Canal age
The Canal Age is a term of art used by science, technology, and industry historians. Various parts of the world have had various canal ages; the main ones belong to Egypt, Ancient Babylon, and the historical empires of India, China, Southeast Asia, and mercantile Europe. The successes of the Canal du Midi in France, Bridgewater Canal in Britain, and Eiderkanal in Denmark spurred on what was called in Britain "canal mania". In the Thirteen Colonies in 1762 legislation was passed supporting in the colonial-era Province of Pennsylvania to improve navigation on the Schuylkill River through Philadelphia.
Canals were critical industry, as until steam locomotives, canals were by the fastest way to travel long distances. Commercial canals generally had boatmen shifts that kept the barges moving behind mule teams 24 hours a day.
North American canal age
Technology archaeologists and industrial historians date the American Canal Age from 1790 to 1855 based on momentum and new construction activity, since many of the older canals, although limited by locks that restricted boat sizes below the most economic capacities, nonetheless continued in service well into the twentieth century.Background
From the first days of the expansion of the British colonies from the coast of North America into the heartland of the continent, a recurring problem was that of transportation between the coastal ports and the interior. This was not unique to the Americas, and the problem still exists in those parts of the world where muscle power provides a primary means of transportation within a region. An equally ancient solution was implemented in many cultures — things in the water weighed far less and took less effort to move since friction became negligible. Close to the seacoast, rivers often provided adequate waterways, but the Appalachian Mountains, inland, running over long as a barrier range with just five passes where mule trains or wagon roads could be routed, presented a great challenge. Passengers and freight had to travel overland, a journey made more difficult by the rough condition of the roads. In 1800, it typically took 2.5 weeks to travel overland from New York to Cleveland, Ohio and 4 weeks to Detroit .The principal exportable product of the Ohio Valley was grain, which was a high-volume, low-priced commodity, bolstered by supplies from the coast. Frequently it was not worth the cost of transporting it to far-away population centers. This was a factor leading to farmers in the west turning their grains into whiskey for easier transport and higher sales, and later the Whiskey Rebellion. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, it became clear to coastal residents that the city or state that succeeded in developing a cheap, reliable route to the West would enjoy economic success, and the port at the seaward end of such a route would see business increase greatly. In time, projects were devised in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and relatively deep into the coastal states.
Early history
The idea of a canal to tie the East Coast of the United States to the new western settlements was already in the air by 1724: New York provincial official Cadwallader Colden made a passing reference to improving the natural waterways of western New York.Gouverneur Morris and Elkanah Watson were early proponents of a canal along the Mohawk River. Their efforts led to the creation of the Western and Northern Inland Lock Navigation Companies in 1792, but the company proved that private financing was insufficient.
George Washington led a partly enduring effort to turn the Potomac River into a navigable link to the west, sinking substantial energy and capital into the Patowmack Canal from 1785 until his death fourteen years later.
By 1788 Washington's Potomac Company was successful in constructing five locks which took boats past the Potomac Great Falls. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal superseded the Potomac Canal in 1823.
Christopher Colles surveyed the Mohawk Valley, and made a presentation to the New York state legislature in 1784 proposing a canal from Lake Ontario. The proposal drew attention and some action but was never implemented.
Jesse Hawley finally got the canal built. He had envisioned encouraging the growing of large quantities of grain on the Western New York plains for sale on the Eastern seaboard. However, he went bankrupt trying to ship grain to the coast. While in Canandaigua debtors' prison, Hawley began pressing for the construction of a canal along the Mohawk River valley with support from Joseph Ellicott. Ellicott realized that a canal would add value to the land he was selling in the western part of the state. He later became the first canal commissioner.
The first legislation supporting canals in North America was passed in 1762 in the colonial-era Province of Pennsylvania to improve navigation on the Schuylkill River through Philadelphia, the largest city in North America. It provided for the surveying of a lock canal along the Schuylkill tributary Tulpehocken Creek; this would be built between 1782 and 1828 as the Union Canal, part of the omnibus Pennsylvania legislative package, the Main Line of Public Works, and was the only water route connecting the Susquehanna and Delaware Rivers above the Chesapeake Bay.
Next up there were numerous schemes and bills placed before the Pennsylvania assembly in the 1790-1816 time frame to improve navigation on the Susquehanna, Schuylkill and Lehigh Rivers, the first being the Schuylkill and Susquehanna Navigation Company in 1791. They consumed private capital and public monies, but were little successful. Concurrently, the predecessor of the Erie Canal was begun in New York State and in New England, Connecticut and Massachusetts were looking at a few waterways needing better navigability. The Lehigh Canal was developed when the last of these licenses, awarded in 1816, expired in early 1818 with virtually nothing to show for the funds spent. This expiration allowed the state to give rights-of-way to the Lehigh Navigation and Coal Company in March 1818, founded by two disgruntled formerly enthusiastic backers of the Schuylkill Canal which was chartered in 1812 but like the earlier Lehigh River projects, languished lazily, only raising a small amount of new funds annually, and getting only a little amount of work done accordingly. Josiah White and partner Erskine Hazard needing fuel for their wire mill and nail factory at the falls of the Schuylkill fought this plodding method of incremental improvement for years.
Like many North American canals of the 1820s-1840s, the canal operating companies partnered with or founded short feeder railroads to connect to their sources or markets. Two good examples of this were funded by private enterprise:
- The Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company used vertically integrated mining raw materials, transporting them, manufacturing with them, and merchandising by building coal mines, the instrumental Lehigh Canal, and feeding their own iron goods manufacturing industries and assuaging the American Republic's first energy crisis by increasing coal production from 1820 onwards using the nation's second constructed railway, the Summit Hill and Mauch Chunk Railroad.
- The second coal road and canal system was inspired by LC&N's success. The Delaware and Hudson Canal and Delaware and Hudson Gravity Railroad. The LC&N operation was aimed at supplying the country's premier city, Philadelphia with much needed fuel. The D&H companies were founded purposefully to supply the explosively growing city of New York's energy needs.
Early railroads in North America made many canals economically feasible, and canal's needs added to the demands by industries that pushed the early railroads into pressurized research and development and rapid steady improvements.
By 1855, canals were no longer the civil engineering work of first resort, for it was nearly always better—cheaper to build a railroad above ground than it was to dig a watertight ditch 6–8 feet deep and provide it with water and make annual repairs for ice and freshet damages—even though the cost per ton mile on a canal was often cheaper in an operational sense, canals couldn't be built along hills and dales, nor backed into odd corners, as could a railroad siding.
Engineering requirements
The Mohawk River, a tributary of the Hudson River, rises near Lake Ontario and runs in a glacial meltwater channel just north of the Catskill range of the Appalachian Mountains, separating them from the geologically distinct Adirondacks to the north. The Mohawk and Hudson valleys form the only cut across the Appalachians north of Alabama, allowing an almost complete water route from New York City in the south to Lake Ontario and Lake Erie in the west. Along its course and from these lakes, other Great Lakes, and to a lesser degree, related rivers, a large part of the continent's interior and many settlements were well connected to the Eastern seaboard.The problem was that the land rises about from the Hudson to Lake Erie. Locks at the time could handle up to, so even with the heftiest cuttings and viaducts, fifty locks would be required along the canal. Such a canal would be expensive to build even with modern technology; in 1800, the expense was barely imaginable. President Thomas Jefferson called it "a little short of madness" and rejected it; however, Hawley interested New York Governor DeWitt Clinton in the project. There was much opposition, and the project was ridiculed as "Clinton's folly" and "Clinton's ditch." In 1817, though, Clinton received approval from the legislature for $7 million for construction.
The original canal was long, from Albany on the Hudson to Buffalo on Lake Erie. The channel was cut wide and deep, with removed soil piled on the downhill side to form a walkway known as a towpath.
Its construction, through limestone and mountains, proved a daunting task. The canal was built using some of the most advanced engineering technology from Holland. In 1823 construction reached the Niagara Escarpment, necessitating the building of five locks along a corridor to carry the canal over the escarpment. To move earth, animals pulled a "slip scraper". The sides of the canal were lined with stone set in clay, and the bottom was also lined with clay. The stonework required hundreds of German masons, who later built many of New York's buildings. All labor on the canal depended upon human power or the force of water. Engineering techniques developed during its construction included the building of aqueducts to redirect water; one aqueduct was long to span of river. As the canal progressed, the crews and engineers working on the project developed expertise and became a skilled labor force.