, at the request of Mr. Clinton a blank was
left for the names, that he might be unembar-
rassed in seconding it. The day after its pas-
sage, in blank, the names of Gouverneur Morris,
Stephen VanRensselaer, DeWitt Clinton, Simeon
DeWitt, William North, Thomas Eddy and Peter
B. Porter, were inserted.
In this movement Mr. Platt consulted Stephen
Van Rensselaer and Abraham Van Vecbten,
then members of the Assembly, and who both
gave their valuable aid in that House,
During the session three thousand dollars10
were appropriated to pay the expenses that the
commissioners might incur for surveys, and such
objects generally as were embraced in the dis-
charge of their duties.
Mr. Platt has given in his letter to Doctor
Hosack an interesting account of his consulta-
tion with Mr. Clinton, saying, “ Mr. Clinton was
then a member of the Senate, and possessed a
powerful influence over the dominant party in
the State. * * * We requested an inter-
view, and unfolded our plan, and the prominent
facts and considerations in support of it. * * *
Mr. Clinton listened with intense interest, and
deep agitation of mind. He then said that he
was in a great measure a stranger to the western
interior of our State; that he had given but
little attention to the subject of canal naviga-
tion, but that the exposition of our plan struck
his mind with great force; that he was then
prepared to say that it was an object worthy of
thorough examination; and that if I would
move the resolution in blank (without the names
of the commissioners), he would second and
support itand Judge Platt says,u From this
period Mr. Clinton devoted the best powers of
his vigorous and capacious mind to this subject,
and he appeared to grasp and realize it as an
object of the highest public utility, and worthy
of his noblest ambition1’ (Hosack, pp. 383, 384.)
On the second day of July, 1810, the commis-
sioners all met at the Surveyor General’s office
in Albany (Campbell’s Life of Clinton, p. 30 )
Mr. DeWitt having engaged Mr, Geddes to at-
tend them as Surveyor from Utica to show
them the route he had reported in favor of,
Gouverneur Morris and General Van Rensselaer
determined to make the trip by land, the other
commissioners, except General North, by the
line of the rivers in boats as far as Geneva.
The party in boats embarked on the fourth day
of July from Schenectady, and toiled up the
Mohawk to Utica, making observations as they
progressed in regard to the river. On the tenth'
day of the month the Board were all present at
a meeting in Utica, and there they met the Sur-
veyor. On the 12th day of July the commis-
sioners held a meeting at Rome, to make their
final arrangements for the exploration. Here
their work really commenced, for this was the
dividing point of the routes by Lake Ontario,
and directly across the country. All east of
this summit had been surveyed by the Western
Lock Navigation Company, and had been used
from the earliest period in which the country
had been known. At this important meeting
Mr. Morris gave his views in regard to the inte*
nor route. “ He was for breaking down the
mound of Lake Erie, and letting out the waters
to follow the level of the country, so as to form
a sloop navigation with the Hudson, without
any aid from any other water” (Clinton’s Jour-
nal Campbell’s Life, p. 54.)
This shows what was meant by the expression
used by Mr. Morris in 1803, in his conversation
with Mr. DeWitt—“ tapping Lake LrieMr.
Clinton records this announcement of the senior
commissioner, in his journal, but makes no,com-
ments. Though Mr. Morris bad been consider-
ing the subject of a water communication from
the great lakes to the Hudson, ever since 177T
(Hosack, p. 250), and had visited the canals of
Europe to gather information, he had not ar-
rived at any true conception of what the face of
the country would permit of being done, and it
is not strange that Mr. Dewitt should have called
his scheme a u romantic” thing. The Surveyor,
who had for six years been gathering facts and
making examinations of the country, knew that
such a scheme was utterly impracticable. Long
after this, in 1829, Mr. Geddes said, in a pub-
lished letter, “ I had great oportunities of being
acquainted with Mr. Morris’s canal notions. His
great desire to lessen lockage probably sugge&t-
ted the idea of passing across the country south
of Lake Ontario.”
From Rome the Commissioners adjourned to
meet at Geneva. Oswego was visited, and the
party retraced their way to Three River Point*
and thence up the Seneca river to Cayuga and
Seneca lakes, arriving at Geneva on the 24th
day of July, where they found a letter from that
part of the company that bad gone by land,
promising to meet them on the Niagara river.
The parties that explored the rivers consisted
of Messrs. Clinton, De Witt, Eddy, North and
Porter, Commissioners, and Geddes, Surveyor.
This journey was undertaken at no little has-
ard to health at this season of the year. Great
Pains were taken to protect the party from ma-
laria, and only one or two of the number ex-
perienced much injury from the deadly fevers
that then made these rivers of so bad repute.11
At Geneva the boats were sold, and carriages
procured. From this place the party went to
view the confluence of Mud Creek and the Can-
andaigua outlet at Lyons. Mr. Clinton says in
his journal that on the 27th of July they
crossed the Irondequoit creek at Mann’s Mills,
where Mr. Geddes proposes a great embank-
ment for his canal, from the Genesee river to the
head waters of Mud Creek. He crosses Ironde-
quoit creek here, in order to obtain the greatest
elevation of ground on the other side.” (Camp-
bell, p. 111.)
The Genesee river was carefully observed at
the point where Rochester now stands, and then
the party went on westward by the Ridge road
and arrived at Lewiston at the end of the month
and on the second day of August were joined
by Morris and Yan Rensselaer.
On the third of August a meeting was held a
Chippeway, at which they gave Mr. Geddes in
structions to take levels and distances on a va-
riety of points, and adjourned to meet in the
city of New York. (Campbell, p. 132 )
On the fifth of August Mr. Clinton says they
were at Buffalo, which he describes as a place
of great resort. All persons that travel to the
Western States and Ohio, from the Eastern
States, and all that visit the Falls of Niagara,
come this way. The village, he said, “ contained
from thirty to forty houses, * * five lawyers
and no church.” (Campbell, p. 136 and 137.)
At Black Rock the party broke up, leaving
Mr. Geddes to commence his surveys.
Mr. Geddes* first business was to find, if such
a place existed, a depression in the range of
lands that bounded the valley of the Tonnewan-
da creek on its north side—through which the
waters of Lake Erie might be carried without
too deep cutting to be admissable. In this he
was entirely successful.
On the second day of March, 1811, the Com-
missioners made their first report, drawn up by
their President, Mr. Morris. They reported
against the Lake Ontario route, giving such
good reasons for so doing, that henceforth only
enemies of the canal urged its adoption.
In reference to an inland navigation the Com-
missioners say that “ they beg leave to refer for
information to the annexed reports and maps of
Mr. James Geddes. * * From these it is
evident that such navigation is practicable.
Whether the route he sketched out will here-
after be pursued ; whether a better may not
be found—and other questions subordinate to
those, can only be solved at at a future time.”
(Canal Laws, p. 52.)
The Commissioners go on to give a general
view of the country, and propose a canal from
Lake Erie to the Hudson with an average de-
scent of six inches per mile. This was Mr.
Morris’s idea of a canal, and to carry it out he
was willing to make the enormous embank-
ments that would be required to cross the val-
lies of the Genesee, 26 feet high; Seneca river
83 feet high, and Caynga 180 feet. He estima-
ted the cost of such a canal from the Niagara
river to the Hudson at only five millioo dollars.
One valuable suggestion of this report will
forever remain of controlling force. They pro-
test against allowing any private individuals or
company owniDg this canal—urging that it
would prevent cheap transportation.
On the 8th day of May, 1811, a law was passed
addiog to the Commission Robert R, Livingston
and Robert Fulton, and giving power to employ
engineers and make further surveys, and to
make application to the National and State
Governments for aid to execute the great work
Fifteen thousand dollars were appropriated.
On the 14th day of March, 1812, the Commis-
sioners made their second report, in which they
say they have met with no success in their ap-
plications to other States and the National Gov-
ernment for aid, and say that, having once of-
fered the canal.to the Government and the offer
not having been accepted, the State is at liberty
to consult and pursue the maxims of policy, and
derive for itself the benefits of the tolls that
may justly be collected. They say that they
have continued their surveys, and quote from
a letter of the English Engineer, Mr. Weston:
“ From the perspicuous topographical descrip-
tion and neat plan and profile of the route of
the contemplated canal, I entertain little doubt
of the practicability of the measure.” (Canal
Laws, vol. 1, pp. 81, 82.) These maps and pro-
files were made by Mr. Geddes, and sent to Eng-
land for the opinion of the then most eminent
Engineer of that country. In this report Mr.
Morris abandons his idea of an inclined plane
east of the Seneca outlet. The estimated cost
of a canal is raised to $6,000,000.12
In November, 1811, Judge Benjamin Wright,
of the village of Rome, who had been in the
service of the Western Inland Lock Navigation
Company as an Engineer, was employed to make
a survey of the north side of the Mohawk river.
His report demonstrated tho impracticabilty of
a canal along that river, having a uniform de-
scent of six inches to the mile. (Canal Laws,
vol.l,pp. 531-557.)
The Commissioners had now in their service
two men who afterwards became eminent as en-
gineers, and of whom it may with truth be said,
they were the fathers, in this country, of a new
liberal profession; and that of the great number
of able civil engineers that have succeeded them,
none have excelled them. But of the capacity
of these two men the Commissioners and the
public generally had not become informed, and
•the report of 1812 calls them Surveyors, and
dwells on the importance of securing the ser-
vices of a “ capable engineer of the first talents,
tried integrity and approved experience.” After-
wards, in 1821, the Commisssioners, say that to
these two men the State is mostly indebted for
tho manner in which they discharged their du-
ties—and that they have been found equal to the
high trusts confided to them. (Canal Laws,
vol. 2, p. 28.)
To the fact that the Commissioners for many
years expected to put the canal in charge of an
engineer of European reputation, we may as-
cribe the practice that very early grew up of
not giving the reports of what they called their
u Surveyors ” to the public. The reports of the
engineers were generally used by the Commis-
sioners to furnish materials that in the more im-
posing name of the Commission, were laid be-
fore the Legislature.
. On the 19th day of June, 1812, an important
law was passed, authorizing the Commissioners
to purchase all the rights and interests of the
Western Inland Lock Navigation Company, with
certain provisos, anci to borrow the sum of five
millions of dollars, to be used in the construc-
tion of the canal.
On the 8th day of March 1814, the Commis-
sioners reported that they had appointed an
English engineer who was soon to be at work
ascertaining the best line for the canal from
Lake Erie to the Hudson, and that they have
caused further investigations to be made up to
the last summer, when they were suspended in
consequence of the war. In this report they
express a desire to not be held as committed
exclusively to a canal descending according to
the level of the country, like an inclined plane.
(Canal Laws, vol. 1, p. 105.)
On the 15th day of April, 1814, the law of
1812/authorizing the borrowing of 85,000,000,
was repealed. The war with Great Britain then
absorbed all thoughts and all energies, and
while it continued all efforts for a canal were
abandoned, and the project slept; until in the
fall of 1815 a movement was made in the city
of New York by Mr, Clinton, Judge Platt and
Mr. Eddy. Cards of invitation were sent to
about one hundred men to meet at the City
Hall, to consult as to the best measures to he
adopted. Villiam Bayard was chairman and
John Pintard secretary.
Judge Platt made a speech, and urged tho
formal abandonment of the plan of an inclined
plane, and the appointment of a committee to
prepare and circulate a memorial to the Legis-
lature in favor of the canal. Mr. Clinton was
put at the head of this committee, and associa-
ted with him were Thomas Eddy, Cadwallader
D. Colden and John Swartwout. Mr. Clinton
drew the memorial, with his wonderful ability,
showing a perfect knowedge of the subject, with
a sagacious discernment of its beneficial results
to the State and to the nation. (Platt in Ho*
sack’s Memoir, pp. 385-6.)
This was a signal of a concerted movement
along the whole line. Great meetings were
held at Albany, Utica, Onondaga, Geneva, Can-
andaigua and Buffalo. The meeting in Onon-
daga was held the 23d day of February, 1816,
and was presided over by James Geddes, and
its memorial was drawn by Joshua Forman. It
was signed by over three thousand petitioners.
(Clark’s Onon., vol. 2, p. 59.) At the meeting
in Canandaigua Colonel Troup presided, and
Gideon Granger, John Greig, John Nicholas,
Nathan N. Howell, and Myron Holly took ao*
tive parts in its proceedings. This agitation led
to more then one hundred thousand petitioners
asking the Legislature to at once go on with the
the construction of the canal.
On the 8tb day of March, 1816, the Commis-
sions made their next report, and in this they
call on the Legislature to furnish means to pay13
a professional engineer, and say that there are
so few competent persons in Europe that there
is every inducement to employ one of our own
countrymen if the necessary scientific and prac-
tical knowedge can be founds
The negotiations with Mr. Weston, who had
ucted as consulting engineer, and as such had
examined the maps and profiles of Mr. Geddes,
had failed. He had been offered a salary of
seven thousand dollars a year to leave England
and come and take the direction of the construc-
tion of the canal. At last he gave a final re-
fusal, saying he only declined the greatest hon-
or ever offered him because of age and family
matters. Thus the Commissioners were forced
to employ native and New York talent.
The report of 1816 says nothing about in-
clined planes, and it is not signed by Mr. Mor-
ris, as Mr. Colden (p. 45) suggests-for this rea-
son.
Much surveying had been done, out of defer-
ence to Mr. Monis’s views (Personal Communi-
cations from Mr. Geddes), his tenacity being
Very great. But the measure had passed be-
yond his control, and with his influence passed
•away the idea that a foreign engineer must have
the direction of the loctaion and construction of
our canals.
Though the war had checked the enterprise
for a while, it had conclusively shown the im-
portance of its success. The want of a practi-
cable communication from the seaboard to the
lakes was grievously felt. It has been said that
at one time the cost of the transportation of
•cannon from Albany to the lakes was twice and
more than twice their first cost. (Colden, p. 42.)
The flood of petitions poured on the Legisla-
ture was answered by the passage, on the 17th
day of April, 1816, of “ ai^ act to provide for the
improvement of the internal navigation of this
•■State.”
The joint committee of the Senate and As-
sembly, by Mr. Jacob Rutzen Yan Rensselaer,
made their report, on the 21st day of March,
and they embraced in it statements from Mr.
Geddes of the characfer of the route from Lake
Erie to the Seneca river, and of Mr. Wright,
from the Seneca river to the Hudson.
The report of the committee, embracing the
communications of these engineers, was strong-
ly in favor of immediately commencing the
work. After a very long discussion this hill
was so amended as to provide for the making of
surveys and the gathering of information in re-
gard to the whole cost, not only of the Erie Ca-
nal, hut of a canal along the Hudson from tide-
water to Lake Champlain. But no authority
was given to commence the work.
The Commission wassomewhat altered by the
law of 1816—Mr. Morris, General Peter B. Por-
ter and SimeoD Be Witt of the original Commis-
sion were left off—and some new names added,
so that the Commission as newly constituted
consisted of Stephen Van Rensselaer, Be Witt
Clinton, Samuel YouDg, Joseph Ellicott and
Myron Holley. * Mr. Morris was doubtless left
off in consequence of the difficulties that had
grown out of the drawing of the last report.
That Mr. Morris felt the injury that was being
done him, appears from his note dated March 9,
1816, which was published in the American in
April, 1819. He says: “ I have an ardent wish
that the canal may be made; but so humble is
my ambition, that I am content that the reputa-
tion of having imagined, proposed, and carried
it into effect, be given to any person.” Could
this blow have been defered four months he
would have been beyond its reach, for by that
time he was in his grave. General Porter was
concerned in determining the boundary line be-
tween the United States and the British Posses*
8ions—he being Commissioner for our Govern-
ment.
Twenty thousand dollars were appropriated
to carry out the Canal Law of 1816.
In 1814 the Canal Commissioners had pro*
posed the Champlain Canal, and by 1816 it had
become evident to the friends of the Erie Canal
that they most combine the Northern Canal
with their own to get the necessary strength in
the Legislature, and thus the projects were
united.
On the 17th day of May, 1816, the Commis-
sioners met at New York, and appointed Mr,
Clinton President, Mr. iToung Secretary, and
Mr. Holley Treasurer, and on the 17 th day of
Pehrnary, 1817, they made their first report,
from which it appears that Mr. Ellicott, having
for his engineer William Peacock, made a care-
ful exploration of the route that he had favored
from Buffalo to the Genesee river, by way of
the summit between Tonnewanda Creek and14
Black Creek;—that Mr. Geddes took a point
eleven miles up the Tonnewauda Creek and fol-
lowed his route, keeping below the level of
Lake Erie, and leading its waters as far east as
the Seneca River, where his section terminated.
Of this section thus marked out, the commis-
sioners say, it has a level of 69 miles and 51$
chains, and they speak of it as having other
great advantages.
The middle section of the canal extended
from the Seneca river to Rome, and was put
under the charge of Mr. Benjamin Wright. The
eastern section, extending from Rome to the
Hudson liver, was put under Mr. Charles C.
Broadhead as engineer. The Northern Canal
had for its engineer Lewis Garin.
As has been stated, all efforts to secure the
services of the English engineer, Mr. Watson,
having failed, the commissioners were in great
doubt as the best course to pursue. Under
these circumstances Mr. Geddes and Mr. Wright,
having consulted with each other, appeared be-
fore the Board, and expressed their confidence
in their ability to locate and construct the
canals, but expressed a strong desire that the
commissioners should feel a like confidence if
they were to be entrusted with the responsi-
bility (Personal Communication from James
Geddes.) Most fortunately for the Stale, the
commissioners gave these engineers that confi-
dence. Butin so doiDg they encountered the
censures of tho enemies of the canals, in and
out of legislative halls. On the Assembly floor,
it was tauntingly asked, “Who is this James
Geddes, and who is this Benjamin Wright that
the Commissioners have trusted with this re-
sponsibility—what canals have they ever con-
structed I What great public works have they
accomplished 7” But really the Commissioners
had no alternative-—and now it is easy to se
that the course adopted was much wiser than
' have entrusted the canals to the keeping of
any one man, as would have been the case had
the efforts made to secure Mr. Weston been suc-
cessful.
To add still more to these difficulties in re-
gard to the engineering, it was said in high
places, by men who claimed much knowledge
on such subjects, that no confidence could be
planed in an ordinary engineer’s spirit level for
laying out long lines of canal, and that there
was no possibility of running a line for the long
levels that yvas not liable to be erroneous to the
whole depth of the canal. So much annoyance
did these cavilers produce that in the next year
it was deemed expedient to settle that matter
that a full test should be made. It was decid-
ed that Mr. Geddes should start at a given point
on the canal line at Rome, and carry a level
along the road to the east end of Oneida Lake,
and taking the height of the lake while the wa-
ter was tranquil, that he should then connect
by a level the Oneida'with Onondaga Lake; af-
ter which carry a level from that lake to the ca-
nal line—thence to work east, laying off sections
along the canal line. This he did, and laid out
nine miles towards Rome. Mr. Wright started
from the same point in Rome, and carried the
line westward until he came to the stakes set,
by Mr. Geddes. The levels of these two engi-
neers, which embra ced a circuit of nearly one
hundred miles, differed from each other less
than an inch and a half!! (Canal Laws, vol. I,
pp. 369, 370, and Personal Communication,)
The publication of the result of this test level
put an end to much of the talk of pretenders to
scientific knowledge.
The report of the Commissioners in March,
1817, was very elaborate, and was made up
chif fly from the reports of the engineers,1 and
without giving them any credit, but so drawn
as to make only the Commissioners appear to
the public (See Mr. Wright’s letter in Hosack’a
Memoir, p. 504), and this continued to be hence-
forth the uniform practice of the Commission-.
©is.
On the 15th day of April, 1817, the canal
policy of this State was finally established by
law. This law was supported in the Assembly
with great ability by many members, and op^
posed as desperately lyr others. The eminent
•Elisha Williams, then a member from Columbia
county, broke over the claims of local interests
and gave the bill a support that was decisive;
“ he appealed to the members from New York
city, who were almost to a man hostile to the
project, ‘ If,’ said he, turning to a leading mem-
ber of that delegation, ‘ if the canal is to be a
shower of gold, it will fall upon New York; if
a river of gold, it will flow into her lap,’ ” (Ho*»
sack, p. 450.)
In the Senate, Mr. Martin Van Buren’s15
support was as efficient as that of Mr.
Wiliams	in the Assembly.	He in-
sisted that the facts were then folly
ascertained and that the time had come to com-
mence the work. So marked was the effect of
Mr. Van Buren’s speech that when he sat down,
Mr. Clinton who had been a listener in the Sen-
ate Chamber, “ breaking through that reserve
which political collisions had created, ap-
proached him and expressed his thanks for his
exertions in the most flattering terms.” (Ho-
sack, p. 453.)
The law had still to pass the ordeal of the
Council of Revision. Judge Platt who had be-
come one of the members of that body,
gives the following account of its action. The
The Council consisted of Lieutenant and acting
Governor Taylor, Chancellcr Kent, Chief Justice
Thompson, Judges Yates and Platt. After the
bill had been read, the president called on the
Chancellor for his opinion. He said he had
given very little attention to the subject; that
it appeared to him a gigantic project, which
would require the wealth of the United States
to accomplish; that it had passed the Legisla-
ture by small majorities, after a desperate strug-
gle : and he thought it inexpedient to commit
the State in such a vast undertaking until pub-
lic opinion could be better united in its favor.
Chiet Justice Thompson said he cherished no
hostility to the canal, and that he would not en-
quire as to the majorities, as the Legislature had
agreed to the measure he would be inclined to
leave the responsibility with them; but he said
the bill gave arbitrary powers to the Commis-
sioners over private rights, without proper
guards, and he therefore opposed the bill. Judge
Yates was a decided friend of the canal, and
voted for the bill. Judge Platt was also ardent
in its favor. The Lieutenant Governor “ panted
with honest zeal to strangle the infant Hercules
in its birth by his casting vote in tho negative.’
A warm discussion arose, but a more temperate
examination of the bill obviated in some meas-
ure the objections of the Chancellor and Chief
Justice, “ Vice President Daniel D. Tompkins
[late Governor of the State] came into the Coun-
cil Chamber and familiarly took a seat, and
joined in the argument, which was informal and
desultory. He expressed a decided opinion
against the bill, and ami ng other reasons, he
stated that the late peace with Great Britain
was a mere 'trace; that we should undoubtedly
soon have a renewed war with that country;
and that instead of wasting the credit and re-
sources of the State on this chimerical project
we ought immediately to employ all the reve-
nue and credit of the State, in providing arsen-
als, arming the militia, erecting fortifications
and preparing for war. “ Do you think so,
Sir T* said Chancellor Kent. “ Yes, Sir,” was
the reply ; “ England will never forgive us for
onr victories on the land and on the ocean and
the lakes; and my word for it, we shall have an-
other war with her within two years.” The Chan-
cellor, then rising from his seat, with great ani-
mation declared, “ if we are to have war, or to
have a canal, I am in favor of* the canal, and I
vote for the bill.” Thus Platt, Yates and Kent
out-voted Taylor and Thompson, and the bill
became a law.
So narrow are the chances on which great
measures sometimes turn. The accidental com-
ing into the Council Chamber of the Vice Presi-
dent of the United States to oppose an already
lost measure, by using, for his purposes, an un-
fortunate argument, made no less a man than
the great lawgiver of this continent change his
views, and with his change the fortunes of the
bill were changed. The Chancellor, looking
from his political standpoint, undoubtedly
thought that if the ability of this State was
taxed to the utmost in constructing a canal, that
the dominant party would find more difficulty
in involving the nation in war; than it would
havej if our finances were embarrassed, and that
with the Vice President “ the wish was father
to the thought.”
This law, that was passed with so much diffi-
culty, created the Board known as the ‘ Com-
missioners of the Canal Fund,” consisting of the
Lieutenant Governor, the Comptroller, the At-
torney General, the Surveyor General, Secre-
tary of State, and the State Treasurer, whose
duty it is “ to manage to the best advantage all
things belonging to said fund.”
The Canal Commissioners were authorized to
commence constructing the canals from Lakes
Erie and Champlain to the Hudson river. by
opening communication by canals and locks
between the Mohawk aud Seneca rivers, and
between Lake Champlain and the Hudson river,16
receiving from the Commissioners' of the Canal
fund the moneys necessary.
A fund was created, by imposing a duty of
twelve and a half cents per bushel upon all salt
to be manufactured in the western district of
this State; a tax of one dollar on every passen-
ger that should make a trip of over one hundred
miles on any steamboat on the Hudson river,
and half that sum for any distance less than one
hundred miles and over thirty miles ; the pro-
ceeds of all lotteries which should be drawn in
this State, after the sums then granted on them
were paid; all the net proceeds from the West-
ern Inland Navigation Company property which
was to be purchased; all the donations made,
or to be made ; all the duties upon sales at auc-
tion, after deducting $33,500 annually, which
sum was appropriated to the Hospital, economi-
cal school, orphan asylum, and foreign poor in
the city of New York.
Besides these several means of revenue, $250,-
000 were to be raised by levying a tax on all
the lands and real esiate lying along the route
of said canals, and within twenty-five miles there-
of on each side, the assessment to be made by
the Canal Commissioners according to the bene-
fit which in their opinion will be derived from
the canals.
This financial scheme proved eminently suc-
cessful. The salt duties alone paying towards
the canals more than $3,000,000—which is con-
siderably more than one-third of the cost of
both of them—and by September, 1833, the salt
and auction duties had paid $5,812,621. (State
Engineer’s Report 1862, p. 139.) The tax on
steamboat passengers was suspended the next
year, and the tax on lands along the canals was
never collected, and the lotteries never paid any-
thing.
George Tibbetts, then a Senator from Troy,
was the author of this financial scheme, and to
him belongs the great credit that has so justly
been awarded to it. (Hosack, See Stones’ and
Tibbitt’s account.)
v Thus has been traced from the suggestion of
Gouverneur Morris, in 1803, to Simeon De Witt,
in the year 1817, the project of uniting Lake
Erie and tile-water on the Hudson river—for
thus long was the State in maturing anything
that can justly be called a canal policy—and
from so small a beginning did this mighty policy
spring..
The time was ripe, and the men, just fitted to
do the various thiogs that were necessary to
be done, most fortunately stood ready for the
duty. Gouverneur Morris is beyond all doubt
entitled to the credit of having made the sug-
gestion of the “ interior route.” This sugges-
tion was seized by a man who, though of few
words, was persevering, and who by hard labor
accomplished great results.
It has been asked why Mr. Geddes, being ft
member of the Legislature when Mr. De Witt
told him of Mr. Morris’s “romantic” scheme,
did not move for some legislative action. The
answer is, he had then had no time to mature
his views, nor had he yet gathered such facts as
were necessary to justify legislative action. To
appropriate all the knowledge of the to*
pography of the country that then existed was
his first work. Correspondence with land
agents and surveyors in the Western part of the
State was resorted to, and so successful had
been his inquiries that, when in 1808 Mr. De
Witt issued his instructions as to a survey, Mr.
Ellicotfc had pointed out a route from the Niag*
ara river to the Genesee—which, if a better one
could not be found, it was thought would an-
swer for the then supposed wants of a canal—
so that that the whole question was very soon
narrowed down to the country between the
Genesee river and the head waters of Mud Creek*
By 1807, the time had come for legislative ac-
tion, and few men have ever lived in this State
better calculated to procure such action than
Joshua Forman. The only apparent difficulty
was in his belonging to the Federal party in
politics, and living in a county strongly Demo-
cratic, and thus as a partizan he could not be
elected; and to secure his services it was neces-
sary to form a new party—a canal party. This
was done so well that the then Democratic
member of Congress, Dr. Kirkpatrick, as well
as many others prominent in that party, ar-
dently supported the movement. Forman was
successful in the Legislature, and the survey of
1808 was the result, and this survey led to the
appointment of a Board of Canal Commission-
ers, having for one of its members De Witt Clin-
ton, who personally informed himself of the
topographical formation of the country, and17
thus became convinced of the practicability of a
canal; and holding the position that be did in
political influence in the State, he was able to
do more than it has at any other time been
granted 'to one man to do for the glory and
prospeiity of our State.
In a government constituted like ours, no
great measure can be successful without the
Concurrence of the efforts of many influential
then; and now that we look back on this, we
Cannot but see that, while to no one man can we
give all the credit, there is enough to divide and
give an ample share to every one of those who
were instrumental in bringing everything to a
successful conclusion.
No more fitting words can be chosen to close
this paper than those used by Mr. Morris in the
Commissioner’s Report of 1812:
“ The life of an individual is short. The time
is not distant when those who make this report
will have passed away. But we can fix no term
to the existence of a State; and the first wish
of a patriot’s heart is, that his own may be eter-
nal. But whatever limit may have been assign-
ed to the duration of New York by those eter-
nal decrees which established the heavens and
the earth, it is hardly to be expected that she
will be blotted from the list of political societies
before the effects here predicted shall have been
sensibly felt. And even when, by the flow of
that perpetual stream which bears all human in-
stitutions away, our Constitution shall be dis-
solved and our laws be lost, still the descendants
of our children’s children will remain. The
same mountains will stand, the same river’s flow,
new moral combinations will be formed on the
old physical foundations, and the extended line
of remote posterity, after the lapse of thousands
of years, and the ravages of repeated revolu-
tions; when the records of history shall have
been obliterated, and the tongue of tradition
have converted the shadowy remembrance of
ancient events into childish tales of miracle,—
this national work shall fremain. It shall bear
testimony to the genius, the learning, the indus-
try and intelligence of the present age.”
\APPENDIX.
APPENDIX A.
Judge Oliver R. Strong, now eighty-five years
old, still hale and hearty, in the full possession
of all his faculties, and who for nearly half a
century held important offices—amoDg them
Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, Member
of Assembly, and County Treasurer—and who
all his life has commanded the respect of all
men, has at various times reminded me of a con-
versation that occurred early in 1804, imme-
diately after Mr. Geddes had returned from
serving in the Legislature of that year, at Onon-
daga Hill, then the county seat, naming as pres-
ent Doctor Walter Cotton, General John C. Ellis,
Warren Ellis, and others. Mr. Geddes told the
gentlemen present of the suggestion that he had
received in Albany of a route^or a canal across
the country direct from Lake Erie, avoiding
Lake Ontario entirely, and urged its impor-
tance, and the probability of the practicabi ity
of such a scheme. Judge Strong has written
me a letter saying that he well remembers the
election of Judge Forman in 1807; that Forman
was well known to be in favor of a canal, say-
ing—“ I know many of the party opposed to
him politically voted for him under the belief
that he would render essential service in pro-
moting the object which was near the hearts of
all at that time; namely, the canal.” Judge
Strong voted at that election, and he verifies the
date of the conversation of Mr. Geddes in regard
to the information he had brought from Albany,
by circumstances that leave no doubt as to the
accuracy of his memory. In Mr. Geddes’s let-
ter to Dr. Hosack (page 262 of the Memoir) he
said: “ When Mr. Morris’s-project of construct-
ing a canal across the country, the whole dis-
tance from Lake Erie to the Hudson, was made
known and discussed in the interior, the scheme
was adopted there, and spread with inconceiv-
able rapidity.”
APPENDIX B.
In 1846 Judge Forman, feeble with old age,
made a journey from his then home in North
Carolina, to visit his friends yet alive in Onon-
daga. His presence here produced much ex-
citement, which found some expression in a pub-
lic dinner given him at the Syracuse House. At
this dinner speeches were made, and the Judge’s
services to the State and this locality furnished
a fruitful topic. Thomas Wheeler, then a res-
ident of Salina, wrote a letter for publication in
the Cnondaga Democrat, from which the following
extract is taken:
“ In April, 1807, Judge Forman called on me
at Salina, and wanted me to support him for
Member of Assembly, and urged as an induce-
ment that he wanted to make a proposition for
a canal from Lake Erie to the Hudson; and
also urged the Duke of Bridgwater’s canal, and
the great increase of the salt trade after it was
finished. He alluded to the remark of Thomas
Jefterson that there was money in the
United States Treasury which might be ap-
propriated to roads and canals; and took the
ground that there was no other place where a
canal could be made [on account of the Alle-
ghany mountains] in the United States, but
through the State of New York, to connect the
great lakes with tide-water. He also stated
that Gouverneur Morris had written from the
banks of Lake Erie that the money that Great
Britain had expended in one campaign in war
would make a ship canal from where he stood
to tide-water; that the canal, if made, must pass
near where he then sat; that it should be a State
concern and not a Political one; and went into a
calculation of the expense, which, with wooden
locks, we made less than $5,000,000. Thus he
urged me for more than an hour; but I refused.
He then started to go away, and when near the
door turned round and asked me if I ever stood
on Caneseraga hills, and observed that the coun-
try north, east and west was level as far as the
eye could reach. I told him I had; and then I
thought if a canal was only made from Rome19
to Cayuga Lake, it would be of great advantage
to this section of the State, and then I agreed to
support him, and thought the business closed.
But he was not satisfied. He wanted to see
William Kirkpatrick, the Superintendent of the
Onondaga Salt Springs. The Doctor came, and
much the same arguments and calculations were
used and gone through with, at the close of
which Doctor K. raised both hands and said,
with much emphasis, “I will support you.’
Soon after, I gave a boy three dollars to attend
the election in another town, and see that each
elector had a ticket with Joshua Farman’s name
on it, which I think was the first money ever
paid for starting the Brie Canal.”
To give further information in regard to the
election of Judge Forman in 1807, the statement
of Mr. Ira A. Gillchres, who still lives in the
town of Salina, is added to this note.
In 1806, coming from Whitesboro, Oneida
county, with Capt. William Gillchres, his father,
Judge Forman and others, from attending a law-
suit, in which Capt. Gillchres was a party, and
Judge Forman was his lawyer, they rested on
top of Caneseraga Hill, Judge Forman pointed
out the level country north of them and said to
Capt. G.,—“ Is not that a fine plane 1 The time
is not far distant when yon will see vessels
sailing along that plane; you will see the waters
of the Hudson and Lake Erie mingled together.’»
Explaining his views at length, Capt. G. became
convinced of their value, and said to the Judge
that he should go the Legislature and get an
appropriation for surveys. To this the reply
was, that, being a Federalist, he could not ex-
pect to be elected. To this Capt. G. said he
thought that his influence in the* Democratic
party might overcome that difficulty. Mr. Ira
A. Gillchres goes on to say, that the political
movement thus suggested by his father was
made, and that the ticket at the election was
beaded “ Canal Ticket” and that from Capt. Gill-
shres’ tavern in Salina these tickets were sent
over the county. The heading of the tickets
was designed to give strength to the movement.
This same Ira A. Gillchres was one of Mr. Ged-
les’s party in his survey in 1808.
This Jong note is inserted that there may be
10 doubt as to the fact that the election in 1807
urned in Onondaga county on the question of a
jacal across the country (not by Lake Ontario),
as this whole matter has been ignored by the
claimants to the honor of fir&t proposing the in-
terior route, without having received the sug-
gestion as coming from Goaverneur Morris.
append ix c.
In 1829 appeared Dr. Hosack’s memoir of
DeWitt Clinton. In the Appendix (page 301,
&c.), Mr. Hawley sets up the claim to have
been the originator of the overland route; and
again, in the Monroe Democrat in 1835, he
pressed his claims on the public. To the Dem-
ocrat Mr. Geddes wrote under date of November
16th, 1835, and said: “ In a letter written Feb*
ruary, 1822, by Simeon DeWitt, Esq., the lat©
Surveyor General, which letter has been pub*
lished in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, he says
—* The merit of first starting the idea of a di-
rect communication by water, between Lake
Erie and Hudson River, unquestionably belongs
to Mr.- Gouverneur Morris. The first suggestion
I had of it was from him in 1803,’ * * Mr.
DeWitt further remarks—‘ Mr. Geddes says,
when in company with Mr. Jesse Hawley it [the
canal project] became a subject of conversation,
which probably led to enquiries that induced
Mr, Hawley to write the essays which after-
wards appeared in newspapers on the subject of
carrying a canal from Lake Erie to Albany,*
The above letter remained seven years unno-
ticed, until 1829, when Dr. Hosack’s Memoir ap-
peared, containing Mr. Hawley’s letter.” Mr.
Geddes goes on to say: “Bound in the same
boards was a letter to Dr. Hosack from me (p.
226), in which I say I have not the least doubt
that the ideas of every one on the internal route
project are traceable to the conversations in
1803 between DeWitt and Morris. And was it
not reasonable that no doubt should remain
with me, seven years having passed away, with-
out the appearance of any gainsayer 1” * * *
In writing to Dr. Hosack in 1829, through
precipitancy, not consulting dates which were
at my hand, I blundered respecting the year
when I saw Mr. Hawley in Geneva and informed
him of Mr. Morris’s canal project. Mr. Hawley
says it was at Geneva, whin ‘ visiting his relatives
with whom I boarded.’ That this visit was in
in 1805, and not in 1806, can be proved by sev?
eral persons now (1835) living, and by written
records indisputable. In the Democrat of the20
13th October, Mr. Hawley says—‘ The idea oc-
curred to me about the 5th of April, 1805.*
This was about two months after his interview
with me, and not about ten months before, as he
writes to Doctor Hosack.” In Mr. Geddes’s
letter to Dr. Hosack, page 266, he says: 111
have the most perfect recollection of circum-
stances, time and place, when I informed Mr,
Jesse Hawley of the project. * * * I had a
few days before seen a map of the country west
of the Genesee River, from which I had received
new ideas as to the probable track of such a
canal, and finding in him a taste for such dis-
quisitions, I conversed at length with him on
the subject, and have no doubt but that I then
informed him that the idea came from Mr,
Morris.”
APPENDIX D.
Since the foregoing paper on the “ Origin of
the Erie Canal” was read before the Buffalo
Historical Society, I have been favored by
Gouverneur Morris, Esq., son of the projector
of the interior route of the canal, with the op-
portunity of a full examination of such papers
as are still preserved, that were left by that ex-
traordinary man. From 1800 to within a few
days of his death, in 1816, he kept a diary, but
in which is entered only such matters as related
to farm operations, the state of the weather,
and the journeys he made; nor, except in rare
instances, is there to be found any allusions to
public events, or to public matters. Yet there
were a few things that appeared worth repro-
ducing here, as throwing light on some points
discussed in the body of the paper. In 1803
Mr. Morris made a journey, by way of Oneida
and Ontario Lakes to his lands in St. Lawrence
county. At Three River Point (the confluence
of the Oneida and Seneca rivers), he appears to
have been struck with the fact that the canal
must not follow along the line of these rivers
and the Oneida Lake, as by so doing it would
be lower than the Rc me summit; so he writes
in his diary that it “ should be taken from the
head of Onondaga [Seneca 1] river, and carried
on the level as far east it will go, and, if practi-
cable, iDto the Mohawk river; theD. in as direct
a course as circumstances will permit, to Hud-
son’s River, making locks as the descent may
require. This canal should, I think, be five feet
deep, and five and forty feet wide. A branch
might easily be carried to Lake Ontario, the fit-
test harbor would be, I believe, at Oswego.”
This entry is dated Sept. 12tb, 1803. On hi*
way up be mentions the fact of having spent a
night in Schenectady. This must have been the
evening when, as related by Simeon DeWitt, he
talked of “ tapping Lake Erie, as he expressed
himself, and leading its waters, in an artificial
river, directly across the country to Hudson’s
River” (Canal Laws, vol. 1, p. 39.)
At Three River Point, Mr. Morris saw that a.
branch might connect the grand canal with Lake
Ontario at Oswego. But my principal object in
introducing this extract was to show, that Mr.
Morris was willing to conform to the face of the
country, “ making locks as the descent may re-
quire.” This would indicate that lie was not
so wedded to an inclined plane as to have made
it necessary to have left him off a commission
that he had been at the head of until 1816.
Among the papers was found the draft of a
letter to Henry Latrobe, Esq., dated April 25th,
1810, informing him of the appointment of com^
missioners and their proposed examinations.
He says: “ I hope the business may be effected
in a proper manner, for it is, I believe, the most
extensive theatre for skill and industry
which can be found on this globe. But I fear
that our minds are not yet enlarged to the siae
of so great an object, and I am thoroughly per-
suaded that the attempt at, and still more the
execution of, any little- scheme will probably
prostrate, and certainly postpone, that which is
alone worthy of notice.”
In July, 1810, while performing his duty in
exploring as commissioner, Mr. Morris saw Mr.
Ellieott at Batavia, and found him strongly in
favor of the route near that place and by Allen’s
Creek to the Genesee river, and confident that a
supply of water, could be bad for the summit
level. Under date of July 21st, 1810, he enters
the following in his journal: “ We cross the
Tonnewanda Creek this morning, and the view
of it renders calculation unnecessary. Decidedly
there is not water. At Vanderrenters, where
we get breakfast, we met the representative of
the county, who thinks there will be no diffi-
culty in bringing a canal round the falls so as
to use the water of Lake Erie. I am perfectly21
convinced that unless this can be done, every
attempt at any useful navigation must fail.”
After Mr, Morris was dead, great efforts were
made by certain parties to show that when he
wrote to Mr. Parish and talked to various per-
sons in regard to ships sailiog from London by
the Hudson river to Lake Erie, he meant to
have such ships go by Oswego through Lake
Ontario and then around the falls of Niagara.
His conversation with Mr. Do Witt in 1803, out
of which sprang the measures that led to the
construction of the canal, appears to be a con-
clusive answer to such caviling; and I cannot
see any reason to doubt the correctness of Gov-
ernor Seward’s declaration in his introduction
to the Natural History of the State of New York
(p. 86).	‘ To Gouverneur Morris, history will
assign the merit of first suggesting a direct and
continuous communication from Lake Erie to
the Hudson.” Cadwallader D. Colden, in his
elaborate memoir, giving the history of the ca-
nal and of the celebration of its completion,
takes ground (in the body of the work) against
the claims of Mr. Morris to this credit, but in
his errata et corrigenda, at the eod of the volume,
where few men have ever seen it, he has the
following: “ 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 contemplated a water communica-
tion directly from that lake to the Hudson, and
did not as the memoir supposes he might have
done, refer to a comnunication by the Niagara
Canal, and Lake Ontario.” Much more proof
of the positiou I have taken as to Mr, Morris’s
claim might be added, but I forbear, offering as
an excuse for having given so much that recent-
ly very groundless claims to this honor have
been revived.
t