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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/3098-0.txt b/3098-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..78086cd --- /dev/null +++ b/3098-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5127 @@ +The Paths of Inland Commerce by Archer B. Hulbert, an eBook presented by +Project Gutenberg. + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost +no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it +under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this +eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +Title: The Paths of Inland Commerce +A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, +Volume 21 of The Chronicles of America Series +Author: Archer B. Hulbert +Release Date: February 28, 2009 [EBook #3098] +Last Updated: September 31, 2006 +Language: English +Character set encoding: UTF-8. + +Produced by The James J. Kelly Library Of St. Gregory's University, Alev +Akman, Dianne Bean, Doris Ringbloom, David Widger and Robert Homa. + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PATHS OF INLAND COMMERCE +*** + +The Paths of Inland Commerce + +By Archer B. Hulbert + +A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway + +Volume 21 of the +Chronicles of America Series +∴ +Allen Johnson, Editor +Assistant Editors +Gerhard R. Lomer +Charles W. Jefferys + +Abraham Lincoln Edition + +New Haven: Yale University Press +Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Co. +London: Humphrey Milford +Oxford University Press +1920 + + +Copyright, 1920 +by Yale University Press + + + + + + +PREFACE + +If the great American novel is ever written, I hazard the guess that its +plot will be woven around the theme of American transportation, for that +has been the vital factor in the national development of the United +States. Every problem in the building of the Republic has been, in the +last analysis, a problem in transportation. The author of such a novel +will find a rich fund of material in the perpetual rivalries of +pack-horseman and wagoner, of riverman and canal boatman, of steamboat +promoter and railway capitalist. He will find at every point the old +jostling and challenging the new: pack-horsemen demolishing wagons in +the early days of the Alleghany traffic; wagoners deriding Clinton's +Ditch; angry boatmen anxious to ram the paddle wheels of Fulton's +Clermont, which threatened their monopoly. Such opposition has always +been an incident of progress; and even in this new country, receptive as +it was to new ideas, the Washingtons, the Fitches, the Fultons, the +Coopers, and the Whitneys, who saw visions and dreamed dreams, all had +to face scepticism and hostility from those whom they would serve. + +A. B. H. + +Worcester, Mass., +June, 1919. + + + +The Paths of Inland Commerce +Chapter Chapter Title Page + Preface vii + I. The Man Who Caught The Vision 1 + II. The Red Man's Trail 14 + III. The Mastery Of The Rivers 30 + IV. A Nation On Wheels 44 + V. The Flatboat Age 62 + VI. The Passing Show Of 1800 81 + VII. The Birth Of The Steamboat 100 +VIII. The Conquest Of The Alleghanies 116 + IX. The Dawn Of The Iron Age 134 + X. The Pathway of the Lakes 154 + XI. The Steamboat And The West 174 + Bibliographical Note 197 + Index 203 + + +THE PATHS OF INLAND COMMERCE + +∴ +CHAPTER I. + +The Man Who Caught the Vision + +Inland America, at the birth of the Republic, was as great a mystery to +the average dweller on the Atlantic seaboard as the elephant was to the +blind men of Hindustan. The reports of those who had penetrated this +wilderness--of those who had seen the barren ranges of the Alleghanies, +the fertile uplands of the Unakas, the luxuriant blue-grass regions, the +rich bottom lands of the Ohio and Mississippi, the wide shores of the +inland seas, or the stretches of prairie increasing in width beyond the +Wabash--seemed strangely contradictory, and no one had been able to +patch these reports together and grasp the real proportions of the giant +inland empire that had become a part of the United States. It was a +pathless desert; it was a maze of trails, trodden out by deer, buffalo, +and Indian. Its great riverways were broad avenues for voyagers and +explorers; they were treacherous gorges filled with the plunder of a +million floods. It was a rich soil, a land of plenty; the natives were +seldom more than a day removed from starvation. Within its broad +confines could dwell a great people; but it was as inaccessible as the +interior of China. It had a great commercial future; yet its gigantic +distances and natural obstructions defied all known means of +transportation. + +Such were the varied and contradictory stories told by the men who had +entered the portals of inland America. It is not surprising, therefore, +that theories and prophecies about the interior were vague and +conflicting nor that most of the schemes of statesmen and financiers for +the development of the West were all parts and no whole. They all agreed +as to the vast richness of that inland realm and took for granted an +immense commerce therein that was certain to yield enormous profits. In +faraway Paris, the ingenious diplomat, Silas Deane, writing to the +Secret Committee of Congress in 1776, pictured the Old +Northwest--bounded by the Ohio, the Alleghanies, the Great Lakes, and +the Mississippi--as paying the whole expense of the Revolutionary War. ¹ +Thomas Paine in 1780 drew specifications for a State of from twenty to +thirty millions of acres lying west of Virginia and south of the Ohio +River, the sale of which land would pay the cost of three years of the +war. ² On the other hand, Pelatiah Webster, patriotic economist that he +was, decried in 1781 all schemes to "pawn" this vast westward region; he +likened such plans to "killing the goose that laid an egg every day, in +order to tear out at once all that was in her belly." He advocated the +township system of compact and regular settlement; and he argued that +any State making a cession of land would reap great benefit "from the +produce and trade" of the newly created settlements. + +¹ Deane's plan was to grant a tract two hundred miles square at the +junction of the Ohio and the Mississippi to a company on the condition +that a thousand families should be settled on it within seven years. He +added that, as this company would be in a great degree commercial, the +establishing of commerce at the junction of those large rivers would +immediately give a value to all the lands situated on or near them. +² Paine thought that while the new State could send its exports +southward down the Mississippi, its imports must necessarily come from +the East through Chesapeake Bay because the current of the Mississippi +was too strong to be overcome by any means of navigation then known. + +There were mooted many other schemes. General Rufus Putnam, for example, +advocated the Pickering or "Army" plan of occupying the West; he wanted +a fortified line to the Great Lakes, in case of war with England, and +fortifications on the Ohio and the Mississippi, in case Spain should +interrupt the national commerce on these waterways. And Thomas Jefferson +theorized in his study over the toy states of Metropotamia and +Polypotamia--brought his + + ... trees and houses out + And planted cities all about. + +But it remained for George Washington, the Virginia planter, to catch, +in something of its actual grandeur, the vision of a Republic stretching +towards the setting sun, bound and unified by paths of inland commerce. +It was Washington who traversed the long ranges of the Alleghanies, +slept in the snows of Deer Park with no covering but his greatcoat, +inquired eagerly of trapper and trader and herder concerning the courses +of the Cheat, the Monongahela, and the Little Kanawha, and who drew from +these personal explorations a clear and accurate picture of the future +trade routes by which the country could be economically, socially, and +nationally united. + +Washington's experience had peculiarly fitted him to catch this vision. +Fortune had turned him westward as he left his mother's knee. First as a +surveyor for Lord Fairfax in the Shenandoah Valley and later, under +Braddock and Forbes, in the armies fighting for the Ohio against the +French he had come to know the interior as it was known by no other man +of his standing. His own landed property lay largely along the upper +Potomac and in and beyond the Alleghanies. Washington's interest in this +property was very real. Those who attempt to explain his early concern +with the West as purely altruistic must misread his numerous letters and +diaries. Nothing in his unofficial character shows more plainly than his +business enterprise and acumen. On one occasion he wrote to his agent, +Crawford, concerning a proposed land speculation: "I recommend that you +keep this whole matter a secret or trust it only to those in whom you +can confide. If the scheme I am now proposing to you were known, it +might give alarm to others, and by putting them on a plan of the same +nature, before we could lay a proper foundation for success ourselves, +set the different interests clashing and in the end overturn the whole." +Nor can it be denied that Washington's attitude to the commercial +development of the West was characterized in his early days by a narrow +colonial partisanship. He was a stout Virginian; and all stout +Virginians of that day refused to admit the pretensions of other +colonies to the land beyond the mountains. + +But from no man could the shackles of self-interest and provincial +rivalry drop more quickly than they dropped from Washington when he +found his country free after the close of the Revolutionary War. He then +began to consider how that country might grow and prosper. And he began +to preach the new doctrine of expansion and unity. This new doctrine +first appears in a letter which he wrote to the Marquis de Chastellux in +1783, after a tour from his camp at Newburg into central New York, where +he had explored the headwaters of the Mohawk and the Susquehanna: "I +could not help taking a more extensive view of the vast inland +navigation of these United States [the letter runs] and could not but be +struck by the immense extent and importance of it, and of the goodness +of that Providence which has dealt its favors to us with so profuse a +hand. Would to God we may have wisdom enough to improve them. I shall +not rest contented till I have explored the Western country, and +traversed those lines, or great part of them, which have given bounds to +a new empire." + +"The vast inland navigation of these United States!" It is an +interesting fact that Washington should have had his first glimpse of +this vision from the strategic valley of the Mohawk, which was soon to +rival his beloved Potomac as an improved commercial route from the +seaboard to the West, and which was finally to achieve an unrivaled +superiority in the days of the Erie Canal and the Twentieth Century +Limited. + +We may understand something of what the lure of the West meant to +Washington when we learn that in order to carry out his proposed journey +after the Revolution, he was compelled to refuse urgent invitations to +visit Europe and be the guest of France. "I found it indispensably +necessary," he writes, "to visit my Landed property West of the +Apalacheon Mountains.... One object of my journey being to obtain +information of the nearest and best communication between Eastern & +Western waters; & to facilitate as much as in me lay the Inland +Navigation of the Potomack." + +On September 1, 1784, Washington set out from Mount Vernon on his +journey to the West. Even the least romantic mind must feel a thrill in +picturing this solitary horseman, the victor of Yorktown, threading the +trails of the Potomac, passing on by Cumberland and Fort Necessity and +Braddock's grave to the Monongahela. The man, now at the height of his +fame, is retracing the trails of his boyhood--covering ground over which +he had passed as a young officer in the last English and French war--but +he is seeing the land in so much larger perspective that, although his +diary is voluminous, the reader of those pages would not know that +Washington had been this way before. Concerning Great Meadows, where he +first saw the "bright face of danger" and which he once described +gleefully as "a charming place for an encounter," he now significantly +remarks: "The upland, East of the meadow, is good for grain." Changed +are the ardent dreams that filled the young man's heart when he wrote to +his mother from this region that singing bullets "have truly a charming +sound." Today, as he looks upon the flow of Youghiogheny, he sees it +reaching out its finger tips to Potomac's tributaries. He perceives a +similar movement all along the chain of the Alleghanies: on the west are +the Great Lakes and the Ohio, and reaching out towards them from the +east, waiting to be joined by portage road and canal, are the Hudson, +the Susquehanna, the Potomac, and the James. He foresees these streams +bearing to the Atlantic ports the golden produce of the interior and +carrying back to the interior the manufactured goods of the seaboard. He +foresees the Republic becoming homogeneous, rich, and happy. "Open all +the communication which nature has afforded," he wrote Henry Lee, +"between the Atlantic States and the Western territory, and encourage +the use of them to the utmost ... and sure I am there is no other tie by +which they will long form a link in the chain of Federal Union." + +Crude as were the material methods by which Washington hoped to +accomplish this end, in spirit he saw the very America that we know +today; and he marked out accurately the actual pathways of inland +commerce that have played their part in the making of America. Taking +the city of Detroit as the key position, commercially, he traced the +main lines of internal trade. He foresaw New York improving her natural +line of communication by way of the Mohawk and the Niagara frontier on +Lake Erie--the present line of the Erie Canal and the New York Central +Railway. For Pennsylvania, he pointed out the importance of linking the +Schuylkill and the Susquehanna and of opening the two avenues westward +to Pittsburgh and to Lake Erie. In general, he thus forecast the +Pennsylvania Canal and the Pennsylvania and the Erie railways. For +Maryland and Virginia he indicated the Potomac route as the nearest for +all the trade of the Ohio Valley, with the route by way of the James and +the Great Kanawha as an alternative for the settlements on the lower +Ohio. His vision here was realized in a later day by the Potomac and the +Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, the Cumberland Road, the Baltimore and Ohio +Railway, and by the James-Kanawha Turnpike and the Chesapeake and Ohio +Railway. + +Washington's general conclusions are stated in a summary at the end of +his Journal, which was reproduced in his classic letter to Harrison, +written in 1784. His first point is that every State which had water +routes reaching westward could enhance the value of its lands, increase +its commerce, and quiet the democratic turbulence of its shut-in pioneer +communities by the improvement of its river transportation. Taking +Pennsylvania as a specific example, he declared that "there are one +hundred thousand souls West of the Laurel Hill, who are groaning under +the inconveniences of a long land transportation.... If this cannot be +made easy for them to Philadelphia ... they will seek a mart +elsewhere.... An opposition on the part of [that] government ... would +ultimately bring on a separation between its Eastern and Western +settlements; towards which there is not wanting a disposition at this +moment in that part of it beyond the mountains." + +Washington's second proposal was the achievement of a new and lasting +conquest of the West by binding it to the seaboard with chains of +commerce. He thus states his point: "No well informed mind need be told +that the flanks and rear of the United territory are possessed by other +powers, and formidable ones too--nor how necessary it is to apply the +cement of interest to bind all parts of it together, by one indissoluble +bond--particularly the middle States with the Country immediately back +of them--for what ties let me ask, should we have upon those people; and +how entirely unconnected should we be with them if the Spaniards on +their right or Great Britain on their left, instead of throwing +stumbling blocks in their way as they do now, should invite their trade +and seek alliances with them?" + +Some of the pictures in Washington's vision reveal, in the light of +subsequent events, an almost uncanny prescience. He very plainly +prophesied the international rivalry for the trade of the Great Lakes +zone, embodied today in the Welland and the Erie canals. He declared the +possibility of navigating with ocean-going vessels the tortuous +two-thousand-mile channel of the Ohio and the Mississippi River; and +within sixteen years ships left the Ohio, crossed the Atlantic, and +sailed into the Mediterranean. His description of a possible +insurrection of a western community might well have been written later; +it might almost indeed have made a page of his diary after he became +President of the United States and during the Whiskey Insurrection in +western Pennsylvania. He approved and encouraged Rumsey's mechanical +invention for propelling boats against the stream, showing that he had a +glimpse of what was to follow after Fitch, Rumsey, and Fulton should +have overcome the mighty currents of the Hudson and the Ohio with the +steamboat's paddle wheel. His proposal that Congress should undertake a +survey of western rivers for the purpose of giving people at large a +knowledge of their possible importance as avenues of commerce was a +forecast of the Lewis and Clark expedition as well as of the policy of +the Government today for the improvement of the great inland rivers and +harbors. + +"The destinies of our country run east and west. Intercourse between the +mighty interior west and the sea coast is the great principle of our +commercial prosperity." These are the words of Edward Everett in +advocating the Boston and Albany Railroad. In effect Washington had +uttered those same words half a century earlier when he gave momentum to +an era filled with energetic but unsuccessful efforts to join with the +waters of the West the rivers reaching inland from the Atlantic. The +fact that American engineering science had not in his day reached a +point where it could cope with this problem successfully should in no +wise lessen our admiration for the man who had thus caught the vision of +a nation united and unified by improved methods of transportation. + + + + + + +CHAPTER II + +The Red Man's Trail + +For the beginnings of the paths of our inland commerce, we must look far +back into the dim prehistoric ages of America. The earliest routes that +threaded the continent were the streams and the tracks beaten out by the +heavier four-footed animals. The Indian hunter followed the migrations +of the animals and the streams that would float his light canoe. Today +the main lines of travel and transportation for the most part still +cling to these primeval pathways. + +In their wanderings, man and beast alike sought the heights, the passes +that pierced the mountain chains, and the headwaters of navigable +rivers. On the ridges the forest growth was lightest and there was +little obstruction from fallen timber; rain and frost caused least +damage by erosion; and the winds swept the trails clear of leaves in +summer and of snow in winter. Here lay the easiest paths for the heavy, +blundering buffalo and the roving elk and moose and deer. Here, high up +in the sun, where the outlook was unobstructed and signal fires could be +seen from every direction, on the longest watersheds, curving around +river and swamp, ran the earliest travel routes of the aboriginal +inhabitants and of their successors, the red men of historic times. For +their encampments and towns these peoples seem to have preferred the +more sheltered ground along the smaller streams; but, when they fared +abroad to hunt, to trade, to wage war, to seek new material for pipe and +amulet, they followed in the main the highest ways. + +If in imagination one surveys the eastern half of the North American +continent from one of the strategic passageways of the Alleghanies, say +from Cumberland Gap or from above Kittanning Gorge, the outstanding +feature in the picture will be the Appalachian barrier that separates +the interior from the Atlantic coast. To the north lie the Adirondacks +and the Berkshire Hills, hedging New England in close to the ocean. Two +glittering waterways lie east and west of these heights--the Connecticut +and the Hudson. Upon the valleys of these two rivers converged the two +deeply worn pathways of the Puritan, the Old Bay Path and the +Connecticut Path. By way of Westfield River, that silver tributary which +joins the Connecticut at Springfield, Massachusetts, the Bay Path +surmounted the Berkshire highlands and united old Massachusetts to the +upper Hudson Valley near Fort Orange, now Albany. + +Here, north of the Catskills, the Appalachian barrier subsides and gives +New York a supreme advantage over all the other Atlantic States--a level +route to the Great Lakes and the West. The Mohawk River threads the +smiling landscape; beyond lies the "Finger Lake country" and the valley +of the Genesee. Through this romantic region ran the Mohawk Trail, +sending offshoots to Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence, to the +Susquehanna, and to the Allegheny. A few names have been altered in the +course of years--the Bay Path is now the Boston and Albany Railroad, the +Mohawk Trail is the New York Central, and Fort Orange is Albany--and +thus we may tell in a dozen words the story of three centuries. + +Upon Fort Orange converged the score of land and water pathways of the +fur trade of our North. These Indian trade routes were slowly widened +into colonial roads, notably the Mohawk and Catskill turnpikes, and +these in turn were transformed into the Erie, Lehigh, Nickel Plate, and +New York Central railways. But from the day when the canoe and the keel +boat floated their bulky cargoes of pelts or the heavy laden Indian pony +trudged the trail, the routes of trade have been little or nothing +altered. + +Traversing the line of the Alleghanies southward, the eye notes first +the break in the wall at the Delaware Water Gap, and then that long arm +of the Susquehanna, the Juniata, reaching out through dark Kittanning +Gorge to its silver playmate, the dancing Conemaugh. Here amid its leafy +aisles ran the brown and red Kittanning Trail, the main route of the +Pennsylvania traders from the rich region of York, Lancaster, and +Chambersburg. On this general alignment the Broadway Limited flies today +toward Pittsburgh and Chicago. A little to the south another important +pathway from the same region led, by way of Carlisle, Bedford, and +Ligonier, to the Ohio. The "Highland Trail" the Indian traders called +it, for it kept well on the watershed dividing the Allegheny tributaries +on the north from those of the Monongahela on the south. + +Farther to the south the scene shows a change, for the Atlantic plain +widens considerably. The Potomac River, the James, the Pedee, and the +Savannah flow through valleys much longer than those of the northern +rivers. Here in the South commerce was carried on mainly by shallop and +pinnace. The trails of the Indian skirted the rivers and offered for +trader and explorer passageway to the West, especially to the towns of +the Cherokees in the southern Alleghanies or Unakas; but the waterways +and the roads over which the hogsheads of tobacco were rolled (hence +called "rolling roads") sufficed for the needs of the thin fringes of +population settled along the rivers. Trails from Winchester in Virginia +and Frederick in Maryland focused on Cumberland at the head of the +Potomac. Beyond, to the west, the finger tips of the Potomac interlocked +closely with the Monongahela and Youghiogheny, and through this network +of mountain and river valley, by the "Shades of Death" and Great +Meadows, coiled Nemacolin's Path to the Ohio. Even today this ancient +route is in part followed by the Baltimore and Ohio and the Western +Maryland Railway. + +A bird's-eye view of the southern Alleghanies shows that, while the +Atlantic plain of Virginia and the Carolinas widens out, the mountain +chains increase in number, fold on fold, from the Blue Ridge to the +ragged ranges of the Cumberlands. Few trails led across this manifold +barrier. There was a connection at Balcony Falls between the James River +and the Great Kanawha; but as a trade route it was of no such value to +the men of its day as the Chesapeake and Ohio system over the same +course is to us. As in the North, so in the South, trade avoided +obstacles by taking a roundabout, and often the longest route. In order +to double the extremity of the Unakas, for instance, the trails reached +down by the Valley of Virginia and New River to the uplands of the +Tennessee, and here, near Elizabethton, they met the trails leading up +the Broad and the Yadkin rivers from Charleston, South Carolina. + +To the west rise the somber heights of Cumberland Gap. Through this +portal ran the famous "Warrior's Path," known to wandering hunters, the +"trail of iron" from Fort Watauga and Fort Chiswell, which Daniel Boone +widened for the settlers of Kentucky. To the southwest lay the Blue +Grass region of Tennessee with its various trails converging on +Nashville from almost every direction. Today the Southern Railway enters +the "Sapphire Country," in which Asheville lies, by practically the same +route as the old Rutherfordton Trail which was used for generations by +red man and pioneer from the Carolina coast. + +In our entire region of the Appalachians, from the Berkshire Hills +southward, practically every old-time pathway from the seaboard to the +trans-Alleghany country is now occupied by an important railway system, +with the exception of the Warrior's Trail through Cumberland Gap to +central Ohio and the Highland Trail across southern Pennsylvania. And +even Cumberland Gap is accessible by rail today, and a line across +southern Pennsylvania was once planned and partially constructed only to +be killed by jealous rivals. + +These numerous keys to the Alleghanies were a challenge to the men of +the seaboard to seize upon the rich trade of the West which had been +early monopolized by the French in Canada. But the challenge brought its +difficult problems. What land canoes could compete with the flotillas +that brought their priceless cargoes of furs each year to Montreal and +Quebec? What race of landlubbers could vie with the picturesque bands of +fearless voyageurs who sang their songs on the Great Lakes, the Ohio, +the Illinois, and the Mississippi? + +In the solution of this problem of diverting trade probably the factor +of greatest importance, next to open pathways through the mountain +barriers, was the rich stock-breeding ground lying between the Delaware +and the Susquehanna rivers, a region occupied by the settlers familiarly +known as the Pennsylvania Dutch. In this famous belt, running from +Pennsylvania into Virginia, originated the historic pack-horse trade +with the "far Indians" of the Ohio Valley. Here, in the first granary of +America, Germans, Scotch-Irish, and English bred horses worthy of the +name. "Brave fat Horses" an amazed officer under Braddock called the +mounts of five Quakers who unexpectedly rode into camp as though +straight "from the land of Goshen." These animals, crossed with the +Indian "pony" from New Spain, produced the wise, wiry, and sturdy +pack-horse, fit to transport nearly two hundred pounds of merchandise +across the rough and narrow Alleghany trails. This animal and the heavy +Conestoga horse from the same breeding ground revolutionized inland +commerce. + +The first American cow pony was not without his cowboy. Though the +drivers were not all of the same type and though the proprietors, so to +speak, of the trans-Alleghany pack-horse trade came generally from the +older settlements, the bulk of the hard work was done by a lusty army of +men not reproduced again in America until the picturesque figure of the +cow-puncher appeared above the western horizon. This breed of men was +nurtured on the outer confines of civilization, along the headwaters of +the Susquehanna, the Potomac, the James, and the Broad--the country of +the "Cowpens." Rough as the wilderness they occupied, made strong by +their diet of meat and curds, these Tatars of the highlands played a +part in the commercial history of America that has never had its +historian. In their knowledge of Indian character, of horse and +packsaddle lore, of the forest and its trails in every season, these men +of the Cowpens were the kings of the old frontier. + +An officer under Braddock has left us one of the few pictures of these +people ¹: + +¹ Extracts of Letters from an Officer (London, 1755). + +From the Heart of the Settlements we are now got into the Cow-pens; the +Keepers of these are very extraordinary Kind of Fellows, they drive up +their Herds on Horseback, and they had need do so, for their Cattle are +near as wild as Deer; a Cow-pen generally consists of a very large +Cottage or House in the Woods, with about four-score or one hundred +Acres, inclosed with high Rails and divided; a small Inclosure they keep +for Corn, for the family, the rest is the Pasture in which they keep +their calves; but the Manner is far different from any Thing you ever +saw; they may perhaps have a Stock of four or five hundred to a thousand +Head of Cattle belonging to a Cow-pen, these run as they please in the +Great Woods, where there are no Inclosures to stop them. In the Month of +March the Cows begin to drop their Calves, then the Cow-pen Master, with +all his Men, rides out to see and drive up the Cows with all their new +fallen Calves; they being weak cannot run away so as to escape, +therefore are easily drove up, and the Bulls and other Cattle follow +them; and they put these Calves into the Pasture, and every Morning and +Evening suffer the Cows to come and suckle them, which done they let the +Cows out into the great Woods to shift for their Food as well as they +can; whilst the Calf is sucking one Tit of the Cow, the Woman of the +Cow-Pen is milking one of the other Tits, so that she steals some Milk +from the Cow, who thinks she is giving it to the Calf; soon as the Cow +begins to go dry, and the Calf grows Strong, they mark them, if they are +Males they cut them, and let them go into the Wood. Every Year in +September and October they drive up the Market Steers, that are fat and +of a proper Age, and kill them; they say they are fat in October, but I +am sure they are not so in May, June and July; they reckon that out of +100 Head of Cattle they can kill about 10 or 12 steers, and four or five +Cows a Year; so they reckon that a Cow-Pen for every 100 Head of Cattle +brings about £40 Sterling per Year. The Keepers live chiefly upon Milk, +for out of their Vast Herds, they do condescend to tame Cows enough to +keep their Family in Milk, Whey, Curds, Cheese and Butter; they also +have Flesh in Abundance such as it is, for they eat the old Cows and +lean Calves that are like to die. The Cow-Pen Men are hardy People, are +almost continually on Horseback, being obliged to know the Haunts of +their Cattle. + +You see, Sir, what a wild set of Creatures Our English Men grow into, +when they lose Society, and it is surprising to think how many +Advantages they throw away, which our industrious Country-Men would be +glad of: Out of many hundred Cows they will not give themselves the +trouble of milking more than will maintain their Family. + +With such a race of born horsemen, every whit as bold and resourceful as +the voyageurs, to bear the brunt of a new era of transportation, all +that was needed to challenge French trade beyond the Alleghanies was +competent and aggressive leadership. The situation called for men of +means, men of daring, men closely in touch with governors and assemblies +and acquainted with the web of politics that was being spun at +Philadelphia, Williamsburg, New York, London, and Paris. Generations of +tenacious struggle along the American frontier had developed such men. +The Weisers, Croghans, Gists, Washingtons, Franklins, Walkers, and +Cresaps were men of varied descent and nationality. They had the +cunning, the boldness, and the resources to undertake successfully the +task of conquering commercially the Great West. They were the first men +of the colonies to be unafraid of that bugbear of the trader, Distance. +We may aptly call them the first Americans because, though not a few +were actually born abroad, they were the first whose plans, spirit, and +very life were dominated by the vision of an America of continental +dimensions. + +The long story of French and English rivalry and of the war which ended +it concerns us here chiefly as a commercial struggle. The French at +Niagara (1749) had access to the Ohio by way of Lake Erie and any one of +several rivers--the Allegheny, the Muskingum, the Scioto, or the Miami. +The main routes of the English were the Nemacolin and Kittanning paths. +The French, laboring under the disadvantages of the longer distance over +which their goods had to be transported to the Indians and of the higher +price necessarily demanded for them, had to meet the competition of the +traders from the rival colonies of Pennsylvania and Virginia, each of +them jealous of and underbidding the other. + +When Céloron de Blainville was sent to the Allegheny in 1749, by the +Governor of New France, his message was that "the Governor of Canada +desired his children on Ohio to turn away the English Traders from +amongst them and discharge them from ever coming to trade there again, +or on any of the Branches." He sent away all the traders whom he found, +giving them letters addressed to their respective governors denying +England's right to trade in the West. To offset this move, within two +years Pennsylvania sent goods to the value of nine hundred pounds in +order to hold the Indians constant. The Governor had already ordered the +traders to sell whiskey to the Indians at "5 Bucks" per cask and had +told the Indians, through his agent Conrad Weiser, that if any trader +refused to sell the liquor at that price they might "take it from him +and drink it for nothing." There was but one way for the French to meet +such competition. Without delay they fortified the Allegheny and began +to coerce the natives. Driving away the carpenters of the Ohio Company +from the present site of Pittsburgh, they built Fort Duquesne. The +beginning of the Old French War ended what we may call the first era of +the pack-horse trade. + +The capture of Fort Duquesne by the English army under General Forbes in +1758 and the final conquest of New France two years later removed the +French barrier and opened the way to expansion beyond the Alleghanies. +Thereafter settlements in the Monongahela country grew apace. +Pittsburgh, Uniontown, Morgantown, Brownsville, Ligonier, Greensburg, +Connellsville--we give the modern names--became centers of a great +migration which was halted only for a season by Pontiac's Rebellion, the +aftermath of the French War, and was resumed immediately on the +suppression of that Indian rising. The pack-horse trade now entered its +final and most important era. The earlier period was one in which the +trade was confined chiefly to the Indians; the later phase was concerned +with supplying the needs of the white man in his rapidly developing +frontier settlements. Formerly the principal articles of merchandise for +the western trade were guns, ammunition, knives, kettles, and tools for +their repair, blankets, tobacco, hatchets, and liquor. In the new era +every known product of the East found a market in the thriving +communities of the upper Ohio. As time went on the West began to send to +the East, in addition to skins and pelts, whiskey that brought a dollar +a gallon. Each pony could carry sixteen gallons and every drop could be +sold for real money. On the return trip the pack-horses carried back +chiefly salt and iron. + +Doddridge's Notes, one of the chief sources of our information, gives +this lively picture: + +In the fall of the year, after seeding time, every family formed an +association with some of their neighbors, for starting the little +caravan. A master driver was to be selected from among them, who was to +be assisted by one or more young men and sometimes a boy or two. The +horses were fitted out with packsaddles, to the latter part of which was +fastened a pair of hobbles made of hickory withes,--a bell and collar +ornamented their necks. The bags provided for the conveyance of the salt +were filled with bread, jerk, boiled ham, and cheese furnished a +provision for the drivers. At night, after feeding, the horses, whether +put in pasture or turned out into the woods, were hobbled and the bells +were opened. The barter for salt and iron was made first at Baltimore; +Frederick, Hagerstown, Oldtown, and Fort Cumberland, in succession, +became the places of exchange. Each horse carried two bushels of alum +salt, weighing eighty-four pounds to the bushel. This, to be sure, was +not a heavy load for the horses, but it was enough, considering the +scanty subsistence allowed them on the journey. The common price of a +bushel of alum salt, at an early period, was a good cow and a calf. + +Thus, with the English flag afloat at Fort Pitt, as Duquesne was renamed +after its capture, a new day dawned for the great region to the West. +Beyond the Alleghanies and as far as the Rockies, a new science of +transportation was now to be learned--the art of finding the dividing +ridge. Here the first routes, like the "Great Trail" from Pittsburgh to +Detroit, struck out with an assurance that is in marvelous agreement +with the findings of the surveyors of a later day. The railways, when +they came, found the valleys and penetrated with their tunnels the +watersheds from the heads of the streams of one drainage area to the +streams of another. Thus on the Pennsylvania, the Baltimore and Ohio, +the Southern, the Chesapeake and Ohio, and other railroads, important +tunnels are to be found lying immediately under the Red Man's trail +which clung to the long ascending slope and held persistently to the +dividing ridges. + +Even this necessarily brief survey shows plainly how that preëminently +American institution, the ridge road, came about. East and west, it was +the legitimate and natural successor to the ancient trail. With the +coming of the wagon, whose rattle was heard among the hills as early as +Braddock's campaign, the process of lowering these paths from the +heights was inevitably begun, and it was to the riverways that men first +looked for a solution of the difficult problems of inland commerce. +Eventually the paths of inland commerce constituted a vast network of +canals, roads, and railway lines in those very valleys to which +Washington had called the nation's attention in 1784. + + + + + + +CHAPTER III + +The Mastery of the Rivers + +It would perhaps have been well, in the light of later difficulties and +failures, if the men who at Washington's call undertook to master the +capricious rivers of the seaboard had studied a stately Spanish decree +which declared that, since God had not made the rivers of Spain +navigable, it were sacrilege for mortals to attempt to do so. Even +before the Revolution, Mayor Rhodes of Philadelphia was in +correspondence with Franklin in London concerning the experiences of +European engineers in harnessing foreign streams. That sage philosopher, +writing to Rhodes in 1772, uttered a clear word of warning: "rivers are +ungovernable things," he had said, and English engineers "seldom or +never use a River where it can be avoided." But it was the birthright of +New World democracy to make its own mistakes and in so doing to prove +for itself the errors of the Old World. + +As energetic men all along the Atlantic Plain now took up the problem of +improving the inland rivers, they faced a storm of criticism and +ridicule that would have daunted any but such as Washington and Johnson +of Virginia or White and Hazard of Pennsylvania or Morris and Watson of +New York. Every imaginable objection to such projects was advanced--from +the inefficiency of the science of engineering to the probable +destruction of all the fish in the streams. In spite of these +discouragements, however, various men set themselves to form in rapid +succession the Potomac Company in 1785, the Society for Promoting the +Improvement of Inland Navigation in 1791, the Western Inland Lock +Navigation Company in 1792, and the Lehigh Coal Mine Company in 1793. A +brief review of these various enterprises will give a clear if not a +complete view of the first era of inland water commerce in America. + +The Potomac Company, authorized in 1785 by the legislatures of Maryland +and Virginia, received an appropriation of $6666 from each State for +opening a road from the headwaters of the Potomac to either the Cheat or +the Monongahela, "as commissioners ... shall find most convenient and +beneficial to the Western settlers." This was the only public aid which +the enterprise received; and the stipulated purpose clearly indicates +the fact that, in the minds of its promoters, the transcontinental +character of the undertaking appeared to be vital. The remainder of the +money required for the work was raised by public subscription in the +principal cities of the two States. In this way £40,300 was subscribed, +Virginia men taking 266 shares and Maryland men 137 shares. The +stockholders elected George Washington as president of the company, at a +salary of thirty shillings a year, with four directors to aid him, and +they chose as general manager James Rumsey, the boat mechanician. These +men then proceeded to attack the chief impediments in the Potomac--the +Great Falls above Washington, the Seneca Falls at the mouth of Seneca +Creek, and the Shenandoah Falls at Harper's Ferry. But, as they had +difficulty in obtaining workmen and sufficient liquor to cheer them in +their herculean tasks, they made such slow progress that subscribers, +doubting Washington's optimistic prophecy that the stock would increase +in value twenty per cent, paid their assessments only after much +deliberation or not at all. Thirty-six years later, though $729,380 had +been spent and lock canals had been opened about the unnavigable +stretches of the Potomac River, a commission appointed to examine the +affairs of the company reported "that the floods and freshets +nevertheless gave the only navigation that was enjoyed." As for the road +between the Potomac and the Cheat or the Monongahela, the records at +hand do not show that the money voted for that enterprise had been used. + +The Potomac Company nevertheless had accomplished something: it had +acquired an asset of the greatest value--a right of way up the strategic +Potomac Valley; and it had furnished an object lesson to men in other +States who were struggling with a similar problem. When, as will soon be +apparent, New York men undertook the improvement of the Mohawk waterway +there was no pattern of canal construction for them to follow in America +except the inadequate wooden locks erected along the Potomac. It is +interesting to know that Elkanah Watson, prominent in inland navigation +to the North, went down from New York in order to study these wooden +locks and that New Yorkers adopted them as models, though they changed +the material to brick and finally to stone. + +Pennsylvania had been foremost among the colonies in canal building, for +it had surveyed as early as 1762 the first lock canal in America, from +near Reading on the Schuylkill to Middletown on the Susquehanna. Work, +however, had to be suspended when Pontiac's Rebellion threw the inland +country into a panic. But the enterprise of Maryland and Virginia in +1785 in developing the Potomac aroused the Pennsylvanians to renewed +activity. The Society for Promoting the Improvement of Roads and Inland +Navigation set forth a programme that was as broad as the Keystone State +itself. Their ultimate object was to capture the trade of the Great +Lakes. "If we turn our view," read the memorial which the Society +presented to the Legislature, "to the immense territories connected with +the Ohio and Mississippi waters, and bordering on the Great Lakes, it +will appear ... that our communication with those vast countries +(considering Fort Pitt as the port of entrance upon them) is as easy and +may be rendered as cheap, as to any other port on the Atlantic tide +waters." + +Pennsylvania, lying between Virginia and New York, occupied a peculiar +position. Her Susquehanna Valley stretched northwest--not so directly +west as did the Potomac on the south and the Mohawk on the north. This +more northerly trend led these early Pennsylvania promoters to believe +that, while they might "only have a share in the trade of those [the +Ohio] waters," they could absolutely secure for themselves the trade of +the Great Lakes, "taking Presq'Isle [Erie, Pennsylvania] which is within +our own State, as the great mart or place of embarkation." + +The plan which the Society proposed involved the improvement of water +and land routes by way of the Delaware to Lake Ontario and Lake Otsego, +and of eight routes by the Susquehanna drainage, north, northwest, and +west. A bill which passed the Legislature on April 13, 1791, +appropriated money for these improvements. Work was begun immediately on +the Schuylkill-Susquehanna Canal, but only four miles had been completed +by 1794, when the Lancaster Turnpike directed men's attention to +improved highways as an alternative more likely than canals to provide +the desired facilities for inland transportation. The work on the canal +was renewed, however, in 1821, when the rival Erie Canal was nearing +completion, and was finished in 1827. It became known as the Union Canal +and formed a link in the Pennsylvania canal system, the development of +which will be described in a later chapter. + +In New York State, throughout the period of the Old French and the +Revolutionary wars, barges and keel boats had plied the Mohawk, Wood +Creek, and the Oswego to Lake Ontario. Around such obstructions as +Cohoes Falls, Little Falls, and the portage at Rome to Wood Creek, +wagons, sleds, and pack-horses had transferred the cargoes. To avoid +this labor and delay men soon conceived of conquering these obstacles by +locks and canals. As early as 1777 the brilliant Gouverneur Morris had a +vision of the economic development of his State when "the waters of the +great western inland seas would, by the aid of man, break through their +barriers and mingle with those of the Hudson." + +Elkanah Watson was in many ways the Washington of New York. He had the +foresight, patience, and persistence of the Virginia planter. His +Journal of a tour up the Mohawk in 1788 and a pamphlet which he +published in 1791 may be said to be the ultimate sources in any history +of the internal commerce of New York. As a result, a company known as +"The President, Directors, and Company of the Western Inland Lock +Navigation in the State of New York," with a capital stock of $25,000, +was authorized by act of legislature in March, 1792, and the State +subscribed for $12,500 in stock. Many singular provisions were inserted +in this charter, but none more remarkable than one which stipulated that +all profits over fifteen per cent should revert to the State Treasury. +This hint concerning surplus profits, however, did not cause a stampede +when the books were opened for subscriptions in New York and Albany. In +later years, when the Erie Canal gave promise of a new era in American +inland commerce, Elkanah Watson recalled with a grim satisfaction the +efforts of these early days. The subscription books at the old Coffee +House in New York, he tells us, lay open three days without an entry, +and at Lewis's tavern in Albany, where the books were opened for a +similar period, "no mortal" had subscribed for more than two shares. + +The system proposed for the improvement of the waterways of New York was +similar to that projected for the Potomac. A canal was to be cut from +the Mohawk to the Hudson in order to avoid Cohoes Falls; a canal with +locks would overcome the forty-foot drop at Little Falls; another canal +over five thousand feet in length was to connect the Mohawk and Wood +Creek at Rome; minor improvements were to be made between Schenectady +and the mouth of the Schoharie; and finally the Oswego Falls at +Rochester were to be circumvented also by canal. All the objections, +difficulties, and discouragements which had attended efforts to improve +waterways elsewhere in America confronted these New York promoters. They +began in 1793 at Little Falls but were soon forced to cease owing to the +failure of funds. Under the encouraging spur of a state subscription to +two hundred shares of stock, they renewed their efforts in 1794 but were +again forced to abandon the work before the year had passed. By +November, 1795, however, they had completed the canal and in thirty days +had received toll to the amount of about four hundred dollars. + +The total actual work done is not clearly shown by the documents, but it +is evident that the measure of success achieved was not equaled +elsewhere on similar improvements on a large scale. From 1796 to 1804 +the tolls received at Rome amounted to over fifteen thousand dollars, +and at Little Falls to over fifty-eight thousand dollars--a sum which +exceeded the original cost of construction. Dividends had crept up from +three per cent in 1798 to five and a half per cent in 1817, the year in +which work was begun on the Erie Canal. + +No struggle for the mastery of an American river matches in certain +respects the effort of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company to bridle +the Lehigh and make it play its part in the commercial development of +Pennsylvania. The failures and trials of the promoters of this company +were no less remarkable than was the great success that eventually +crowned the effort. In 1793 the Lehigh Coal Mine Company was organized +and purchased some ten thousand acres in the Mauch Chunk anthracite +region, nine miles from the Lehigh River. It then appropriated a sum of +money to build a road from the mines to the river in the expectation +that the State would improve the navigation of the waterway, for which, +it has already been noted, an appropriation had been made in 1791, in +accordance with the programme of the Society for Promoting the +Improvement of Roads and Inland Navigation. Nothing was done, however, +to improve the river, and the company, after various attempts at +shipping coal to Philadelphia, gave up the effort and allowed the +property, which was worth millions, to lie idle. In 1807 the Lehigh Coal +Mine Company, in another effort to get its wares before the public, +granted to Rowland and Butland, a private firm, free right to operate +one of its veins of coal; but this operation also resulted in failure. +In 1813 the company made a third attempt and granted to a private +concern a lease of the entire property on the condition that ten +thousand bushels of coal should be taken to market annually. +Difficulties immediately made themselves apparent. No contractor could +be found who would haul the output to the Lehigh River for less than +four dollars a ton, and the man who accepted those terms lost money. Of +five barges filled at Mauch Chunk three went to pieces on the way to +Philadelphia. Although the contents of the other two sold for twenty +dollars a ton, the proceeds failed to meet expenses, and the operating +company threw up the lease. + +But it happened that White and Hazard, the wire manufacturers who +purchased this Lehigh coal, were greatly pleased with its quality. +Believing that coal could be obtained more cheaply from Mauch Chunk than +from the mines along the Schuylkill, White, Hauto, and Hazard formed a +company, entered into negotiation with the owners of the Lehigh mines, +and obtained the lease of their properties for a period of twenty years +at an annual rental of one ear of corn. The company agreed, moreover, to +ship every year at least forty thousand bushels of coal to Philadelphia +for its own consumption, to prove the value of the property. + +White and his partners immediately applied to the Legislature for +permission to improve the navigation of the Lehigh, stating the purpose +of the improvement and citing the fact that their efforts would tend to +serve as a model for the improvement of other Pennsylvania streams. The +desired opportunity "to ruin themselves," as one member of the +Legislature put it, was granted by an act passed March 20, 1818. The +various powers applied for, and granted, embraced the whole range of +tried and untried methods for securing "a navigation downward once in +three days for boats loaded with one hundred barrels, or ten tons." The +State kept its weather eye open in this matter, however, for a small +minority felt that these men would not ruin themselves. Accordingly, the +act of grant reserved to the commonwealth the right to compel the +adoption of a complete system of slack-water navigation from Easton to +Stoddartsville if the service given by the company did not meet "the +wants of the country." + +Capital was subscribed by a patriotic public on condition that a +committee of stockholders should go over the ground and pass judgment on +the probable success of the effort. The report was favorable, so far as +the improvement of the river was concerned; but the nine-mile road to +the mines was unanimously voted impracticable. "To give you an idea of +the country over which the road is to pass," wrote one of the +commissioners, "I need only tell you that I considered it quite an +easement when the wheel of my carriage struck a stump instead of a +stone." The public mind was divided. Some held that the attempt to +operate the coal mine was farcical, but that the improvement of the +Lehigh River was an undertaking of great value and of probable profit to +investors. Others were just as positive that the river improvement would +follow the fate of so many similar enterprises but that a fortune was in +store for those who invested in the Lehigh mines. + +The direct result of the examiners' report and of the public debate it +provoked was the organization of the first interlocking companies in the +commercial history of America. The Lehigh Navigation Company was formed +with a capital stock of $150,000 and the Lehigh Coal Company with a +capital stock of $55,000. This incident forms one of the most striking +illustrations in American history of the dependence of a commercial +venture upon methods of inland transportation. The Lehigh Navigation +Company proceeded to build its dams and walls while the Lehigh Coal +Company constructed the first roadway in America built on the +principle--later adopted by the railways--of dividing the total distance +by the total descent in order to determine the grade. Not to be outdone +in point of ingenuity, the Lehigh Navigation Company, then suffering +from an unprecedented dearth of water, adopted White's invention of +sluice gates connecting with pools which could be filled with reserve +water to be drawn upon as navigation required. By 1819 the necessary +depth of water between Mauch Chunk and Easton was obtained. The two +companies were immediately amalgamated under the title of the Lehigh +Coal and Navigation Company and by 1823 had sent over two thousand tons +of coal to market. + +As most of the efforts to improve the rivers, however, met with +indifferent success and many failures were recorded, the pendulum of +public confidence in this aid to inland commerce swung away, and highway +improvement by means of stone roads and toll road companies came into +favor in the interval between the nation's two eras of river improvement +and canal building. + + + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A Nation on Wheels + +In early days the Indian had not only followed the watercourses in his +canoe but had made his way on foot over trails through the woods and +over the mountains. In colonial days, Englishman and Frenchman followed +the footsteps of the Indian, and as settlement increased and trade +developed, the forest path widened into the highway for wheeled +vehicles. Massachusetts began the work of road making in 1639 by passing +an act which decreed that "the ways" should be six to ten rods wide "in +common grounds," thus allowing sufficient room for more than one track. +Similar broad "ways" were authorized in New York and Pennsylvania in +1664; stumps and shrubs were to be cut close to the ground, and +"sufficient bridges" were to be built over streams and marshy places. +Virginia passed legislation for highways at an early date, but it was +not until 1662 that strict laws were enacted with a view to keeping the +roads in a permanently good condition. Under these laws surveyors were +appointed to establish in each county roads forty feet wide to the +church and to the courthouse. In 1700, Pennsylvania turned her local +roads over to the county justices, put the King's highway and the main +public roads under the care of the governor and his council, and ordered +each county to erect bridges over its streams. + +The word "roadmaking" was capable of several interpretations. In +general, it meant outlining the course for the new thoroughfare, +clearing away fallen timber, blazing or notching the trees so that the +traveler might not miss the track, and building bridges or laying logs +"over all the marshy, swampy, and difficult dirty places." + +The streams proved serious obstacles to early traffic. It has been shown +already that the earliest routes of animal or man sought the watersheds; +the trails therefore usually encountered one stream near its junction +with another. At first, of course, fording was the common method of +crossing water, and the most advantageous fording places were generally +found near the mouths of tributary streams, where bars and islands are +frequently formed and where the water is consequently shallow. When +ferries began to be used, they were usually situated just above or below +the fords; but when the bridge succeeded the ferry, the primitive bridge +builder went back to the old fording place in order to take advantage of +the shallower water, bars, and islands. With the advent of improved +engineering, the character of river banks and currents was more +frequently taken into consideration in choosing a site for a bridge than +was the case in the olden times, but despite this fact the bridges of +today, generally speaking, span the rivers where the deer or the buffalo +splashed his way across centuries ago. + +On the broader streams, where fording was impossible and traffic was +perforce carried by ferry, the canoe and the keel boat of the earliest +days gave way in time to the ordinary "flat" or barge. At first the +obligation of the ferryman to the public, though recognized by English +law, was ignored in America by legislators and monopolists alike. Men +obtained the land on both sides of the rivers at the crossing places and +served the public only at their own convenience and at their own +charges. In many cases, to encourage the opening of roads or of ferries, +national and state authorities made grants of land on the same principle +followed in later days in the case of Western railroads. Such, for +instance, was the grant to Ebenezer Zane, at Zanesville, Lancaster, and +Chillicothe in the Northwest Territory. These monopolies sometimes were +extremely profitable: a descendant of the owners of the famous Ingles +ferry across New River, on the Wilderness Road to Kentucky, is +responsible for the statement that in the heyday of travel to the +Southwest the privilege was worth from $10,000 to $15,000 annually to +the family. But as local governments became more efficient, monopolies +were abolished and the collection of tolls was taken over by the +authorities. The awakening of inland trade is most clearly indicated +everywhere by the action of assemblies regarding the operation of +ferries, and in general, by the beginning of the eighteenth century, +tolls and ferries were being regulated by law. + +But neither roads nor ferries were of themselves sufficient to put a +nation on wheels. The early polite society of the settled neighborhoods +traveled in horse litters, in sedan chairs, or on horseback, the women +seated on pillions or cushions behind the saddle riders, while oxcarts +and horse barrows brought to town the produce of the outlying farms. +Although carts and rude wagons could be built entirely of wood, there +could be no marked advance in transportation until the development of +mining in certain localities reduced the price of iron. With the +increase of travel and trade, the old world coach and chaise and wain +came into use, and iron for tire and brace became an imperative +necessity. The connection between the production of iron and the care of +highways was recognized by legislation as early as 1732, when Maryland +excused men and slaves in the ironworks from labor on the public roads, +though by the middle of the century owners of ironworks were obliged to +detail one man out of every ten in their employ for such work. + +While the coastwise trade between the colonies was still preëminently +important as a means of transporting commodities, by the beginning of +the eighteenth century the land routes from New York to New England, +from New York across New Jersey to Philadelphia, and those radiating +from Philadelphia in every direction, were coming into general use. The +date of the opening of regular freight traffic between New York and +Philadelphia is set by the reply of the Governor of New Jersey in 1707 +to a protest against monopolies granted on one of the old widened Indian +trails between Burlington and Amboy. "At present," he says, "everybody +is sure, once a fortnight, to have an opportunity of sending any +quantity of goods, great or small, at reasonable rates, without being in +danger of imposition; and the sending of this wagon is so far from being +a grievance or monopoly, that by this means and no other, a trade has +been carried on between Philadelphia, Burlington, Amboy, and New York, +which was never known before." + +The long Philadelphia Road from the Lancaster region into the Valley of +Virginia, by way of Wadkins on the Potomac, was used by German and Irish +traders probably as early as 1700. In 1728 the people of Maryland were +petitioning for a road from the ford of the Monocacy to the home of +Nathan Wickham. Four years later Jost Heydt, leading an immigrant party +southward, broke open a road from the York Barrens toward the Potomac +two miles above Harper's Ferry. This avenue--by way of the Berkeley, +Staunton, Watauga, and Greenbrier regions to Tennessee and Kentucky--was +the longest and most important in America during the Revolutionary +period. The Virginia Assembly in 1779 appointed commissioners to view +this route and to report on the advisability of making it a wagon road +all the way to Kentucky. In 1795, efforts were made in Kentucky to turn +the Wilderness Trail into a wagon road, and in this same year the +Kentucky Legislature passed an act making the route from Crab Orchard to +Cumberland Gap a wagon road thirty feet in width. + +From Pennsylvania and from Virginia commerce westward bound followed in +the main the army roads hewn out by Braddock and Forbes in their +campaigns against Fort Duquesne. In 1755, Braddock, marching from +Alexandria by way of Fort Cumberland, had opened a passage for his +artillery and wagons to Laurel Hill, near Uniontown, Pennsylvania. His +force included a corps of seamen equipped with block and tackle to raise +and lower his wagons in the steep inclines of the Alleghanies. Three +years later, Forbes, in his careful, dogged campaign, followed a more +northerly route. Advancing from Philadelphia and Carlisle, he +established Fort Bedford and Fort Ligonier as bases of supply and broke +a new road through the interminable forest which clothed the rugged +mountain ranges. From the first there was bitter rivalry between these +two routes, and the young Colonel Washington was roundly criticized by +both Forbes and Bouquet, his second in command, for his partisan effort +to "drive me down," as Forbes phrased it, into the Virginia or +Braddock's Road. This rivalry between the two routes continued when the +destruction of the French power over the roads in the interior threw +open to Pennsylvania and her southern neighbors alike the lucrative +trade of the Ohio country. + +From the journals of the time may be caught faint glimpses of the toils +and dangers of travel through these wild hill regions. Let the traveler +of today, as he follows the track that once was Braddock's Road, picture +the scene of that earlier time when, in the face of every natural +obstacle, the army toiled across the mountain chains. Where the earth in +yonder ravine is whipped to a black froth, the engineers have thrown +down the timber cut in widening the trail and have constructed a +corduroy bridge, or rather a loose raft on a sea of muck. The wreck of +the last wagon which tried to pass gives some additional safety to the +next. Already the stench from the horse killed in the accident deadens +the heavy, heated air of the forest. The sailors, stripped to the waist, +are ready with ropes and tackle to let the next wagon down the incline; +the pulleys creak, the ropes groan. The horses, weak and +terror-stricken, plunge and rear; in the final crash to the level the +leg of the wheel horse is caught and broken; one of the soldiers shoots +the animal; the traces are unbuckled; another beast is substituted. +Beyond, the seamen are waiting with tackle attached to trees on the +ridge above to assist the horses on the cruel upgrade--and Braddock, the +deceived, maligned, misrepresented, and misjudged, creeps onward in his +brave conquest of the Alleghanies in a campaign that, in spite of its +military failure, deserves honorable mention among the achievements of +British arms. + +Everywhere, north and south, the early American road was a veritable +Slough of Despond. Watery pits were to be encountered wherein horses +were drowned and loads sank from sight. Frequently traffic was stopped +for hours by wagons which had broken down and blocked the way. Thirteen +wagons at one time were stalled on Logan's Hill on the York Road. +Frightful accidents occurred in attempting to draw out loads. Jonathan +Tyson, for instance, in 1792, near Philadelphia saw a horse's lower jaw +torn off by the slipping of a chain. Save in the winter, when in the +northern colonies snow filled the ruts and frost built solid bridges +over the streams, travel on these early roads was never safe, rapid, nor +comfortable. The comparative ease of winter travel for the carriage of +heavy freight and for purposes of trade and social intercourse gave the +colder regions an advantage over the southern that was an important +factor in the development of the country. + +No genuine improvement of roads and highways seems to have been +attempted until the era heralded by Washington's letter to Harrison in +1784. But the problem slowly forced itself upon all sections of the +country, and especially upon Pennsylvania and Maryland, whose +inhabitants began to fear lest New York, Alexandria, or Richmond should +snatch the Western trade from Philadelphia or Baltimore. The truth that +underlies the proverb that "history repeats itself" is well illustrated +by the fact that the first macadamized road in America was built in +Pennsylvania, for here also originated the pack-horse trade and the +Conestoga horse and wagon; here the first inland American canal was +built, the first roadbed was graded on the principle of dividing the +whole distance by the whole descent, and the first railway was operated. +Macadam and Telford had only begun to show the people of England how to +build roads of crushed stone--an art first developed by the French +engineer Trésaguet--when Pennsylvanians built the Lancaster Turnpike. +The Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike Road Company was chartered April +9, 1792, as a part of the general plan of the Society for the +Improvement of Roads and Inland Navigation already described. This road, +sixty-two miles in length, was built of stone at a cost of $465,000 and +was completed in two years. Never before had such a sum been invested in +internal improvement in the United States. The rapidity with which the +undertaking was carried through and the profits which accrued from the +investment were alike astonishing. The subscription books were opened at +eleven o'clock one morning and by midnight 2226 shares had been +subscribed, each purchaser paying down thirty dollars. At the same time +Elkanah Watson was despondently scanning the subscription books of his +Mohawk River enterprise at Albany where "no mortal" had risked more than +two shares. + +The success of the Lancaster Turnpike was not achieved without a protest +against the monopoly which the new venture created. It is true that in +all the colonies the exercise of the right of eminent domain had been +conceded in a veiled way to officials to whose care the laying out of +roads had been delegated. As early as 1639 the General Court of +Massachusetts had ordered each town to choose men who, coöperating with +men from the adjoining town, should "lay out highways where they may be +most convenient, notwithstanding any man's property, or any corne +ground, so as it occasion not the pulling down of any man's house, or +laying open any garden or orchard." But the open and extended exercise +of these rights led to vigorous opposition in the case of this +Pennsylvania road. A public meeting was held at the Prince of Wales +Tavern in Philadelphia in 1793 to protest in round terms against the +monopolistic character of the Lancaster Turnpike. Blackstone and Edward +III were hurled at the heads of the "venal" legislators who had made +this "monstrosity" possible. The opposition died down, however, in the +face of the success which the new road instantly achieved. The Turnpike +was, indeed, admirably situated. Converging at the quaint old "borough +of Lancaster," the various routes--northeast from Virginia, east from +the Carlisle and Chambersburg region and the Alleghanies, and southeast +from the upper Susquehanna country--poured upon the Quaker City a trade +that profited every merchant, landholder, and laborer. The nine +tollgates, on the average a little less than seven miles apart, turned +in a revenue that allowed the "President and Managers" to declare +dividends to stockholders running, it is said, as high as fifteen per +cent. + +The Lancaster Turnpike is interesting from three points of view: it +began a new period of American transportation; it ushered in an era of +speculation unheard of in the previous history of the country; and it +introduced American lawmakers to the great problem of controlling public +corporations. + +Along this thirty-seven-foot road, of which twenty-four feet were laid +with stone, the new era of American inland travel progressed. The array +of two-wheeled private equipages and other family carriages, the +stagecoaches of bright color, and the carts, Dutch wagons, and +Conestogas, gave token of what was soon to be witnessed on the great +roads of a dozen States in the next generation. Here, probably, the +first distinction began to be drawn between the taverns for passengers +and those patronized by the drivers of freight. The colonial taverns, +comparatively few and far between, had up to this time served the +traveling public, high and low, rich and poor, alike. But in this new +era members of Congress and the élite of Philadelphia and neighboring +towns were not to be jostled at the table by burly hostlers, drivers, +wagoners, and hucksters. Two types of inns thus came quickly into +existence: the tavern entertained the stagecoach traffic, while the +democratic roadhouse served the established lines of Conestogas, +freighters, and all other vehicles which poured from every town, +village, and hamlet upon the great thoroughfare leading to the +metropolis on the Delaware. + +Among American inventions the Conestoga wagon must forever be remembered +with respect. Originating in the Lancaster region of Pennsylvania and +taking its name either from the horses of the Conestoga Valley or from +the valley itself, this vehicle was unlike the old English wain or the +Dutch wagon because of the curve of its bed. This peculiarly shaped +bottom, higher by twelve inches or more at each end than in the middle, +made the vehicle a safer conveyance across the mountains and over all +rough country than the old straight-bed wagon. The Conestoga was covered +with canvas, as were other freight vehicles, but the lines of the bed +were also carried out in the framework above and gave the whole the +effect of a great ship swaying up and down the billowy hills. The wheels +of the Conestoga were heavily built and wore tires four and six inches +in width. The harness of the six horses attached to the wagon was +proportionately heavy, the back bands being fifteen inches wide, the hip +straps ten, and the traces consisting of ponderous iron chains. The +color of the original Conestoga wagons never varied: the underbody was +always blue and the upper parts were red. The wagoners and drivers who +manned this fleet on wheels were men of a type that finds no parallel +except in the boatmen on the western rivers who were almost their +contemporaries. Fit for the severest toil, weathered to the color of the +red man, at home under any roof that harbored a demijohn and a fiddle, +these hardy nomads of early commerce were the custodians of the largest +amount of traffic in their day. + +The turnpike era overlaps the period of the building of national roads +and canals and the beginning of the railway age, but it is of greatest +interest during the first twenty-five years of the nineteenth century, +up to the time when the completion of the Erie Canal set new standards. +During this period roads were also constructed westward from Baltimore +and Albany to connect, as the Lancaster Turnpike did at its terminus, +with the thoroughfares from the trans-Alleghany country. The metropolis +of Maryland was quickly in the field to challenge the bid which the +Quaker City made for western trade. The Baltimore-Reisterstown and +Baltimore-Frederick turnpikes were built at a cost of $10,000 and $8000 +a mile respectively; and the latter, connecting with roads to +Cumberland, linked itself with the great national road to Ohio which the +Government built between 1811 and 1817. These famous stone roads of +Maryland long kept Baltimore in the lead as the principal outlet for the +western trade. New York, too, proved her right to the title of Empire +State by a marvelous activity in improving her magnificent strategic +position. In the first seven years of the nineteenth century +eighty-eight incorporated road companies were formed with a total +capital of over $8,000,000. Twenty large bridges and more than three +thousand miles of turnpike were constructed. The movement, indeed, +extended from New England to Virginia and the Carolinas, and turnpike +companies built all kinds of roads--earth, corduroy, plank, and stone. + +In many cases the kind of road to be constructed, the tolls to be +charged, and the amount of profit to be permitted, were laid down in the +charters. Thus new problems confronted the various legislatures, and +interesting principles of regulation were now established. In most cases +companies were allowed, on producing their books of receipts and +expenditures, to increase their tolls until they obtained a profit of +six per cent on the investment, though in a number of cases nine per +cent was permitted. When revenues increased beyond the six per cent +mark, however, the tendency was to reduce tolls or to use the extra +profit to purchase the stock for the State, with the expectation of +ultimately abolishing tollgates entirely. The theories of state +regulation of corporations and the obligations of public carriers, +extending even to the compensation of workmen in case of accident, were +developed to a considerable degree in this turnpike era; but, on the +other hand, the principle of permitting fair profit to corporations upon +public examination of their accounts was also recognized. + +The stone roads, which were passable at all seasons, brought a new era +in correspondence and business. Lines of stages and wagons, as well +known at that time as are the great railways of today, plied the new +thoroughfares, provided some of the comforts of travel, and assured the +safer and more rapid delivery of goods. This period is sometimes known +in American history as "The Era of Good Feeling" and the turnpike +contributed in no small degree to make the phrase applicable not only to +the domain of politics but to all the relations of social and commercial +life. + +While road building in the East gives a clear picture of the rise and +growth of commerce and trade in that section, it is to the rivers of the +trans-Alleghany country that we must look for a corresponding picture in +this early period. The canoe and pirogue could handle the packs and kegs +brought westward by the files of Indian ponies; but the heavy loads of +the Conestoga wagons demanded stancher craft. The flatboat and barge +therefore served the West and its commerce as the Conestoga and turnpike +served the East. + + + + + + +CHAPTER V + +The Flatboat Age + +In the early twenties of the last century one of the popular songs of +the day was The Hunters of Kentucky. Written by Samuel Woodworth, the +author of The Old Oaken Bucket, it had originally been printed in the +New York Mirror but had come into the hands of an actor named Ludlow, +who was playing in the old French theater in New Orleans. The poem +chants the praises of the Kentucky riflemen who fought with Jackson at +New Orleans and indubitably proved + + That every man was half a horse + And half an alligator. + +Ludlow knew his audience and he saw his chance. Setting the words to +Risk's tune, Love Laughs at Locksmiths, donning the costume of a Western +riverman, and arming himself with a long "squirrel" rifle, he presented +himself before the house. The rivermen who filled the pit received him, +it is related, with "a prolonged whoop, or howl, such as Indians give +when they are especially pleased." And to these sturdy men the words of +his song made a strong appeal: + + We are a hardy, freeborn race, + Each man to fear a stranger; + Whate'er the game, we join in chase, + Despising toil and danger; + And if a daring foe annoys, + No matter what his force is, + We'll show him that Kentucky boys + Are Alligator-horses. + +The title "alligator-horse," of which Western rivermen were very proud, +carried with it a suggestion of amphibious strength that made it both +apt and figuratively accurate. On all the American rivers, east and +west, a lusty crew, collected from the waning Indian trade and the +disbanded pioneer armies, found work to its taste in poling the long +keel boats, "cordelling" the bulky barges--that is, towing them by +pulling on a line attached to the shore--or steering the "broadhorns" or +flatboats that transported the first heavy inland river cargoes. Like +longshoremen of all ages, the American riverman was as rough as the work +which calloused his hands and transformed his muscles into bands of +tempered steel. Like all men given to hard but intermittent labor, he +employed his intervals of leisure in coarse and brutal recreation. Their +roistering exploits, indeed, have made these rivermen almost better +known at play than at work. One of them, the notorious Mike Fink, known +as "the Snag" on the Mississippi and as the "Snapping Turtle" on the +Ohio, has left the record, not that he could load a keel boat in a +certain length of time, or lift a barrel of whiskey with one arm, or +that no tumultuous current had ever compelled him to back water, but +that he could "out-run, out-hop, out-jump, throw down, drag out, and +lick any man in the country," and that he was "a Salt River roarer." + +Such men and the craft they handled were known on the Atlantic rivers, +but it was on the Mississippi and its branches, especially the Ohio, +that they played their most important part in the history of American +inland commerce. Before the beginning of the nineteenth century wagons +and Conestogas were bringing great loads of merchandise to such points +on the headwaters as Brownsville, Pittsburgh, and Wheeling. As early as +1782, we are told, Jacob Yoder, a Pennsylvania German, set sail from the +Monongahela country with the first flatboat to descend the Ohio and +Mississippi. As the years passed, the number of such craft grew +constantly larger. The custom of fixing the widespreading horns of +cattle on the prow gave these boats the alternative name of +"broadhorns," but no accurate classification can be made of the various +kinds of craft engaged in this vast traffic. Everything that would +float, from rough rafts to finished barges, was commandeered into +service, and what was found unsuitable for the strenuous purposes of +commercial transportation was palmed off whenever possible on +unsuspecting emigrants en route to the lands of promise beyond. + +Flour, salt, iron, cider and peach brandy were staple products of the +Ohio country which the South desired. In return they shipped molasses, +sugar, coffee, lead, and hides upon the few keel boats which crept +upstream or the blundering barges which were propelled northward by +means of oar, sail, and cordelle. It was not, however, until the +nineteenth century that the young West was producing any considerable +quantity of manufactured goods. Though the town of Pittsburgh had been +laid out in 1764, by the end of the Revolution it was still little more +than a collection of huts about a fort. A notable amount of local trade +was carried on, but the expense of transportation was very high even +after wagons began crossing the Alleghanies. For example, the cost from +Philadelphia and Baltimore was given by Arthur Lee, a member of +Congress, in 1784 as forty-five shillings a hundredweight, and a few +months later it is quoted at sixpence a pound when Johann D. Schoph +crossed the mountains in a chaise--a feat "which till now had been +considered quite impossible." Opinions differed widely as to the future +of the little town of five hundred inhabitants. The important product of +the region at first was Monongahela flour which long held a high place +in the New Orleans market. Coal was being mined as early as 1796 and was +worth locally threepence halfpenny a bushel, though within seven years +it was being sold at Philadelphia at thirty-seven and a half cents a +bushel. The fur trade with the Illinois country grew less important as +the century came to its close, but Maynard and Morrison, cooperating +with Guy Bryan at Philadelphia, sent a barge laden with merchandise to +Illinois annually between 1790 and 1796, which returned each season with +a cargo of skins and furs. Pittsburgh was thus a distributing center of +some importance; but the fact that no drayman or warehouse was to be +found in the town at this time is a significant commentary on the +undeveloped state of its commerce and manufacture. + +After Wayne's victory at the battle of the Fallen Timber in 1794 and the +signing of the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, which ended the earlier +Indian wars of the Old Northwest and opened for settlement the country +beyond the Ohio, a great migration followed into Ohio, Indiana, and +Kentucky, and the commercial activity of Pittsburgh rapidly increased. +By 1800 a score of profitable industries had arisen, and by 1803 the +first bar-iron foundry was, to quote the advertisement of its owner, +"sufficiently upheld by the hand of the Almighty" to supply in part the +demand for iron and castings. Glass factories were established, and +ropewalks, sail lofts, boatyards, anchor smithies, and brickyards, were +soon ready to supply the rapidly increasing demands of the infant cities +and the countryside on the lower Ohio. When the new century arrived the +Pittsburgh district had a population of upwards of two thousand. + +One by one the other important centers of trade in the great valley +beyond began to show evidences of life. Marietta, Ohio, founded in 1788 +by Revolutionary officers from New England, became the metropolis of the +rich Muskingum River district, which was presently sending many +flatboats southward. Cincinnati was founded in the same year as +Marietta, with the building of Fort Washington and the formal +organization of Hamilton County. The soil of the Miami country was as +"mellow as an ash heap" and in the first four months of 1802 over four +thousand barrels of flour were shipped southward to challenge the +prestige of the Monongahela product. Potters, brickmakers, gunsmiths, +cotton and wool weavers, coopers, turners, wheelwrights, dyers, +printers, and ropemakers were at work here within the next decade. A +brewery turned out five thousand barrels of beer and porter in 1811, and +by the next year the pork-packing business was thoroughly established. + +Louisville, the "Little Falls" of the West, was the entrepôt of the Blue +Grass region. It had been a place of some importance since Revolutionary +days, for in seasons of low water the rapids in the Ohio at this point +gave employment to scores of laborers who assisted the flatboatmen in +hauling their cargoes around the obstruction which prevented the passage +of the heavily loaded barges. The town, which was incorporated in 1780, +soon showed signs of commercial activity. It was the proud possessor of +a drygoods house in 1783. The growth of its tobacco industry was rapid +from the first. The warehouses were under government supervision and +inspection as early as 1795, and innumerable flatboats were already +bearing cargoes of bright leaf southward in the last decade of the +century. The first brick house in Louisville was erected in 1789 with +materials brought from Pittsburgh. Yankees soon established the "Hope +Distillery"; and the manufacture of whiskey, which had long been a +staple industry conducted by individuals, became an incorporated +business of great promise in spite of objections raised against the +"creation of gigantic reservoirs of this damning drink." + +Thus, about the year 1800, the great industries of the young West were +all established in the regions dominated by the growing cities of +Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville. But, since the combined +population of these centers could not have been over three thousand in +the year 1800, it is evident that the adjacent rural population and the +people living in every neighboring creek and river valley were chiefly +responsible for the large trade that already existed between this corner +of the Mississippi basin and the South. + +In this trade the riverman was the fundamental factor. Only by means of +his brawn and his genius for navigation could these innumerable tons of +flour, tobacco, and bacon have been kept from rotting on the shores. Yet +the man himself remains a legend grotesque and mysterious, one of the +shadowy figures of a time when history was being made too rapidly to be +written. If we ask how he loaded his flatboat or barge, we are told that +"one squint of his eye would blister a bull's heel." When we inquire how +he found the channel amid the shifting bars and floating islands of that +tortuous two-thousand-mile journey to New Orleans, we are informed that +he was "the very infant that turned from his mother's breast and called +out for a bottle of old rye." When we ask how he overcame the natural +difficulties of trade--lack of commission houses, varying standards of +money, want of systems of credit and low prices due to the glutting of +the market when hundreds of flatboats arrived in the South +simultaneously on the same freshet--we are informed that "Billy +Earthquake is the geniwine, double-acting engine, and can out-run, +out-swim, chaw more tobacco and spit less, drink more whiskey and keep +soberer than any other man in these localities." + +The reason for this lack of information is that our descriptions of +flatboating and keel boating are written by travelers who, as is always +the case, are interested in what is unusual, not in what is typical and +commonplace. It is therefore only dimly, as through a mist, that we can +see the two lines of polemen pass from the prow to the stern on the +narrow running-board of a keel boat, lifting and setting their poles to +the cry of steersman or captain. The struggle in a swift "riffle" or +rapid is momentous. If the craft swerves, all is lost. Shoulders bend +with savage strength; poles quiver under the tension; the captain's +voice is raucous, and every other word is an oath; a pole breaks, and +the next man, though half-dazed in the mortal crisis, does for a few +moments the work of two. At last they reach the head of the rapid, and +the boat floats out on the placid pool above, while the +"alligator-horse" who had the mishap remarks to the scenery at large +that he'd be "fly-blowed before sun-down to a certingty" if that were +not the very pole with which he "pushed the broadhorn up Salt River +where the snags were so thick that a fish couldn't swim without rubbing +his scales off." + +Audubon, the naturalist-merchant of the Mississippi, has left us a clear +picture of the process by which these heavy tubs, loaded with forty or +fifty tons of freight, were forced upstream against a swift current: + +Wherever a point projected so as to render the course or bend below it +of some magnitude, there was an eddy, the returning current of which was +sometimes as strong as that of the middle of the great stream. The +bargemen, therefore, rowed up pretty close under the bank and had merely +to keep watch in the bow lest the boat should run against a planter or +sawyer. But the boat has reached the point, and there the current is to +all appearance of double strength and right against it. The men, who +have rested a few minutes, are ordered to take their stations and lay +hold of their oars, for the river must be crossed, it being seldom +possible to double such a point and proceed along the same shore. The +boat is crossing, its head slanting to the current, which is, however, +too strong for the rowers, and when the other side of the river has been +reached, it has drifted perhaps a quarter of a mile. The men are by this +time exhausted and, as we shall suppose it to be 12 o'clock, fasten the +boat to a tree on the shore. A small glass of whiskey is given to each, +when they cook and eat their dinner and, after resting from their +fatigue for an hour, recommence their labors. The boat is again seen +slowly advancing against the stream. It has reached the lower end of a +sandbar, along the edge of which it is propelled by means of long poles, +if the bottom be hard. Two men, called bowsmen, remain at the prow to +assist, in concert with the steersman, in managing the boat and keeping +its head right against the current. The rest place themselves on the +land side of the footway of the vessel, put one end of their poles on +the ground and the other against their shoulders and push with all their +might. As each of the men reaches the stern, he crosses to the other +side, runs along it and comes again to the landward side of the bow, +when he recommences operations. The barge in the meantime is ascending +at a rate not exceeding one mile in the hour. + +Trustworthy statistics as to the amount and character of the Western +river trade have never been gathered. They are to be found, if anywhere, +in the reports of the collectors of customs located at the various +Western ports of entry and departure. Nothing indicates more definitely +the hour when the West awoke to its first era of big business than the +demand for the creation of "districts" and their respective ports, for +by no other means could merchandise and produce be shipped legally to +Spanish territory beyond or down the Mississippi or to English territory +on the northern shores of the Great Lakes. + +Louisville is as old a port of the United States as New York or +Philadelphia, having been so created when our government was established +in 1789, but oddly enough the first returns to the National Treasury +(1798) are credited to the port of Palmyra, Tennessee, far inland on the +Cumberland River. In 1799 the following Western towns were made ports of +entry: Erie, Sandusky, Detroit, Mackinaw Island, and Columbia +(Cincinnati). The first port on the Ohio to make returns was Fort +Massac, Illinois, and it is from the collector at this point that we get +our first hint as to the character and volume of Western river traffic. +In the spring months of March, April, and May, 1800, cargoes to the +value of £28,581, Pennsylvania currency, went down the Ohio. This +included 22,714 barrels of flour, 1017 barrels of whiskey, 12,500 pounds +of pork, 18,710 pounds of bacon, 75,814 pounds of cordage, 3650 yards of +country linen, 700 bottles, and 700 barrels of potatoes. In the three +autumn months of 1800, for instance, twenty-one boats ascended the Ohio +by Fort Massac, with cargoes amounting to 36 hundredweight of lead and a +few hides. Descending the river at the same time, flatboats and barges +carried 245 hundredweight of drygoods valued at $32,550. When we compare +these spring and fall records of commerce downstream we reach the +natural conclusion that the bulk of the drygoods which went down in the +fall of the year had been brought over the mountains during the summer. +The fact that the Alleghany pack-horses and Conestogas were transporting +freight to supply the Spanish towns on the Mississippi River in the +first year of the nineteenth century seems proved beyond a doubt by +these reports from Fort Massac. + +The most interesting phase of this era is the connection between western +trade and the politics of the Mississippi Valley which led up to the +Louisiana Purchase. By the Treaty of San Lorenzo in 1795 Spain made New +Orleans an open port, and in the next seven years the young West made +the most of its opportunity. But before the new century was two years +old the difficulties encountered were found to be serious. The lack of +commission merchants, of methods of credit, of information as to the +state of the market, all combined to handicap trade and to cause loss. +Pittsburgh shippers figured their loss already at $60,000 a year. In +consequence men began to look elsewhere, and an advocate of big business +wrote in 1802: "The country has received a shock; let us immediately +extend our views and direct our efforts to every foreign market." + +One of the most remarkable plans for the capture of foreign trade to be +found in the annals of American commerce originated almost +simultaneously in the Muskingum and Monongahela regions. With a view to +making the American West independent of the Spanish middlemen, it was +proposed to build ocean-going vessels on the Ohio that should carry the +produce of the interior down the Mississippi and thence abroad through +the open port of New Orleans. The idea was typically Western in its +arrogant originality and confident self-assertion. Two vessels were +built: the brig St. Clair, of 110 tons, at Marietta, and the Monongahela +Farmer, of 250 tons, at Elizabeth on the Monongahela. The former reached +Cincinnati April 27, 1801; the latter, loaded with 750 barrels of flour, +passed Pittsburgh on the 13th of May. Eventually, the St. Clair reached +Havana and thus proved that Muskingum Valley black walnut, Ohio hemp, +and Marietta carpenters, anchor smiths, and skippers could defy the grip +of the Spaniard on the Mississippi. Other vessels followed these +adventurers, and shipbuilding immediately became an important industry +at Pittsburgh, Marietta, Cincinnati, and other points. The Duane of +Pittsburgh was said by the Liverpool Saturday Advertiser of July 9, +1803, to have been the "first vessel which ever came to Europe from the +western waters of the United States." Probably the Louisiana of Marietta +went as far afield as any of the one hundred odd ships built in these +years on the Ohio. The official papers of her voyage in 1805, dated at +New Orleans, Norfolk (Virginia), Liverpool, Messina, and Trieste at the +head of the Adriatic, are preserved today in the Marietta College +Library. + +The growth of the shipbuilding industry necessitated a readjustment of +the districts for the collection of customs. Columbia (Cincinnati) at +first served the region of the upper Ohio; but in 1803 the district was +divided and Marietta was made the port for the Pittsburgh-Portsmouth +section of the river. In 1807 all the western districts were +amalgamated, and Pittsburgh, Charleston (Wellsburg), Marietta, +Cincinnati, Louisville, and Fort Massac were made ports of entry. + +The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 gave a marked impulse to inland +shipbuilding; but the embargo of 1807, which prohibited foreign trade, +following so soon, killed the shipyards, which, for a few years, had +been so busy. The great new industry of the Ohio Valley was ruined. + +By this time the successful voyage of Fulton's steamboat, the Clermont, +between New York and Albany, had demonstrated the possibilities of steam +navigation. Not a few men saw in the novel craft the beginning of a new +era in Western river traffic; but many doubted whether it was possible +to construct a vessel powerful enough to make its way upstream against +such sweeping currents as those of the Mississippi and the Ohio. Surely +no one for a moment dreamed that in hardly more than a generation the +Western rivers would carry a tonnage larger than that of the cities of +the Atlantic seaboard combined and larger than that of Great Britain! + +As early as 1805, two years before the trip of the Clermont, Captain +Keever built a "steamboat" on the Ohio, and sent her down to New Orleans +where her engine was to be installed. But it was not until 1811 that the +Orleans, the first steamboat to ply the Western streams, was built at +Pittsburgh, from which point she sailed for New Orleans in October of +that year. The Comet and Vesuvius quickly followed, but all three +entered the New Orleans-Natchez trade on the lower river and were never +seen again at the headwaters. As yet the swift currents and flood tides +of the great river had not been mastered. It is true that in 1815 the +Enterprise had made two trips between New Orleans and Louisville, but +this was in time of high water, when counter currents and backwaters had +assisted her feeble engine. In 1816, however, Henry Shreve conceived the +idea of raising the engine out of the hold and constructing an +additional deck. The Washington, the first doubledecker, was the result. +The next year this steamboat made the round trip from Louisville to New +Orleans and back in forty-one days. The doubters were now convinced. + +For a little while the quaint and original riverman held on in the new +age, only to disappear entirely when the colored roustabout became the +deckhand of post-bellum days. The riverman as a type was unknown except +on the larger rivers in the earlier years of water traffic. What an +experience it would be today to rouse one of those remarkable +individuals from his dreaming, as Davy Crockett did, with an oar, and +hear him howl "Halloe stranger, who axed you to crack my lice?"--to tell +him in his own lingo to "shut his mouth or he would get his teeth +sunburnt"--to see him crook his neck and neigh like a stallion--to +answer his challenge in kind with a flapping of arms and a cock's +crow--to go to shore and have a scrimmage such as was never known on a +gridiron--and then to resolve with Crockett, during a period of +recuperation, that you would never "wake up a ring-tailed roarer with an +oar again." + +The riverman, his art, his language, his traffic, seem to belong to days +as distant as those of which Homer sang. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +The Passing Show Of 1800 + +Foreign travelers who have come to the United States have always proved +of great interest to Americans. From Brissot to Arnold Bennett, while in +the country they have been fed and clothed and transported wheresoever +they would go--at the highest prevailing prices. And after they have +left, the records of their sojourn that these travelers have published +have made interesting reading for Americans all over the land. Some of +these trans-Atlantic visitors have been jaundiced, disgruntled, and +contemptuous; others have shown themselves of an open nature, discreet, +conscientious, and fair-minded. + +One of the most amiable and clear-headed of such foreign guests was +Francis Baily, later in life president of the Royal Astronomical Society +of Great Britain, but at the time of his American tour a young man of +twenty-two. His journey in 1796-97 gave him a wide experience of stage, +flatboat, and pack-horse travel, and his genial disposition, his +observant eye, and his discriminating criticism, together with his +comments on the commercial features of the towns and regions he visited, +make his record particularly interesting and valuable to the historian. +¹ Using Baily's journal as a guide, therefore, one can today journey +with him across the country and note the passing show as he saw it in +this transitional period. + +¹ Journal of a Tour in Unsettled Parts of North America in 1796 and 1797 +by the late Francis Baily (London, 1856). + +Landing at Norfolk, Virginia, Baily was immediately introduced to an +American tavern. Like most travelers, he was surprised to find that +American taverns were "boarding-places," frequented by crowds of "young, +able-bodied men who seemed to be as perfectly at leisure as the loungers +of ancient Europe." In those days of few newspapers, the tavern +everywhere in America was the center of information; in fact, it was a +common practice for travelers in the interior, after signing their names +in the register, to add on the same page any news of local interest +which they brought with them. The tavern habitués, Baily remarks, did +not sit and drink after meals but "wasted" their time at billiards and +cards. The passion for billiards was notorious, and taverns in the most +out-of-the-way places, though they lacked the most ordinary +conveniences, were nevertheless provided with billiard tables. This +custom seems to have been especially true in the South; and it is +significant that the first taxes in Tennessee levied before the +beginning of the nineteenth century were the poll tax and taxes on +billiard tables and studhorses! + +From Norfolk Baily passed northward to Baltimore, paying a fare of ten +dollars, and from there he went on to Philadelphia, paying six dollars +more. On the way his stagecoach stuck fast in a bog and the passengers +were compelled to leave it until the next morning. This sixty-mile road +out of Baltimore was evidently one of the worst in the East. Ten years +prior to this date, Brissot, a keen French journalist, mentions the +great ruts in its heavy clay soil, the overturned trees which blocked +the way, and the unexampled skilfulness of the stage drivers. All +travelers in America, though differing on almost every other subject, +invariably praise the ability of these sturdy, weather-beaten American +drivers, their kindness to their horses, and their attention to their +passengers. Harriet Martineau stated that, in her experience, American +drivers as a class were marked by the merciful temper which accompanies +genius, and their perfection in their art, their fertility of resource, +and the gentleness with which they treated female fears and fretfulness, +were exemplary. + +In the City of Brotherly Love Baily notes the geniality of the people, +who by many travelers are called aristocratic, and comments on Quaker +opposition to the theater and the inconsequence of the Peale Museum, +which travelers a generation later highly praise. Proceeding to New York +at a cost of six dollars, he is struck by the uncouthness of the public +buildings, churches excepted, the widespread passion for music, dancing, +and the theater, the craze for sleighing, and the promise which the +harbor gave of becoming the finest in America. Not a few travelers in +this early period gave expression to their belief in the future +greatness of New York City. These prophecies, taken in connection with +the investment of eight millions of dollars which New Yorkers made in +toll-roads in the first seven years of this new century, incline one to +believe that the influence of the Erie Canal as a factor in the +development of the city may have been unduly emphasized, great though it +was. + +From New York Baily returned to Baltimore and went on to Washington. The +records of all travelers to the site of the new national capital give +much the same picture of the countryside. It was a land worn out by +tobacco culture and variously described as "dried up," "run down," and +"hung out to dry." Even George Washington, at Mount Vernon, was giving +up tobacco culture and was attempting new crops by a system of rotation. +Cotton was being grown in Maryland, but little care was given to its +culture and manufacture. Tobacco was graded in Virginia in accordance +with the rigidity of its inspection at Hanover Court House, Pittsburgh, +Richmond, and Cabin-Point: leaf worth sixteen shillings at Richmond was +worth twenty-one at Hanover Court House; if it was refused at all +places, it was smuggled to the West Indies or consumed in the country. +Meadows were rapidly taking the place of tobacco-fields, for the +planters preferred to clear new land rather than to enrich the old. + +At Washington Baily found that lots to the value of $278,000 had been +sold, although only one-half of the proposed city had been "cleared." It +was to be forty years ere travelers could speak respectfully of what is +now the beautiful city of Washington. In these earlier days, the streets +were mudholes divided by vacant fields and "beautified by trees, swamps, +and cows." + +Departing for the West by way of Frederick, Baily, like all travelers, +was intensely interested upon entering the rich limestone region which +stretched from Pennsylvania far down into Virginia. It was occupied in +part by the Pennsylvania Dutch and was so famous for its rich milk that +it was called by many travelers the "Bonnyclabber Country." Most +Englishmen were delighted with this region because they found here the +good old English breed of horses, that is, the English hunter developed +into a stout coach-horse. Of native breeds, Baily found animals of all +degrees of strength and size down to hackneys of fourteen hands, as well +as the "vile dog-horses," or pack-horses, whose faithful service to the +frontier could in no wise be appreciated by a foreigner. + +This region of Pennsylvania was as noted for its wagons as for its +horses. It was this wheat-bearing belt that made the common +freight-wagon in its colors of red and blue a national institution. It +was in this region of rich, well-watered land that the maple tree gained +its reputation. Men even prophesied that its delightful sap would prove +a cure for slavery, for, if one family could make fifteen hundred pounds +of maple sugar in a season, eighty thousand families could, at the same +rate, equal the output of cane sugar each year from Santo Domingo! + +The traveler at the beginning of the century noticed a change in the +temper of the people as well as a change in the soil when the +Bonnyclabber Country was reached. The time-serving attitude of the good +people of the East now gave place to a "consciousness of independence" +due, Baily remarks, to the fact that each man was self-sufficient and +passed his life "without regard to the smiles and frowns of men in +power." This spirit was handsomely illustrated in the case of one burly +Westerner who was "churched" for fighting. Showing a surly attitude to +the deacon-judges who sat on his case, he was threatened with civil +prosecution and imprisonment. "I don't want freedom," he is said to have +replied, bitterly; "I don't even want to live if I can't knock down a +man who calls me a liar." + +Pushing on westward by way of historic Sideling Hill and Bedford to +Statlers, Baily found here a prosperous millstone quarry, which sold its +stones at from fifteen to thirty dollars a pair. Twelve years earlier +Washington had prophesied that the Alleghanies would soon be furnishing +millstones equal to the best English burr. As he crossed the mountains +Baily found that taverns charged the following schedule: breakfast, +eighteen pence; dinner and supper from two shillings to two shillings +and sixpence each. Traversing Laurel Hill, he reached Pittsburgh just at +the time when it was awakening to activity as the trading center of the +West. + +In order to descend the Ohio, Baily obtained a flatboat, thirty-six feet +long and twelve feet broad, which drew eighteen inches of water and was +of ten tons burden. On the way downstream, Charleston and Wheeling were +the principal settlements which Baily first noted. Ebenezer Zane, the +founder of Wheeling, had just opened across Ohio the famous landward +route from the Monongahela country to Kentucky, which it entered at +Limestone, the present Maysville. This famous road, passing through +Zanesville, Lancaster, and Chillicothe, though at that time safe only +for men in parties, was a common route to and from Kentucky. + +On such inland pathways as this, early travelers came to take for +granted a hospitality not to be found on more frequented thoroughfares. +In this hospitality, roughness and good will, cleanliness and filth, +attempts to ape the style of Eastern towns and habits of the most +primitive kind, were singularly blended. In one instance, the traveler +might be cordially assigned by the landlord to a good position in "the +first rush for a chance at the head of the table"; at the next stopping +place he might be coldly turned away because the proprietor "had the +gout" and his wife the "delicate blue-devils"; farther on, where "soap +was unknown, nothing clean but birds, nothing industrious but pigs, and +nothing happy but squirrels," Daniel Boone's daughter might be seen in +high-heeled shoes, attended by white servants whose wages were a dollar +a week, skirting muddy roads under a ten-dollar bonnet and a six-dollar +parasol. Or, he might emerge from a lonely forest in Ohio or Indiana and +come suddenly upon a party of neighbors at a dreary tavern, enjoying a +corn shucking or a harvest home. Immediately dubbed "Doctor," "Squire," +or "Colonel" by the hospitable merrymakers, the passer-by would be +informed that he "should drink and lack no good thing." After he had +retired, as likely as not his quarters would be invaded at one or two +o'clock in the morning by the uproarious company, and the best +refreshment of the house would be forced upon him with a hilarity +"created by omnipotent whiskey." Sometimes, however, the traveler would +encounter pitiful instances of loneliness in the wide-spreading forests. +One man in passing a certain isolated cabin was implored by the woman +who inhabited it to rest awhile and talk, since she was, she confessed, +completely overwhelmed by "the lone!" + +Every traveler has remarked upon the yellow pallor of the first +inhabitants of the western forests and doubtless correctly attributed +this sickly appearance to the effects of malaria and miasma. The psychic +influences of the forest wilderness also weighed heavily upon the +spirits of the settlers, although, as Baily notes, it was the newcomers +who felt the depression to an exaggerated degree. As he says: + +It is a feeling of confinement, which begins to damp the spirits, from +this complete exclusion of distant objects. To travel day after day, +among trees of a hundred feet high, is oppressive to a degree which +those cannot conceive who have not experienced it; and it must depress +the spirits of the solitary settler to pass years in this state. His +visible horizon extends no farther than the tops of the trees which +bound his plantation--perhaps five hundred yards. Upwards he sees the +sun, and sky, and stars, but around him an eternal forest, from which he +can never hope to emerge:--not so in a thickly settled district; he +cannot there enjoy any freedom of prospect, yet there is variety, and +some scope for the imprisoned vision. In a hilly country a little more +range of view may occasionally be obtained; and a river is a stream of +light as well as of water, which feasts the eye with a delight +inconceivable to the inhabitants of open countries. + +In direct contradiction to this longing for society was the passion +which the first generation of pioneers had for the wilderness. When the +population of one settlement became too thick, they were seized by an +irresistible impulse to "follow the migration," as the expression went. +The easy independence of the first hunter-agriculturalist was upset by +the advance of immigration. His range was curtailed, his freedom +limited. His very breath seems to have become difficult. So he sold out +at a phenomenal profit, put out his fire, shouldered his gun, called his +dog, and set off again in search of the solitude he craved. + +Severe winter weather overtook Baily as he descended the Ohio River, +until below Grave Creek floating ice wrecked his boat and drove him +ashore. Here in the primeval forest, far from "Merrie England," Baily +spent the Christmas of 1796 in building a new flatboat. This task +completed, he resumed his journey. Passing Marietta, where the bad +condition of the winter roads prevented a visit to a famous Indian +mound, he reached Limestone. In due time he sighted Columbia, the +metropolis of the Miami country. According to Baily, the sale of +European goods in this part of the Ohio Valley netted the importers a +hundred per cent. Prices varied with the ease of navigation. When ice +blocked the Ohio the price of flour went up until it was eight dollars a +barrel; whiskey was a dollar a gallon; potatoes, a dollar a bushel; and +bacon, twelve cents a pound. At these prices, the total produce which +went by Fort Massac in the early months of 1800 would have been worth on +the Ohio River upwards of two hundred thousand dollars! In the preceding +summer Baily quoted flour at Norfolk as selling at sixty-three shillings +a barrel of 196 pounds, or double the price it was bringing on the +ice-gorged Ohio. It is by such comparisons that we get some inkling of +the value of western produce and of the rates in western trade. + +After a short stay at Cincinnati, Baily set out for the South on an +"Orleans boat" loaded with four hundred barrels of flour. At the mouth +of Pigeon Creek he noted the famous path to "Post St. Vincent's" +(Vincennes), over which he saw emigrants driving cattle to that ancient +town on the Wabash. At Fort Massac he met Captain Zebulon M. Pike, whose +tact in dealing with intoxicated Indians he commended. At New Madrid +Baily made a stay of some days. This settlement, consisting of some two +hundred and fifty houses, was in the possession of Spain. It was within +the province of Louisiana, soon to be ceded to Napoleon. New Orleans +supplied this district with merchandise, but smuggling from the United +States was connived at by the Spanish officials. + +From New Madrid Baily proceeded to Natchez, which then contained about +eighty-five houses. The town did not boast a tavern, but, as was true of +other places in the interior, this lack was made up for by the +hospitality of its inhabitants. Rice and tobacco were being grown, Baily +notes, and Georgian cotton was being raised in the neighborhood. Several +jennies were already at work, and their owners received a royalty of +one-eighth of the product. The cotton was sent to New Orleans, where it +usually sold for twenty dollars a hundred weight. From Natchez to New +Orleans the charge for transportation by flatboat was a dollar and a +half a bag. The bags contained from one hundred and fifty to two hundred +and fifty pounds, and each flatboat carried about two hundred and fifty +bags. Baily adds two items to the story of the development of the +mechanical operation of watercraft. He tells us that in the fall of 1796 +a party of "Dutchmen," in the Pittsburgh region, fashioned a boat with +side paddle wheels which were turned by a treadmill worked by eight +horses under the deck. This strange boat, which passed Baily when he was +wrecked on the Ohio near Grave Creek, appeared "to go with prodigious +swiftness." Baily does not state how much business the boat did on its +downward trip to New Orleans but contents himself with remarking that +the owners expected the return trip to prove very profitable. When he +met the boat on its upward voyage at Natchez, it had covered three +hundred miles in six days. It was, however, not loaded, "so little +occasion was there for a vessel of this kind." As this run between New +Orleans and Natchez came to be one of the most profitable in the United +States in the early days of steamboating, less than fifteen years later, +the experience of these "Flying Dutchmen" affords a very pretty proof +that something more than a means of transportation is needed to create +commerce. The owners abandoned their craft at Natchez in disgust and +returned home across country, wiser and poorer. + +Baily also noted that a Dr. Waters of New Madrid built a schooner "some +few years since" at the head of the Ohio and navigated it down the Ohio +and Mississippi and around to Philadelphia, "where it is now employed in +the commerce of the United States." It is thus apparent, solely from +this traveler's record, that an ocean-going vessel and a +side-paddle-wheel boat had been seen on the Western Waters of the United +States at least four years before the nineteenth century arrived. + +Baily finally reached New Orleans. The city then contained about a +thousand houses and was not only the market for the produce of the river +plantations but also the center of an extensive Indian trade. The goods +for this trade were packed in little barrels which were carried into the +interior on pack-horses, three barrels to a horse. The traders traveled +for hundreds of miles through the woods, bartering with the Indians on +the way and receiving, in exchange for their goods, bear and deer skins, +beaver furs, and wild ponies which had been caught by lariat in the +neighboring Apalousa country. + +Baily had intended to return to New York by sea, but on his arrival at +New Orleans he was unable to find a ship sailing to New York. He +therefore decided to proceed northward by way of the long and dangerous +Natchez Trace and the Tennessee Path. Though few Europeans had made this +laborious journey before 1800, the Natchez Trace had been for many years +the land route of thousands of returning rivermen who had descended the +Mississippi in flatboat and barge. In practically all cases these men +carried with them the proceeds of their investment, and, as on every +thoroughfare in the world traveled by those returning from market, so +here, too, highwaymen and desperadoes, red and white, built their lairs +and lay in wait. Some of the most revolting crimes of the American +frontier were committed on these northward pathways and their branches. + +Joining a party bound for Natchez, a hundred and fifty miles distant +overland, Baily proceeded to Lake Pontchartrain and thence "north by +west through the woods," by way of the ford of the Tangipahoa, Cooper's +Plantation, Tickfaw River, Amite River, and the "Hurricane" (the path of +a tornado) to the beginning of the Apalousa country. This tangled region +of stunted growth was reputed to be seven miles in width from "shore to +shore" and three hundred miles in length. It took the party half a day +to reach the opposite "shore," and they had to quench their thirst on +the way with dew. + +At Natchez, Baily organized a party which included the five "Dutchmen" +whose horse boat had proved a failure. For their twenty-one days' +journey to Nashville the party laid in the following provisions: 15 +pounds of biscuit, 6 pounds of flour, 12 pounds of bacon, 10 pounds of +dried beef, 3 pounds of rice, 1½ pounds of coffee, 4 pounds of sugar, +and a quantity of pounded corn, such as the Indians used on all their +journeys. After celebrating the Fourth of July, 1797, with "all the +inhabitants who were hostile to the Spanish Government," and bribing the +baker at the Spanish fort to bake them a quarter of a hundredweight of +bread, the party started on their northward journey. + +They reached without incident the famous Grindstone Ford of Bayou +Pierre, where crayfishes had destroyed a pioneer dam. Beyond, at the +forks of the path where the Choctaw Trail bore off to the east the party +pursued the alternate Chickasaw Trail by Indian guidance, and soon noted +the change in the character of the soil from black loam to sandy gravel, +which indicated that they had reached the Piedmont region. Indian +marauders stole one horse from the camp, and three of the party fell +ill. The others, pressed for food, were compelled to leave the sick men +in an improvised camp and to hasten on, promising to send to their aid +the first Indian they should meet "who understood herbs." After +appalling hardships, they crossed the Tennessee and entered the +Nashville country, where the roads were good enough for coaches, for +they met two on the way. Thence Baily proceeded to Knoxville, seeing, as +he went, droves of cattle bound for the settlements of west Tennessee. +With his arrival at Knoxville, his journal ends abruptly; but from other +sources we learn that he sailed from New York on his return to England +in January, 1798. His interesting record, however, remained unpublished +until after his death in 1844. + +Not only to Francis Baily but to scores of other travelers, even those +of unfriendly eyes, do modern readers owe a debt of gratitude. These men +have preserved a multitude of pictures and a wealth of data which would +otherwise have been lost. The men of America in those days were writing +the story of their deeds not on parchment or paper but on the virgin +soil of the wilderness. But though the stage driver, the tavern keeper, +and the burly riverman left no description of the life of their highways +and their commerce, these visitors from other lands have bequeathed to +us their thousands of pages full of the enterprising life of these +pioneer days in the history of American commerce. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +The Birth Of The Steamboat + +The crowds who welcomed the successive stages in the development of +American transportation were much alike in essentials--they were all +optimistic, self-congratulatory, irrepressible in their enthusiasm, and +undaunted in their outlook. Dickens, perhaps, did not miss the truth +widely when, in speaking of stage driving, he said that the cry of "Go +Ahead!" in America and of "All Right!" in England were typical of the +civilizations of the two countries. Right or wrong, "Go Ahead!" has +always been the underlying passion of all men interested in the +development of commerce and transportation in these United States. + +During the era of river improvement already described, men of +imagination were fascinated with the idea of propelling boats by +mechanical means. Even when Washington fared westward in 1784, he met at +Bath, Virginia, one of these early experimenters, James Rumsey, who +haled him forthwith to a neighboring meadow to watch a secret trial of a +boat moved by means of machinery which worked setting-poles similar to +the ironshod poles used by the rivermen to propel their boats upstream. +"The model," wrote Washington, "and its operation upon the water, which +had been made to run pretty swift, not only convinced me of what I +before thought next to, if not quite impracticable, but that it might be +to the greatest possible utility in inland navigation." Later he +mentions the "discovery" as one of those "circumstances which have +combined to render the present epoch favorable above all others for +securing a large portion of the produce of the western settlements, and +of the fur and peltry of the Lakes, also." + +From that day forward, scarcely a week passed without some new +development in the long and difficult struggle to improve the means of +navigation. Among the scores of men who engaged in this engrossing but +discouraging work, there is one whom the world is coming to honor more +highly than in previous years--John Fitch, of Connecticut, Pennsylvania, +and Kentucky. As early as August, 1785, Fitch launched on a rivulet in +Bucks County, Pennsylvania, a boat propelled by an engine which moved an +endless chain to which little paddles were attached. The next year, +Fitch's second boat, operated by twelve paddles, six on a side--an +arrangement suggesting the "side-wheeler" of the future--successfully +plied the Delaware off "Conjuror's Point," as the scene of Fitch's +labors was dubbed in whimsical amusement and derision. In 1787 Rumsey, +encouraged by Franklin, fashioned a boat propelled by a stream of water +taken in at the prow and ejected at the stern. In 1788 Fitch's third +boat traversed the distance from Philadelphia to Burlington on numerous +occasions and ran as a regular packet in 1790, covering over a thousand +miles. In this model Fitch shifted the paddles from the sides to the +rear, thus anticipating in principle the modern stern-wheeler. + +It was doubtless Fitch's experiments in 1785 that led to the first plan +in America to operate a land vehicle by steam. Oliver Evans, a neighbor +and acquaintance of Fitch's, petitioned the Pennsylvania Legislature in +1786 for the right of operating wagons propelled by steam on the +highways of that State. This petition was derisively rejected; but a +similar one made to the Legislature of Maryland was granted on the +ground that such action could hurt nobody. Evans in 1802 took fiery +revenge on the scoffers by actually running his little five-horse-power +carriage through Philadelphia. The rate of speed, however, was so slow +that the idea of moving vehicles by steam was still considered useless +for practical purposes. Eight years later, Evans offered to wager $3000 +that, on a level road, he could make a carriage driven by steam equal +the speed of the swiftest horse, but he found no response. In 1812 he +asserted that he was willing to wager that he could drive a steam +carriage on level rails at a rate of fifteen miles an hour. Evans thus +anticipated the belief of Stephenson that steam-driven vehicles would +travel best on railed tracks. + +In the development of the steamboat almost all earlier means of +propulsion, natural and artificial, were used as models by the +inventors. The fins of fishes, the webbed feet of amphibious birds, the +paddles of the Indian, and the poles and oars of the riverman, were all +imitated by the patient inventors struggling with the problem. Rumsey's +first effort was a copy of the old setting-pole idea. Fitch's model of +1785 had side paddle wheels operated by an endless chain. Fitch's second +and third models were practically paddle-wheel models, one having the +paddles at the side and the other at the stern. Ormsbee of Connecticut +made a model, in 1792, on the plan of a duck's foot. Morey made what may +be called the first real stern-wheeler in 1794. Two years later Fitch +ran a veritable screw propeller on Collect Pond near New York City. +Although General Benjamin Tupper of Massachusetts had been fashioning +devices of this character eight years previously, Fitch was the first to +apply the idea effectively. In 1798 he evolved the strange, amphibious +creation known as his "model of 1798," which has never been adequately +explained. It was a steamboat on iron wheels provided with flanges, as +though it was intended to be run on submerged tracks. What may have been +the idea of its inventor, living out his last gloomy days in Kentucky, +may never be known; but it is possible to see in this anomalous machine +an anticipation of the locomotive not approached by any other American +of the time. Thus, prior to 1800 almost every type of mechanism for the +propulsion of steamboats had been suggested and tried; and in 1804, +Stevens's twin-screw propeller completed the list. + +It is not alone Fitch's development of the devices of the endless chain, +paddle wheel, and screw propeller and of his puzzling earth-and-water +creature that gives luster to his name. His prophetic insight into the +future national importance of the steamboat and his conception, as an +inventor, of his moral obligations to the people at large were as +original and striking in the science of that age as were his models. + +The early years of the national life of the United States were the +golden age of monopoly. Every colony, as a matter of course, had granted +to certain men special privileges, and, as has already been pointed out, +the questions of monopolies and combinations in restraint of trade had +arisen even so early as the beginning of the eighteenth century. +Interwoven inextricably with these problems was the whole problem of +colonial rivalry, which in its later form developed into an insistence +on state rights. Every improvement in the means of transportation, every +development of natural resources, every new invention was inevitably +considered from the standpoint of sectional interests and with a view to +its monopolistic possibilities. This was particularly true in the case +of the steamboat, because of its limitation to rivers and bays which +could be specifically enumerated and defined. For instance, Washington +in 1784 attests the fact that Rumsey operated his mechanical boat at +Bath in secret "until he saw the effect of an application he was about +to make to the Assembly of this State, for a reward." The application +was successful, and Rumsey was awarded a monopoly in Virginia waters for +ten years. + +Fitch, on the other hand, when he applied to Congress in 1785, desired +merely to obtain official encouragement and intended to allow his +invention to be used by all comers. Meeting only with rebuff, he +realized that his only hope of organizing a company that could provide +working capital lay in securing monopolistic privileges. In 1786 he +accordingly applied to the individual States and secured the sole right +to operate steamboats on the waterways of New Jersey, Delaware, New +York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. How different would have been the +story of the steamboat if Congress had accepted Fitch at his word and +created a precedent against monopolistic rights on American rivers! + +Fitch, in addition to the high purpose of devoting his new invention to +the good of the nation without personal considerations, must be credited +with perceiving at the very beginning the peculiar importance of the +steamboat to the American West. His original application to Congress in +1785 opened: "The subscriber begs leave to lay at the feet of Congress, +an attempt he has made to facilitate the internal Navigation of the +United States, adapted especially to the Waters of the Mississippi." At +another time with prophetic vision he wrote: "The Grand and Principle +object must be on the Atlantick, which would soon overspread the wild +forests of America with people, and make us the most oppulent Empire on +Earth. Pardon me, generous public, for suggesting ideas that cannot be +dijested at this day." + +Foremost in exhibiting high civic and patriotic motives, Fitch was also +foremost in appreciating the importance of the steamboat in the +expansion of American trade. This significance was also clearly +perceived by his brilliant successor, Robert Fulton. That the West and +its commerce were always predominant in Fulton's great schemes is proved +by words which he addressed in 1803 to James Monroe, American Ambassador +to Great Britain: "You have perhaps heard of the success of my +experiments for navigating boats by steam engines and you will feel the +importance of establishing such boats on the Mississippi and other +rivers of the United States as soon as possible." + +Robert Fulton had been interested in steamboats for a period not +definitely known, possibly since his sojourn in Philadelphia in the days +of Fitch's early efforts. That he profited by the other inventor's +efforts at the time, however, is not suggested by any of his +biographers. He subsequently went to London and gave himself up to the +study and practice of engineering. There he later met James Rumsey, who +came to England in 1788, and by him no doubt was informed, if he was not +already aware, of the experiments and models of Rumsey and Fitch. He +obtained the loan of Fitch's plans and drawings and made his own trial +of various existing devices, such as oars, paddles, duck's feet, and +Fitch's endless chain with "resisting-boards" attached. Meanwhile Fulton +was also devoting his attention to problems of canal construction and to +the development of submarine boats and submarine explosives. He was +engaged in these researches in France in 1801 when the new American +minister, Robert R. Livingston, arrived, and the two men soon formed a +friendship destined to have a vital and enduring influence upon the +development of steam navigation on the inland waterways of America. + +Livingston already had no little experience in the same field of +invention as Fulton. In 1798 he had obtained, for a period of twenty +years, the right to operate steamboats on all the waters of the State of +New York, a monopoly which had just lapsed owing to the death of Fitch. +In the same year Livingston had built a steamboat which had made three +miles an hour on the Hudson. He had experimented with most of the models +then in existence--upright paddles at the side, endless-chain paddles, +and stern paddle wheels. Fulton was soon inspired to resume his efforts +by Livingston's account of his own experiments and of recent advances in +England, where a steamboat had navigated the Thames in 1801 and a year +later the famous stern-wheeler Charlotte Dundas had towed boats of 140 +tons' burden on the Forth and Clyde Canal at the rate of five miles an +hour. In this same year Fulton and Livingston made successful +experiments on the Seine. + +It is fortunate that, in one particular, Livingston's influence did not +prevail with Fulton, for the American Minister was distinctly prejudiced +against paddle wheels. Although Livingston had previously ridden as a +passenger on Morey's stern-wheeler at the rate of five miles an hour, +yet he had turned a deaf ear when his partner in experimentation, +Nicholas J. Roosevelt, had insisted strongly on "throwing wheels over +the sides." At the beginning, Fulton himself was inclined to agree with +Livingston in this respect; but, probably late in 1803, he began to +investigate more carefully the possibilities of the paddle wheel as used +twice in America by Morey and by four or five experimenters in Europe. +In 1804 an eight-mile trip which Fulton made on the Charlotte Dundas in +an hour and twenty minutes established his faith in the undeniable +superiority of two fundamental factors of early navigation--paddle +wheels and British engines. Fulton's splendid fame rests, and rightly +so, on his perception of the fact that no mere ingenuity of design could +counterbalance weakness, uncertainty, and inefficiency in the mechanism +which was intended to make a steamboat run and keep running. As early as +November, 1803, Fulton had written to Boulton and Watt of Birmingham +that he had "not confidence in any other engines" than theirs and that +he was seeking a means of getting one of those engines to America. "I +cannot establish the boat without the engine," he now emphatically wrote +to James Monroe, then Ambassador to the Court of St. James. "The +question then is shall we or shall we not have such boats." + +But there were difficulties in the way. Though England forbade the +exportation of engines, Fulton knew that, in numerous instances, this +rule had not been enforced, and he had hopes of success. "The British +Government," Fulton wrote Monroe, "must have little friendship or even +civility toward America, if they refuse such a request." Before the +steamboat which Fulton and Livingston proposed to build in America could +be operated there was another obstacle to be surmounted. The rights of +steam navigation of New York waters which Livingston had obtained on the +death of Fitch in 1798 had lapsed because of his failure to run a +steamboat at the rate of four miles an hour, which was one provision of +the grant. In April, 1803, the grant was renewed to Livingston, +Roosevelt, and Fulton jointly for another period of twenty years, and +the date when the boat was to make the required four miles an hour was +extended finally to 1807. + +Any one who is inclined to criticize the Livingston-Roosevelt-Fulton +monopoly which now came into existence should remember that the previous +state grants formed a precedent of no slight moment. The whole +proceeding was in perfect accord with the spirit of the times, for it +was an era of speculation and monopoly ushered in by the toll-road and +turnpike organizations, when probably no less than two hundred companies +were formed. It was young America showing itself in an unmistakable +manner--"conceived in liberty" and starting on the long road to learn +that obedience to law and respect for public rights constitute true +liberty. Finally, it must be pointed out that Fulton, like his famous +predecessor, Fitch, was impelled by motives far higher than the love of +personal gain. "I consider them [steamboats] of such infinite use in +America," he wrote Monroe, "that I should feel a culpable neglect toward +my country if I relaxed for a moment in pursuing every necessary measure +for carrying it into effect." And later, when repeating his argument, he +says: "I plead this not for myself alone but for our country." + +It is now evident why the alliance of Fulton with Livingston was of such +epoch-making importance, for, although it may have in some brief measure +delayed Fulton's adoption of paddle wheels, it gave him an entry to the +waters of New York. Livingston and Fulton thus supplemented each other; +Livingston possessed a monopoly and Fulton a correct estimate of the +value of paddle wheels and, secondly, of Boulton and Watt engines. It +was a rare combination destined to crown with success a long period of +effort and discouragement in the history of navigation. + +After considerable delay and difficulty, the two Americans obtained +permission to export the necessary engine from Great Britain and shipped +it to New York, whither Fulton himself proceeded to construct his +steamboat. The hull was built by Charles Brown, a New York shipbuilder, +and the Boulton and Watt machinery, set in masonry, was finally +installed. + +The voyage to Albany, against a stiff wind, occupied thirty-two hours; +the return trip was made in thirty. H. Freeland, one of the spectators +who stood on the banks of the Hudson when the boat made its maiden +voyage in 1807, gives the following description: + +Some imagined it to be a sea-monster whilst others did not hesitate to +express their belief that it was a sign of the approaching judgment. +What seemed strange in the vessel was the substitution of lofty and +straight smoke-pipes, rising from the deck, instead of the gracefully +tapered masts ... and, in place of the spars and rigging, the curious +play of the walking-beam and pistons, and the slow turning and splashing +of the huge and naked paddle-wheels, met the astonished gaze. The dense +clouds of smoke, as they rose, wave upon wave, added still more to the +wonderment of the rustics.... On her return trip the curiosity she +excited was scarcely less intense ... fishermen became terrified, and +rode homewards, and they saw nothing but destruction devastating their +fishing grounds, whilst the wreaths of black vapor and rushing noise of +the paddle-wheels, foaming with the stirred-up water, produced great +excitement.... + +With the launching of the Clermont on the Hudson a new era in American +history began. How quick with life it was many of the preceding pages +bear testimony. The infatuation of the public for building toll and +turnpike roads was now at its height. Only a few years before, a +comprehensive scheme of internal improvements had been outlined by +Jefferson's Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin. When a boy, it +is said, he had lain on the floor of a surveyor's cabin on the western +slopes of the Alleghanies and had heard Washington describe to a rough +crowd of Westerners his plan to unite the Great Lakes with the Potomac +in one mighty chain of inland commerce. Jefferson's Administration was +now about to devote the surplus in the Treasury to the construction of +national highways and canals. The Cumberland Road, to be built across +the Alleghanies by the War Department, was authorized by the President +in the same year in which the Clermont made her first trip; and Jesse +Hawley, at his table in a little room in a Pittsburgh boarding house, +was even now penning in a series of articles, published in the +Pittsburgh Commonwealth, beginning in January, 1807, the first clear +challenge to the Empire State to connect the Hudson and Lake Erie by a +canal. Thus the two next steps in the history of inland commerce in +America were ready to be taken. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +The Conquest Of The Alleghanies + +The two great thoroughfares of American commerce in the first half of +the nineteenth century were the Cumberland Road and the Erie Canal. The +first generation of the new century witnessed the great burst of +population into the West which at once gave Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, +Michigan, and Wisconsin a place of national importance which they have +never relinquished. So far as pathways of commerce contributed to the +creation of this veritable new republic in the Middle West, the +Cumberland Road and the Erie Canal, coöperating respectively with Ohio +River and Lake Erie steamboats, were of the utmost importance. The +national spirit, said to have arisen from the second war with England, +had its clearest manifestation in the throwing of a great macadamized +roadway across the Alleghanies to the Ohio River and the digging of the +Erie Canal through the swamps and wildernesses of New York. + +Both of these pathways were essentially the fruition of the doctrine to +which Washington gave wide circulation in his letter to Harrison in +1784, wherein he pictured the vision of a vast Republic united by +commercial chains. Both were essentially Western enterprises. The +highway was built to fulfil the promise which the Government had made in +1802 to use a portion of the money accruing from the sale of public +lands in Ohio in order to connect that young State with Atlantic waters. +It was proposed to build the canal, according to one early plan, with +funds to be obtained by the sale of land in Michigan. So firmly did the +promoters believe in the national importance of this project that +subscriptions, according to another plan, were to be solicited as far +afield as Vermont in the North and Kentucky in the Southwest. All that +Washington had hoped for, and all that Aaron Burr is supposed to have +been hopeless of, were epitomized in these great works of internal +improvement. They bespoke coöperation of the highest existing types of +loyalty, optimism, financial skill, and engineering ability. + +Yet, on the other hand, the contrasts between these undertakings were +great. The two enterprises, one the work of the nation and the other +that of a single State, were practically contemporaneous and were +therefore constantly inviting comparison. The Cumberland Road was, for +its day, a gigantic government undertaking involving problems of +finance, civil engineering, eminent domain, state rights, local +favoritism, and political machination. Its purpose was noble and its +successful construction a credit to the nation; but the paternalism to +which it gave rise and the conflicts which it precipitated in Congress +over questions of constitutionality were remembered soberly for a +century. The Erie Canal, after its projectors had failed to obtain +national aid, became the undertaking of one commonwealth conducted, amid +countless doubts and jeers, to a conclusion unbelievably successful. As +a result many States, foregoing Federal aid, attempted to duplicate the +successful feat of New York. In this respect the northern canal +resembled the Lancaster Turnpike and tempted scores of States and +corporations to expenditures which were unwise in circumstances less +favorable than those of the fruitful and strategic Empire State. + +In the conception of both the roadway and the canal, it should be noted, +the old idea of making use of navigable rivers still persisted. The act +foreshadowing the Cumberland Road, passed in 1802, called for "making +public roads leading from the navigable waters emptying into the +Atlantic, to the Ohio, to said State Ohio and through the same"; and +Hawley's original plan was to build the Erie Canal from Utica to Buffalo +using the Mohawk from Utica to the Hudson. + +Historic Cumberland, in Maryland, was chosen by Congress as the eastern +terminus of the great highway which should bind Ohio to the Old +Thirteen. Commissioners were appointed in 1806 to choose the best route +by which the great highway could reach the Ohio River between +Steubenville, Ohio and the mouth of Grave Creek; but difficulties of +navigation in the neighborhood of the Three Sister Islands near +Charlestown, or Wellsburg, West Virginia, led to the choice of Wheeling, +farther down, as a temporary western terminus. + +The route selected was an excellent compromise between the long standing +rival claims of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia to the trade of the +West. If Baltimore and Alexandria were to be better served than +Philadelphia, the advantage was slight; and Pennsylvania gained +compensation, ere the State gave the National Government permission to +build the road within its limits, by dictating that it should pass +through Uniontown and Washington. In this way Pennsylvania obtained, +without cost, unrivaled advantages for a portion of the State which +might otherwise have been long neglected. + +The building of the road, however satisfactory in the main, was not +undertaken without arousing many sectional and personal hopes and +prejudices and jealousies, of which the echoes still linger in local +legends today. Land-owners, mine-owners, factory-owners, innkeepers and +countless townsmen and villagers anxiously watched the course of the +road and were bitterly disappointed if the new sixty-four-foot +thoroughfare did not pass immediately through their property. On the +other hand, promoters of toll and turnpike companies, who had promising +schemes and long lists of shareholders, were far from eager to have +their property taken for a national road. No one believed that, if it +proved successful, it would be the only work of its kind, and everywhere +men looked for the construction of government highways out of the +overflowing wealth of the treasury within the next few years. + +In April, 1811, the first contracts were let for building the first ten +miles of the road from its eastern terminus and were completed in 1812. +More contracts were let in 1812, 1813, and 1815. Even in those days of +war when the drain on the national treasury was excessive, over a +quarter of a million dollars was appropriated for the construction of +the road. Onward it crawled, through the beautiful Cumberland gateway of +the Potomac, to Big Savage and Little Savage Mountains, to Little Pine +Run (the first "Western" water), to Red Hill (later called "Shades of +Death" because of the gloomy forest growth), to high-flung Negro +Mountain at an elevation of 2325 feet, and thence on to the +Youghiogheny, historic Great Meadows, Braddock's Grave, Laurel Hill, +Uniontown, and Brownsville, where it crossed the Monongahela. Thence, on +almost a straight line, it sped by way of Washington to Wheeling. Its +average cost was upwards of thirteen thousand dollars a mile from the +Potomac to the Ohio. The road was used in 1817, and in another year the +mail coaches of the United States were running from Washington to +Wheeling, West Virginia. Within five years one of the five commission +houses doing business at Wheeling is said to have handled over a +thousand wagons carrying freight of nearly two tons each. + +The Cumberland Road at once leaped into a position of leadership, both +in volume of commerce and in popularity, and held its own for two famous +decades. The pulse of the nation beat to the steady throb of trade along +its highway. Maryland at once stretched out her eager arms, along stone +roads, through Frederick and Hagerstown to Cumberland, and thus formed a +single route from the Ohio to Baltimore. Great stagecoach and freight +lines were soon established, each patronizing its own stage house or +wagon stand in the thriving towns along the road. The primitive box +stage gave way to the oval or football type with curved top and bottom, +and this was displaced in turn by the more practical Concord coach of +national fame. The names of the important stagecoach companies were +quite as well known, a century ago, as those of our great railways +today. Chief among them were the National, Good Intent, June Bug, and +Pioneer lines. The coaches, drawn by four and sometimes six horses, were +usually painted in brilliant colors and were named after eminent +statesmen. The drivers of these gay chariots were characters quite as +famous locally as the personages whose names were borne by the coaches. +Westover and his record of forty-five minutes for the twenty miles +between Uniontown and Brownsville, and "Red" Bunting, with his drive of +a hundred and thirty-one miles in twelve hours with the declaration of +war against Mexico, will be long famous on the curving stretches of the +Cumberland Road. + +Although the freight and express traffic of those days lacked the +picturesqueness of the passenger coaches, nothing illustrates so +conclusively what the great road meant to an awakening West as the long +lines of heavy Conestogas and rattling express wagons which raced at +"unprecedented" speed across hill and vale. Searight, the local +historian of the road, describes these large, broad-wheeled wagons +covered with white canvas as + +visible all the day long, at every point, making the highway look more +like a leading avenue of a great city than a road through rural +districts.... I have staid over night with William Cheets on Nigger +[Negro] Mountain when there were about thirty six-horse teams in the +wagon yard, a hundred Kentucky mules in an adjoining lot, a thousand +hogs in their enclosures, and as many fat cattle in adjoining fields. +The music made by this large number of hogs eating corn on a frosty +night I shall never forget. After supper and attention to the teams, the +wagoners would gather in the bar-room and listen to the music on the +violin furnished by one of their fellows, have a Virginia hoe-down, sing +songs, tell anecdotes, and hear the experiences of drivers and drovers +from all points of the road, and, when it was all over, unroll their +beds, lay them down on the floor before the bar-room fire side by side, +and sleep with their feet near the blaze as soundly as under the +parental roof. + +Meanwhile New York, the other great rival for Western trade, was intent +on its own darling project, the Erie Canal. In 1808, three years before +the building of the Cumberland Road, Joshua Forman offered a bill in +favor of the canal in the Legislature of New York. In plain but +dignified language this document stated that New York possessed "the +best route of communication between the Atlantic and western waters," +and that it held "the first commercial rank in the United States." The +bill also noted that, while "several of our sister States" were seeking +to secure "the trade of that wide extended country," their natural +advantages were "vastly inferior." Six hundred dollars was the amount +appropriated for a brief survey, and Congress was asked to vote aid for +the construction of the "Buffalo-Utica Canal." The matter was widely +talked about but action was delayed. Doubt as to the best route to be +pursued caused some discussion. If the western terminus were to be +located on Lake Ontario at the mouth of the Oswego, as some advocated, +would produce not make its way to Montreal instead of to New York? In +1810 a new committee was appointed and, though their report favored the +paralleling of the course of the Mohawk and Oswego rivers, their +engineer, James Geddes, gave strength to the party which believed a +direct canal would best serve the interests of the State. It is worth +noting that Livingston and Fulton were added to the committee in 1811. + +The hopes of outside aid from Congress and adjacent States met with +disappointment. In vain did the advocates of the canal in 1812 plead +that its construction would promote "a free and general intercourse +between different parts of the United States, tend to the aggrandizement +and prosperity of the country, and consolidate and strengthen the +Union." The plan to have the Government subsidize the canal by vesting +in the State of New York four million acres of Michigan land brought out +a protest from the West which is notable not so much because it records +the opposition of this section as because it illustrates the +shortsightedness of most of the arguments raised against the New York +enterprise. The purpose of the canal, the detractors asserted, was to +build up New York City to the detriment of Montreal, and the navigation +of Lake Ontario, whose beauty they touchingly described, was to be +abandoned for a "narrow, winding obstructed canal ... for an expense +which arithmetic dares not approach." It was, in their minds, +unquestionably a selfish object, and they believed that "both correct +science, and the dictates of patriotism and philanthropy [should] lead +to the adoption of more liberal principles." It was a shortsighted +object, "predicated on the eternal adhesion of the Canadas to England." +It would never give satisfaction since trade would always ignore +artificial and seek natural routes. The attempting of such comparatively +useless projects would discourage worthy schemes, relax the bonds of +Union, and depress the national character. But though these Westerners +thus misjudged the possibilities of the Erie Canal, we must doff our +hats to them for their foresight in suggesting that, instead of aiding +the Erie Canal, the nation ought to build canals at Niagara Falls and +Panama! + +The War of 1812 suspended all talk of the canal, but the subject was +again brought up by Judge Platt in the autumn of 1816. With alacrity +strong men came to the aid of the measure. De Witt Clinton's Memorial of +1816 addressed to the State Legislature may well rank with Washington's +letter to Harrison in the documentary history of American commercial +development. It sums up the geographical position of New York with +reference to the Great Lakes and the Atlantic, her relationship to the +West and to Canada, the feasibility of the proposed route from an +engineering standpoint, the timeliness of the moment for such a work of +improvement, the value that the canal would give to the state lands of +the interior, and the trade that it would bring to the towns along its +pathway. + +The Erie Canal was born in the Act of April 14, 1817, but the decision +of the Council of Revision, which held the power of veto, was in doubt. +An anecdote related by Judge Platt tends to prove that fear of another +war with England was the straw that broke the camel's back of +opposition. Acting-Governor Taylor, Chief Justice Thompson, Chancellor +Kent, Judge Yates, and Judge Platt composed the Council. The two first +named were open opponents of the measure; Kent, Yates, and Platt were +warm advocates of the project, but one of them doubted if the time was +ripe to undertake it. + +Taylor opposed the canal on the ground that the late treaty with England +was a mere truce and that the resources of the State should be husbanded +against renewed war. + +"Do you think so, Sir?" Chancellor Kent is said to have asked the +Governor. + +"Yes, Sir," was the reported reply. "England will never forgive us for +our victories, and, my word for it, we shall have another war with her +within two years." + +The Chancellor rose to his feet with determination and sealed the fate +of the great enterprise in a word. + +"If we must have war," he exclaimed, "I am in favor of the canal and I +cast my vote for this bill." + +On July 4, 1817, work was formally inaugurated at Rome with simple +ceremonies. Thus the year 1817 was marked by three great undertakings: +the navigation of the Mississippi River upstream and down by steamboats, +the opening of the national road across the Alleghany Mountains, and the +beginning of the Erie Canal. No single year in the early history of the +United States witnessed three such important events in the material +progress of the country. + +What days the ancient "Long House of the Iroquois" now saw! The +engineers of the Cumberland Road, now nearing the Ohio River, had +enjoyed the advantage of many precedents and examples; but the +Commissioners of the Erie Canal had been able to study only such crude +examples of canal-building as America then afforded. Never on any +continent had such an inaccessible region been pierced by such a +highway. The total length of the whole network of canals in Great +Britain did not equal that of the waterway which the New Yorkers now +undertook to build. The lack of roads, materials, vehicles, methods of +drilling and efficient business systems was overcome by sheer patience +and perseverance in experiment. The frozen winter roads saved the day by +making it possible to accumulate a proper supply of provisions and +materials. As tools of construction, the plough and scraper with their +greater capacity for work soon supplanted the shovel and the +wheelbarrow, which had been the chief implements for such construction +in Europe. Strange new machinery born of Mother Necessity was now heard +groaning in the dark swamps of New York. These giants, worked by means +of a cable, wheel, and endless screw, were made to hoist green stumps +bodily from the ground and, without the use of axe, to lay trees +prostrate, root and branch. A new plough was fashioned with which a yoke +of oxen could cut roots two inches in thickness well beneath the surface +of the ground. + +Handicaps of various sorts wore the patience of commissioners, +engineers, and contractors. Lack of snow during one winter all but +stopped the work by cutting off the source of supplies. Pioneer +ailments, such as fever and ague, reaped great harvests, incapacitated +more than a thousand workmen at one time and for a brief while stopped +work completely. + +For the most part, however, work was carried on simultaneously on all +the three great links or sections into which the enterprise was divided. +Local contractors were given preference by the commissioners, and +three-fourths of the work was done by natives of the State. Forward up +the Mohawk by Schenectady and Utica to Rome, thence bending southward to +Syracuse, and from there by way of Clyde, Lyons, and Palmyra, the canal +made its way to the giant viaduct over the Genesee River at Rochester. +Keeping close to the summit level on the dividing ridge between Lake +Ontario streams and the Valley of the Tonawanda, the line ran to +Lockport, where a series of locks placed the canal on the Lake Erie +level, 365 miles from and 564 feet above Albany. By June, 1823, the +canal was completed from Rochester to Schenectady; in October boats +passed into the tidewaters of the Hudson at Albany; and in the autumn of +1825 the canal was formally opened by the passage of a triumphant fleet +from Lake Erie to New York Bay. Here two kegs of lake water were emptied +into the Atlantic, while the Governor of the State of New York spoke +these words: + +This solemnity, at this place, on the first arrival of vessels from Lake +Erie, is intended to indicate and commemorate the navigable +communication, which has been accomplished between our Mediterranean +Seas and the Atlantic Ocean, in about eight years, to the extent of more +than four hundred and twenty-five miles, by the wisdom, public spirit, +and energy of the people of the State of New York; and may the God of +the Heavens and the Earth smile most propitiously on this work, and +render it subservient to the best interests of the human race. + +Throughout these last seven years, the West was subconsciously getting +ready to meet the East halfway by improving and extending her steamboat +operations. Steamboats were first run on the Great Lakes by enterprising +Buffalo citizens who, in 1818, secured rights from the Fulton-Livingston +monopoly to build the Walk-in-the-Water, the first of the great fleet of +ships that now whiten the inland seas of the United States. Regular +lines of steamboats were now formed on the Ohio to connect with the +Cumberland Road at Wheeling, although the steamboat monopoly threatened +to stifle the natural development of transportation on Western rivers. + +The completion of the Erie Canal--coupled with the new appropriation by +Congress for extending the Cumberland Road from the Ohio River to +Missouri and the beginning of the Pennsylvania and the Chesapeake and +Ohio canals, reveal the importance of these concluding days of the first +quarter of the nineteenth century in the annals of American +transportation. Never since that time have men doubted the ability of +Americans to accomplish the physical domination of their continent. With +the conquest of the Alleghanies and of the forests and swamps of the +"Long House" by pick and plough and scraper, and the mastery of the +currents of the Mississippi by the paddle wheel, the vast plains beyond +seemed smaller and the Rockies less formidable. Men now looked forward +confidently, with an optimist of these days, to the time "when +circulation and association between the Atlantic and Pacific and the +Mexican Gulf shall be as free and perfect as they are at this moment in +England" between the extremities of that country. The vision of a nation +closely linked by well-worn paths of commerce was daily becoming +clearer. What further westward progress was soon to be made remains to +be seen. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +The Dawn Of The Iron Age + +Despite the superiority of the new iron age that quickly followed the +widespreading canal movement, there was a generous spirit and a chivalry +in the "good old days" of the stagecoach, the Conestoga, and the lazy +canal boat, which did not to an equal degree pervade the iron age of the +railroad. When machinery takes the place of human brawn and patience, +there is an indefinable eclipse of human interest. Somehow, cogs and +levers and differentials do not have the same appeal as fingers and eyes +and muscles. The old days of coach and canal boat had a picturesqueness +and a comradeship of their own. In the turmoil and confusion and odd +mixing of every kind of humanity along the lines of travel in the days +of the hurtling coach-and-six, a friendliness, a robust sympathy, a +ready interest in the successful and the unfortunate, a knowledge of how +the other half lives, and a familiarity with men as well as with mere +places, was common to all who took the road. As Thackeray so vividly +describes it: + +The land rang yet with the tooting horns and rattling teams of +mail-coaches; a gay sight was the road in those days, before +steam-engines arose and flung its hostelry and chivalry over. To travel +in coaches, to know coachmen and guards, to be familiar with inns along +the road, to laugh with the jolly hostess in the bar, to chuck the +pretty chamber-maid under the chin, were the delight of men who were +young not very long ago. The road was an institution, the ring was an +institution. Men rallied around them; and, not without a kind of +conservatism expatiated on the benefits with which they endowed the +country, and the evils which would occur when they should be no +more:--decay of British spirit, decay of manly pluck, ruin of the breed +of horses, and so forth and so forth. To give and take a black eye was +not unusual nor derogatory in a gentleman: to drive a stage-coach the +enjoyment, the emulation, of generous youth. Is there any young fellow +of the present time, who aspires to take the place of a stoker? One sees +occasionally in the country a dismal old drag with a lonely driver. +Where are you, charioteers? Where are you, O rattling Quicksilver, O +swift Defiance? You are passed by racers stronger and swifter than you. +Your lamps are out, and the music of your horns has died away. + +Behind this change from the older and more picturesque days which is +thus lamented there lay potent economic forces and a strong commercial +rivalry between different parts of the country. The Atlantic States were +all rivals of each other, reaching out by one bold stroke after another +across forest, mountain, and river to the gigantic and fruitful West. +Step after step the inevitable conquest went on. Foremost in time +marched the sturdy pack-horsemen, blazing the way for the heavier forces +quietly biding their time in the rear--the Conestogas, the steamboat, +the canal boat, and, last and greatest of them all, the locomotive. + +Through a long preliminary period the principal center of interest was +the Potomac Valley, towards whose strategic head Virginia and Maryland, +by river-improvement and road-building, were directing their commercial +routes in amiable rivalry for the conquest of the Western trade. +Suddenly out from the southern region of the Middle Atlantic States went +the Cumberland National Road to the Ohio. New York instantly, in her +zone, took up the challenge and thrust her great Erie Canal across to +the Great Lakes. In rapid succession, Pennsylvania and Maryland and +Virginia, eager not to be outdone in winning the struggle for Western +trade, sent their canals into the Alleghanies toward the Ohio. + +It soon developed, however, that Baltimore, both powerful and ambitious, +was seriously handicapped. In order to retain her commanding position as +the metropolis of Western trade she was compelled to resort to a new and +untried method of transportation which marks an era in American history. + +It seems plain that the Southern rivals of New York City--Philadelphia, +Baltimore, and Alexandria--had relied for a while on the deterring +effect of a host of critics who warned all men that a canal of such +proportions as the Erie was not practicable, that no State could bear +the financial drain which its construction would involve, that theories +which had proved practical on a small scale would fail in so large an +undertaking, that the canal would be clogged by floods or frozen up for +half of each year, and that commerce would ignore artificial courses and +cling to natural channels. But the answer of the Empire State to her +rivals was the homely but triumphant cry "Low Bridge!"--the warning to +passengers on the decks of canal boats as they approached the numerous +bridges which spanned the route. When this cry passed into a byword it +afforded positive proof that the Erie Canal traffic was firmly +established. The words rang in the counting-houses of Philadelphia and +out and along the Lancaster and the Philadelphia-Pittsburgh +turnpikes--"Low Bridge! Low Bridge!" Pennsylvania had granted, it has +been pointed out, that her Southern neighbors might have their share of +the Ohio Valley trade but maintained that the splendid commerce of the +Great Lakes was her own peculiar heritage. Men of Baltimore who had +dominated the energetic policy of stone-road building in their State +heard this alarming challenge from the North. The echo ran "Low Bridge!" +in the poor decaying locks of the Potomac Company where, according to +the committee once appointed to examine that enterprise, flood-tides +"gave the only navigation that was enjoyed." Were their efforts to keep +the Chesapeake metropolis in the lead to be set at naught? + +There could be but one answer to the challenge, and that was to rival +canal with canal. These more southerly States, confronted by the +towering ranges of the Alleghanies to the westward, showed a courage +which was superb, although, as time proved in the case of Maryland, they +might well have taken more counsel of their fears. Pennsylvania acted +swiftly. Though its western waterway--the roaring Juniata, which entered +the Susquehanna near Harrisburg--had a drop from head to mouth greater +than that of the entire New York canal, and, though the mountains of the +Altoona region loomed straight up nearly three thousand feet, +Pennsylvania overcame the lowlands by main strength and the mountain +peaks by strategy and was sending canal boats from Philadelphia to +Pittsburgh within nine years of the completion of the Erie Canal. + +The eastern division of the Pennsylvania Canal, known as the Union +Canal, from Reading on the Schuylkill to Middletown on the Susquehanna, +was completed in 1827. The Juniata section was then driven on up to +Hollidaysburg. Beyond the mountain barrier, the Conemaugh, the +Kiskiminitas, and the Allegheny were followed to Pittsburgh. But the +greatest feat in the whole enterprise was the conquest of the mountain +section, from Hollidaysburg to Johnstown. This was accomplished by the +building of five inclined planes on each slope, each plane averaging +about 2300 feet in length and 200 feet in height. Up or down these +slopes and along the intermediate level sections cars and giant cradles +(built to be lowered into locks where they could take an entire canal +boat as a load) were to be hauled or lowered by horsepower, and later, +by steam. After the plans had been drawn up by Sylvester Welch and +Moncure Robinson, the Pennsylvania Legislature authorized the work in +1831, and traffic over this aerial route was begun in March, 1834. In +autumn of that year, the stanch boat Hit or Miss, from the Lackawanna +country, owned by Jesse Crisman and captained by Major Williams, made +the journey across the whole length of the canal. It rested for a night +on the Alleghany summit "like Noah's Ark on Ararat," wrote Sherman Day, +"descended the next morning into the Valley of the Mississippi, and +sailed for St. Louis." + +Well did Robert Stephenson, the famous English engineer, say that, in +boldness of design and difficulty of execution, this Pennsylvania scheme +of mastering the Alleghanies could be compared with no modern triumph +short of the feats performed at the Simplon Pass and Mont Cenis. Before +long this line of communication became a very popular thoroughfare; even +Charles Dickens "heartily enjoyed" it--in retrospect--and left +interesting impressions of his journey over it: + +Even the running up, bare-necked, at five o'clock in the morning from +the tainted cabin to the dirty deck; scooping up the icy water, plunging +one's head into it, and drawing it out, all fresh and glowing with the +cold; was a good thing. The fast, brisk walk upon the towing-path, +between that time and breakfast, when every vein and artery seemed to +tingle with health; the exquisite beauty of the opening day, when light +came gleaming off from everything; the lazy motion of the boat, when one +lay idly on the deck, looking through, rather than at, the deep blue +sky; the gliding on, at night, so noiselessly, past frowning hills, +sullen with dark trees, and sometimes angry in one red burning spot high +up, where unseen men lay crouching round a fire; the shining out of the +bright stars, undisturbed by noise of wheels or steam, or any other +sound than the liquid rippling of the water as the boat went on; all +these were pure delights. ¹ + +¹ American Notes (Gadshill Edition), pp. 180-181. + +Dickens also thus graphically depicts the unique experience of being +carried over the mountain peaks on the aerial railway: + +There are ten inclined planes; five ascending and five descending; the +carriages are dragged up the former, and let slowly down the latter, by +means of stationary engines; the comparatively level spaces between +being traversed, sometimes by horse, and sometimes by engine power, as +the case demands. Occasionally the rails are laid upon the extreme verge +of a giddy precipice; and looking from the carriage window, the traveler +gazes sheer down, without a stone or scrap of fence between, into the +mountain depths below. The journey is very carefully made, however; only +two carriages traveling together; and while proper precautions are +taken, is not to be dreaded for its dangers. + +It was very pretty traveling thus, at a rapid pace along the heights of +the mountain in a keen wind, to look down into a valley full of light +and softness; catching glimpses, through the tree-tops, of scattered +cabins; children running to the doors; dogs bursting out to bark, whom +we could see without hearing; terrified pigs scampering homewards; +families sitting out in their rude gardens; cows gazing upward with a +stupid indifference; men in their shirt-sleeves looking on at their +unfinished houses, planning out tomorrow's work; and we riding onward, +high above them, like a whirl-wind. It was amusing, too, when we had +dined, and rattled down a steep pass, having no other motive power than +the weight of the carriages themselves, to see the engine released, long +after us, come buzzing down alone, like a great insect, its back of +green and gold so shining in the sun, that if it had spread a pair of +wings and soared away, no one would have had occasion, as I fancied, for +the least surprise. But it stopped short of us in a very business-like +manner when we reached the canal; and, before we left the wharf, went +panting up this hill again, with the passengers who had waited our +arrival for the means of traversing the road by which we had come. ¹ + +¹ Op. cit. + +This Pennsylvania route was likewise famous because it included the +first tunnel in America; but with the advance of years, tunnel, planes, +and canal were supplanted by what was to become in time the Pennsylvania +Railroad, the pride of the State and one of the great highways of the +nation. + +In the year before Pennsylvania investigated her western water route, a +joint bill was introduced into the legislatures of the Potomac Valley +States, proposing a Potomac Canal Company which should construct a +Chesapeake and Ohio canal at the expense of Maryland, Virginia, and the +District of Columbia. The plan was of vital moment to Alexandria and +Georgetown on the Potomac, but unless a lateral canal could be built to +Baltimore, that city--which paid a third of Maryland's taxes--would be +called on to supply a great sum to benefit only her chief rivals. The +bitter struggle which now developed is one of the most significant in +commercial history because of its sequel. + +The conditions underlying this rivalry must not be lost sight of. +Baltimore had done more than any other Eastern city to ally herself with +the West and to obtain its trade. She had instinctively responded to +every move made by her rivals in the great game. If Pennsylvania +promoted a Lancaster Turnpike, Baltimore threw out her superb +Baltimore-Reisterstown boulevard, though her northern road to +Philadelphia remained the slough that Brissot and Baily had found it. If +New York projected an Erie Canal, Baltimore successfully championed the +building of a Cumberland Road by a governmental godmother. So thoroughly +and quickly, indeed, did she link her system of stone roads to that +great artery, that even today many well-informed writers seem to be +under the impression that the Cumberland Road ran from the Ohio to +Washington and Baltimore. Now, with canals building to the north of her +and canals to the south of her, what of her prestige and future? + +For the moment Baltimore compromised by agreeing to a Chesapeake and +Ohio canal which, by a lateral branch, should still lead to her market +square. Her scheme embraced a vision of conquest regal in its sweep, +beyond that of any rival, and comprehending two ideas worthy of the most +farseeing strategist and the most astute politician. It called not only +for the building of a transmontane canal to the Ohio but also for a +connecting canal from the Ohio to the Great Lakes. Not only would the +trade of the Northwest be secured by this means--for this southerly +route would not be affected by winter frosts as would those of +Pennsylvania and New York--but the good godmother at Washington would be +almost certain to champion it and help to build it since the proposed +route was so thoroughly interstate in character. With the backing of +Maryland, Virginia, Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, and probably several +States bordering the Inland Lakes, government aid in the undertaking +seemed feasible and proper. + +Theoretically the daring scheme captured the admiration of all who were +to be benefited by it. At a great banquet at Washington, late in 1823, +the project was launched. Adams, Clay, and Calhoun took the opportunity +to ally themselves with it by robustly declaring themselves in favor of +widespread internal improvements. Even the godmother smiled upon it for, +following Monroe's recommendation, Congress without hesitation voted +thirty thousand dollars for the preliminary survey from Washington to +Pittsburgh. Quickly the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company and the +connecting Maryland Canal Company were formed, and steps were taken to +have Ohio promote an Ohio and Lake Erie Company. + +As high as were the hopes awakened by this movement, just so deep was +the dejection and chagrin into which its advocates were thrown upon +receiving the report of the engineers who made the preliminary survey. +The estimated cost ran towards a quarter of a billion, four times the +capital stock of the company; and there were not lacking those who +pointed out that the Erie Canal had cost more than double the original +appropriation made for it. + +The situation was aggravated for Baltimore by the fact that Maryland and +Virginia were willing to take half a loaf if they could not get a whole +one: in other words, they were willing to build the canal up the Potomac +to Cumberland and stop there. Baltimore, even if linked to this partial +scheme, would lose her water connection with the West, the one prized +asset which the project had held out, and her Potomac Valley rivals +would, on this contracted plan, be in a particularly advantageous +position to surpass her. But the last blow was yet to come. Engineers +reported that a lateral canal connecting the Potomac and Chesapeake Bay +was not feasible. It was consequently of little moment whether the +Chesapeake and Ohio Canal could be built across the Alleghanies or not, +for, even if it could have been carried through the Great Plains or to +the Pacific, Baltimore was, for topographical reasons, out of the +running. + +The men of Baltimore now gave one of the most striking illustrations of +spirit and pluck ever exhibited by the people of any city. They refused +to accept defeat. If engineering science held a means of overcoming the +natural disadvantages of their position, they were determined to adopt +that means, come what would of hardship, difficulty, and expenditure. If +roads and canals would not serve the city on the Chesapeake, what of the +railroad on which so many experiments were being made in England? + +The idea of controlling the trade of the West by railroads was not new. +As early as February, 1825, certain astute Pennsylvanians had advocated +building a railroad to Pittsburgh instead of a canal, and in a memorial +to the Legislature they had set forth the theory that a railroad could +be built in one-third of the time and could be operated with one-third +of the number of employees required by a canal, that it would never be +frozen, and that its cost of construction would be less. But these +arguments did not influence the majority, who felt that to follow the +line of least resistance and to do as others had done would involve the +least hazard. But Baltimore, with her back against the wall, did not +have the alternative of a canal. It was a leap into the unknown for her +or commercial stagnation. + +It is regrettable that, as Baltimore began to break this fresh track, +she should have had political as well as physical and mechanical +obstacles to overcome. The conquest of the natural difficulties alone +required superhuman effort and endurance. But Baltimore had also to +fight a miserable internecine warfare in her own State, for Maryland +immediately subscribed half a million to the canal as well as to the +newly formed Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. In rival pageants, both +companies broke ground on July 4, 1828, and the race to the Ohio was on. +The canal company clung doggedly to the idle belief that their +enterprise was still of continental proportions, since it would connect +at Cumberland with the Cumberland Road. This exaggerated estimate of the +importance of the undertaking shines out in the pompous words of +President Mercer, at the time when construction was begun: + +There are moments in the progress of time, which are counters of whole +ages. There are events, the monuments of which, surviving every other +memorial of human existence, eternize the nation to whose history they +belong, after all other vestiges of its glory have disappeared from the +globe. At such a moment have we now arrived. + +This oracular language lacks the simple but winning straightforwardness +of the words which Director Morris uttered on the same day near +Baltimore and which prove how distinctly Western the new railway project +was held to be: + +We are about opening a channel through which the commerce of the mighty +country beyond the Allegheny must seek the ocean--we are about affording +facilities of intercourse between the East and West, which will bind the +one more closely to the other, beyond the power of an increased +population or sectional differences to disunite. + +The difficulties which faced the Baltimore enthusiasts in their task of +keeping their city "on the map" would have daunted men of less heroic +mold. Every conceivable trial and test which nature and machinery could +seemingly devise was a part of their day's work for twelve +years--struggles with grades, locomotives, rails, cars. As Rumsey, +Fitch, and Fulton in their experiments with boats had floundered +despondently with endless chains, oars, paddles, duck's feet, so now +Thomas and Brown in their efforts to make the railroad effective +wandered in a maze of difficulties testing out such absurd and +impossible ideas as cars propelled by sails and cars operated by horse +treadmills. By May, 1830, however, cars on rails, running by "brigades" +and drawn by horses, were in operation in America. It was only in this +year that in England locomotives were used with any marked success on +the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad; yet in August of this year Peter +Cooper's engine, Tom Thumb, built in Baltimore in 1829, traversed the +twelve miles between that city and Ellicott's Mills in seventy-two +minutes. Steel springs came in 1832, together with car wheels of +cylindrical and conical section which made it easier to turn curves. + +The railroad was just beginning to master its mechanical problems when a +new obstacle confronted it in the Potomac Valley. It could not cross +Maryland to the Cumberland mountain gateway unless it could follow the +Potomac. But its rival, the canal, had inherited from the old Potomac +Company the only earthly asset it possessed of any value--the right of +way up the Maryland shore. Five years of quarreling now ensued, and the +contest, though it may not have seriously delayed either enterprise, +aroused much bitterness and involved the usual train of lawsuits and +injunctions. + +In 1833 the canal company yielded the railroad a right of way through +the Point of Rocks--the Potomac chasm through the Blue Ridge wall, just +below Harper's Ferry--on condition that the railroad should not build +beyond Harper's Ferry until the canal was completed to Cumberland. But +probably nothing but the financial helplessness of the canal company +could have brought a solution satisfactory to all concerned. A +settlement of the long quarrel by compromise was the price paid for +state aid, and, in 1835 Maryland subsidized to a large degree both canal +and railroad by her famous eight million dollar bill. The railroad +received three millions from the State, and the city of Baltimore was +permitted to subscribe an equal amount of stock. With this support and a +free right of way, the railroad pushed on up the Potomac. Though delayed +by the financial disasters of 1837, in 1842 it was at Hancock; in 1851, +at Piedmont; in 1852, at Fairmont; and the next year it reached the Ohio +River at Wheeling. + +Spurred by the enterprise shown by these Southerners, Pennsylvania and +New York now took immediate steps to parallel their own canals by +railways. The line of the Union Canal in Pennsylvania was paralleled by +a railroad in 1834, the same year in which the Allegheny Portage Railway +was constructed. New York lines reached Buffalo in 1842. The +Pennsylvania Railroad, which was incorporated in 1846, was completed to +Pittsburgh in 1854. + +It is thus obvious that, with the completion of these lines and the +building of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway through the "Sapphire +Country" of the Southern Alleghanies, the new railway era pursued its +paths of conquest through the very same mountain passageways that had +been previously used by pack-horseman and Conestoga and, in three +instances out of four, by the canal boat. If one motors today in the +Juniata Valley in Pennsylvania, he can survey near Newport a scene full +of meaning to one who has a taste for history. Traveling along the +heights on the highway that was once the red man's trail, he can enjoy a +wide prospect from this vantage point. Deep in the valley glitters the +little Juniata, route of the ancient canoe and the blundering barge. +Beside it lies a long lagoon, an abandoned portion of the Pennsylvania +Canal. Beside this again, as though some monster had passed leaving a +track clear of trees, stretches the right of way of the first +"Pennsylvania," and a little nearer swings the magnificent +double-tracked bed of the railroad of today. Between these lines of +travel may be read the history of the past two centuries of American +commerce, for the vital factors in the development of the nation have +been the evolution of transportation and its manifold and far-reaching +influence upon the expansion of population and commerce and upon the +rise of new industries. + +Thus all the rivals in the great contest for the trade of the West +speedily reached their goal, New York with the Erie and the New York +Central, and Pennsylvania and Maryland with the Pennsylvania and the +Baltimore and Ohio. But what of this West for whose commerce the great +struggle was being waged? When the railheads of these eager Atlantic +promoters were laid down at Buffalo on Lake Erie and at Pittsburgh on +the Ohio they looked out on a new world. The centaurs of the Western +rivers were no less things of the far past than the tinkling bells borne +by the ancient ponies of the pack-horse trade. The sons of this new West +had their eyes riveted on the commerce of the Great Lakes and the +Mississippi Valley. With road, canal, steamboat, and railway, they were +renewing the struggle of their fathers but for prizes greater than their +fathers ever knew. + +New York again proved the favored State. Her Mohawk pathway gave her +easiest access to the West and here, at her back door on the Niagara +frontier, lay her path by way of the Great Lakes to the North and the +Northwest. + + + + + + +CHAPTER X + +The Pathway of the Lakes + +As one stands in imagination at the early railheads of the West--on the +Ohio River at the end of the Cumberland Road, or at Buffalo, the +terminus of the Erie Canal--the vision which Washington caught breaks +upon him and the dream of a nation made strong by trans-Alleghany routes +of commerce. Link by link the great interior is being connected with the +sea. Behind him all lines of transportation lead eastward to the cities +of the coast. Before him lies the giant valley where the Father of +Waters throws out his two splendid arms, the Ohio and the Missouri, one +reaching to the Alleghanies and the other to the Rockies. Northward, at +the end of the Erie Canal, lies the empire of the Great Lakes, inland +seas that wash the shores of a Northland having a coastline longer than +that of the Atlantic from Maine to Mexico. + +Ships and conditions of navigation were much the same on the lakes as on +the ocean. It was therefore possible to imagine the rise of a coasting +trade between Illinois and Ohio as profitable as that between +Massachusetts and New York. Yet the older colonies on the Atlantic had +an outlet for trade, whereas the Great Lakes had none for craft of any +size, since their northern shores lay beyond the international boundary. +If there had been danger from Spain in the Southwest, what of the danger +of Canada's control of the St. Lawrence River and of the trade of the +Northwest through the Welland Canal which was to join Lake Ontario to +Lake Erie? But in those days the possibility of Canadian rivalry was not +treated with great seriousness, and many men failed to see that the West +was soon to contain a very large population. The editor of a newspaper +at Munroe, New York, commenting in 1827 on a proposed canal to connect +Lake Erie with the Mississippi by way of the Ohio, believed that the +rate of Western development was such that this waterway could be +expected only "some hundred of years hence." Even so gifted a man as +Henry Clay spoke of the proposed canal between Lake Michigan and Lake +Superior in 1825 as one relating to a region beyond the pale of +civilization "if not in the moon." Yet in twenty-five years Michigan, +which had numbered one thousand inhabitants in 1812, had gained two +hundredfold, and Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois had their hundreds of +thousands who were clamoring for ways and means of sending their surplus +products to market. + +Early in the century representatives of the Fulton-Livingston monopoly +were at the shores of Lake Ontario to prove that their steamboats could +master the waves of the inland sea and serve commerce there as well as +in tidewater rivers. True, the luckless Ontario, built in 1817 at +Sackett's Harbor, proved unseaworthy when the waves lifted the shaft of +her paddle wheels off their bearings and caused them to demolish the +wooden covering built for their protection; but the Walk-in-the-Water, +completed at Black Rock (Buffalo) in August, 1818, plied successfully as +far as Mackinac Island until her destruction three years later. Her +engines were then inherited by the Superior of stronger build, and with +the launching of such boats as the Niagara, the Henry Clay, and the +Pioneer, the fleet builders of Buffalo, Cleveland, and Detroit proved +themselves not unworthy fellow-countrymen of the old seafarers of Salem +and Philadelphia. + +But how were cargoes to reach these vessels from the vast regions beyond +the Great Lakes? Those thousands of settlers who poured into the +Northwest had cargoes ready to fill every manner of craft in so short a +space of time that it seems as if they must have resorted to arts of +necromancy. It was not magic, however, but perseverance that had +triumphed. The story of the creating of the main lakeward-reaching +canals is long and involved. A period of agitation and campaigning +preceded every such undertaking; and when construction was once begun, +financial woes usually brought disappointing delays. When a canal was +completed after many vicissitudes and doubts, traffic overwhelmed every +method provided to handle it: locks proved altogether too small; boats +were inadequate; wharfs became congested; blockades which occurred at +locks entailed long delay. In the end only lines and double lines of +steel rails could solve the problem of rapid and adequate +transportation, but the story of the railroad builders is told +elsewhere. ¹ + +¹ See The Railroad Builders, by John Moody (in The Chronicles of +America). + +Ohio and Illinois caught the canal fever even before the Erie Canal was +completed, and the Ohio Canal and the Illinois-Michigan Canal saw +preliminary surveying done in 1822 and 1824 respectively. Ohio +particularly had cause to seek a northern outlet to Eastern markets by +way of Lake Erie. The valleys of the Muskingum, Scioto, and Miami rivers +were producing wheat in large quantities as early as 1802, when Ohio was +admitted to the Union. Flour which brought $3.50 a barrel in Cincinnati +was worth $8 in New York. There were difficulties in the way of +transportation. Sometimes ice prevented produce and merchandise from +descending the Ohio to Cincinnati. At other times merchants of that city +had as many as a hundred thousand barrels awaiting a rise in the river +which would make it possible for boats to go over the falls at +Louisville. As these conditions involved a delay which often seemed +intolerable, the project to build canals to Lake Erie met with generous +acclaim. A northward route, though it might be blocked by ice for a few +months each winter, had an additional value in the eyes of numerous +merchants whose wheat, sent in bulk to New Orleans, had soured either in +the long delay at Louisville or in the semi-tropical heat of the +Southern port. + +The Ohio Legislature in 1822 authorized the survey of all possible +routes for canals which would give Ohio an outlet for its produce on +Lake Erie. The three wheat zones which have been mentioned were favored +in the proposed construction of two canals which, together, should +satisfy the need of increased transportation: the Ohio Canal to connect +Portsmouth on the Ohio River with Cleveland on Lake Erie and to traverse +the richest parts of the Scioto and Muskingum valleys, and to the west +the Miami Canal to pierce the fruitful Miami and Maumee valleys and join +Cincinnati with Toledo. De Witt Clinton, the presiding genius of the +Erie Canal, was invited to Ohio to play godfather to these northward +arteries which should ultimately swell the profits of the commission +merchants of New York City, and amid the cheers of thousands he lifted +the first spadefuls of earth in each undertaking. + +The Ohio Canal, which was opened in 1833, had a marked effect upon the +commerce of Lake Erie. Before that date the largest amount of wheat +obtained from Cleveland by a Buffalo firm had been a thousand bushels; +but in the first year of its operation the Ohio Canal brought to the +village of Cleveland over a quarter of a million bushels of wheat, fifty +thousand barrels of flour, and over a million pounds of butter and lard. +In return, the markets of the world sent into Ohio by canal in this same +year thirty thousand barrels of salt and above five million pounds of +general merchandise. + +Ever since the time when the Erie Canal was begun, Canadian statesmen +had been alive to the strong bid New York was making for the trade of +the Great Lakes. Their answer to the Erie Canal was the Welland Canal, +built between 1824 and 1832 and connecting Lake Erie with Lake Ontario +by a series of twenty-seven locks with a drop of three hundred feet in +twenty-six miles. This undertaking prepared the way for the subsequent +opening of the St. Lawrence canal system (183 miles) and of the Rideau +system by way of the Ottawa River (246 miles). There was thus provided +an ocean outlet to the north, although it was not until 1856 that an +American vessel reached London by way of the St. Lawrence. + +With the Hudson and the St. Lawrence in the East thus competing for the +trade of the Great Lakes, it is not surprising that the call of the +Mississippi for improved highways was presently heard. From the period +of the War of 1812 onward the position of the Mississippi River in +relation to Lake Michigan was often referred to as holding possibilities +of great importance in the development of Western commerce. Already the +old portage-path links between the Fox and Wisconsin and the Chicago and +Illinois rivers had been worn deep by the fur traders of many +generations, and with the dawning of the new era enthusiasts of Illinois +were pointing out the strategic position of the latter route for a great +trade between Lake Michigan and the Gulf of Mexico. Thus the wave of +enthusiasm for canal construction that had swept New York and Ohio now +reached Indiana and Illinois. Indian ownership of land in the latter +State for a moment seemed to block the promotion of the proposed +Illinois and Michigan Canal, but a handsome grant of a quarter of a +million acres by the Federal Government in 1827 came as a signal +recognition of the growing importance of the Northwest; and an +appropriation for the lighting and improving of the harbor of the little +village of Chicago was hailed by ardent promoters as sure proof that the +wedding of Lake Michigan and the Mississippi was but a matter of months. + +All the difficulties encountered by the advocates of earlier works of +this character, in the valleys of the Potomac, the Susquehanna, and the +Mohawk, were the portion of these dogged promoters of Illinois. Here, as +elsewhere, there were rival routes and methods of construction, +opposition of jealous sections not immediately benefited, estimates +which had to be reconsidered and augmented, and so on. The land grants +pledged to pay the bonds were at first of small value, and their advance +in price depended on the success of the canal itself, which could not be +built--unless the State underwrote the whole enterprise--if the lands +were not worth the bonds. Thus the argument ran in a circle, and no one +could foresee the splendid traffic and receipts from tolls that would +result from the completed canal. + +The commissioners in charge of the project performed one interesting +service in these early days by putting Chicago on the map; but the two +terminals, Ottawa on the Illinois and Chicago on Lake Michigan--both +plotted in 1830--were very largely figures of speech at that time. The +day of miracles was at hand, however, for the little town of one hundred +people at the foot of Lake Michigan. The purchase of the lands of the +Potawatomies, the Black Hawk War in 1832, which brought steamboats to +Chicago for the first time, and the decision of Illinois in 1836 to +pledge her good name in favor of the Illinois and Michigan Canal made +Chicago a city of four thousand people by the panic year of 1837. So +absorbed were these Chicago folk in the building of their canal and in +wresting from their lake firm foothold for a city (reclaiming four +hundred feet of lake bed in two years) that the panic affected their +town less than it did many a rival. Although the canal enterprise came +to an ominous pause in 1842, after the expenditure of five millions, the +pledge of the State stood the enterprise in good stead. Local +financiers, together with New York and Boston promoters, advanced about +a quarter of a million, while French and English bankers, notably Baring +Brothers, contributed about three-quarters of a million. With this +assistance the work was carried to a successful ending. On April 10, +1848, the first boat passed over the ninety-mile route from Chicago to +Ottawa, and the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Basin were united by +this Erie Canal of the West. Though its days of greatest value were soon +over, no one can exaggerate the importance of this waterway in the +growth and prosperity of Chicago between 1848 and 1860. By 1857 Chicago +was sending north and south annually by boat over twenty million bushels +of wheat and corn. + +The awakening of the lands behind Lake Erie, Lake Huron, and Lake +Michigan brought forth innumerable demands for roads, canals, and +railways to the ports of Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Milwaukee, +and Chicago. There were actually hundreds of these enterprises +undertaken. The development of the land behind Lake Superior was +particularly spectacular and important, not only because of its general +effect on the industrial world but also because out of it came the St. +Mary's River Ship Canal. Nowhere in the zone of the Great Lakes has any +region produced such unexpected changes in American industrial and +commercial life as did the region of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota +contributory to Lake Superior. If, as the story goes, Benjamin Franklin +said, when he drew at Paris the international boundary line through Lake +Superior, that this was his greatest service to America, he did not +exaggerate. The line running north of Isle Royale and thence to the Lake +of the Woods gave the United States the lion's share of that great +inland seaboard and the inestimably rich deposits of copper and iron +that have revolutionized American industry. + +From earliest days rumors of deposits of bright copper in the land +behind Lake Superior had been reported by Indians to fur traders who in +turn had passed the story on to fur company agents and thus to the +outside world. As a result of her "Toledo War"--as her boundary dispute +was called--Michigan had reluctantly accepted the northern peninsula +lying between Lake Superior and Lake Michigan in lieu of the strip of +Ohio territory which she believed to be hers. If Michigan felt that she +had lost by this compromise, her state geologist, Douglass Houghton, +soon found a splendid jewel in the toad's head of defeat, for the report +of his survey of 1840 confirmed the story of the existence of large +copper deposits, and the first rush to El Dorado followed. Amid the +usual chaos, conflict, and failure incident to such stampedes, order and +system at last triumphed and the richest copper mines of the New World +were uncovered. Then came the unexpected finding of the mammoth iron-ore +beds by William A. Burt, inventor of the solar compass. The circumstance +of this discovery is of such national importance that a contemporary +description by a member of Burt's party which was surveying a line near +Marquette, Michigan, is worth quoting: + +I shall never forget the excitement of the old gentleman when viewing +the changes of the variation. He kept changing his position to take +observations, all the time saying "How would they survey this country +without my compass" and "What could be done here without my compass." At +length the compassman called for us all to "come and see a variation +which will beat them all." As we looked at the instrument, to our +astonishment, the north end of the needle was traversing a few degrees +to the south west. Mr. Burt called out "Boys, look around and see what +you can find." We all left the line, some going to the east, some going +to the west, and all of us returned with specimens of iron ore. + +But it was not enough that this Aladdin's Land in the Northwest should +revolutionize the copper and steel industry of the world, for as soon as +the soil took to its bosom an enterprising race of agriculturists it +bade fair to play as equally important a part in the grain industry. +Copper and iron no less came out of the blue of this cold northern +region than did the mighty crops of Minnesota wheat, corn, and oats. In +the decade preceding the Civil War the export of wheat from Lake +Superior rose from fourteen hundred bushels to three and a quarter +millions of bushels, while in 1859 nearly seven million bushels of corn +and oats were sent out to the world. + +The commerce of Lake Superior could not await the building of a canal +around the foaming rapids of the St. Mary's River, its one outlet to the +lower lakes. In the decade following the discovery of copper and iron +more than a dozen ships, one even of as much as five hundred tons, were +hauled bodily across the portage between Lake Huron and Lake Superior. +The last link of navigation in the Great Lake system, however, was made +possible in 1852 by a grant by Congress of 750,000 acres of Michigan +land. Although only a mile in length, the work proved to be of unusual +difficulty since the pathway for the canal had to be blasted throughout +practically its whole length out of solid rock. It was completed in +1855, and the princely empire "in the moon" was in a position to make +its terms with the coal fields of Pennsylvania and to usher in the iron +age of transportation and construction. + +It is only in the light of this awakening of the lands around the Great +Lakes that one can see plainly the task which fell to the lot of the +successors of the frail Walk-in-the-Water and sturdier Superior of the +early twenties. For the first fifteen years the steamboat found its +mission in carrying the thousands of emigrants pouring into the +Northwest, a heterogeneous multitude which made the Lake Erie boats +seem, to one traveler at least, filled with "men, women and children, +beds, cradles, kettles, and frying pans." These craft were built after +the pattern of the Walk-in-the-Water--side-wheelers with a steering +wheel at the stern. No cabins or staterooms on deck were provided; and +amid such freight as the thriving young towns provided were to be found +the twenty or thirty cords of wood which the engines required as fuel. + +The second period of steamboating began with the opening of the Ohio +Canal and the Welland Canal about 1834 and extended another fifteen +years to the middle of the century, when it underwent a transformation +owing to the great development of Chicago, the completion of the +Illinois and Michigan and St. Mary's canals, and the new railways. This +second period was marked by the building of such steamers as the +Michigan, the Great Western, and the Illinois. These were the first +boats with an upper cabin and were looked upon with marked suspicion by +those best acquainted with the severe storms upon the Great Lakes. The +Michigan, of 475 tons, built by Oliver Newberry at Detroit in 1833, is +said to have been the first ship of this type. These boats proved their +seaworthiness and caused a revolution in the construction of lake craft. +Later in this period freight transportation saw an equally radical +advance with the building of the first propellers. The sloop-rigged +Vandalia, built by Sylvester Doolittle at Oswego on Lake Ontario in +1841-42, was the first of the propeller type and was soon followed by +the Hercules, the Samson, and the Detroit. + +One very great handicap in lake commerce up to this time had been the +lack of harbors. Detroit alone of the lake ports was distinctly favored +in this respect. The harbors of Buffalo, Cleveland, Milwaukee, and +Chicago were improved slowly, but it was not until the great Chicago +convention of 1846 that the nation's attention was focused on the needs +of Western rivers and harbors, and there dawned a new era of lighthouses +and buoys, breakwaters and piers, and dredged channels. Another handicap +to the volume of business which the lake boats handled in the period +just previous to the Civil War was the inadequacy of the feeders, the +roads, riverways, and canals. The Erie Canal was declared too small +almost before the cries of its virulent opponents had died away, and the +enlargement of its locks was soon undertaken. The same thing proved true +of the Ohio and Illinois canals. The failure of the Welland Canal was +similarly a very serious handicap. Although its locks were enlarged in +1841, it was found by 1850 that despite the improvements it could not +admit more than about one-third of the grain-carrying boats, while only +one in four of the new propellers could enter its locks. + +As late as the middle forties men did not in the least grasp the +commercial situation which now confronted the Northwest nor could they +foresee that the land behind the Great Lakes was about to deluge the +country with an output of produce and manufactures of which the roads, +canals, ships, wharfs, or warehouses in existence could handle not a +tenth part. They did not yet understand that this trade was to become +national. It was well on in the forties before the Galena lead mines, +for instance, were given up as the terminal of the Illinois Central +Railroad and the main line was directed to Chicago. The middle of the +century was reached before the Lake Shore was considered at Cleveland or +Chicago as important commercially as the neighboring portage paths which +by the Ordinance of 1787 had been created "common highways forever +free." The idea of joining Buffalo, Cleveland, and Chicago with the +interior--an idea as old as the Indian trails thither--still dominated +men's minds even in the early part of the railroad epoch. Chicago +desired to be connected with Cairo, the ice-free port on the +Mississippi; and Cleveland was eager to be joined to Columbus and +Cincinnati. The enthusiastic railway promoters of Ohio, Indiana, and +Illinois drew splendid plans for uniting all parts of those States by +railway lines; but the strategic position of the cities on the +continental alignment from New York to the Pacific by way of South Pass +never came within their horizon. The ten million dollar Illinois scheme +did not even contemplate a railway running eastward from Chicago. But +the future of the commerce of the Great Lakes depended absolutely upon +this development. There was no hope of any canals being able to handle +the traffic of the mighty empire which was now awake and fully conscious +of its power. The solution lay in joining the cities to each other and +to the Atlantic world markets by iron rails running east and west. + +This railroad expansion is what makes the last decade before the Civil +War such a remarkable series of years in the West. In the half decade, +1850-55, the Baltimore and Ohio and Pennsylvania railways reached the +Ohio River; the links of the present Lake Shore system between Buffalo +and Chicago by way of Cleveland and Toledo were constructed; and the +Pennsylvania line was put through from Pittsburgh to Chicago. The place +of the lake country on the continental alignment and the imperial +situation of Chicago, and later of Omaha, came to be realized. The new +view transformed men's conceptions of every port on the Great Lakes in +the chain from Buffalo to Chicago. At a dozen southern ports on Ontario, +Erie, Huron, and Michigan, commerce now touched the swiftest and most +economical means of transcontinental traffic. This development +culminated in the miracle we call Chicago. In 1847 not a line of rail +entered the town; its population then numbered about twenty-five +thousand and its property valuation approximated seven millions. Ten +years later four thousand miles of railway connected with all four +points of the compass a city of nearly one hundred thousand people, and +property valuation had increased five hundred per cent. The growth of +Buffalo, Cleveland, and Detroit during this period was also phenomenal. + +When the crisis of 1861 came, the service performed by the +Walk-in-the-Water and her successors was seen in its true light. The +Great Lakes as avenues of migration had played a providential part in +filling a northern empire with a proud and loyal race; from farm and +factory regiment on regiment marched forth to fight for unity; from +fields without number produce to sustain a nation on trial poured forth +in abundance; enormous quantities of iron were at hand for the casting +of cannon and cannon balls; and, finally, pathways of water and steel +were in readiness in the nick of time to carry these resources where +they would count tremendously in the four long years of conflict. + + + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +The Steamboat And The West + +Two great fields of service lay open before those who were to achieve by +steam the mastery of the inland waterways. On the one hand the cotton +kingdom of the South, now demanding great stores of manufactured goods, +produce, and machinery, was waiting to be linked to the valleys and +industrial cities of the Middle West; and, on the other hand, along +those great eastward and westward rivers, the Ohio and Missouri, lay the +commerce of the prairies and the Great Plains. But before the steamboat +could serve the inland commerce of the West, it had to be constructed on +new lines. The craft brought from the seaboard were of too deep draft to +navigate shallow streams which ran through this more level country. + +The task of constructing a great inland river marine to play the dual +rôle of serving the cotton empire and of extending American migration +and commerce into the trans-Mississippi region was solved by Henry +Shreve when he built the Washington at Wheeling in 1816. Shreve was the +American John Hawkins. Hawkins, that sturdy old admiral of Elizabethan +days, took the English ship of his time, trimmed down the high stern and +poop decks, and cut away the deep-lying prow and stern, after the +fashion of our modern cup defenders, and in a day gave England the key +to sea mastery in the shape of a new ship that would take sail and +answer her rudder beyond anything the maritime world until then had +known. Shreve, like Hawkins, flagrantly ignoring the conventional wisdom +of his day and craft, built the Washington to sail on the water instead +of in it, doing away altogether with a hold and supplying an upper deck +in its place. + +To few inventors, indeed, does America owe a greater debt of thanks than +to this Ohio River shipbuilder. A dozen men were on the way to produce a +Clermont had Fulton failed; but Shreve had no rival in his plan to build +a flat-bottomed steamboat. The remarkable success of his design is +attested by the fact that in two decades the boats built on his model +outweighed in tonnage all the ships of the Atlantic seaboard and Great +Lakes combined. Immediately the Ohio became in effect the western +extension of the great national highway and opened an easy pathway for +immigration to the eastern as well as the western lands of the +Mississippi Basin. The story goes that an old phlegmatic negro watched +the approach of one of the first steamboats to the wharf of a Southern +city. Like many others, he had doubted the practicability of this +new-fangled Yankee notion. The boat, however, came and went with ease +and dispatch. The old negro was converted. "By golly," he shouted, +waving his cap, "the Mississippi's got her Massa now." + +The Mississippi had indeed found her master, but only by slow degrees +and after intervals of protracted rebellion did she succumb to that +master. Luckily, however, there was at hand an army of unusual men--the +"alligator-horses" of the flatboat era--upon whom the steamboat could +call with supreme confidence that they would not fail. Theodore +Roosevelt has said of the Western pioneers that they "had to be good and +strong--especially, strong." If these men upon whom the success of the +steamboat depended were not always good, they were beyond any doubt +behemoths in strength. + +The task before them, however, was a task worthy of Hercules. The great +river boldly fought its conquerors, asking and giving no quarter, biding +its time when opposed by the brave but crushing the fearful on sight. In +one respect alone could it be depended upon--it was never the same. It +is said to bring down annually four hundred million tons of mud, but its +eccentricity in deciding where to wash away and where to deposit its +load is still the despair of river pilots. The great river could destroy +islands and build new ones overnight with the nonchalance of a child +playing with clay. It could shorten itself thirty miles at a single +lunge. It could move inland towns to its banks and leave river towns far +inland. It transferred the town of Delta, for instance, from three miles +below Vicksburg to two miles above it. Men have gone to sleep in one +State and have wakened unharmed in another, because the river decided in +the night to alter the boundary line. In this way the village of Hard +Times, the original site of which was in Louisiana, found itself +eventually in Mississippi. Were La Salle to descend the river today by +the route he traversed two and a half centuries ago, he would follow dry +ground most of the way, for the river now lies practically everywhere +either to the right or left of its old course. + +If the Mississippi could perform such miracles upon its whole course +without a show of effort, what could it not do with the little winding +canal through its center called by pilots the "channel"? The flatboatmen +had laboriously acquired the art of piloting the commerce of the West +through this mazy, shifting channel, but as steamboats developed in size +and power the man at the wheel had to become almost a superman. He +needed to be. He must know the stage of water anywhere by a glance at +the river banks. He must guess correctly the amount of "fill" at the +head of dangerous chutes, detect bars "working down," distinguish +between bars and "sand reefs" or "wind reefs" or "bluff reefs" by night +as well as by day, avoid the "breaks" in the "graveyard" behind Goose +Island, navigate the Hat Island chutes, or find the "middle crossing" at +Hole-in-the-Wall. He must navigate his craft in fogs, in storms, in the +face of treacherous winds, on black nights, with thousands of dollars' +worth of cargo and hundreds of lives at stake. + +As the golfer knows each knoll and tuft of grass on his home links, so +the pilot learned his river by heart. Said one of these pilots to an +apprentice: + +You see this has got to be learned.... A clear starlight night throws +such heavy shadows that if you didn't know the shape of a shore +perfectly you would claw away from every bunch of timber because you +would take the black shadow of it for a solid cape; and you see you +would be getting scared to death every fifteen minutes by the watch. You +would be fifty yards from shore all the time when you ought to be within +fifty feet of it. You can't see a snag in one of those shadows, but you +know exactly where it is, and the shape of the river tells you when you +are coming to it. Then there's your pitch-dark night; the river is a +very different shape on a pitch-dark night from what it is on a +starlight night. All shores seem to be straight lines, then, and mighty +dim ones, too; and you'd run them for straight lines only you know +better. You boldly drive your boat right into what seems to be a solid, +straight wall (you knowing very well that in reality there is a curve +there) and that wall falls back and makes way for you. Then there's your +gray mist. You take a night when there's one of these grisly, drizzly, +gray mists, and then there isn't any particular shape to a shore. A gray +mist would tangle the head of the oldest man that ever lived. Well, +then, different kinds of moonlight change the shape of the river in +different ways.... You only learn the shape of the river; and you learn +it with such absolute certainty that you can always steer by the shape +that's in your head and never mind the one that's before your eyes. ¹ + +¹ Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi, pp. 103-04. + +No wonder that the two hundred miles of the Mississippi from the mouth +of the Ohio to St. Louis in time contained the wrecks of two hundred +steamboats. + +The river trade reached its zenith between 1840 and 1860, in the two +decades previous to the Civil War, that period before the railroads +began to parallel the great rivers. It was a time which saw the rise of +Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, and Arkansas, and which +witnessed the spread of the cotton kingdom into the Southwest. The story +of King Cotton's conquest of the Mississippi South is best told in +statistics. In 1811, the year of the first voyage which the New Orleans +made down the Ohio River, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Mississippi exported +five million pounds of cotton. In 1834 these same States exported almost +two hundred million pounds of cotton. To take care of this crop and to +supply the cotton country, which was becoming wealthy, with the +necessaries and luxuries of life, more and more steamboats were needed. +The great shipyards situated, because of the proximity of suitable +timber, at St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Louisville became busy hives, not +since paralleled except by such centers of shipbuilding as Hog Island in +1917-18, during the time of the Great War. The steamboat tonnage of the +Mississippi Valley (exclusive of New Orleans) in the hustling forties +exceeded that of the Atlantic ports (exclusive of New York City) by +15,000 tons. The steamboat tonnage of New Orleans alone in 1843 was more +than double that of New York City. + +Those who, if the old story is true, ran in fear to the hills when the +little New Orleans went puffing down the Ohio, in 1811, would have been +doubly amazed at the splendid development in the art of boat building, +could they have seen the stately Sultana or Southern Belle of the +fifties sweep swiftly by. After a period of gaudy ornamentation +(1830-40) steamboat architecture settled down, as has that of Pullman +cars today, to sane and practical lines, and the boats gained in length +and strength, though they contained less weight of timber. The value of +one of the greater boats of this era would be about fifty thousand +dollars. When Captain Bixby made his celebrated night crossing at Hat +Island a quarter of a million dollars in ship and cargo would have been +the price of an error in judgment, according to Mark Twain, ¹ a good +authority. + +¹ Op. cit., p. 101. + +The Yorktown, built in 1844 for the Ohio-Mississippi trade, was typical +of that epoch of inland commerce. Her length was 182 feet, breadth of +beam 31 feet, and the diameter of wheels 28 feet. Though her hold was 8 +feet in depth, yet she drew but 4 feet of water light and barely over 8 +feet when loaded with 500 tons of freight. She had 4 boilers, 30 feet +long and 42 inches in diameter, double engines, and two 24-inch +cylinders. The stateroom cabin had come in with Captain Isaiah Sellers's +Prairie in 1836, the first boat with such luxuries ever seen in St. +Louis, according to Sellers. The Yorktown had 40 private cabins. It is +interesting to compare the Yorktown with The Queen of the West, the +giant British steamer built for the Falmouth-Calcutta trade in 1839. The +Queen of the West had a length of 310 feet, a beam of 31 feet, a draft +of 15 feet, and 16 private cabins. The building of this great vessel led +a writer in the New York American to say: "It would really seem that we +as a nation had no interest in this new application of steam power, or +no energy to appropriate it to our own use." The statement--written in a +day when the Mississippi steamboat tonnage exceeded that of the entire +British Empire--is one of the best examples of provincial ignorance +concerning the West. + +On these steamboats there was a multiplicity of arrangements and +equipments for preventing and for fighting fire. One of the innovations +on the new boats in this particular was the substitution of wire for the +combustible rope formerly used to control the tiller, so that even in +time of fire the pilot could "hold her nozzle agin' the bank." Much of +the great loss of life in steamboat fires had been due to the +tiller-ropes being burned and the boats becoming unmanageable. + +The arrival of the railroad at the head of the Ohio River in the early +fifties brought the East into an immediate touch with the Mississippi +Valley unknown before. But however bold railway engineers were in the +face of the ragged ranges of the Alleghanies, they could not then +out-guess the tricks of the Ohio, the Mississippi, or the Missouri, and +railway promoters could not afford to take chances on having their +stations and tracks unexpectedly isolated, if not actually carried away, +by swirling, yellow floods. The Mississippi, too, had been known at +times to achieve a width of seventy miles, and tributaries have +overflowed their banks to a proportionate extent. It was several decades +ere the Ohio was paralleled by a railway, and the Mississippi for long +distances even today has not yet heard the shrill cry of the locomotive. +So the steamboat entered its heyday and encountered little competition. +Until the Civil War the rivers of the West remained the great arteries +of trade, carrying grain and merchandise of every description southward +and bringing back cotton, rice, and sugar. + +The rivalries of the great lines of packets established in these days of +the steamboat, however, equaled anything ever known in railway +competition, and, in the matter of fast time, became more spectacular +than anything of its kind in any line of transportation in our country. +With flags flying, boilers heated white with abundance of pine and +resin, and bold and skillful pilots at the steering wheels, no sport of +kings ever aroused the enthusiasm of hundreds of thousands to such a +pitch as did many of the old-time races northward from New Orleans. + +The J. M. White and her performances stand out conspicuously in the +annals of the river. Her builder, familiarly known to a generation of +rivermen as Billy King, deserves to rank with Henry Shreve. Commissioned +in 1844 to build the J. M. White for J. M. Converse of St. Louis, with +funds supplied by Robert Chouteau of that city, King proceeded to put +into effect the knowledge which he had derived from a close study of the +swells made by steamboats when under way. When the boat was being built +in the famous shipyards at Elizabeth, on the Monongahela, the wheel +beams were set twenty feet farther back than was customary. Converse was +struck with this unheard-of radicalism in design, and balked; King was a +man given to few words; he was resolved to throw convention to the winds +and trust his judgment; he refused to build the boat on other lines. +Converse felt compelled to let Chouteau pass on the question; in time +the laconic answer came: "Let King put the beams where he pleases." + +Thus the craft which Converse thought a monstrosity became known far and +wide for both its design and its speed. In 1844 the J. M. White made the +record of three days, twenty-three hours, and nine minutes between New +Orleans and St. Louis. ¹ Of course the secret of Billy King's success +soon became known. He had placed his paddle wheels where they would bite +into the swell produced by every boat just under its engines. He had +transformed what had been a handicap into a positive asset. It is said +that he attempted to shield his prize against competition by destroying +the model of the J. M. White, as well as to have refused large offers to +build a boat that would beat her. But it is said also that an exhibition +model of the boat was a cherished possession of E. M. Stanton, Secretary +of War, and that it hung in his office during Lincoln's administration. + +¹ This performance is illustrated by the following comparative table +showing the best records of later years between New Orleans and St. +Louis, a distance estimated in 1844 as 1300 miles but in 1870 as 1218 +miles, owing to the action of the river in shortening its course. + +Year Boat Time +1844 J. M. White 3 d. 23 h. 9 m. +1849 Missouri 4 d. 19 h. -- +1869 Dexter 4 d. 9 h. -- +1870 Natchez 3 d. 21 h. 58 m. +1870 R. E. Lee 3 d. 18 h. 14 m. + +The steamboat now extended its service to the West and North. The +ancient fur trade with the Indians of the upper Mississippi, the +Missouri, and the Arkansas, had its headquarters at St. Louis, whence +the notable band of men engaged in that trade were reaching out to the +Rockies. The roll includes Ashley, Campbell, Sublette, Manuel Lisa, +Perkins, Hempstead, William Clark, Labadie, the Chouteaus, and +Menard--men of different races and colors and alike only in their +energy, bravery, and initiative. Through them the village of St. Louis +had grown to a population of four thousand in 1819, when Major Long's +expedition passed up the Missouri in the first steamboat to ascend that +river. This boat, the Western Engineer, was built at Pittsburgh and was +modeled cunningly for its work. It was one of the first stern wheelers +built in the West; and the saving in width meant much on streams having +such narrow channels as the Missouri and the Platte, especially when +barges were to be towed. Then, too, its machinery, which was covered +over or boarded up, was shrouded in mystery. A fantastic figure +representing a serpent's open mouth contained the exhaust pipe. If the +New Orleans alarmed the population of the Ohio Valley, the sensation +caused among the red children of the Missouri at the sight of this +gigantic snake belching fire and smoke must have thoroughly satisfied +the whim of its designer. + +The admission of Missouri to statehood and the independence of Mexico +mark the beginning of real commercial relations between St. Louis and +Santa Fé. In 1822 Captain William Becknell organized the first wagon +train which left the Missouri (at Franklin, near Independence) for the +long dangerous journey to the Arkansas and on to Santa Fé. In the +following year two expeditions set forth, carrying out cottons and other +drygoods to exchange for horses, mules, furs, and silver. + +Despite the handicaps of Indian opposition and Mexican tariffs, the +Santa Fé trade became an important factor in the growth of St. Louis and +the Missouri River steamboat lines. In 1825 the pathway was "surveyed" +from Franklin to San Fernando, then in Mexico. This Santa Fé trade grew +from fifteen thousand pounds of freight in 1822 to nearly half a million +pounds twenty years later. + +By 1826 steamboat traffic up the Missouri began to assume regularity. +The navigation was dangerous and difficult because the Missouri never +kept even an approximately constant head of water. In times of drought +it became very shallow, and in times of flood it tore its wayward course +open in any direction it chose. "Of all variable things in creation," +wrote a Western editor, "the most uncertain are the action of a jury, +the state of a woman's mind, and the condition of the Missouri River." A +further handicap, and one which was unknown on the Ohio and rare on the +Mississippi, was the lack of forests to supply the necessary fuel. The +Missouri, it is true, had its cottonwoods, but in a green state they +were poor fuel, and along vast stretches they were not obtainable in any +quantity. + +The steamboat linked St. Louis with that vital stretch of the river +lying between the mouth of the Kansas and the mouth of the Nebraska. +From this region the great Western trail ran on to California and +Oregon. In the early thirties Bonneville, Walker, Kelley, and Wyeth +successively essayed this Overland Trail by way of the Platte through +the South Pass of the Rockies to the Humboldt, Snake, and Columbia +rivers. From Independence on the Missouri this famous pathway led to +Fort Laramie, a distance of 672 miles; another 300-mile climb brought +the traveler through South Pass; and so, by way of Fort Bridger, Salt +Lake, and Sutter's Fort, to San Francisco. The route, well known by +hundreds of Oregon pioneers in the early forties, became a thoroughfare +in the eager days of the Forty-Niners. ¹ + +¹ For map see The Passing of the Frontier, by Emerson Hough (in The +Chronicles of America). + +The earliest overland stage line to Great Salt Lake was established by +Hockaday and Liggett. After the founding of the famous Overland Stage +Company by Russell, Majors, and Waddell in 1858, stages were soon +ascending the Platte from the steamboat terminals on the Missouri and +making the twelve hundred miles from St. Joseph to Salt Lake City in ten +days. Stations were established from ten to fifteen miles apart, and the +line was soon extended on to Sacramento. The nineteen hundred miles from +St. Joseph to Sacramento were made in fifteen days, although the +government contract with the company for handling United States mail +allowed nineteen days. A host of employees was engaged in this exciting +but not very remunerative enterprise--station-agents and helpers, +drivers, conductors who had charge of passengers, in addition to mail +and express and road agents who acted as division superintendents. In +1862 the Overland Route was taken over by the renowned Ben Holliday, who +operated it until the railway was constructed seven years later. Freight +was hauled by the same company in wagons known as the "J. Murphy +wagons," which were made in St. Louis. These wagons went out from +Leavenworth loaded with six thousand pounds of freight each. A train +usually consisted of twenty-five wagons and was known, in the vernacular +of the plains, as a "bull-outfit"; the drivers were "bull-whackers"; and +the wagon master was the "bull-wagon boss." + +The old story, however, was repeated again here on the boundless plains +of the West. The Western trails streaming out from the terminus of +steamboat traffic between Kansas City and Omaha had scarcely time to +become well known before the railway conquerors of the Atlantic and +Great Lakes regions were planning the conquest of the greater plains and +the Rockies beyond. The opening of the Chinese ports in 1844 turned +men's minds as never before to the Pacific coast. The acquisition of +Oregon within a few years and of California at the close of the Mexican +War opened the way for a newspaper and congressional discussion as to +whether the first railway to parallel the Santa Fé or the Overland Trail +should run from Memphis, St. Louis, or Chicago. The building of the +Union Pacific from Omaha westward assured the future of that city, and +it was soon joined to Chicago and the East by several lines which were +building toward Clinton, Rock Island, and Burlington. + +But the construction of a few main lines of railway across the continent +could only partially satisfy the commercial needs of the West. True, the +overland trade was at once transferred to the railroad, but the enormous +equipment of stage and express companies previously employed in westward +overland trade was now devoted to joining the railway lines with the +vast regions to the north and the south. The rivers of the West could +not alone take care of this commerce and for many years these great +transportation companies went with their stages and their wagons into +the growing Dakota and Montana trade and opened up direct lines of +communication to the nearest railway. On the south the cattle industry +of Texas came northward into touch with the railways of Kansas. +Eventually lateral and trunk lines covered the West with their network +of lines and thus obliterated all rivalry and competition by providing +unmatched facilities for quick transportation. + +In the last days previous to the opening of the first transcontinental +railway line a unique method of rapid transportation for mail and light +parcels was established when the famous "Pony Express" line was put into +operation between St. Joseph and San Francisco in 1860. By relays of +horsemen, who carried pouches not exceeding twenty pounds in weight, the +time was cut to nine days. The innovation was the new wonder of the +world for the time being and led to an outburst on the part of the +enthusiastic editor of the St. Joseph Free Democrat that deserves +reading because it breathes so fully the Western spirit of exultant +conquest: + +Take down your map and trace the footprints of our quadrupedantic +animal: From St. Joseph, on the Missouri, to San Francisco, on the +Golden Horn--two thousand miles--more than half the distance across our +boundless continent; through Kansas, through Nebraska, by Fort Kearney, +along the Platte, by Fort Laramie, past the Buttes, over the Mountains, +through the narrow passes and along the steep defiles, Utah, Fort +Bridger, Salt Lake City, he witches Brigham with his swift +pony-ship--through the valleys, along the grassy slopes, into the snow, +into the sand, faster than Thor's Thialfi, away they go, rider and +horse--did you see them? They are in California, leaping over its golden +sands, treading its busy streets. The courser has unrolled to us the +great American panorama, allowed us to glance at the home of one million +people, and has put a girdle around the earth in forty minutes. Verily +the riding is like the riding of Jehu, the son of Nimshi for he rideth +furiously. Take out your watch. We are eight days from New York, +eighteen from London. The race is to the swift. ¹ + +¹ Quoted in Inman's The Great Salt Lake Trail, p. 171. + +The lifetime of many and many a man has covered a period longer than +that interval of eighty-six years between 1783, when George Washington +had his vision of "the vast inland navigation of these United States," +and the year 1869, when the two divisions of the Union Pacific were +joined by a golden spike at Promontory Point in Utah. In point of time, +those eighty-six years are as nothing; in point of accomplishment, they +stand unparalleled. When Washington's horse splashed across the +Youghiogheny in October, 1784, the boundary lines of the United States +were guarded with all the jealousy and provincial selfishness of +European kingdoms. But overnight, so to speak, these limitations became +no more than mere geometrical expressions. "Pennamite," "Erie," and +"Toledo" wars between the States, suggesting a world of bitterness and +recrimination, are remembered today, if at all, only by the cartoonist +and the playwright. The ancient false pride in mock values, so cherished +in Europe, has quite departed from the provincial areas of the United +States, and Americans can fly in a day, unwittingly, through many +States. Problems that would have cost Europe blood are settled without +turmoil in the solemn cloisters of that American "international +tribunal," the Supreme Court, and they appear only as items of passing +interest in our newspapers. + +In unifying the nation the influence of the Supreme Court has been +priceless, for it has given to Americans, in place of the colonial or +provincial mind, a continental mind. But great is the debt of Americans +to the men who laid the foundations of interstate commerce. No antidote +served so well to counteract the poison of clannish rivalry as did their +enthusiasm and their constructive energy. These men, dreamers and +promoters, were building better than they knew. They thought to overcome +mountains, obliterate swamps, conquer stormy lakes, master great rivers +and endless plains; but, as their labors are judged today, the greater +service which these men rendered appears in its true light. They stifled +provincialism; they battered down Chinese Walls of prejudice and +separatism; they reduced the aimless rivalry of bickering provinces to a +businesslike common denominator; and, perhaps more than any class of +men, they made possible the wide-spreading and yet united Republic that +is honored and loved today. + + + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + +The history of the early phase of American transportation is dealt with +in three general works. John Luther Ringwalt's Development of +Transportation Systems in the United States (1888) is a reliable summary +of the general subject at the time. Archer B. Hulbert's Historic +Highways of America, 16 vols. (1902-1905), is a collection of monographs +of varying quality written with youthful enthusiasm by the author, who +traversed in good part the main pioneer roads and canals of the eastern +portion of the United States; Indian trails, portage paths, the military +roads of the Old French War period, the Ohio River as a pathway of +migration, the Cumberland Road, and three of the canals which played a +part in the western movement, form the subject of the more valuable +volumes. The temptation of a writer on transportation to wander from his +subject is illustrated in this work, as it is illustrated afresh in +Seymour Dunbar's A History of Travel in America, 4 vols. (1915). The +reader will take great pleasure in this magnificently illustrated work, +which, in completer fashion than it has ever been attempted, gives a +readable running story of the whole subject for the whole country, +despite detours, which some will make around the many pages devoted to +Indian relations. + +For almost every phase of the general topic books, monographs, +pamphlets, and articles are to be found in the corners of any great +library, ranging in character from such productions as William F. +Ganong's A Monograph of Historic Sites in the Province of New Brunswick +(Proceedings and Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, Second +Series, vol. V, 1899) which treats of early travel in New England and +Canada, or St. George L. Sioussat's Highway Legislation in Maryland and +its Influence on the Economic Development of the State (Maryland +Geological Survey, III, 1899) treating of colonial road making and +legislation thereon, or Elbert J. Benton's The Wabash Trade Route in the +Development of the Old Northwest (Johns Hopkins University Studies in +Historical and Political Science, vol. XXI, 1903) and Julius Winden's +The Influence of the Erie Canal upon the Population along its Course +(University of Wisconsin, 1901), which treat of the economic and +political influence of the opening of inland water routes, to volumes of +a more popular character such as Francis W. Halsey's The Old New York +Frontier (1901), Frank H. Severance's Old Trails on the Niagara Frontier +(1903) for the North, and Charles A. Hanna's The Wilderness Trail, 2 +vols. (1911), and Thomas Speed's The Wilderness Road (The Filson Club +Publications, vol. II, 1886) for Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Kentucky. +The value of Hanna's work deserves special mention. + +For the early phases of inland navigation John Pickell's A New Chapter +in the Early Life of Washington (1856), is an excellent work of the +old-fashioned type, while in Herbert B. Adams's Maryland's Influence +upon Land Cessions to the United States (Johns Hopkins University +Studies in Historical and Political Science, Third Series, I, 1885) a +master-hand pays Washington his due for originating plans of +trans-Alleghany solidarity; this likewise is the theme of Archer B. +Hulbert's Washington and the West (1905) wherein is printed Washington's +Diary of September, 1784, containing the first and unexpurgated draft of +his classic letter to Harrison of that year. The publications of the +various societies for internal improvement and state boards of control +and a few books, such as Turner Camac's Facts and Arguments Respecting +the Great Utility of an Extensive Plan of Inland Navigation in America +(1805), give the student distinct impressions of the difficulties and +the ideals of the first great American promoters of inland commerce. +Elkanah Watson's History of the ... Western Canals in the State of New +York (1820), despite inaccuracies due to lapses of memory, should be +specially remarked. + +For the rise and progress of turnpike building one must remember W. +Kingsford's History, Structure, and Statistics of Plank Roads (1852), a +reliable book by a careful writer. The Cumberland (National) Road has +its political influence carefully adjudged by Jeremiah S. Young in A +Political and Constitutional Study of the Cumberland Road (1904), while +the social and personal side is interestingly treated in county history +style in Thomas B. Searight's The Old Pike (1894). Motorists will +appreciate Robert Bruce's The National Road (1916), handsomely +illustrated and containing forty-odd sectional maps. + +The best life of Fulton is H. W. Dickinson's Robert Fulton, Engineer and +Artist: His Life and Works (1913), while in Alice Crary Sutcliffe's +Robert Fulton and the "Clermont" (1909), the more intimate picture of a +family biography is given. For the controversy concerning the +Fulton-Livingston monopoly, note W. A. Duer's A Course of Lectures on +Constitutional Jurisprudence and his pamphlets addressed to Cadwallader +D. Colden. The life of that stranger to success, the forlorn John Fitch, +was written sympathetically and after assiduous research by Thompson +Westcott in his Life of John Fitch the Inventor of the Steamboat (1858). +For the pamphlet war between Fitch and Rumsey see Allibone's Dictionary. + +The Great Lakes have not been adequately treated. E. Channing and M. F. +Lansing's The Story of the Great Lakes (1909) is reliable but deals very +largely with the routine history covered by the works of Parkman. J. O. +Curwood's The Great Lakes (1909) is stereotyped in its scope but has +certain chapters of interest to students of commercial development, as +has also The Story of the Great Lakes. The vast bulk of material of +value on the subject lies in the publications of the New York, Buffalo, +Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Chicago Historical Societies, whose +lists should be consulted. These publications also give much data on the +Mississippi River and western commercial development. S. L. Clemens's +Life on the Mississippi (in his Writings, vol. IX, 1869-1909) is +invaluable for its graphic pictures of steamboating in the heyday of +river traffic. A. B. Hulbert's Waterways of Western Expansion (Historic +Highways, vol. IX, 1903) and The Ohio River (1906) give chapters on +commerce and transportation. For the beginnings of traffic into the Far +West, H. Inman's The Old Santa Fé Trail (1897) and The Great Salt Lake +Trail (1914) may be consulted, together with the publications of the +various state historical societies of the trans-Mississippi States. + +Various bibliographies on this general subject have been issued by the +Library of Congress. Seymour Dunbar gives a good bibliography in his A +History of Travel in America, 4 vols. (1915). The student will find +quantities of material in books of travel, in which connection he would +do well to consult Solon J. Buck's Travel and Description, 1765-1865 +(Illinois State Historical Library Collections, vol. IX, 1914). + + + + + + +INDEX +A. +Adams, J. Q., and internal improvements, 145. +Albany, Old Bay Path to, 16; road to Baltimore, 58; Clermont's voyage +to, 113. +Alexandria (Va.), rival of New York City, 137. +Alleghanies, pathways across, 17-19, 116 et seq. +Allegheny Portage Railway, 151. +American, New York, quoted, 182. +Appalachian Mountains, pathways across, 15-21. +Arkansas, influence of river trade on, 180. +"Army" plan of occupying West, 4. +Ashley, fur trader, 186. +Audubon, J. J., description of barge journey, 72-73. + + +B. +Baily, Francis, journey in United States (1796-97), 81-98; quoted, +90-91. +Balcony Falls, trail between James and Great Kanawha Rivers at, 19. +Baltimore, road to Albany, 58; part in transportation development, +136-137, 143-151. +Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 153; Washington's vision realized by, 10; +follows old trail, 18, 29; state appropriation, 148; contest with canal +company, 150-151; reaches Ohio, 151, 171. +Baltimore-Frederick Turnpike, 59. +Baltimore-Reisterstown Turnpike, 58-59, 143. +Baring Brothers contribute to canal work, 163. +Bay Path, see Old Bay Path. +Becknell, Captain William, organizes first wagon train for Sante Fé, +187. +Bedford, Fort, established, 50. +Bixby, Captain, at Hat Island, 181. +Black Hawk War (1832), 162. +Bonneville, Captain B. L. E., on Overland Trail, 189. +"Bonnyclabber Country," 86, 87. +Boone, Daniel, 19. +Bouquet, Colonel Henry, criticizes Washington, 50. +Boston and Albany Railroad, 13, 16. +Boulton and Watt of Birmingham, Fulton uses engine of, 110, 113. +Braddock's Road, 51. +Brissot, French traveler in America, 81, 83. +Broad River, trail on, 19. +Brown, Charles, builds hull of Clermont, 113. +Brown, George, and Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 149. +Brownsville (Penn.) growth of, 26. +Bryan, Guy, of Philadelphia, 66. +Buffalo, demand for means of transportation, 164, 170; harbor +improvement, 169; growth, 172. +Buffalo-Utica Canal, 124; see also Erie Canal. +Bunting, "Red," stagecoach driver, 123. +Burt, W. A., discovers iron ore in Michigan, 165-166. + + +C. +Calhoun, J. C., and internal improvements, 145. +California, western trail to, 188; acquisition of, 191. +Campbell, fur trader, 186. +Canals, early projects, 37-38; inadequacy of, 157; in the West, 157 et +seq.; see also Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, Erie Canal, Welland Canal. +Catskill Turnpike, 16. +Céloron de Blainville sends English traders from Ohio country, 25-26. +Charleston (S. C.), trails to Tennessee from, 19. +Charleston (Wellsburg) made port of entry, 77. +Charlotte Dundas (steamboat), 109, 110. +Chastellux, Chevalier de, Washington's letter to, 6. +Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, Washington's vision realized in, 10; plan +for, 132, 143, 144; Company formed, 145; engineering difficulties, 146; +state subscription, 148; contest with Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, +150-151. +Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, 19; Washington's vision realized in, 10; +follows old route, 152. +Chicago, harbor improvement, 161, 169; canal terminal, 162; growth, +162-163, 172; demand for means of transportation, 164, 170; convention +discusses rivers and harbors (1846), 169; Illinois Central Railroad to, +170. +Chickasaw Trail, 97. +Chillicothe (O.), grant to Zane at, 47. +China, influence on West of opening ports, 191. +Chiswell, Fort, "Warrior's Path" from, 19. +Choctaw Trail, 97. +Chouteau, Robert, 184. +Cincinnati, founded, 68; ship-building, 76, 180; made port of entry, 77; +see also Columbia. +Clark, William, fur trader, 186. +Clay, Henry, and internal improvements, 145; on Western canal project, +155. +Clermont (steamboat), 78, 113-114. +Cleveland, demand for means of transportation, 164, 170; harbor +improvement, 169; growth, 172. +Clinton, DeWitt, Memorial (1816), 127; and Ohio and Miami canals, 159. +Columbia (Cincinnati), port of entry, 74, 77; Baily at, 92; see also +Cincinnati. +Comet (steamboat), 78. +Conemaugh River, Kittanning Trail follows, 17. +Congress, Fitch appeals to, 106; appropriation for canal survey, 145. +Connecticut Path, 16. +Connecticut River, Old Bay Path, 15. +Connellsville (Penn.), growth of, 26. +Converse, J. M., 184. +Cooper, Peter, builds engine Tom Thumb, 150. +Cotton, influence on river navigation, 180. +Cowpens, description of inhabitants, 22-24. +Crawford, agent for Washington, letter to, 5. +Crisman, Jesse, owner of Hit or Miss, 140. +Cumberland (Md.), eastern terminus of Cumberland Road, 119. +Cumberland Gap, "Warrior's Path" through, 19; railroad through, 20. +Cumberland Road, 136; Washington's vision realized in, 10; building +authorized, 114-115; importance, 116; plan, 118-119; route, 119-120; +building of, 120-121; cost, 121; stage lines, 122-123; freight traffic, +123-124; extension to Missouri, 132; Baltimore and, 143-144; +bibliography, 199. + + +D. +Day, Sherman, quoted, 140. +Deane, Silas, plan for payment of Revolutionary War debt, 2-3. +Delaware Water Gap, 17. +Delta (La.), changed by Mississippi River, 177. +Detroit, Washington marks out commercial lines to, 9; port of entry, 74; +demand for transportation facilities, 164; harbor, 169; growth, 172. +Detroit (lake steamer), 169. +Dickens, Charles, cited, 100; describes canal boat journey, 140-141; +describes aerial railway, 141-142. +Doddridge, Notes, quoted, 27-28. +Doolittle, Sylvester, builds Vandalia, 168. +Duane (ship), 76-77. +Duquesne, Fort, 26, 28, 50. + + +E. +Enterprise (steamboat), 79. +"Era of Good Feeling," 60. +Erie (Penn.), as place of embarkation, 35; port of entry, 74. +Erie Canal, 35, 37, 58, 116-117; Washington foresees, 9, 12; work begun +(1817), 38, 128; Hawley writes challenge to New York concerning, 115; +state enterprise, 118, 124-128, 136; Hawley's original plan, 119; +building of, 129-131; completion, 132; locks enlarged, 169. +Erie Railroad, 153; Washington forecasts, 9-10; follows Indian trade +route, 17. +"Erie" war, 194. +Evans, Oliver, and steam propelled wagon, 102-103. +Everett, Edward, quoted, 12-13. + + +F. +Fallen Timber, battle of, 67. +Ferries, 46-47. +Fink, Mike, "the Snag," 64; "Snapping Turtle," 64. +Fitch, John, steamboat experiments, 12, 101-102, 103-105; petition to +Congress, 106-107; obtains monopoly from States, 106; Fulton and, 108. +Forbes, General John, captures Fort Duquesne, 26; breaks army road, 50. +Forman, Joshua, bill for Erie Canal project, 124. +Franklin, Benjamin, on making rivers navigable, 30; and international +boundary line, 164. +Frederick (Md.), trail from, 18. +Free Democrat, St. Joseph, quoted, 192-193. +Freeland, H., account of the Clermont, 113-114. +French as commercial rivals, 20. +Fulton, Robert, steamboat experiments, 12, 107-114; and Livingston, +108-112; on Erie Canal committee, 125; bibliography, 199. +Fur trade, French and, 20; with Illinois country, 66; headquarters at +St. Louis, 186. + + +G. +Gallatin, Albert, scheme of internal improvements, 114. +Geddes, James, engineer, 125. +Gibbons, Thomas, steamboat competitor of Ogden, 132. +Great Britain, steamboat experiments in, 109; Fulton imports engine +from, 111, 113. +Great Kanawha River, Washington outlines route by way of, 10; as trade +route, 19. +Great Lakes, Washington's vision concerning, 8; French on, 20; +navigation of, 154 et seq. +Great Meadows, Washington on, 8; Nemacolin's Path by, 18. +"Great Trail," 28. +Great Western (lake steamer), 168. +Greensburg (Penn.), growth of, 26. +Greenville, Treaty of, 67. + + +H. +Hamilton County (O.) organized, 68. +Hard Times (Miss.), location changed by Mississippi River, 177. +Hawkins, John, Shreve compared with, 175. +Hawley, Jesse, and Erie Canal, 115, 119. +Hazard, of Pennsylvania, 31; and Lehigh coal, 40. +Hempstead, fur trader, 186. +Henry Clay (steamboat), 156. +Hercules (lake freighter), 169. +Heydt, Jost, leads immigrants south, 49. +"Highland Trail," 17, 20. +Hit or Miss (canal boat), 140. +Hockaday and Liggett establish stage line to Great Salt Lake, 189. +Holliday, Ben, and Overland Route, 190. +Horses, pack, 21; in "Bonnyclabber Country," 86. +Hough, Emerson, The Passing of the Frontier, cited, 189 (note). +Houghton, Douglass, discovers copper in Michigan, 165. +Hudson River, Washington foresees joining to Great Lakes, 8; pathway +along, 15; see also Erie Canal. + + +I. +Illinois, trade with, 66; growth of population, 116, 156; canal fever, +157, 161; railway projects, 171; influence of river trade on, 180. +Illinois (lake steamer), 168. +Illinois Central Railroad, 170. +Illinois-Michigan Canal, 157-158, 161, 167, 168. +Illinois River, French on, 20. +Independence (Mo.), Overland Trail from, 189. +Indiana, migration to, 67; growth of population, 116, 156; canal +enthusiasm, 161; railway projects, 171; influence of river trade on, +180. +Indians, trails, 14, 18; pack-horse trade with, 21, 27. +Ingles ferry, 47. +Iowa, influence of river trade on, 180. + + +J. +J. M. White (river boat), 184, 185, 186. +James-Kanawha Turnpike, 10. +James River, 17; Washington's vision regarding, 8, 10; as trade route, +19. +Jefferson, Thomas, plan for settlement of West, 4. +June Bug, stagecoach line, 122. +Juniata River, Kittanning Trail along, 17, 152. + + +K. +Keever, Captain, builds steamboat on Ohio, 78. +Kent, Chancellor, and Erie Canal, 127, 128. +Kentucky, wagon road constructed to, 49-50; migration to, 67. +King, Billy, builder of the J. M. White, 184. +Kittanning Trail, 17, 25. +Knoxville (Tenn.), Baily reaches, 98. + + +L. +Labadie, fur trader, 186. +Lake Shore Railroad, 170, 171. +Lancaster (O.) grant to Zane at, 47. +Lancaster Turnpike, 35, 53-58. +Laramie, Fort, Overland Trail to, 189. +Lee, Arthur, on cost of transportation (1784), 66. +Lee, Henry, Washington writes to, 9. +Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, 39, 43. +Lehigh Coal Company, 42-43. +Lehigh Navigation Company, 42-43. +Lewis and Clark expedition, 12. +Liggett and Holliday run stage to Salt Lake, 189. +Ligonier (Penn.), growth of, 26. +Ligonier, Fort, 50. +Lisa, Manuel, fur trader, 186. +Livingston, R. R., and Fulton, 108-112; on Erie Canal committee, 125. +Long, Major, expedition up Missouri River, 186. +Louisiana cotton exports, 180. +Louisiana of Marietta (ship), 77. +Louisiana Purchase, 75, 77. +Louisville, importance and growth, 68-69; as river port, 73-74, 77; +shipbuilding, 180. +Ludlow, actor, sings The Hunters of Kentucky, 62-63. + + +M. +Mackinaw Island, port of entry, 74. +Marietta (O.), founded, 67-68; shipbuilding, 76; as port of entry, 77. +Maryland, Washington outlines trade routes for, 10; roads, 49, 53, +58-59; cotton grown in, 85; Cumberland Road, 119; canals, 136, 144; +Canal Company formed, 145; see also Baltimore. +Massac, Fort (Ill.), port of entry, 74; 75, 77; Baily at, 93. +Massachusetts, Old Bay Path, 16; roads, 44, 54-55. +Mauch Chunk (Penn.), coal from, 40. +Maynard and Morrison, trade with Illinois, 66. +Menard, fur trader, 186. +Mercer quoted, 148. +Miami Canal, 159. +Michigan, growth of population, 116, 156; plan for Erie Canal funds from +sale of land in, 117, 125; development, 164; "Toledo War," 164-165; +minerals, 165. +Michigan (lake steamer), 168. +Milwaukee, demand for transportation facilities, 164; harbor +improvement, 169. +Minnesota, development, 164. +Mirror, New York, prints The Hunters of Kentucky, 62. +Mississippi cotton exports, 180. +Mississippi River, Washington's vision of navigation on, 12; French on, +20; importance to commerce, 160; canal to connect with Lake Michigan, +161, 163; navigation, 176 et seq.; eccentricities, 177, 183. +Missouri, influence of river trade on, 180; admitted as State, 187. +Missouri River, navigation on, 186, 187, 188. +Mohawk River, route through Appalachians, 16. +Mohawk Trail, 16. +Mohawk Turnpike, 16. +Mohawk Valley, Washington and, 7. +Monongahela Farmer (ship), 76. +Monroe, James, Fulton writes to, 107, 110, 112; recommends congressional +aid for canals, 145. +Montreal, furs brought to, 20; rival of New York City, 125, 126. +Moody, John, The Railroad Builders, cited, 157 (note). +Morey, Samuel, inventor of stern-wheeler, 104, 109, 110. +Morgantown (Penn.), growth of, 26. +Morris, Gouverneur, of New York, 31, 36. + + +N. +Nashville (Tenn.), trails to, 19. +Natchez (Miss.), Baily at, 93, 97. +Natchez Trace, 96. +National, stagecoach line, 122. +Nemacolin Path, 18, 25. +Newberry, Oliver, of Detroit, builds Michigan, 168. +New Madrid, Baily at, 93. +New Orleans, made open port, 75; Baily at, 95; steamboat tonnage of +(1843), 181. +New Orleans (steamboat), 180, 181, 187. +New York (State), Washington foresees communication lines of, 9; canal +project, 35-38; roads, 44, 59; Livingston obtains steamboat monopoly, +109; steamboat grant to Livingston, Roosevelt and Fulton, 111; +railroads, 151, 153; see also Erie Canal. +New York Central Railroad, 153; Washington and, 9; follows Mohawk Trail, +16, 17. +New York City, Baily at, 84; Erie Canal and, 125, 126; tonnage compared +to that of river ports, 181. +Niagara, French at, 25. +Niagara (steamboat), 156. +Nickel Plate Railroad, 17. +Northwest, Deane's plan for, 2-3; navigation of Great Lakes, 154 et +seq.; immigration to, 167-168. + + +O. +Ogden, Aaron, vs. Gibbon, 132. +Ohio, migration to, 67; growth of population, 116, 156; and Cumberland +Road, 117; canals, 157-160; admitted as State (1802), 158; railroads, +171; influence of river trade on, 180. +Ohio and Lake Erie Company, 145. +Ohio Canal, 157, 159, 168, 169. +Ohio River, Washington and, 8, 12; access of French and English to, 25; +value of cargoes on (1800), 74; Baltimore and Ohio Railroad reaches +(1853), 151, 183; navigation, 180. +Old Bay Path, 15, 16. +Ontario (steamboat), 156. +Orange, Fort (Albany), 16; see also Albany. +Ordinance of 1787, 170. +Oregon, western trail to, 188; effect of acquisition on transportation, +191. +Orleans (steamboat), 78. +Ormsbee, of Connecticut, makes steamboat model, 104. +Ottawa (Ill.) canal terminal, 162. +Overland Stage Company, 189. +Overland Trail, 189, 191. + + +P. +Palmyra (Tenn.), as river port, 74. +Pedee River, 17. +"Pennamite" war, 194. +Pennsylvania, Washington and transportation in, 9, 10-11; canals, 33-35, +136; roads, 35, 44, 45, 48-49, 50, 53-54, 119-120; "Bonnyclabber +Country," 86, 87; and Great Lakes, 138; railways, 151. +Pennsylvania Canal, 132; Washington forecasts, 9; route, 139; +engineering achievement, 139-140. +Pennsylvania Railroad, 142, 153; Washington and, 9-10; follows Indian +trail, 29; incorporated (1846), 151; reaches Ohio River, 171. +Perkins, fur trader, 186. +Philadelphia, roads to, 48-49; meeting to protest against monopoly of +Lancaster Turnpike, 55; Baily at, 84; rival of New York City, 137. +Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike Road Company, 53-54. +Philadelphia Road, 49. +Pickering plan of occupying West, 4. +Pike, Captain Z. M., 93. +Pioneer, stagecoach line, 122. +Pioneer (steamboat), 156. +Pitt, Fort, 28. +Pittsburgh, growth, 26, 67; trade with, 65-66, 66-67, 75; shipbuilding, +76; port of entry, 77; Baily reaches, 88. +Platt, Judge, and Erie Canal, 126, 127. +Pontiac's Rebellion, 26-27, 34. +"Pony Express," 192. +Potomac Canal Company, 143. +Potomac Company, 31-33, 138. +Potomac River, Washington's vision regarding, 8, 10; commerce on, 17-18. +Prairie (steamboat), 182. +Presq'Isle (Erie) recommended as place of embarkation, 35. +Prices in 1800, 92. +Putnam, General Rufus, advocates Pickering plan, 3-4. + + +Q. +Quebec, furs brought to, 20. +Queen of the West (British steamer), 182. + + +R. +Railroads, 134 et seq.; see also names of railroads. +Revolutionary War, plans for payment of debt of, 2-3. +Rhodes, Mayor of Philadelphia, 30. +Rideau canal system, 160. +Rivers and harbors, government policy of improvement, 12; Chicago +convention (1846), 169. +Roads, 44 et seq., 83; tolls, 59-60; see also Cumberland Road. +Robinson, Moncure, 139-140. +Roosevelt, Theodore, quoted, 176. +Rumsey, James, 12; general manager of Potomac Company, 32; steamboat +experiments, 101, 102, 103, 106; Virginia grants monopoly to, 106; +Fulton and, 108. +Russell, Majors, and Waddell found Overland Stage Company, 189. +Rutherfordton Trail, 19. + + +S. +Sacramento, stage line to, 189. +St. Clair (brig), 76. +St. Joseph (Mo.), stage line from, 189. +St. Lawrence canal system, 160. +St. Louis, shipbuilding, 180; headquarters for fur trade, 186; trade +with Santa Fé, 187. +St. Mary's River Ship Canal, 164, 167, 168. +Salt Lake City, stage line to, 189. +Samson (lake freighter), 169. +Sandusky, port of entry, 74. +San Francisco, Overland Trail to, 189. +San Lorenzo, Treaty of, 75. +Santa Fé, trade with, 187. +Santa Fé Trail, 191. +"Sapphire Country," 19, 152. +Saturday Advertiser, Liverpool, on the Duane, 76-77. +Schoph, J. D., crosses mountains in chaise, 66. +Schuylkill-Susquehanna Canal, 35. +Searight describes freight wagons on Cumberland Road, 123-124. +Sellers, Captain Isaiah, 182. +Shreve, Henry, builds double-decked steamboat, 79; invents flat-bottomed +steamboat, 175. +Society for Promoting the Improvement of Roads and Inland Navigation, +31, 34-35, 39, 54. +South, trade with, 65; demands for commerce, 174. +Southern Belle (steamboat), 181. +Southern Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, 29. +Southern Railway, 19. +Stanton, E. M., has model of J. M. White, 186. +Stephenson, Robert, on Pennsylvania Canal, 140. +Stevens, E. A., invents twin-screw propeller, 104. +Sublette, fur trader, 186. +Sultana (steamboat), 181. +Superior (steamboat), 156, 167. +Superior, Lake, copper and iron deposits near, 164; commerce from, +166-167. +Susquehanna River, Washington foresees joining to West, 8. + + +T. +Taverns, 56-57, 82-83. +Taylor, Acting-Governor of New York, and Erie Canal, 127, 128. +Tennessee, trails to, 19; cotton exports, 180. +Tennessee Path, Baily on, 96. +Thackeray, W. M., quoted, 135. +Thomas, P. E., and Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 149. +Thompson, Chief Justice of New York, and Erie Canal, 127. +Toledo (O.), demand for transportation facilities, 164. +"Toledo War," 164-165, 194. +Tom Thumb, Peter Cooper's engine, 150. +Transportation, Conestoga wagons, 57-58, 86; steamboats, 100 et seq.; +stagecoaches, 122; "J. Murphy wagons," 190; see also Canals, Ferries, +Horses, Railroads, Roads. +Tupper, General Benjamin, 104. +Twain, Mark, cited, 181. +Tyson, Jonathan, 52. + + +U. +Unaka Mountains, see Alleghanies. +Union Canal, 35, 139, 151; see also Pennsylvania Canal. +Union Pacific Railroad, 191, 193. +Uniontown (Penn.), growth of, 26. + + +V. +Vandalia (lake freighter), 168. +Vesuvius (steamboat), 78. +Virginia, Washington's vision of trade routes for, 10; Indian trails, +18; roads, 44-45, 49, 119; negroes, 85; tobacco, 85; canals, 136, 144. +Virginia Road (Braddock's Road), 51. + + +W. +Walk-in-the-Water (steamboat), 132, 156, 167, 172. +"Warrior's Path," 19, 20. +Washington (D. C.), Baily at, 84, 85-86. +Washington, first double-decked steamboat, 79, 175. +Washington, Fort, 68. +Washington, George, vision of inland navigation, 4 et seq., 193; +doctrine of expansion, 6; journey to West, 7-9; letter to Harrison, 10, +53, 117, 127; Journal, 10; and river improvement, 31; president of +Potomac Company, 32; and army roads, 50; and crop rotation, 85; prophecy +regarding millstones, 87-88; Rumsey and, 100-101, 105-106. +Watauga, Fort, 19. +Waters, Dr., of New Madrid, builds schooner, 95. +Watson, Elkanah, of New York, 31, 33, 36, 37, 54. +Wayne, Anthony, 67. +Webster, Pelatiah, and settlement of Northwest, 3. +Weiser, Conrad, 26. +Welch, Sylvester, 139. +Welland Canal, 12, 155, 160, 168, 169. +Western Engineer (steamboat), 186. +Western Inland Lock Navigation Company, 31, 36-37. +Western Maryland Railway, 18. +Westfield River, Old Bay Path along, 16. +Westover, stagecoach driver, 122-123. +Wheeling, western terminus of Cumberland Road, 119. +White, of Pennsylvania, 31, 40, 43. +Wickham, Nathan, 49. +Wilderness Road, 47, 50. +Winchester (Va.), trail from, 18. +Wisconsin, development of, 164. +Woodworth, Samuel, The Hunters of Kentucky, 62-63; The Old Oaken Bucket, +62. + + +Y. +Yadkin River, trail on, 19. +Yates, Judge, and Erie Canal, 127. +Yoder, Jacob, 64-65. +York Road, 52. +Yorktown (steamboat), 181, 182. + + +Z. +Zane, Ebenezer, 47, 88. +Zanesville (O.), grants to Zane near, 47. + + + + + + +The Chronicles of America Series + + 1. The Red Man's Continent + by Ellsworth Huntington + 2. The Spanish Conquerors + by Irving Berdine Richman + 3. Elizabethan Sea-Dogs + by William Charles Henry Wood + 4. The Crusaders of New France + by William Bennett Munro + 5. Pioneers of the Old South + by Mary Johnson + 6. The Fathers of New England + by Charles McLean Andrews + 7. Dutch and English on the Hudson + by Maud Wilder Goodwin + 8. The Quaker Colonies + by Sydney George Fisher + 9. Colonial Folkways + by Charles McLean Andrews +10. The Conquest of New France + by George McKinnon Wrong +11. The Eve of the Revolution + by Carl Lotus Becker +12. Washington and His Comrades in Arms + by George McKinnon Wrong +13. The Fathers of the Constitution + by Max Farrand +14. Washington and His Colleagues + by Henry Jones Ford +15. Jefferson and his Colleagues + by Allen Johnson +16. John Marshall and the Constitution + by Edward Samuel Corwin +17. The Fight for a Free Sea + by Ralph Delahaye Paine +18. Pioneers of the Old Southwest + by Constance Lindsay Skinner +19. The Old Northwest + by Frederic Austin Ogg +20. The Reign of Andrew Jackson + by Frederic Austin Ogg +21. The Paths of Inland Commerce + by Archer Butler Hulbert +22. Adventurers of Oregon + by Constance Lindsay Skinner +23. The Spanish Borderlands + by Herbert Eugene Bolton +24. Texas and the Mexican War + by Nathaniel Wright Stephenson +25. The Forty-Niners + by Stewart Edward White +26. The Passing of the Frontier + by Emerson Hough +27. The Cotton Kingdom + by William E. Dodd +28. The Anti-Slavery Crusade + by Jesse Macy +29. Abraham Lincoln and the Union + by Nathaniel Wright Stephenson +30. The Day of the Confederacy + by Nathaniel Wright Stephenson +31. Captains of the Civil War + by William Charles Henry Wood +32. The Sequel of Appomattox + by Walter Lynwood Fleming +33. The American Spirit in Education + by Edwin E. Slosson +34. The American Spirit in Literature + by Bliss Perry +35. Our Foreigners + by Samuel Peter Orth +36. The Old Merchant Marine + by Ralph Delahaye Paine +37. The Age of Invention + by Holland Thompson +38. The Railroad Builders + by John Moody +39. The Age of Big Business + by Burton Jesse Hendrick +40. The Armies of Labor + by Samuel Peter Orth +41. The Masters of Capital + by John Moody +42. The New South + by Holland Thompson +43. The Boss and the Machine + by Samuel Peter Orth +44. The Cleveland Era + by Henry Jones Ford +45. The Agrarian Crusade + by Solon Justus Buck +46. The Path of Empire + by Carl Russell Fish +47. Theodore Roosevelt and His Times + by Harold Howland +48. Woodrow Wilson and the World War + by Charles Seymour +49. The Canadian Dominion + by Oscar D. Skelton +50. The Hispanic Nations of the New World + by William R. Shepherd + + + +Historic Highways of America + + 1. Paths of the Mound-Building Indians and Great Game Animals + 2. Indian Thoroughfares + 3. Washington's Road (Nemacolin's Path): + The First Chapter of the Old French War + 4. Braddock's Road and Three Relative Papers + 5. The Old Glade (Forbes) Road: + Pennsylvania State Road + 6. Boone's Wilderness Road + 7. Portage Paths: The Keys of the Continent + 8. Military Roads of the Mississippi Basin: + The Conquest of the Old Northwest + 9. Waterways of Westward Expansion: + The Ohio River and Its Tributaries +10. The Cumberland Road +11. Pioneer Roads and Experiences of Travelers: Volume I +12. Pioneer Roads and Experiences of Travelers: Volume II +13. The Great American Canals: + Volume I The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and Pennsylvania Canal +14. The Great American Canals: + Volume II The Erie Canal +15. The Future of Road-Making in America: A Symposium +16. Index + +Archer Hulbert completed a fifteen-part series from 1902-1905 on the +historic highways of America, which he distilled into this one volume +for the Chronicles of America Series. Project Gutenberg offers thirteen +of the fifteen volumes in the historic roads series. We are also missing +the sixteenth volume from our collection, which is an index of the other +fifteen volumes. + + +Transcriber's Notes + +Introduction: +The Chronicles of America Series has two similar editions of each volume +in the series. One version is the Abraham Lincoln edition of the series, +a premium version which includes full-page pictures. A textbook edition +was also produced, which does not contain the pictures and captions +associated with the pictures, but is otherwise the same book. This book +was produced to match the textbook edition of the book. + +We have retained the original punctuation and spelling in the book, but +there are a few exceptions. Obvious errors were corrected--and all of +these changes can be found in the Detailed Notes Section of these notes. +The Detailed Notes Section also includes issues that have come up during +transcription. One common issue is that words are sometimes split into +two lines for spacing purposes in the original text. These words are +hyphenated in the physical book, but there is a question sometimes as to +whether the hyphen should be retained in transcription. The reasons +behind some of these decisions are itemized. + +Detailed Notes Section: + +Chapter 2 +On Page 28, pack-saddles was hyphenated between two lines for spacing. +The word was used inside a quote, so prior references may not give us +the right transcription. However, it is the best information that we +have available. On page 22, packsaddle was not hyphenated and appeared +in the middle of a line. A word with the same prefix, pack-horse, was +consistently spelled with a hyphen. We transcribed the word without the +hyphen, because the evidence suggests that the author intended +packsaddles without the hyphen, but pack-horse and pack-horsemen with +the hyphen. + +Chapter 3 +On Page 32, stock-holders was hyphenated between two lines for spacing. +On page 41, stockholders was spelled without a hyphen. Also, on page 56, +stockholders was spelled without a hyphen. We transcribed the word +without the hyphen. + +Chapter 4 +On Page 57, stage-coach was hyphenated between two lines for spacing. In +several other instances, stagecoach was spelled without the hyphen. You +will find one instance of stage-coach with a hyphen, on page 135: it is +from quoted text. We transcribed the word without the hyphen. + +Chapter 6 +On Page 86, pack-horse was hyphenated between two lines for spacing. In +many other instances, pack-horse was spelled with the hyphen. We +transcribed the word with the hyphen. + +Chapter 7 +On Page 101, iron-shod was hyphenated between two lines for spacing. +There was no other use of the word in this book. We transcribed the word +without the hyphen. +On Page 109, stern-wheeler was hyphenated between two lines for spacing. +On the same page, stern-wheeler was used again, hyphenated, in the +middle of a line. We transcribed the word with the hyphen. + +Index +On Page 210, stage-coach was hyphenated between two lines for spacing. +We transcribed the word without the hyphen. 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Hulbert, +an eBook presented by Project Gutenberg. +</p> + +<p class="boilerplate"> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org +</p> + +<p class="boilerplate"> +Title: The Paths of Inland Commerce<br /> + A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway,<br /> + Volume 21 of The Chronicles of America Series<br /> +Author: Archer B. Hulbert<br /> +Release Date: February 28, 2009 [EBook #3098]<br /> +Last Updated: September 31, 2006<br /> +Language: English<br /> +Character set encoding: UTF-8. <br /> +</p> + +<p class="boilerplate"> +Produced by The James J. Kelly Library Of St. Gregory's +University, Alev Akman, Dianne Bean, Doris Ringbloom, +David Widger and Robert Homa. +</p> + +<p class="noindent bold double-space-top quad-space-bottom"> +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PATHS OF INLAND COMMERCE *** +</p> + + + + + <div class="titlepage"> + <h1>The Paths of Inland Commerce</h1> + <p class="author">By Archer B. Hulbert</p> + <p class="book-subtitle">A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway</p> + <p class="noindent"> + Volume 21 of the<br /> + Chronicles of America Series <br /> + ∴<br /> + Allen Johnson, Editor<br /> + Assistant Editors<br /> + Gerhard R. Lomer <br /> + Charles W. Jefferys + </p> + <hr class="tiny" /> + <p class="noindent"> + <i>Abraham Lincoln Edition</i><br /><br /> + </p> + <p class="noindent small"> + New Haven: Yale University Press<br /> + Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Co.<br /> + London: Humphrey Milford<br /> + Oxford University Press<br /> + 1920 + </p> + </div> + <p><br /></p> + <p class="center noindent small"> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">ii</a></span> + Copyright, 1920<br /> + by Yale University Press <br /> + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <hr /> + + + + <div class="chapterhead"> + <a name="Preface" id="Preface"></a> + <br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">vii</a></span> + <br /><br /><br /> + <h2><a href="#Contents">PREFACE</a></h2> + </div> + + + <p class="noindent"> + <span class="smcap">If</span> the great American novel is ever written, + I hazard the guess that its + plot will be woven around the theme of American transportation, for that + has been the vital factor in the national development of the United + States. Every problem in the building of the Republic has been, in the + last analysis, a problem in transportation. The author of such a novel + will find a rich fund of material in the perpetual rivalries of + pack-horseman and wagoner, of riverman and canal boatman, of steamboat + promoter and railway capitalist. He will find at every point the old + jostling and challenging the new: pack-horsemen demolishing wagons in the + early days of the Alleghany traffic; wagoners deriding Clinton's Ditch; + angry boatmen anxious to ram the paddle wheels of Fulton's + <i>Clermont,</i> which threatened their monopoly. Such opposition has + always been an incident of progress; and even in this new country, + receptive as it was to new ideas, the Washingtons, the Fitches, the + Fultons, the Coopers, and + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">viii</a></span> + the Whitneys, who saw visions and dreamed dreams, all had to face + scepticism and hostility from those whom they would serve. + </p> + <p class="right"> + A. B. H. + </p> + <p class="noindent smcap small"> + Worcester, Mass., + </p> + <p class="small"> + June, 1919. + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <hr /> + <p><br /></p> + + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">ix</a></span> + <a name="Contents" id="Contents"></a> + </p> + +<table class="toc" summary="Table of Contents for The Paths of Inland Commerce"> +<caption>The Paths of Inland Commerce</caption> +<thead> +<tr> +<th>Chapter</th> +<th>Chapter Title</th> +<th>Page</th> +</tr> +</thead> +<tbody> + <tr> + <td> </td> + <td class="smcap">Preface</td> + <td><a href="#Preface">vii</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>I.</td> + <td class="smcap">The Man Who Caught The Vision</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter01">1</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>II.</td> + <td class="smcap">The Red Man's Trail</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter02">14</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>III.</td> + <td class="smcap">The Mastery Of The Rivers</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter03">30</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>IV.</td> + <td class="smcap">A Nation On Wheels</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter04">44</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>V.</td> + <td class="smcap">The Flatboat Age</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter05">62</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>VI.</td> + <td class="smcap">The Passing Show Of 1800</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter06">81</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>VII.</td> + <td class="smcap">The Birth Of The Steamboat</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter07">100</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>VIII.</td> + <td class="smcap">The Conquest Of The Alleghanies</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter08">116</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>IX.</td> + <td class="smcap">The Dawn Of The Iron Age</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter09">134</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>X.</td> + <td class="smcap">The Pathway of the Lakes</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter10">154</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>XI.</td> + <td class="smcap">The Steamboat And The West</td> + <td><a href="#Chapter11">174</a></td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <td></td> + <td class="smcap">Bibliographical Note</td> + <td><a href="#Bibliography">197</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + <td class="smcap">Index</td> + <td><a href="#Index">203</a></td> + </tr> +</tbody> +</table> + + + <p><br /></p> + <hr /> + + + <div class="start-of-book"> + <p class="center"> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">1</a></span> + <a name="Chapter01" id="Chapter01"></a> + THE PATHS OF INLAND COMMERCE + </p> + <p class="center single-space-top"> + <span class="xlarge">∴</span> + </p> + <h2> + <a href="#Contents">CHAPTER I.</a> + </h2> + </div> + + <p class="chaptertitle">The Man Who Caught the Vision</p> + + <p class="noindent"> + <span class="smcap">Inland</span> America, at the birth of the Republic, + was as great a mystery to + the average dweller on the Atlantic seaboard as the elephant was to the + blind men of Hindustan. The reports of those who had penetrated this + wilderness—of those who had seen the barren ranges of the + Alleghanies, the fertile uplands of the Unakas, the luxuriant blue-grass + regions, the rich bottom lands of the Ohio and Mississippi, the wide + shores of the inland seas, or the stretches of prairie increasing in width + beyond the Wabash—seemed strangely contradictory, and no one had + been able to patch these reports together and grasp the real proportions + of the giant inland empire that had become a part of the United States. It + was a pathless desert; it was a maze + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">2</a></span> + of trails, trodden out by deer, + buffalo, and Indian. Its great riverways were broad avenues for voyagers + and explorers; they were treacherous gorges filled with the plunder of a + million floods. It was a rich soil, a land of plenty; the natives were + seldom more than a day removed from starvation. Within its broad confines + could dwell a great people; but it was as inaccessible as the interior of + China. It had a great commercial future; yet its gigantic distances and + natural obstructions defied all known means of transportation. + </p> + <p> + Such were the varied and contradictory stories told by the men who had + entered the portals of inland America. It is not surprising, therefore, + that theories and prophecies about the interior were vague and conflicting + nor that most of the schemes of statesmen and financiers for the + development of the West were all parts and no whole. They all agreed as to + the vast richness of that inland realm and took for granted an immense + commerce therein that was certain to yield enormous profits. In faraway + Paris, the ingenious diplomat, Silas Deane, writing to the Secret + Committee of Congress in 1776, pictured the Old Northwest—bounded by + the Ohio, the Alleghanies, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi—as + paying the whole expense of + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">3</a></span> + the Revolutionary War. ¹ Thomas Paine in 1780 + drew specifications for a State of from twenty to thirty millions of acres + lying west of Virginia and south of the Ohio River, the sale of which land + would pay the cost of three years of the war. ² On the other hand, + Pelatiah Webster, patriotic economist that he was, decried in 1781 all + schemes to "pawn" this vast westward region; he likened such plans to + "killing the goose that laid an egg every day, in order to tear out at + once all that was in her belly." He advocated the township system of + compact and regular settlement; and he argued that any State making a + cession of land would reap great benefit "from the produce and trade" of + the newly created settlements. + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p class="footer"> + <a id="footer_3-1" name="footer_3-1"></a> + ¹ Deane's plan was to grant a tract two hundred miles square at + the junction of the Ohio and the Mississippi to a company on the + condition that a thousand families should be settled on it within + seven years. He added that, as this company would be in a great degree + commercial, the establishing of commerce at the junction of those large + rivers would immediately give a value to all the lands situated on or + near them.<br /> + ² Paine thought that while the new State could send its exports + southward down the Mississippi, its imports must necessarily come from + the East through Chesapeake Bay because the current of the Mississippi + was too strong to be overcome by any means of navigation then known. + </p> + </div> + + <p> + There were mooted many other schemes. General Rufus Putnam, for example, + advocated the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">4</a></span> + Pickering or "Army" plan of occupying the West; he wanted a + fortified line to the Great Lakes, in case of war with England, and + fortifications on the Ohio and the Mississippi, in case Spain should + interrupt the national commerce on these waterways. And Thomas Jefferson + theorized in his study over the toy states of Metropotamia and + Polypotamia—brought his + </p> + <div class="poem1"> + <p class="poem1 padding20">… trees and houses out</p> + <p class="poem1 padding20">And planted cities all about.</p> + </div> + <p> + But it remained for George Washington, the Virginia planter, to catch, in + something of its actual grandeur, the vision of a Republic stretching + towards the setting sun, bound and unified by paths of inland commerce. It + was Washington who traversed the long ranges of the Alleghanies, slept in + the snows of Deer Park with no covering but his greatcoat, inquired + eagerly of trapper and trader and herder concerning the courses of the + Cheat, the Monongahela, and the Little Kanawha, and who drew from these + personal explorations a clear and accurate picture of the future trade + routes by which the country could be economically, socially, and + nationally united. + </p> + <p> + Washington's experience had peculiarly fitted him to catch this vision. + Fortune had turned him + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">5</a></span> + westward as he left his mother's knee. First as a + surveyor for Lord Fairfax in the Shenandoah Valley and later, under + Braddock and Forbes, in the armies fighting for the Ohio against the + French he had come to know the interior as it was known by no other man of + his standing. His own landed property lay largely along the upper Potomac + and in and beyond the Alleghanies. Washington's interest in this property + was very real. Those who attempt to explain his early concern with the + West as purely altruistic must misread his numerous letters and diaries. + Nothing in his unofficial character shows more plainly than his business + enterprise and acumen. On one occasion he wrote to his agent, Crawford, + concerning a proposed land speculation: "I recommend that you keep this + whole matter a secret or trust it only to those in whom you can confide. + If the scheme I am now proposing to you were known, it might give alarm to + others, and by putting them on a plan of the same nature, before we could + lay a proper foundation for success ourselves, set the different interests + clashing and in the end overturn the whole." Nor can it be denied that + Washington's attitude to the commercial development of the West was + characterized in his early days by a narrow colonial + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">6</a></span> + partisanship. He was + a stout Virginian; and all stout Virginians of that day refused to admit + the pretensions of other colonies to the land beyond the mountains. + </p> + <p> + But from no man could the shackles of self-interest and provincial rivalry + drop more quickly than they dropped from Washington when he found his + country free after the close of the Revolutionary War. He then began to + consider how that country might grow and prosper. And he began to preach + the new doctrine of expansion and unity. This new doctrine first appears + in a letter which he wrote to the Marquis de Chastellux in 1783, after a + tour from his camp at Newburg into central New York, where he had explored + the headwaters of the Mohawk and the Susquehanna: "I could not help taking + a more extensive view of the vast inland navigation of these United States + [the letter runs] and could not but be struck by the immense extent and + importance of it, and of the goodness of that Providence which has dealt + its favors to us with so profuse a hand. Would to God we may have wisdom + enough to improve them. I shall not rest contented till I have explored + the Western country, and traversed those lines, or great part of them, + which have given bounds to a new empire." + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">7</a></span> + "The vast inland navigation of these United States!" It is an interesting + fact that Washington should have had his first glimpse of this vision from + the strategic valley of the Mohawk, which was soon to rival his beloved + Potomac as an improved commercial route from the seaboard to the West, and + which was finally to achieve an unrivaled superiority in the days of the + Erie Canal and the Twentieth Century Limited. + </p> + <p> + We may understand something of what the lure of the West meant to + Washington when we learn that in order to carry out his proposed journey + after the Revolution, he was compelled to refuse urgent invitations to + visit Europe and be the guest of France. "I found it indispensably + necessary," he writes, "to visit my Landed property West of the Apalacheon + Mountains.… One object of my journey being to obtain information of + the nearest and best communication between Eastern & Western waters; + & to facilitate as much as in me lay the Inland Navigation of the + Potomack." + </p> + <p> + On September 1, 1784, Washington set out from Mount Vernon on his journey + to the West. Even the least romantic mind must feel a thrill in picturing + this solitary horseman, the victor of Yorktown, threading the trails of + the Potomac, passing on by + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">8</a></span> + Cumberland and Fort Necessity and Braddock's + grave to the Monongahela. The man, now at the height of his fame, is + retracing the trails of his boyhood—covering ground over which he + had passed as a young officer in the last English and French war—but + he is seeing the land in so much larger perspective that, although his + diary is voluminous, the reader of those pages would not know that + Washington had been this way before. Concerning Great Meadows, where he + first saw the "bright face of danger" and which he once described + gleefully as "a charming place for an encounter," he now significantly + remarks: "The upland, East of the meadow, is good for grain." Changed are + the ardent dreams that filled the young man's heart when he wrote to his + mother from this region that singing bullets "have truly a charming + sound." Today, as he looks upon the flow of Youghiogheny, he sees it + reaching out its finger tips to Potomac's tributaries. He perceives a + similar movement all along the chain of the Alleghanies: on the west are + the Great Lakes and the Ohio, and reaching out towards them from the east, + waiting to be joined by portage road and canal, are the Hudson, the + Susquehanna, the Potomac, and the James. He foresees these streams bearing + to the Atlantic ports + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">9</a></span> + the golden produce of the interior and carrying back to the interior the + manufactured goods of the seaboard. He foresees the Republic becoming + homogeneous, rich, and happy. "Open <em>all</em> the communication which + nature has afforded," he wrote Henry Lee, "between the Atlantic States + and the Western territory, and encourage the use of them to the utmost + … and sure I am there is no other tie by which they will long form + a link in the chain of Federal Union." + </p> + <p> + Crude as were the material methods by which Washington hoped to accomplish + this end, in spirit he saw the very America that we know today; and he + marked out accurately the actual pathways of inland commerce that have + played their part in the making of America. Taking the city of Detroit as + the key position, commercially, he traced the main lines of internal + trade. He foresaw New York improving her natural line of communication by + way of the Mohawk and the Niagara frontier on Lake Erie—the present + line of the Erie Canal and the New York Central Railway. For Pennsylvania, + he pointed out the importance of linking the Schuylkill and the + Susquehanna and of opening the two avenues westward to Pittsburgh and to + Lake Erie. In general, he thus forecast the Pennsylvania Canal + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">10</a></span> + and the + Pennsylvania and the Erie railways. For Maryland and Virginia he indicated + the Potomac route as the nearest for all the trade of the Ohio Valley, + with the route by way of the James and the Great Kanawha as an alternative + for the settlements on the lower Ohio. His vision here was realized in a + later day by the Potomac and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, the Cumberland + Road, the Baltimore and Ohio Railway, and by the James-Kanawha Turnpike + and the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. + </p> + <p> + Washington's general conclusions are stated in a summary at the end of his + <i>Journal,</i> which was reproduced in his classic letter to Harrison, + written in 1784. His first point is that every State which had water + routes reaching westward could enhance the value of its lands, increase + its commerce, and quiet the democratic turbulence of its shut-in pioneer + communities by the improvement of its river transportation. Taking + Pennsylvania as a specific example, he declared that "there are one + hundred thousand souls West of the Laurel Hill, who are groaning under the + inconveniences of a long land transportation.… If this cannot be + made easy for them to Philadelphia … they will seek a mart + elsewhere.… An opposition on the part + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">11</a></span> + of [that] government … would ultimately bring on a + separation between its Eastern and Western settlements; towards which + there is not wanting a disposition at this moment in that part of it + beyond the mountains." + </p> + <p> + Washington's second proposal was the achievement of a new and lasting + conquest of the West by binding it to the seaboard with chains of + commerce. He thus states his point: "No well informed mind need be told + that the flanks and rear of the United territory are possessed by other + powers, and formidable ones too—nor how necessary it is to apply the + cement of interest to bind all parts of it together, by one indissoluble + bond—particularly the middle States with the Country immediately + back of them—for what ties let me ask, should we have upon those + people; and how entirely unconnected should we be with them if the + Spaniards on their right or Great Britain on their left, instead of + throwing stumbling blocks in their way as they do now, should invite their + trade and seek alliances with them?" + </p> + <p> + Some of the pictures in Washington's vision reveal, in the light of + subsequent events, an almost uncanny prescience. He very plainly + prophesied the international rivalry for the trade of the Great + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">12</a></span> + Lakes + zone, embodied today in the Welland and the Erie canals. He declared the + possibility of navigating with ocean-going vessels the tortuous + two-thousand-mile channel of the Ohio and the Mississippi River; and + within sixteen years ships left the Ohio, crossed the Atlantic, and sailed + into the Mediterranean. His description of a possible insurrection of a + western community might well have been written later; it might almost + indeed have made a page of his diary after he became President of the + United States and during the Whiskey Insurrection in western Pennsylvania. + He approved and encouraged Rumsey's mechanical invention for propelling + boats against the stream, showing that he had a glimpse of what was to + follow after Fitch, Rumsey, and Fulton should have overcome the mighty + currents of the Hudson and the Ohio with the steamboat's paddle wheel. His + proposal that Congress should undertake a survey of western rivers for the + purpose of giving people at large a knowledge of their possible importance + as avenues of commerce was a forecast of the Lewis and Clark expedition as + well as of the policy of the Government today for the improvement of the + great inland rivers and harbors. + </p> + <p> + "The destinies of our country run east and west. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">13</a></span> + Intercourse between the + mighty interior west and the sea coast is the great principle of our + commercial prosperity." These are the words of Edward Everett in + advocating the Boston and Albany Railroad. In effect Washington had + uttered those same words half a century earlier when he gave momentum to + an era filled with energetic but unsuccessful efforts to join with the + waters of the West the rivers reaching inland from the Atlantic. The fact + that American engineering science had not in his day reached a point where + it could cope with this problem successfully should in no wise lessen our + admiration for the man who had thus caught the vision of a nation united + and unified by improved methods of transportation. + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <hr /> + + <div class="chapterhead"> + <a name="Chapter02" id="Chapter02"></a> + <br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">14</a></span> + <br /><br /><br /> + <h2><a href="#Contents">CHAPTER II</a></h2> + </div> + + <p class="chaptertitle">The Red Man's Trail</p> + + <p class="noindent"> + <span class="smcap">For</span> the beginnings of the paths of our + inland commerce, we must look far + back into the dim prehistoric ages of America. The earliest routes that + threaded the continent were the streams and the tracks beaten out by the + heavier four-footed animals. The Indian hunter followed the migrations of + the animals and the streams that would float his light canoe. Today the + main lines of travel and transportation for the most part still cling to + these primeval pathways. + </p> + <p> + In their wanderings, man and beast alike sought the heights, the passes + that pierced the mountain chains, and the headwaters of navigable rivers. + On the ridges the forest growth was lightest and there was little + obstruction from fallen timber; rain and frost caused least damage by + erosion; and the winds swept the trails clear of leaves in summer and of + snow in winter. Here lay the easiest paths for + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">15</a></span> + the heavy, blundering buffalo and the roving elk and moose and deer. + Here, high up in the sun, where the outlook was unobstructed and signal + fires could be seen from every direction, on the longest watersheds, + curving around river and swamp, ran the earliest travel routes of the + aboriginal inhabitants and of their successors, the red men of historic + times. For their encampments and towns these peoples seem to have + preferred the more sheltered ground along the smaller streams; but, + when they fared abroad to hunt, to trade, to wage war, to seek new + material for pipe and amulet, they followed in the main the highest ways. + </p> + <p> + If in imagination one surveys the eastern half of the North American + continent from one of the strategic passageways of the Alleghanies, say + from Cumberland Gap or from above Kittanning Gorge, the outstanding + feature in the picture will be the Appalachian barrier that separates the + interior from the Atlantic coast. To the north lie the Adirondacks and the + Berkshire Hills, hedging New England in close to the ocean. Two glittering + waterways lie east and west of these heights—the Connecticut and the + Hudson. Upon the valleys of these two rivers converged the two deeply worn + pathways of the Puritan, the Old Bay Path + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">16</a></span> + and the Connecticut Path. By way + of Westfield River, that silver tributary which joins the Connecticut at + Springfield, Massachusetts, the Bay Path surmounted the Berkshire + highlands and united old Massachusetts to the upper Hudson Valley near + Fort Orange, now Albany. + </p> + <p> + Here, north of the Catskills, the Appalachian barrier subsides and gives + New York a supreme advantage over all the other Atlantic States—a + level route to the Great Lakes and the West. The Mohawk River threads the + smiling landscape; beyond lies the "Finger Lake country" and the valley of + the Genesee. Through this romantic region ran the Mohawk Trail, sending + offshoots to Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence, to the Susquehanna, and + to the Allegheny. A few names have been altered in the course of + years—the Bay Path is now the Boston and Albany Railroad, the + Mohawk Trail is the New York Central, and Fort Orange is Albany—and + thus we may tell in a dozen words the story of three centuries. + </p> + <p> + Upon Fort Orange converged the score of land and water pathways of the fur + trade of our North. These Indian trade routes were slowly widened into + colonial roads, notably the Mohawk and Catskill turnpikes, and these in + turn were transformed into + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">17</a></span> + the Erie, Lehigh, Nickel Plate, and New York + Central railways. But from the day when the canoe and the keel boat + floated their bulky cargoes of pelts or the heavy laden Indian pony + trudged the trail, the routes of trade have been little or nothing + altered. + </p> + <p> + Traversing the line of the Alleghanies southward, the eye notes first the + break in the wall at the Delaware Water Gap, and then that long arm of the + Susquehanna, the Juniata, reaching out through dark Kittanning Gorge to + its silver playmate, the dancing Conemaugh. Here amid its leafy aisles ran + the brown and red Kittanning Trail, the main route of the Pennsylvania + traders from the rich region of York, Lancaster, and Chambersburg. On this + general alignment the <i>Broadway Limited</i> flies today toward + Pittsburgh and Chicago. A little to the south another important pathway + from the same region led, by way of Carlisle, Bedford, and Ligonier, to + the Ohio. The "Highland Trail" the Indian traders called it, for it kept + well on the watershed dividing the Allegheny tributaries on the north + from those of the Monongahela on the south. + </p> + <p> + Farther to the south the scene shows a change, for the Atlantic plain + widens considerably. The Potomac River, the James, the Pedee, and the + Savannah flow through valleys much longer than + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">18</a></span> + those of the northern + rivers. Here in the South commerce was carried on mainly by shallop and + pinnace. The trails of the Indian skirted the rivers and offered for + trader and explorer passageway to the West, especially to the towns of the + Cherokees in the southern Alleghanies or Unakas; but the waterways and the + roads over which the hogsheads of tobacco were rolled (hence called + "rolling roads") sufficed for the needs of the thin fringes of population + settled along the rivers. Trails from Winchester in Virginia and Frederick + in Maryland focused on Cumberland at the head of the Potomac. Beyond, to + the west, the finger tips of the Potomac interlocked closely with the + Monongahela and Youghiogheny, and through this network of mountain and + river valley, by the "Shades of Death" and Great Meadows, coiled + Nemacolin's Path to the Ohio. Even today this ancient route is in part + followed by the Baltimore and Ohio and the Western Maryland Railway. + </p> + <p> + A bird's-eye view of the southern Alleghanies shows that, while the + Atlantic plain of Virginia and the Carolinas widens out, the mountain + chains increase in number, fold on fold, from the Blue Ridge to the ragged + ranges of the Cumberlands. Few trails led across this manifold barrier. + There was + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">19</a></span> + a connection at Balcony Falls between the James River and the + Great Kanawha; but as a trade route it was of no such value to the men of + its day as the Chesapeake and Ohio system over the same course is to us. + As in the North, so in the South, trade avoided obstacles by taking a + roundabout, and often the longest route. In order to double the extremity + of the Unakas, for instance, the trails reached down by the Valley of + Virginia and New River to the uplands of the Tennessee, and here, near + Elizabethton, they met the trails leading up the Broad and the Yadkin + rivers from Charleston, South Carolina. + </p> + <p> + To the west rise the somber heights of Cumberland Gap. Through this portal + ran the famous "Warrior's Path," known to wandering hunters, the "trail of + iron" from Fort Watauga and Fort Chiswell, which Daniel Boone widened for + the settlers of Kentucky. To the southwest lay the Blue Grass region of + Tennessee with its various trails converging on Nashville from almost + every direction. Today the Southern Railway enters the "Sapphire Country," + in which Asheville lies, by practically the same route as the old + Rutherfordton Trail which was used for generations by red man and pioneer + from the Carolina coast. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">20</a></span> + In our entire region of the Appalachians, from + the Berkshire Hills southward, practically every old-time pathway from the + seaboard to the trans-Alleghany country is now occupied by an important + railway system, with the exception of the Warrior's Trail through + Cumberland Gap to central Ohio and the Highland Trail across southern + Pennsylvania. And even Cumberland Gap is accessible by rail today, and a + line across southern Pennsylvania was once planned and partially + constructed only to be killed by jealous rivals. + </p> + <p> + These numerous keys to the Alleghanies were a challenge to the men of the + seaboard to seize upon the rich trade of the West which had been early + monopolized by the French in Canada. But the challenge brought its + difficult problems. What land canoes could compete with the flotillas that + brought their priceless cargoes of furs each year to Montreal and Quebec? + What race of landlubbers could vie with the picturesque bands of fearless + <i>voyageurs</i> who sang their songs on the Great Lakes, the Ohio, the + Illinois, and the Mississippi? + </p> + <p> + In the solution of this problem of diverting trade probably the factor of + greatest importance, next to open pathways through the mountain barriers, + was the rich stock-breeding ground lying between + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">21</a></span> + the Delaware and the + Susquehanna rivers, a region occupied by the settlers familiarly known as + the Pennsylvania Dutch. In this famous belt, running from Pennsylvania + into Virginia, originated the historic pack-horse trade with the "far + Indians" of the Ohio Valley. Here, in the first granary of America, + Germans, Scotch-Irish, and English bred horses worthy of the name. "Brave + fat Horses" an amazed officer under Braddock called the mounts of five + Quakers who unexpectedly rode into camp as though straight "from the land + of Goshen." These animals, crossed with the Indian "pony" from New Spain, + produced the wise, wiry, and sturdy pack-horse, fit to transport nearly + two hundred pounds of merchandise across the rough and narrow Alleghany + trails. This animal and the heavy Conestoga horse from the same breeding + ground revolutionized inland commerce. + </p> + <p> + The first American cow pony was not without his cowboy. Though the drivers + were not all of the same type and though the proprietors, so to speak, of + the trans-Alleghany pack-horse trade came generally from the older + settlements, the bulk of the hard work was done by a lusty army of men not + reproduced again in America until the picturesque figure of the + cow-puncher appeared above + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">22</a></span> + the western horizon. This breed of men was + nurtured on the outer confines of civilization, along the headwaters of + the Susquehanna, the Potomac, the James, and the Broad—the country + of the "Cowpens." Rough as the wilderness they occupied, made strong by + their diet of meat and curds, these Tatars of the highlands played a part + in the commercial history of America that has never had its historian. In + their knowledge of Indian character, of horse and packsaddle lore, of the + forest and its trails in every season, these men of the Cowpens were the + kings of the old frontier. + </p> + <p> + An officer under Braddock has left us one of the few pictures of these + people ¹: + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p class="footer"> + <a id="footer_2-1" name="footer_2-1"></a> + ¹ <i>Extracts of Letters from an Officer</i> (London, 1755). + </p> + </div> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + From the Heart of the Settlements we are now got into the Cow-pens; the + Keepers of these are very extraordinary Kind of Fellows, they drive up + their Herds on Horseback, and they had need do so, for their Cattle are + near as wild as Deer; a Cow-pen generally consists of a very large Cottage + or House in the Woods, with about four-score or one hundred Acres, + inclosed with high Rails and divided; a small Inclosure they keep for + Corn, for the family, the rest is the Pasture in which they keep their + calves; but the Manner is far different from any Thing you ever saw; they + may perhaps have a Stock of four or five hundred to a thousand Head of + Cattle belonging to a Cow-pen, these run as they please + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">23</a></span> + in the Great + Woods, where there are no Inclosures to stop them. In the Month of March + the Cows begin to drop their Calves, then the Cow-pen Master, with all his + Men, rides out to see and drive up the Cows with all their new fallen + Calves; they being weak cannot run away so as to escape, therefore are + easily drove up, and the Bulls and other Cattle follow them; and they put + these Calves into the Pasture, and every Morning and Evening suffer the + Cows to come and suckle them, which done they let the Cows out into the + great Woods to shift for their Food as well as they can; whilst the Calf + is sucking one Tit of the Cow, the Woman of the Cow-Pen is milking one of + the other Tits, so that she steals some Milk from the Cow, who thinks she + is giving it to the Calf; soon as the Cow begins to go dry, and the Calf + grows Strong, they mark them, if they are Males they cut them, and let + them go into the Wood. Every Year in September and October they drive up + the Market Steers, that are fat and of a proper Age, and kill them; they + say they are fat in October, but I am sure they are not so in May, June + and July; they reckon that out of 100 Head of Cattle they can kill about + 10 or 12 steers, and four or five Cows a Year; so they reckon that a + Cow-Pen for every 100 Head of Cattle brings about £40 Sterling per + Year. The Keepers live chiefly upon Milk, for out of their Vast Herds, + they do condescend to tame Cows enough to keep their Family in Milk, Whey, + Curds, Cheese and Butter; they also have Flesh in Abundance such as it is, + for they eat the old Cows and lean Calves that are like to die. The + Cow-Pen Men are hardy People, are almost continually on Horseback, being + obliged to know the Haunts of their Cattle. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">24</a></span> + You see, Sir, what a wild + set of Creatures Our English Men grow into, when they lose Society, and it + is surprising to think how many Advantages they throw away, which our + industrious Country-Men would be glad of: Out of many hundred Cows they + will not give themselves the trouble of milking more than will maintain + their Family. + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + With such a race of born horsemen, every whit as bold and resourceful as + the <i>voyageurs,</i> to bear the brunt of a new era of transportation, + all that was needed to challenge French trade beyond the Alleghanies was + competent and aggressive leadership. The situation called for men of + means, men of daring, men closely in touch with governors and assemblies + and acquainted with the web of politics that was being spun at + Philadelphia, Williamsburg, New York, London, and Paris. Generations of + tenacious struggle along the American frontier had developed such men. + The Weisers, Croghans, Gists, Washingtons, Franklins, Walkers, and Cresaps + were men of varied descent and nationality. They had the cunning, the + boldness, and the resources to undertake successfully the task of + conquering commercially the Great West. They were the first men of the + colonies to be unafraid of that bugbear of the trader, Distance. We may + aptly call them the first Americans because, though not + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">25</a></span> + a few were actually born abroad, + they were the first whose plans, spirit, and very life were dominated by + the vision of an America of continental dimensions. + </p> + <p> + The long story of French and English rivalry and of the war which ended it + concerns us here chiefly as a commercial struggle. The French at Niagara + (1749) had access to the Ohio by way of Lake Erie and any one of several + rivers—the Allegheny, the Muskingum, the Scioto, or the Miami. The + main routes of the English were the Nemacolin and Kittanning paths. The + French, laboring under the disadvantages of the longer distance over which + their goods had to be transported to the Indians and of the higher price + necessarily demanded for them, had to meet the competition of the traders + from the rival colonies of Pennsylvania and Virginia, each of them jealous + of and underbidding the other. + </p> + <p> + When Céloron de Blainville was sent to the Allegheny in 1749, by + the Governor of New France, his message was that "the Governor of Canada + desired his children on Ohio to turn away the English Traders from amongst + them and discharge them from ever coming to trade there again, or on any + of the Branches." He sent away all the traders whom he found, giving them + letters addressed to their respective governors denying England's right to + trade in + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">26</a></span> + the West. To offset this move, within two years Pennsylvania sent + goods to the value of nine hundred pounds in order to hold the Indians + constant. The Governor had already ordered the traders to sell whiskey to + the Indians at "5 Bucks" per cask and had told the Indians, through his + agent Conrad Weiser, that if any trader refused to sell the liquor at that + price they might "take it from him and drink it for nothing." There was + but one way for the French to meet such competition. Without delay they + fortified the Allegheny and began to coerce the natives. Driving away the + carpenters of the Ohio Company from the present site of Pittsburgh, they + built Fort Duquesne. The beginning of the Old French War ended what we may + call the first era of the pack-horse trade. + </p> + <p> + The capture of Fort Duquesne by the English army under General Forbes in + 1758 and the final conquest of New France two years later removed the + French barrier and opened the way to expansion beyond the Alleghanies. + Thereafter settlements in the Monongahela country grew apace. Pittsburgh, + Uniontown, Morgantown, Brownsville, Ligonier, Greensburg, + Connellsville—we give the modern names—became centers of a + great migration which was halted only for a season by Pontiac's + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">27</a></span> + Rebellion, the aftermath of the + French War, and was resumed immediately on the suppression of that Indian + rising. The pack-horse trade now entered its final and most important era. + The earlier period was one in which the trade was confined chiefly to the + Indians; the later phase was concerned with supplying the needs of the + white man in his rapidly developing frontier settlements. Formerly the + principal articles of merchandise for the western trade were guns, + ammunition, knives, kettles, and tools for their repair, blankets, + tobacco, hatchets, and liquor. In the new era every known product of the + East found a market in the thriving communities of the upper Ohio. As time + went on the West began to send to the East, in addition to skins and + pelts, whiskey that brought a dollar a gallon. Each pony could carry + sixteen gallons and every drop could be sold for real money. On the return + trip the pack-horses carried back chiefly salt and iron. + </p> + <p> + Doddridge's <i>Notes,</i> one of the chief sources of our information, gives + this lively picture: + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + In the fall of the year, after seeding time, every family formed an + association with some of their neighbors, for starting the little caravan. + A master driver was to be selected from among them, who was to be + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">28</a></span> + assisted + by one or more young men and sometimes a boy or two. The horses were + fitted out with packsaddles, to the latter part of which was fastened a + pair of hobbles made of hickory withes,—a bell and collar ornamented + their necks. The bags provided for the conveyance of the salt were filled + with bread, jerk, boiled ham, and cheese furnished a provision for the + drivers. At night, after feeding, the horses, whether put in pasture or + turned out into the woods, were hobbled and the bells were opened. The + barter for salt and iron was made first at Baltimore; Frederick, + Hagerstown, Oldtown, and Fort Cumberland, in succession, became the places + of exchange. Each horse carried two bushels of alum salt, weighing + eighty-four pounds to the bushel. This, to be sure, was not a heavy load + for the horses, but it was enough, considering the scanty subsistence + allowed them on the journey. The common price of a bushel of alum salt, at + an early period, was a good cow and a calf. + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + Thus, with the English flag afloat at Fort Pitt, as Duquesne was renamed + after its capture, a new day dawned for the great region to the West. + Beyond the Alleghanies and as far as the Rockies, a new science of + transportation was now to be learned—the art of finding the dividing + ridge. Here the first routes, like the "Great Trail" from Pittsburgh to + Detroit, struck out with an assurance that is in marvelous agreement with + the findings of the surveyors of a later day. The railways, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">29</a></span> + when they came, found the valleys and penetrated with their tunnels + the watersheds from the heads of the streams of one drainage area to + the streams of another. Thus on the Pennsylvania, the Baltimore and + Ohio, the Southern, the Chesapeake and Ohio, and other railroads, + important tunnels are to be found lying immediately under the Red Man's + trail which clung to the long ascending slope and held persistently to + the dividing ridges. + </p> + <p> + Even this necessarily brief survey shows plainly how that + preëminently American institution, the ridge road, came about. + East and west, it was the legitimate and natural successor to the + ancient trail. With the coming of the wagon, whose rattle was heard + among the hills as early as Braddock's campaign, the process of + lowering these paths from the heights was inevitably begun, and it + was to the riverways that men first looked for a solution of the + difficult problems of inland commerce. Eventually the paths of + inland commerce constituted a vast network of canals, roads, + and railway lines in those very valleys to which Washington had + called the nation's attention in 1784. + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <hr /> + + <div class="chapterhead"> + <a name="Chapter03" id="Chapter03"></a> + <br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">30</a></span> + <br /><br /><br /> + <h2><a href="#Contents">CHAPTER III</a></h2> + </div> + + <p class="chaptertitle">The Mastery of the Rivers</p> + + <p class="noindent"> + <span class="smcap">It</span> would perhaps have been well, + in the light of later difficulties and + failures, if the men who at Washington's call undertook to master the + capricious rivers of the seaboard had studied a stately Spanish decree + which declared that, since God had not made the rivers of Spain navigable, + it were sacrilege for mortals to attempt to do so. Even before the + Revolution, Mayor Rhodes of Philadelphia was in correspondence with + Franklin in London concerning the experiences of European engineers in + harnessing foreign streams. That sage philosopher, writing to Rhodes in + 1772, uttered a clear word of warning: "rivers are ungovernable things," + he had said, and English engineers "seldom or never use a River where it + can be avoided." But it was the birthright of New World democracy to make + its own mistakes and in so doing to prove for itself the errors of the Old + World. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">31</a></span> + As energetic men all along the Atlantic Plain now took up the problem of + improving the inland rivers, they faced a storm of criticism and ridicule + that would have daunted any but such as Washington and Johnson of Virginia + or White and Hazard of Pennsylvania or Morris and Watson of New York. + Every imaginable objection to such projects was advanced—from the + inefficiency of the science of engineering to the probable destruction of + all the fish in the streams. In spite of these discouragements, however, + various men set themselves to form in rapid succession the Potomac Company + in 1785, the Society for Promoting the Improvement of Inland Navigation in + 1791, the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company in 1792, and the Lehigh + Coal Mine Company in 1793. A brief review of these various enterprises + will give a clear if not a complete view of the first era of inland water + commerce in America. + </p> + <p> + The Potomac Company, authorized in 1785 by the legislatures of Maryland + and Virginia, received an appropriation of $6666 from each State for + opening a road from the headwaters of the Potomac to either the Cheat or + the Monongahela, "as commissioners … shall find most convenient and + beneficial to the Western settlers." This was the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">32</a></span> + only public aid which the enterprise received; and the stipulated + purpose clearly indicates the fact that, in the minds of its promoters, + the transcontinental character of the undertaking appeared to be vital. + The remainder of the money required for the work was raised by public + subscription in the principal cities of the two States. In this way + £40,300 was subscribed, Virginia men taking 266 shares and + Maryland men 137 shares. The stockholders elected George Washington + as president of the company, at a salary of thirty shillings a year, + with four directors to aid him, and they chose as general manager + James Rumsey, the boat mechanician. These men then proceeded to attack + the chief impediments in the Potomac—the Great Falls above + Washington, the Seneca Falls at the mouth of Seneca Creek, and + the Shenandoah Falls at Harper's Ferry. But, as they had difficulty in + obtaining workmen and sufficient liquor to cheer them in their herculean + tasks, they made such slow progress that subscribers, doubting + Washington's optimistic prophecy that the stock would increase in value + twenty per cent, paid their assessments only after much deliberation or + not at all. Thirty-six years later, though $729,380 had been spent and + lock canals had been opened about the unnavigable + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">33</a></span> + stretches of the Potomac River, a commission appointed to examine the + affairs of the company reported "that the floods and freshets + nevertheless gave the only navigation that was enjoyed." As for the + road between the Potomac and the Cheat or the Monongahela, the records + at hand do not show that the money voted for that enterprise had been + used. + </p> + <p> + The Potomac Company nevertheless had accomplished something: it had + acquired an asset of the greatest value—a right of way up the + strategic Potomac Valley; and it had furnished an object lesson to men in + other States who were struggling with a similar problem. When, as will + soon be apparent, New York men undertook the improvement of the Mohawk + waterway there was no pattern of canal construction for them to follow in + America except the inadequate wooden locks erected along the Potomac. It + is interesting to know that Elkanah Watson, prominent in inland navigation + to the North, went down from New York in order to study these wooden locks + and that New Yorkers adopted them as models, though they changed the + material to brick and finally to stone. + </p> + <p> + Pennsylvania had been foremost among the colonies in canal building, for + it had surveyed as early + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">34</a></span> + as 1762 the first lock canal in America, from + near Reading on the Schuylkill to Middletown on the Susquehanna. Work, + however, had to be suspended when Pontiac's Rebellion threw the inland + country into a panic. But the enterprise of Maryland and Virginia in 1785 + in developing the Potomac aroused the Pennsylvanians to renewed activity. + The Society for Promoting the Improvement of Roads and Inland Navigation + set forth a programme that was as broad as the Keystone State itself. + Their ultimate object was to capture the trade of the Great Lakes. "If we + turn our view," read the memorial which the Society presented to the + Legislature, "to the immense territories connected with the Ohio and + Mississippi waters, and bordering on the Great Lakes, it will appear … + that our communication with those vast countries (considering Fort Pitt as + the port of entrance upon them) is as easy and may be rendered as cheap, + as to any other port on the Atlantic tide waters." + </p> + <p> + Pennsylvania, lying between Virginia and New York, occupied a peculiar + position. Her Susquehanna Valley stretched northwest—not so directly + west as did the Potomac on the south and the Mohawk on the north. This + more northerly trend led these early Pennsylvania promoters to believe + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">35</a></span> + that, while they might "only have a share in the trade of those [the Ohio] + waters," they could absolutely secure for themselves the trade of the + Great Lakes, "taking Presq'Isle [Erie, Pennsylvania] which is within our + own State, as the great mart or place of embarkation." + </p> + <p> + The plan which the Society proposed involved the improvement of water and + land routes by way of the Delaware to Lake Ontario and Lake Otsego, and of + eight routes by the Susquehanna drainage, north, northwest, and west. A + bill which passed the Legislature on April 13, 1791, appropriated money + for these improvements. Work was begun immediately on the + Schuylkill-Susquehanna Canal, but only four miles had been completed by + 1794, when the Lancaster Turnpike directed men's attention to improved + highways as an alternative more likely than canals to provide the desired + facilities for inland transportation. The work on the canal was renewed, + however, in 1821, when the rival Erie Canal was nearing completion, and + was finished in 1827. It became known as the Union Canal and formed a link + in the Pennsylvania canal system, the development of which will be + described in a later chapter. + </p> + <p> + In New York State, throughout the period of the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">36</a></span> + Old French and the + Revolutionary wars, barges and keel boats had plied the Mohawk, Wood + Creek, and the Oswego to Lake Ontario. Around such obstructions as Cohoes + Falls, Little Falls, and the portage at Rome to Wood Creek, wagons, sleds, + and pack-horses had transferred the cargoes. To avoid this labor and delay + men soon conceived of conquering these obstacles by locks and canals. As + early as 1777 the brilliant Gouverneur Morris had a vision of the economic + development of his State when "the waters of the great western inland seas + would, by the aid of man, break through their barriers and mingle with + those of the Hudson." + </p> + <p> + Elkanah Watson was in many ways the Washington of New York. He had the + foresight, patience, and persistence of the Virginia planter. His + <i>Journal</i> of a tour up the Mohawk in 1788 and a pamphlet which he + published in 1791 may be said to be the ultimate sources in any history of + the internal commerce of New York. As a result, a company known as "The + President, Directors, and Company of the Western Inland Lock Navigation in + the State of New York," with a capital stock of $25,000, was authorized by + act of legislature in March, 1792, and the State subscribed for $12,500 in + stock. Many singular provisions were inserted + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">37</a></span> + in this charter, but none + more remarkable than one which stipulated that all profits over fifteen + per cent should revert to the State Treasury. This hint concerning surplus + profits, however, did not cause a stampede when the books were opened for + subscriptions in New York and Albany. In later years, when the Erie Canal + gave promise of a new era in American inland commerce, Elkanah Watson + recalled with a grim satisfaction the efforts of these early days. The + subscription books at the old Coffee House in New York, he tells us, lay + open three days without an entry, and at Lewis's tavern in Albany, where + the books were opened for a similar period, "no mortal" had subscribed for + more than two shares. + </p> + <p> + The system proposed for the improvement of the waterways of New York was + similar to that projected for the Potomac. A canal was to be cut from the + Mohawk to the Hudson in order to avoid Cohoes Falls; a canal with locks + would overcome the forty-foot drop at Little Falls; another canal over + five thousand feet in length was to connect the Mohawk and Wood Creek at + Rome; minor improvements were to be made between Schenectady and the mouth + of the Schoharie; and finally the Oswego Falls at Rochester were to be + circumvented + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">38</a></span> + also by canal. All the objections, difficulties, and + discouragements which had attended efforts to improve waterways elsewhere + in America confronted these New York promoters. They began in 1793 at + Little Falls but were soon forced to cease owing to the failure of funds. + Under the encouraging spur of a state subscription to two hundred shares + of stock, they renewed their efforts in 1794 but were again forced to + abandon the work before the year had passed. By November, 1795, however, + they had completed the canal and in thirty days had received toll to the + amount of about four hundred dollars. + </p> + <p> + The total actual work done is not clearly shown by the documents, but it + is evident that the measure of success achieved was not equaled elsewhere + on similar improvements on a large scale. From 1796 to 1804 the tolls + received at Rome amounted to over fifteen thousand dollars, and at Little + Falls to over fifty-eight thousand dollars—a sum which exceeded the + original cost of construction. Dividends had crept up from three per cent + in 1798 to five and a half per cent in 1817, the year in which work was + begun on the Erie Canal. + </p> + <p> + No struggle for the mastery of an American river matches in certain + respects the effort of the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">39</a></span> + Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company to bridle + the Lehigh and make it play its part in the commercial development of + Pennsylvania. The failures and trials of the promoters of this company + were no less remarkable than was the great success that eventually crowned + the effort. In 1793 the Lehigh Coal Mine Company was organized and + purchased some ten thousand acres in the Mauch Chunk anthracite region, + nine miles from the Lehigh River. It then appropriated a sum of money to + build a road from the mines to the river in the expectation that the State + would improve the navigation of the waterway, for which, it has already + been noted, an appropriation had been made in 1791, in accordance with the + programme of the Society for Promoting the Improvement of Roads and Inland + Navigation. Nothing was done, however, to improve the river, and the + company, after various attempts at shipping coal to Philadelphia, gave up + the effort and allowed the property, which was worth millions, to lie + idle. In 1807 the Lehigh Coal Mine Company, in another effort to get its + wares before the public, granted to Rowland and Butland, a private firm, + free right to operate one of its veins of coal; but this operation also + resulted in failure. In 1813 the company made a third attempt + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">40</a></span> + and granted to a private concern a lease of the entire property on the + condition that ten thousand bushels of coal should be taken to market + annually. Difficulties immediately made themselves apparent. No contractor + could be found who would haul the output to the Lehigh River for less than + four dollars a ton, and the man who accepted those terms lost money. Of + five barges filled at Mauch Chunk three went to pieces on the way to + Philadelphia. Although the contents of the other two sold for twenty + dollars a ton, the proceeds failed to meet expenses, and the operating + company threw up the lease. + </p> + <p> + But it happened that White and Hazard, the wire manufacturers who + purchased this Lehigh coal, were greatly pleased with its quality. + Believing that coal could be obtained more cheaply from Mauch Chunk than + from the mines along the Schuylkill, White, Hauto, and Hazard formed a + company, entered into negotiation with the owners of the Lehigh mines, and + obtained the lease of their properties for a period of twenty years at an + annual rental of one ear of corn. The company agreed, moreover, to ship + every year at least forty thousand bushels of coal to Philadelphia for its + own consumption, to prove the value of the property. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">41</a></span> + White and his partners immediately applied to the Legislature for + permission to improve the navigation of the Lehigh, stating the purpose of + the improvement and citing the fact that their efforts would tend to serve + as a model for the improvement of other Pennsylvania streams. The desired + opportunity "to ruin themselves," as one member of the Legislature put it, + was granted by an act passed March 20, 1818. The various powers applied + for, and granted, embraced the whole range of tried and untried methods + for securing "a navigation downward once in three days for boats loaded + with one hundred barrels, or ten tons." The State kept its weather eye + open in this matter, however, for a small minority felt that these men + would not ruin themselves. Accordingly, the act of grant reserved to the + commonwealth the right to compel the adoption of a complete system of + slack-water navigation from Easton to Stoddartsville if the service given + by the company did not meet "the wants of the country." + </p> + <p> + Capital was subscribed by a patriotic public on condition that a committee + of stockholders should go over the ground and pass judgment on the + probable success of the effort. The report was favorable, so far as the + improvement of the river was + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">42</a></span> + concerned; but the nine-mile road to the + mines was unanimously voted impracticable. "To give you an idea of the + country over which the road is to pass," wrote one of the commissioners, + "I need only tell you that I considered it quite an easement when the + wheel of my carriage struck a stump instead of a stone." The public mind + was divided. Some held that the attempt to operate the coal mine was + farcical, but that the improvement of the Lehigh River was an undertaking + of great value and of probable profit to investors. Others were just as + positive that the river improvement would follow the fate of so many + similar enterprises but that a fortune was in store for those who invested + in the Lehigh mines. + </p> + <p> + The direct result of the examiners' report and of the public debate it + provoked was the organization of the first interlocking companies in the + commercial history of America. The Lehigh Navigation Company was formed + with a capital stock of $150,000 and the Lehigh Coal Company with a + capital stock of $55,000. This incident forms one of the most striking + illustrations in American history of the dependence of a commercial + venture upon methods of inland transportation. The Lehigh Navigation + Company proceeded to build its + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">43</a></span> + dams and walls while the Lehigh Coal Company constructed the first + roadway in America built on the principle—later adopted by the + railways—of dividing the total distance by the total descent + in order to determine the grade. Not to be outdone in point of + ingenuity, the Lehigh Navigation Company, then suffering from an + unprecedented dearth of water, adopted White's invention of sluice gates + connecting with pools which could be filled with reserve water to be drawn + upon as navigation required. By 1819 the necessary depth of water between + Mauch Chunk and Easton was obtained. The two companies were immediately + amalgamated under the title of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company and + by 1823 had sent over two thousand tons of coal to market. + </p> + <p> + As most of the efforts to improve the rivers, however, met with + indifferent success and many failures were recorded, the pendulum of + public confidence in this aid to inland commerce swung away, and highway + improvement by means of stone roads and toll road companies came into + favor in the interval between the nation's two eras of river improvement + and canal building. + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <hr /> + + <div class="chapterhead"> + <a name="Chapter04" id="Chapter04"></a> + <br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">44</a></span> + <br /><br /><br /> + <h2><a href="#Contents">CHAPTER IV</a></h2> + </div> + + <p class="chaptertitle">A Nation on Wheels</p> + + <p class="noindent"> + <span class="smcap">In</span> early days the Indian had not only + followed the watercourses in his + canoe but had made his way on foot over trails through the woods and over + the mountains. In colonial days, Englishman and Frenchman followed the + footsteps of the Indian, and as settlement increased and trade developed, + the forest path widened into the highway for wheeled vehicles. + Massachusetts began the work of road making in 1639 by passing an act + which decreed that "the ways" should be six to ten rods wide "in common + grounds," thus allowing sufficient room for more than one track. Similar + broad "ways" were authorized in New York and Pennsylvania in 1664; stumps + and shrubs were to be cut close to the ground, and "sufficient bridges" + were to be built over streams and marshy places. Virginia passed + legislation for highways at an early date, but it was not until 1662 that + strict laws were + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">45</a></span> + enacted with a view to keeping the roads in a permanently + good condition. Under these laws surveyors were appointed to establish in + each county roads forty feet wide to the church and to the courthouse. In + 1700, Pennsylvania turned her local roads over to the county justices, put + the King's highway and the main public roads under the care of the + governor and his council, and ordered each county to erect bridges over + its streams. + </p> + <p> + The word "roadmaking" was capable of several interpretations. In general, + it meant outlining the course for the new thoroughfare, clearing away + fallen timber, blazing or notching the trees so that the traveler might + not miss the track, and building bridges or laying logs "over all the + marshy, swampy, and difficult dirty places." + </p> + <p> + The streams proved serious obstacles to early traffic. It has been shown + already that the earliest routes of animal or man sought the watersheds; + the trails therefore usually encountered one stream near its junction with + another. At first, of course, fording was the common method of crossing + water, and the most advantageous fording places were generally found near + the mouths of tributary streams, where bars and islands are frequently + formed and where the water is consequently shallow. When + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">46</a></span> + ferries began to be used, they were usually situated just above or below + the fords; but when the bridge succeeded the ferry, the primitive bridge + builder went back to the old fording place in order to take advantage of + the shallower water, bars, and islands. With the advent of improved + engineering, the character of river banks and currents was more frequently + taken into consideration in choosing a site for a bridge than was the case + in the olden times, but despite this fact the bridges of today, generally + speaking, span the rivers where the deer or the buffalo splashed his way + across centuries ago. + </p> + <p> + On the broader streams, where fording was impossible and traffic was + perforce carried by ferry, the canoe and the keel boat of the earliest + days gave way in time to the ordinary "flat" or barge. At first the + obligation of the ferryman to the public, though recognized by English + law, was ignored in America by legislators and monopolists alike. Men + obtained the land on both sides of the rivers at the crossing places and + served the public only at their own convenience and at their own charges. + In many cases, to encourage the opening of roads or of ferries, national + and state authorities made grants of land on the same principle followed + in + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">47</a></span> + later days in the case of Western railroads. Such, for instance, was + the grant to Ebenezer Zane, at Zanesville, Lancaster, and Chillicothe in + the Northwest Territory. These monopolies sometimes were extremely + profitable: a descendant of the owners of the famous Ingles ferry across + New River, on the Wilderness Road to Kentucky, is responsible for the + statement that in the heyday of travel to the Southwest the privilege was + worth from $10,000 to $15,000 annually to the family. But as local + governments became more efficient, monopolies were abolished and the + collection of tolls was taken over by the authorities. The awakening of + inland trade is most clearly indicated everywhere by the action of + assemblies regarding the operation of ferries, and in general, by the + beginning of the eighteenth century, tolls and ferries were being + regulated by law. + </p> + <p> + But neither roads nor ferries were of themselves sufficient to put a + nation on wheels. The early polite society of the settled neighborhoods + traveled in horse litters, in sedan chairs, or on horseback, the women + seated on pillions or cushions behind the saddle riders, while oxcarts and + horse barrows brought to town the produce of the outlying farms. Although + carts and rude wagons could be built + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">48</a></span> + entirely of wood, there could be no + marked advance in transportation until the development of mining in + certain localities reduced the price of iron. With the increase of travel + and trade, the old world coach and chaise and wain came into use, and iron + for tire and brace became an imperative necessity. The connection between + the production of iron and the care of highways was recognized by + legislation as early as 1732, when Maryland excused men and slaves in the + ironworks from labor on the public roads, though by the middle of the + century owners of ironworks were obliged to detail one man out of every + ten in their employ for such work. + </p> + <p> + While the coastwise trade between the colonies was still preëminently + important as a means of transporting commodities, by the beginning of the + eighteenth century the land routes from New York to New England, from New + York across New Jersey to Philadelphia, and those radiating from + Philadelphia in every direction, were coming into general use. The date of + the opening of regular freight traffic between New York and Philadelphia + is set by the reply of the Governor of New Jersey in 1707 to a protest + against monopolies granted on one of the old widened Indian trails between + Burlington and Amboy. "At present," he says, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">49</a></span> + "everybody is sure, <em>once a fortnight,</em> to have an opportunity of + sending any quantity of goods, great or small, at reasonable rates, + without being in danger of imposition; and the sending of this wagon is + so far from being a grievance or monopoly, <em>that by this means and no + other,</em> a trade has been carried on between Philadelphia, Burlington, + Amboy, and New York, which was never known before." + </p> + <p> + The long Philadelphia Road from the Lancaster region into the Valley of + Virginia, by way of Wadkins on the Potomac, was used by German and Irish + traders probably as early as 1700. In 1728 the people of Maryland were + petitioning for a road from the ford of the Monocacy to the home of Nathan + Wickham. Four years later Jost Heydt, leading an immigrant party + southward, broke open a road from the York Barrens toward the Potomac two + miles above Harper's Ferry. This avenue—by way of the Berkeley, + Staunton, Watauga, and Greenbrier regions to Tennessee and + Kentucky—was the longest and most important in America during the + Revolutionary period. The Virginia Assembly in 1779 appointed + commissioners to view this route and to report on the advisability of + making it a wagon road all the way to Kentucky. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">50</a></span> + In 1795, efforts were made in Kentucky to turn the Wilderness + Trail into a wagon road, and in this same year the Kentucky Legislature + passed an act making the route from Crab Orchard to Cumberland Gap a wagon + road thirty feet in width. + </p> + <p> + From Pennsylvania and from Virginia commerce westward bound followed in + the main the army roads hewn out by Braddock and Forbes in their campaigns + against Fort Duquesne. In 1755, Braddock, marching from Alexandria by way + of Fort Cumberland, had opened a passage for his artillery and wagons to + Laurel Hill, near Uniontown, Pennsylvania. His force included a corps of + seamen equipped with block and tackle to raise and lower his wagons in the + steep inclines of the Alleghanies. Three years later, Forbes, in his + careful, dogged campaign, followed a more northerly route. Advancing from + Philadelphia and Carlisle, he established Fort Bedford and Fort Ligonier + as bases of supply and broke a new road through the interminable forest + which clothed the rugged mountain ranges. From the first there was bitter + rivalry between these two routes, and the young Colonel Washington was + roundly criticized by both Forbes and Bouquet, his second in command, for + his partisan effort to "drive me down," as Forbes + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">51</a></span> + phrased it, into the + Virginia or Braddock's Road. This rivalry between the two routes continued + when the destruction of the French power over the roads in the interior + threw open to Pennsylvania and her southern neighbors alike the lucrative + trade of the Ohio country. + </p> + <p> + From the journals of the time may be caught faint glimpses of the toils + and dangers of travel through these wild hill regions. Let the traveler of + today, as he follows the track that once was Braddock's Road, picture the + scene of that earlier time when, in the face of every natural obstacle, + the army toiled across the mountain chains. Where the earth in yonder + ravine is whipped to a black froth, the engineers have thrown down the + timber cut in widening the trail and have constructed a corduroy bridge, + or rather a loose raft on a sea of muck. The wreck of the last wagon which + tried to pass gives some additional safety to the next. Already the stench + from the horse killed in the accident deadens the heavy, heated air of the + forest. The sailors, stripped to the waist, are ready with ropes and + tackle to let the next wagon down the incline; the pulleys creak, the + ropes groan. The horses, weak and terror-stricken, plunge and rear; in the + final crash to the level the leg of the wheel horse is + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">52</a></span> + caught and broken; one of the soldiers shoots the animal; the traces are + unbuckled; another beast is substituted. Beyond, the seamen are waiting + with tackle attached to trees on the ridge above to assist the horses on + the cruel upgrade—and Braddock, the deceived, maligned, + misrepresented, and misjudged, creeps onward in his brave conquest of + the Alleghanies in a campaign that, in spite of its military failure, + deserves honorable mention among the achievements of British arms. + </p> + <p> + Everywhere, north and south, the early American road was a veritable + Slough of Despond. Watery pits were to be encountered wherein horses were + drowned and loads sank from sight. Frequently traffic was stopped for + hours by wagons which had broken down and blocked the way. Thirteen wagons + at one time were stalled on Logan's Hill on the York Road. Frightful + accidents occurred in attempting to draw out loads. Jonathan Tyson, for + instance, in 1792, near Philadelphia saw a horse's lower jaw torn off by + the slipping of a chain. + Save in the winter, when in the northern colonies snow filled the ruts and + frost built solid bridges over the streams, travel on these early roads + was never safe, rapid, nor comfortable. The comparative ease of winter + travel for the carriage of heavy + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">53</a></span> + freight and for purposes of trade and + social intercourse gave the colder regions an advantage over the southern + that was an important factor in the development of the country. + </p> + <p> + No genuine improvement of roads and highways seems to have been attempted + until the era heralded by Washington's letter to Harrison in 1784. But the + problem slowly forced itself upon all sections of the country, and + especially upon Pennsylvania and Maryland, whose inhabitants began to fear + lest New York, Alexandria, or Richmond should snatch the Western trade + from Philadelphia or Baltimore. The truth that underlies the proverb that + "history repeats itself" is well illustrated by the fact that the first + macadamized road in America was built in Pennsylvania, for here also + originated the pack-horse trade and the Conestoga horse and wagon; here + the first inland American canal was built, the first roadbed was graded on + the principle of dividing the whole distance by the whole descent, and the + first railway was operated. Macadam and Telford had only begun to show the + people of England how to build roads of crushed stone—an art first + developed by the French engineer Trésaguet—when + Pennsylvanians built the Lancaster Turnpike. The Philadelphia and + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">54</a></span> + Lancaster Turnpike Road + Company was chartered April 9, 1792, as a part of the general plan of the + Society for the Improvement of Roads and Inland Navigation already + described. This road, sixty-two miles in length, was built of stone at a + cost of $465,000 and was completed in two years. Never before had such a + sum been invested in internal improvement in the United States. The + rapidity with which the undertaking was carried through and the profits + which accrued from the investment were alike astonishing. The subscription + books were opened at eleven o'clock one morning and by midnight 2226 + shares had been subscribed, each purchaser paying down thirty dollars. At + the same time Elkanah Watson was despondently scanning the subscription + books of his Mohawk River enterprise at Albany where "no mortal" had + risked more than two shares. + </p> + <p> + The success of the Lancaster Turnpike was not achieved without a protest + against the monopoly which the new venture created. It is true that in all + the colonies the exercise of the right of eminent domain had been conceded + in a veiled way to officials to whose care the laying out of roads had + been delegated. As early as 1639 the General Court of Massachusetts had + ordered each town to + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">55</a></span> + choose men who, coöperating with men from the + adjoining town, should "lay out highways where they may be most + convenient, notwithstanding any man's property, or any corne ground, so as + it occasion not the pulling down of any man's house, or laying open any + garden or orchard." But the open and extended exercise of these rights led + to vigorous opposition in the case of this Pennsylvania road. A public + meeting was held at the Prince of Wales Tavern in Philadelphia in 1793 to + protest in round terms against the monopolistic character of the Lancaster + Turnpike. Blackstone and Edward III were hurled at the heads of the + "venal" legislators who had made this "monstrosity" possible. The + opposition died down, however, in the face of the success which the new + road instantly achieved. The Turnpike was, indeed, admirably situated. + Converging at the quaint old "borough of Lancaster," the various + routes—northeast from Virginia, east from the Carlisle and + Chambersburg region and the Alleghanies, and southeast from the upper + Susquehanna country—poured upon the Quaker City a trade that + profited every merchant, landholder, and laborer. The nine tollgates, on + the average a little less than seven miles apart, turned in a revenue + that allowed the "President + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">56</a></span> + and Managers" to declare dividends to stockholders running, it is said, + as high as fifteen per cent. + </p> + <p> + The Lancaster Turnpike is interesting from three points of view: it began + a new period of American transportation; it ushered in an era of + speculation unheard of in the previous history of the country; and it + introduced American lawmakers to the great problem of controlling public + corporations. + </p> + <p> + Along this thirty-seven-foot road, of which twenty-four feet were laid + with stone, the new era of American inland travel progressed. The array of + two-wheeled private equipages and other family carriages, the stagecoaches + of bright color, and the carts, Dutch wagons, and Conestogas, gave token + of what was soon to be witnessed on the great roads of a dozen States in + the next generation. Here, probably, the first distinction began to be + drawn between the taverns for passengers and those patronized by the + drivers of freight. The colonial taverns, comparatively few and far + between, had up to this time served the traveling public, high and low, + rich and poor, alike. But in this new era members of Congress and the + élite of Philadelphia and neighboring towns were not to be jostled + at the table by burly hostlers, drivers, wagoners, and hucksters. Two + types of inns thus came quickly + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">57</a></span> + into existence: the tavern entertained the + stagecoach traffic, while the democratic roadhouse served the established + lines of Conestogas, freighters, and all other vehicles which poured from + every town, village, and hamlet upon the great thoroughfare leading to the + metropolis on the Delaware. + </p> + <p> + Among American inventions the Conestoga wagon must forever be remembered + with respect. Originating in the Lancaster region of Pennsylvania and + taking its name either from the horses of the Conestoga Valley or from the + valley itself, this vehicle was unlike the old English wain or the Dutch + wagon because of the curve of its bed. This peculiarly shaped bottom, + higher by twelve inches or more at each end than in the middle, made the + vehicle a safer conveyance across the mountains and over all rough country + than the old straight-bed wagon. The Conestoga was covered with canvas, as + were other freight vehicles, but the lines of the bed were also carried + out in the framework above and gave the whole the effect of a great ship + swaying up and down the billowy hills. The wheels of the Conestoga were + heavily built and wore tires four and six inches in width. The harness of + the six horses attached to the wagon was proportionately heavy, the back + bands being fifteen + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">58</a></span> + inches wide, the hip straps ten, and the traces + consisting of ponderous iron chains. The color of the original Conestoga + wagons never varied: the underbody was always blue and the upper parts + were red. The wagoners and drivers who manned this fleet on wheels were + men of a type that finds no parallel except in the boatmen on the western + rivers who were almost their contemporaries. Fit for the severest toil, + weathered to the color of the red man, at home under any roof that + harbored a demijohn and a fiddle, these hardy nomads of early commerce + were the custodians of the largest amount of traffic in their day. + </p> + <p> + The turnpike era overlaps the period of the building of national roads and + canals and the beginning of the railway age, but it is of greatest + interest during the first twenty-five years of the nineteenth century, up + to the time when the completion of the Erie Canal set new standards. + During this period roads were also constructed westward from Baltimore and + Albany to connect, as the Lancaster Turnpike did at its terminus, with the + thoroughfares from the trans-Alleghany country. The metropolis of Maryland + was quickly in the field to challenge the bid which the Quaker City made + for western trade. The Baltimore-Reisterstown and + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">59</a></span> + Baltimore-Frederick turnpikes were built at a cost of $10,000 and $8000 + a mile respectively; and the latter, connecting with roads to Cumberland, + linked itself with the great national road to Ohio which the Government + built between 1811 and 1817. These famous stone roads of Maryland long + kept Baltimore in the lead as the principal outlet for the western trade. + New York, too, proved her right to the title of Empire State by a + marvelous activity in improving her magnificent strategic position. In + the first seven years of the nineteenth century eighty-eight incorporated + road companies were formed with a total capital of over $8,000,000. + Twenty large bridges and more than three thousand miles of turnpike were + constructed. The movement, indeed, extended from New England to Virginia + and the Carolinas, and turnpike companies built all kinds of + roads—earth, corduroy, plank, and stone. + </p> + <p> + In many cases the kind of road to be constructed, the tolls to be charged, + and the amount of profit to be permitted, were laid down in the charters. + Thus new problems confronted the various legislatures, and interesting + principles of regulation were now established. In most cases companies + were allowed, on producing their books of receipts and + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">60</a></span> + expenditures, to + increase their tolls until they obtained a profit of six per cent on the + investment, though in a number of cases nine per cent was permitted. When + revenues increased beyond the six per cent mark, however, the tendency was + to reduce tolls or to use the extra profit to purchase the stock for the + State, with the expectation of ultimately abolishing tollgates entirely. + The theories of state regulation of corporations and the obligations of + public carriers, extending even to the compensation of workmen in case of + accident, were developed to a considerable degree in this turnpike era; + but, on the other hand, the principle of permitting fair profit to + corporations upon public examination of their accounts was also + recognized. + </p> + <p> + The stone roads, which were passable at all seasons, brought a new era in + correspondence and business. Lines of stages and wagons, as well known at + that time as are the great railways of today, plied the new thoroughfares, + provided some of the comforts of travel, and assured the safer and more + rapid delivery of goods. This period is sometimes known in American + history as "The Era of Good Feeling" and the turnpike contributed in no + small degree to make the phrase applicable not + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">61</a></span> + only to the domain of politics but to all the relations of social and + commercial life. + </p> + <p> + While road building in the East gives a clear picture of the rise and + growth of commerce and trade in that section, it is to the rivers of the + trans-Alleghany country that we must look for a corresponding picture in + this early period. The canoe and pirogue could handle the packs and kegs + brought westward by the files of Indian ponies; but the heavy loads of the + Conestoga wagons demanded stancher craft. The flatboat and barge therefore + served the West and its commerce as the Conestoga and turnpike served the + East. + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <hr /> + + <div class="chapterhead"> + <a name="Chapter05" id="Chapter05"></a> + <br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">62</a></span> + <br /><br /><br /> + <h2><a href="#Contents">CHAPTER V</a></h2> + </div> + + <p class="chaptertitle">The Flatboat Age</p> + + <p class="noindent"> + <span class="smcap">In</span> the early twenties of the last century + one of the popular songs of the day was <i>The Hunters of Kentucky.</i> + Written by Samuel Woodworth, the author of <i>The Old Oaken Bucket,</i> + it had originally been printed in the New York <i>Mirror</i> but had + come into the hands of an actor named Ludlow, who was + playing in the old French theater in New Orleans. The poem chants the + praises of the Kentucky riflemen who fought with Jackson at New Orleans + and indubitably proved + </p> + <div class="poem1 double-space-top"> + <p class="poem1 padding20">That every man was half a horse</p> + <p class="poem1 padding20">And half an alligator.</p> + </div> + <p class="double-space-top"> + Ludlow knew his audience and he saw his chance. Setting the words to + Risk's tune, <i>Love Laughs at Locksmiths,</i> donning the costume of a + Western riverman, and arming himself with a long "squirrel" rifle, he + presented himself before the house. The + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">63</a></span> + rivermen who filled the pit received him, it + is related, with "a prolonged whoop, or howl, such as Indians give when + they are especially pleased." And to these sturdy men the words of his + song made a strong appeal: + </p> + <div class="poem1 double-space-top"> + <p class="poem1 padding15">We are a hardy, freeborn race,</p> + <p class="poem2 padding15">Each man to fear a stranger; </p> + <p class="poem1 padding15">Whate'er the game, we join in chase,</p> + <p class="poem2 padding15">Despising toil and danger; </p> + <p class="poem1 padding15">And if a daring foe annoys, </p> + <p class="poem2 padding15">No matter what his force is, </p> + <p class="poem1 padding15">We'll show him that Kentucky boys</p> + <p class="poem2 padding15">Are Alligator-horses.</p> + </div> + <p class="double-space-top"> + The title "alligator-horse," of which Western rivermen were very proud, + carried with it a suggestion of amphibious strength that made it both apt + and figuratively accurate. On all the American rivers, east and west, a + lusty crew, collected from the waning Indian trade and the disbanded + pioneer armies, found work to its taste in poling the long keel boats, + "cordelling" the bulky barges—that is, towing them by pulling on a + line attached to the shore—or steering the "broadhorns" or flatboats + that transported the first heavy inland river cargoes. Like longshoremen + of all ages, the American riverman was as rough as the work which + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">64</a></span> + calloused his hands and transformed his muscles into bands of tempered + steel. Like all men given to hard but intermittent labor, he employed his + intervals of leisure in coarse and brutal recreation. Their roistering + exploits, indeed, have made these rivermen almost better known at play + than at work. One of them, the notorious Mike Fink, known as "the Snag" on + the Mississippi and as the "Snapping Turtle" on the Ohio, has left the + record, not that he could load a keel boat in a certain length of time, or + lift a barrel of whiskey with one arm, or that no tumultuous current had + ever compelled him to back water, but that he could "out-run, out-hop, + out-jump, throw down, drag out, and lick any man in the country," and that + he was "a Salt River roarer." + </p> + <p> + Such men and the craft they handled were known on the Atlantic rivers, but + it was on the Mississippi and its branches, especially the Ohio, that they + played their most important part in the history of American inland + commerce. Before the beginning of the nineteenth century wagons and + Conestogas were bringing great loads of merchandise to such points on the + headwaters as Brownsville, Pittsburgh, and Wheeling. As early as 1782, we + are told, Jacob Yoder, a Pennsylvania German, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">65</a></span> + set sail from the + Monongahela country with the first flatboat to descend the Ohio and + Mississippi. As the years passed, the number of such craft grew constantly + larger. The custom of fixing the widespreading horns of cattle on the prow + gave these boats the alternative name of "broadhorns," but no accurate + classification can be made of the various kinds of craft engaged in this + vast traffic. Everything that would float, from rough rafts to finished + barges, was commandeered into service, and what was found unsuitable for + the strenuous purposes of commercial transportation was palmed off + whenever possible on unsuspecting emigrants <i>en route</i> to the lands + of promise beyond. + </p> + <p> + Flour, salt, iron, cider and peach brandy were staple products of the Ohio + country which the South desired. In return they shipped molasses, sugar, + coffee, lead, and hides upon the few keel boats which crept upstream or + the blundering barges which were propelled northward by means of oar, + sail, and cordelle. It was not, however, until the nineteenth century that + the young West was producing any considerable quantity of manufactured + goods. Though the town of Pittsburgh had been laid out in 1764, by the end + of the Revolution it was still little more than a collection of huts + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">66</a></span> + about + a fort. A notable amount of local trade was carried on, but the expense of + transportation was very high even after wagons began crossing the + Alleghanies. For example, the cost from Philadelphia and Baltimore was + given by Arthur Lee, a member of Congress, in 1784 as forty-five shillings + a hundredweight, and a few months later it is quoted at sixpence a pound + when Johann D. Schoph crossed the mountains in a chaise—a feat + "which till now had been considered quite impossible." Opinions differed + widely as to the future of the little town of five hundred inhabitants. + The important product of the region at first was Monongahela flour which + long held a high place in the New Orleans market. Coal was being mined as + early as 1796 and was worth locally threepence halfpenny a bushel, though + within seven years it was being sold at Philadelphia at thirty-seven and a + half cents a bushel. The fur trade with the Illinois country grew less + important as the century came to its close, but Maynard and Morrison, + cooperating with Guy Bryan at Philadelphia, sent a barge laden with + merchandise to Illinois annually between 1790 and 1796, which returned + each season with a cargo of skins and furs. Pittsburgh was thus a + distributing center of some importance; + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">67</a></span> + but the fact that no drayman or + warehouse was to be found in the town at this time is a significant + commentary on the undeveloped state of its commerce and manufacture. + </p> + <p> + After Wayne's victory at the battle of the Fallen Timber in 1794 and the + signing of the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, which ended the earlier + Indian wars of the Old Northwest and opened for settlement the country + beyond the Ohio, a great migration followed into Ohio, Indiana, and + Kentucky, and the commercial activity of Pittsburgh rapidly increased. By + 1800 a score of profitable industries had arisen, and by 1803 the first + bar-iron foundry was, to quote the advertisement of its owner, + "sufficiently upheld by the hand of the Almighty" to supply in part the + demand for iron and castings. Glass factories were established, and + ropewalks, sail lofts, boatyards, anchor smithies, and brickyards, were + soon ready to supply the rapidly increasing demands of the infant cities + and the countryside on the lower Ohio. When the new century arrived the + Pittsburgh district had a population of upwards of two thousand. + </p> + <p> + One by one the other important centers of trade in the great valley beyond + began to show evidences of life. Marietta, Ohio, founded in 1788 by + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">68</a></span> + Revolutionary officers from New England, became the metropolis of the rich + Muskingum River district, which was presently sending many flatboats + southward. Cincinnati was founded in the same year as Marietta, with the + building of Fort Washington and the formal organization of Hamilton + County. The soil of the Miami country was as "mellow as an ash heap" and + in the first four months of 1802 over four thousand barrels of flour were + shipped southward to challenge the prestige of the Monongahela product. + Potters, brickmakers, gunsmiths, cotton and wool weavers, coopers, + turners, wheelwrights, dyers, printers, and ropemakers were at work here + within the next decade. A brewery turned out five thousand barrels of beer + and porter in 1811, and by the next year the pork-packing business was + thoroughly established. + </p> + <p> + Louisville, the "Little Falls" of the West, was the entrepôt of the + Blue Grass region. It had been a place of some importance since + Revolutionary days, for in seasons of low water the rapids in the Ohio + at this point gave employment to scores of laborers who assisted the + flatboatmen in hauling their cargoes around the obstruction which + prevented the passage of the heavily loaded barges. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">69</a></span> + The town, which was incorporated in 1780, + soon showed signs of commercial activity. It was the proud possessor of a + drygoods house in 1783. The growth of its tobacco industry was rapid from + the first. The warehouses were under government supervision and inspection + as early as 1795, and innumerable flatboats were already bearing cargoes + of bright leaf southward in the last decade of the century. The first + brick house in Louisville was erected in 1789 with materials brought from + Pittsburgh. Yankees soon established the "Hope Distillery"; and the + manufacture of whiskey, which had long been a staple industry conducted by + individuals, became an incorporated business of great promise in spite of + objections raised against the "creation of gigantic reservoirs of this + damning drink." + </p> + <p> + Thus, about the year 1800, the great industries of the young West were all + established in the regions dominated by the growing cities of Pittsburgh, + Cincinnati, and Louisville. But, since the combined population of these + centers could not have been over three thousand in the year 1800, it is + evident that the adjacent rural population and the people living in every + neighboring creek and river valley were chiefly responsible for the large + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">70</a></span> + trade that already existed between this corner of the Mississippi basin + and the South. + </p> + <p> + In this trade the riverman was the fundamental factor. Only by means of + his brawn and his genius for navigation could these innumerable tons of + flour, tobacco, and bacon have been kept from rotting on the shores. Yet + the man himself remains a legend grotesque and mysterious, one of the + shadowy figures of a time when history was being made too rapidly to be + written. If we ask how he loaded his flatboat or barge, we are told that + "one squint of his eye would blister a bull's heel." When we inquire how + he found the channel amid the shifting bars and floating islands of that + tortuous two-thousand-mile journey to New Orleans, we are informed that he + was "the very infant that turned from his mother's breast and called out + for a bottle of old rye." When we ask how he overcame the natural + difficulties of trade—lack of commission houses, varying standards + of money, want of systems of credit and low prices due to the glutting of + the market when hundreds of flatboats arrived in the South simultaneously + on the same freshet—we are informed that "Billy Earthquake is the + geniwine, double-acting engine, and can out-run, out-swim, chaw more + tobacco + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">71</a></span> + and spit less, drink more whiskey and keep soberer than any other + man in these localities." + </p> + <p> + The reason for this lack of information is that our descriptions of + flatboating and keel boating are written by travelers who, as is always + the case, are interested in what is unusual, not in what is typical and + commonplace. It is therefore only dimly, as through a mist, that we can + see the two lines of polemen pass from the prow to the stern on the narrow + running-board of a keel boat, lifting and setting their poles to the cry + of steersman or captain. The struggle in a swift "riffle" or rapid is + momentous. If the craft swerves, all is lost. Shoulders bend with savage + strength; poles quiver under the tension; the captain's voice is raucous, + and every other word is an oath; a pole breaks, and the next man, though + half-dazed in the mortal crisis, does for a few moments the work of two. + At last they reach the head of the rapid, and the boat floats out on the + placid pool above, while the "alligator-horse" who had the mishap remarks + to the scenery at large that he'd be "fly-blowed before sun-down to a + certingty" if that were not the very pole with which he "pushed the + broadhorn up Salt River where the snags were so thick that a fish couldn't + swim without rubbing his scales off." + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">72</a></span> + Audubon, the naturalist-merchant of the Mississippi, has left us a clear + picture of the process by which these heavy tubs, loaded with forty or + fifty tons of freight, were forced upstream against a swift current: + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + Wherever a point projected so as to render the course or bend below it of + some magnitude, there was an eddy, the returning current of which was + sometimes as strong as that of the middle of the great stream. The + bargemen, therefore, rowed up pretty close under the bank and had merely + to keep watch in the bow lest the boat should run against a planter or + sawyer. But the boat has reached the point, and there the current is to + all appearance of double strength and right against it. The men, who have + rested a few minutes, are ordered to take their stations and lay hold of + their oars, for the river must be crossed, it being seldom possible to + double such a point and proceed along the same shore. The boat is + crossing, its head slanting to the current, which is, however, too strong + for the rowers, and when the other side of the river has been reached, it + has drifted perhaps a quarter of a mile. The men are by this time + exhausted and, as we shall suppose it to be 12 o'clock, fasten the boat to + a tree on the shore. A small glass of whiskey is given to each, when they + cook and eat their dinner and, after resting from their fatigue for an + hour, recommence their labors. The boat is again seen slowly advancing + against the stream. It has reached the lower end of a sandbar, along the + edge of which it is propelled by + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">73</a></span> + means of long poles, if the bottom be + hard. Two men, called bowsmen, remain at the prow to assist, in concert + with the steersman, in managing the boat and keeping its head right + against the current. The rest place themselves on the land side of the + footway of the vessel, put one end of their poles on the ground and the + other against their shoulders and push with all their might. As each of + the men reaches the stern, he crosses to the other side, runs along it and + comes again to the landward side of the bow, when he recommences + operations. The barge in the meantime is ascending at a rate not exceeding + one mile in the hour. + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + Trustworthy statistics as to the amount and character of the Western river + trade have never been gathered. They are to be found, if anywhere, in the + reports of the collectors of customs located at the various Western ports + of entry and departure. Nothing indicates more definitely the hour when + the West awoke to its first era of big business than the demand for the + creation of "districts" and their respective ports, for by no other means + could merchandise and produce be shipped legally to Spanish territory + beyond or down the Mississippi or to English territory on the northern + shores of the Great Lakes. + </p> + <p> + Louisville is as old a port of the United States as New York or + Philadelphia, having been so + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">74</a></span> + created when our government was established + in 1789, but oddly enough the first returns to the National Treasury + (1798) are credited to the port of Palmyra, Tennessee, far inland on the + Cumberland River. In 1799 the following Western towns were made ports of + entry: Erie, Sandusky, Detroit, Mackinaw Island, and Columbia + (Cincinnati). The first port on the Ohio to make returns was Fort Massac, + Illinois, and it is from the collector at this point that we get our first + hint as to the character and volume of Western river traffic. In the + spring months of March, April, and May, 1800, cargoes to the value of + £28,581, Pennsylvania currency, went down the Ohio. This included + 22,714 barrels of flour, 1017 barrels of whiskey, 12,500 pounds of pork, + 18,710 pounds of bacon, 75,814 pounds of cordage, 3650 yards of country + linen, 700 bottles, and 700 barrels of potatoes. In the three autumn + months of 1800, for instance, twenty-one boats ascended the Ohio by Fort + Massac, with cargoes amounting to 36 hundredweight of lead and a few + hides. Descending the river at the same time, flatboats and barges carried + 245 hundredweight of drygoods valued at $32,550. When we compare these + spring and fall records of commerce downstream we reach the natural + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">75</a></span> + conclusion that the bulk of the drygoods which went down in the fall of + the year had been brought over the mountains during the summer. The fact + that the Alleghany pack-horses and Conestogas were transporting freight to + supply the Spanish towns on the Mississippi River in the first year of the + nineteenth century seems proved beyond a doubt by these reports from Fort + Massac. + </p> + <p> + The most interesting phase of this era is the connection between western + trade and the politics of the Mississippi Valley which led up to the + Louisiana Purchase. By the Treaty of San Lorenzo in 1795 Spain made New + Orleans an open port, and in the next seven years the young West made the + most of its opportunity. But before the new century was two years old the + difficulties encountered were found to be serious. The lack of commission + merchants, of methods of credit, of information as to the state of the + market, all combined to handicap trade and to cause loss. Pittsburgh + shippers figured their loss already at $60,000 a year. In consequence men + began to look elsewhere, and an advocate of big business wrote in 1802: + "The country has received a shock; let us immediately extend our views and + direct our efforts to every foreign market." + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">76</a></span> + One of the most remarkable plans for the capture of foreign trade to be + found in the annals of American commerce originated almost simultaneously + in the Muskingum and Monongahela regions. With a view to making the + American West independent of the Spanish middlemen, it was proposed to + build ocean-going vessels on the Ohio that should carry the produce of the + interior down the Mississippi and thence abroad through the open port of + New Orleans. The idea was typically Western in its arrogant originality + and confident self-assertion. Two vessels were built: the brig <i>St. + Clair</i>, of 110 tons, at Marietta, and the <i>Monongahela Farmer,</i> + of 250 tons, at Elizabeth on the Monongahela. The former reached + Cincinnati April 27, 1801; the latter, loaded with 750 barrels of flour, + passed Pittsburgh on the 13th of May. Eventually, the <i>St. Clair</i> + reached Havana and thus proved that Muskingum Valley black walnut, Ohio + hemp, and Marietta carpenters, anchor smiths, and skippers could defy the + grip of the Spaniard on the Mississippi. Other vessels followed these + adventurers, and shipbuilding immediately became an important industry at + Pittsburgh, Marietta, Cincinnati, and other points. The <i>Duane</i> of + Pittsburgh was said by the Liverpool + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">77</a></span> + <i>Saturday Advertiser</i> of July 9, 1803, to have been the "first + vessel which ever came to Europe from the western waters of the United + States." Probably the <i>Louisiana of Marietta</i> went as far afield + as any of the one hundred odd ships built in these years on the Ohio. + The official papers of her voyage in 1805, dated at New Orleans, Norfolk + (Virginia), Liverpool, Messina, and Trieste at the head of the Adriatic, + are preserved today in the Marietta College Library. + </p> + <p> + The growth of the shipbuilding industry necessitated a readjustment of the + districts for the collection of customs. Columbia (Cincinnati) at first + served the region of the upper Ohio; but in 1803 the district was divided + and Marietta was made the port for the Pittsburgh-Portsmouth section of + the river. In 1807 all the western districts were amalgamated, and + Pittsburgh, Charleston (Wellsburg), Marietta, Cincinnati, Louisville, and + Fort Massac were made ports of entry. + </p> + <p> + The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 gave a marked impulse to inland + shipbuilding; but the embargo of 1807, which prohibited foreign trade, + following so soon, killed the shipyards, which, for a few years, had been + so busy. The great new industry of the Ohio Valley was ruined. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">78</a></span> + By this time the successful voyage of Fulton's steamboat, the + <i>Clermont,</i> between New York and Albany, had demonstrated the + possibilities of steam navigation. Not a few men saw in the novel craft + the beginning of a new era in Western river traffic; but many doubted + whether it was possible to construct a vessel powerful enough to make + its way upstream against such sweeping currents as those of the + Mississippi and the Ohio. Surely no one for a moment dreamed that in + hardly more than a generation the Western rivers would carry a tonnage + larger than that of the cities of the Atlantic seaboard combined and + larger than that of Great Britain! + </p> + <p> + As early as 1805, two years before the trip of the <i>Clermont,</i> + Captain Keever built a "steamboat" on the Ohio, and sent her down to New + Orleans where her engine was to be installed. But it was not until 1811 + that the <i>Orleans,</i> the first steamboat to ply the Western streams, + was built at Pittsburgh, from which point she sailed for New Orleans in + October of that year. The <i>Comet</i> and <i>Vesuvius</i> quickly + followed, but all three entered the New Orleans-Natchez trade on the + lower river and were never seen again at the headwaters. As yet the swift + currents and flood tides of the great river + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">79</a></span> + had not been mastered. It is true that in 1815 the <i>Enterprise</i> had + made two trips between New Orleans and Louisville, but this was in time of + high water, when counter currents and backwaters had assisted her feeble + engine. In 1816, however, Henry Shreve conceived the idea of raising the + engine out of the hold and constructing an additional deck. The + <i>Washington,</i> the first doubledecker, was the result. The next year + this steamboat made the round trip from Louisville to New Orleans and + back in forty-one days. The doubters were now convinced. + </p> + <p> + For a little while the quaint and original riverman held on in the new + age, only to disappear entirely when the colored roustabout became the + deckhand of post-bellum days. The riverman as a type was unknown except on + the larger rivers in the earlier years of water traffic. What an + experience it would be today to rouse one of those remarkable individuals + from his dreaming, as Davy Crockett did, with an oar, and hear him howl + "Halloe stranger, who axed you to crack my lice?"—to tell him in his + own lingo to "shut his mouth or he would get his teeth sunburnt"—to + see him crook his neck and neigh like a stallion—to answer his + challenge in kind with a flapping of + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">80</a></span> + arms and a cock's crow—to go to shore and have a scrimmage such as + was never known on a gridiron—and then to resolve with Crockett, + during a period of recuperation, that you would never "wake up a + ring-tailed roarer with an oar again." + </p> + <p> + The riverman, his art, his language, his traffic, seem to belong to days + as distant as those of which Homer sang. + </p> + <div class="chapterhead"> + <a name="Chapter06" id="Chapter06"></a> + <br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">81</a></span> + <br /><br /><br /> + <h2><a href="#Contents">CHAPTER VI</a></h2> + </div> + + <p class="chaptertitle">The Passing Show Of 1800</p> + + <p class="noindent"> + <span class="smcap">Foreign</span> travelers who have come to the + United States have always proved of great interest to Americans. From + Brissot to Arnold Bennett, while in the country they have been fed and + clothed and transported wheresoever they would go—at the highest + prevailing prices. And after they have left, the records of their + sojourn that these travelers have published have made interesting + reading for Americans all over the land. Some of these trans-Atlantic + visitors have been jaundiced, disgruntled, and contemptuous; others have + shown themselves of an open nature, discreet, conscientious, and + fair-minded. + </p> + <p> + One of the most amiable and clear-headed of such foreign guests was + Francis Baily, later in life president of the Royal Astronomical Society + of Great Britain, but at the time of his American tour a young man of + twenty-two. His journey in + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">82</a></span> + 1796-97 gave him a wide experience of stage, + flatboat, and pack-horse travel, and his genial disposition, his observant + eye, and his discriminating criticism, together with his comments on the + commercial features of the towns and regions he visited, make his record + particularly interesting and valuable to the historian. ¹ Using + Baily's journal as a guide, therefore, one can today journey with him + across the country and note the passing show as he saw it in this + transitional period. + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p class="footer"> + <a id="footer_82-1" name="footer_82-1"></a> + ¹ <i>Journal of a Tour in Unsettled Parts of North America in 1796 + and 1797</i> by the late Francis Baily (London, 1856). + </p> + </div> + <p> + Landing at Norfolk, Virginia, Baily was immediately introduced to an + American tavern. Like most travelers, he was surprised to find that + American taverns were "boarding-places," frequented by crowds of "young, + able-bodied men who seemed to be as perfectly at leisure as the loungers + of ancient Europe." In those days of few newspapers, the tavern everywhere + in America was the center of information; in fact, it was a common + practice for travelers in the interior, after signing their names in the + register, to add on the same page any news of local interest which they + brought with them. The tavern habitués, Baily remarks, did not sit + and drink after meals but "wasted" their + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">83</a></span> + time at billiards and cards. The + passion for billiards was notorious, and taverns in the most + out-of-the-way places, though they lacked the most ordinary conveniences, + were nevertheless provided with billiard tables. This custom seems to have + been especially true in the South; and it is significant that the first + taxes in Tennessee levied before the beginning of the nineteenth century + were the poll tax and taxes on billiard tables and studhorses! + </p> + <p> + From Norfolk Baily passed northward to Baltimore, paying a fare of ten + dollars, and from there he went on to Philadelphia, paying six dollars + more. On the way his stagecoach stuck fast in a bog and the passengers + were compelled to leave it until the next morning. This sixty-mile road + out of Baltimore was evidently one of the worst in the East. Ten years + prior to this date, Brissot, a keen French journalist, mentions the great + ruts in its heavy clay soil, the overturned trees which blocked the way, + and the unexampled skilfulness of the stage drivers. All travelers in + America, though differing on almost every other subject, invariably praise + the ability of these sturdy, weather-beaten American drivers, their + kindness to their horses, and their attention to their passengers. Harriet + Martineau stated that, in her experience, American drivers as a class + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">84</a></span> + were + marked by the merciful temper which accompanies genius, and their + perfection in their art, their fertility of resource, and the gentleness + with which they treated female fears and fretfulness, were exemplary. + </p> + <p> + In the City of Brotherly Love Baily notes the geniality of the people, who + by many travelers are called aristocratic, and comments on Quaker + opposition to the theater and the inconsequence of the Peale Museum, which + travelers a generation later highly praise. Proceeding to New York at a + cost of six dollars, he is struck by the uncouthness of the public + buildings, churches excepted, the widespread passion for music, dancing, + and the theater, the craze for sleighing, and the promise which the harbor + gave of becoming the finest in America. Not a few travelers in this early + period gave expression to their belief in the future greatness of New York + City. These prophecies, taken in connection with the investment of eight + millions of dollars which New Yorkers made in toll-roads in the first + seven years of this new century, incline one to believe that the influence + of the Erie Canal as a factor in the development of the city may have been + unduly emphasized, great though it was. + </p> + <p> + From New York Baily returned to Baltimore + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">85</a></span> + and went on to Washington. The + records of all travelers to the site of the new national capital give much + the same picture of the countryside. It was a land worn out by tobacco + culture and variously described as "dried up," "run down," and "hung out + to dry." Even George Washington, at Mount Vernon, was giving up tobacco + culture and was attempting new crops by a system of rotation. Cotton was + being grown in Maryland, but little care was given to its culture and + manufacture. Tobacco was graded in Virginia in accordance with the + rigidity of its inspection at Hanover Court House, Pittsburgh, Richmond, + and Cabin-Point: leaf worth sixteen shillings at Richmond was worth + twenty-one at Hanover Court House; if it was refused at all places, it was + smuggled to the West Indies or consumed in the country. Meadows were + rapidly taking the place of tobacco-fields, for the planters preferred to + clear new land rather than to enrich the old. + </p> + <p> + At Washington Baily found that lots to the value of $278,000 had been + sold, although only one-half of the proposed city had been "cleared." It + was to be forty years ere travelers could speak respectfully of what is + now the beautiful city of Washington. In these earlier days, the streets + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">86</a></span> + were mudholes divided by vacant fields and "beautified by trees, swamps, + and cows." + </p> + <p> + Departing for the West by way of Frederick, Baily, like all travelers, was + intensely interested upon entering the rich limestone region which + stretched from Pennsylvania far down into Virginia. It was occupied in + part by the Pennsylvania Dutch and was so famous for its rich milk that it + was called by many travelers the "Bonnyclabber Country." Most Englishmen + were delighted with this region because they found here the good old + English breed of horses, that is, the English hunter developed into a + stout coach-horse. Of native breeds, Baily found animals of all degrees of + strength and size down to hackneys of fourteen hands, as well as the "vile + dog-horses," or pack-horses, whose faithful service to the frontier could + in no wise be appreciated by a foreigner. + </p> + <p> + This region of Pennsylvania was as noted for its wagons as for its horses. + It was this wheat-bearing belt that made the common freight-wagon in its + colors of red and blue a national institution. It was in this region of + rich, well-watered land that the maple tree gained its reputation. Men + even prophesied that its delightful sap would prove a cure for slavery, + for, if one family could make + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">87</a></span> + fifteen hundred pounds of maple sugar in a + season, eighty thousand families could, at the same rate, equal the output + of cane sugar each year from Santo Domingo! + </p> + <p> + The traveler at the beginning of the century noticed a change in the + temper of the people as well as a change in the soil when the Bonnyclabber + Country was reached. The time-serving attitude of the good people of the + East now gave place to a "consciousness of independence" due, Baily + remarks, to the fact that each man was self-sufficient and passed his life + "without regard to the smiles and frowns of men in power." This spirit was + handsomely illustrated in the case of one burly Westerner who was + "churched" for fighting. Showing a surly attitude to the deacon-judges who + sat on his case, he was threatened with civil prosecution and + imprisonment. "I don't want freedom," he is said to have replied, + bitterly; "I don't even want to live if I can't knock down a man who calls + me a liar." + </p> + <p> + Pushing on westward by way of historic Sideling Hill and Bedford to + Statlers, Baily found here a prosperous millstone quarry, which sold its + stones at from fifteen to thirty dollars a pair. Twelve years earlier + Washington had prophesied that the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">88</a></span> + Alleghanies would soon be furnishing + millstones equal to the best English burr. As he crossed the mountains + Baily found that taverns charged the following schedule: breakfast, + eighteen pence; dinner and supper from two shillings to two shillings and + sixpence each. Traversing Laurel Hill, he reached Pittsburgh just at the + time when it was awakening to activity as the trading center of the West. + </p> + <p> + In order to descend the Ohio, Baily obtained a flatboat, thirty-six feet + long and twelve feet broad, which drew eighteen inches of water and was of + ten tons burden. On the way downstream, Charleston and Wheeling were the + principal settlements which Baily first noted. Ebenezer Zane, the founder + of Wheeling, had just opened across Ohio the famous landward route from + the Monongahela country to Kentucky, which it entered at Limestone, the + present Maysville. This famous road, passing through Zanesville, + Lancaster, and Chillicothe, though at that time safe only for men in + parties, was a common route to and from Kentucky. + </p> + <p> + On such inland pathways as this, early travelers came to take for granted + a hospitality not to be found on more frequented thoroughfares. In this + hospitality, roughness and good will, cleanliness + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">89</a></span> + and filth, attempts to + ape the style of Eastern towns and habits of the most primitive kind, were + singularly blended. In one instance, the traveler might be cordially + assigned by the landlord to a good position in "the first rush for a + chance at the head of the table"; at the next stopping place he might be + coldly turned away because the proprietor "had the gout" and his wife the + "delicate blue-devils"; farther on, where "soap was unknown, nothing clean + but birds, nothing industrious but pigs, and nothing happy but squirrels," + Daniel Boone's daughter might be seen in high-heeled shoes, attended by + white servants whose wages were a dollar a week, skirting muddy roads + under a ten-dollar bonnet and a six-dollar parasol. Or, he might emerge + from a lonely forest in Ohio or Indiana and come suddenly upon a party of + neighbors at a dreary tavern, enjoying a corn shucking or a harvest home. + Immediately dubbed "Doctor," "Squire," or "Colonel" by the hospitable + merrymakers, the passer-by would be informed that he "should drink and + lack no good thing." After he had retired, as likely as not his quarters + would be invaded at one or two o'clock in the morning by the uproarious + company, and the best refreshment of the house would be forced + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">90</a></span> + upon him with a hilarity "created by omnipotent whiskey." Sometimes, + however, the traveler would encounter pitiful instances of loneliness + in the wide-spreading forests. One man in passing a certain isolated + cabin was implored by the woman who inhabited it to rest awhile and + talk, since she was, she confessed, completely overwhelmed by "the lone!" + </p> + <p> + Every traveler has remarked upon the yellow pallor of the first + inhabitants of the western forests and doubtless correctly attributed this + sickly appearance to the effects of malaria and miasma. The psychic + influences of the forest wilderness also weighed heavily upon the spirits + of the settlers, although, as Baily notes, it was the newcomers who felt + the depression to an exaggerated degree. As he says: + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + It is a feeling of confinement, which begins to damp the spirits, from + this complete exclusion of distant objects. To travel day after day, among + trees of a hundred feet high, is oppressive to a degree which those cannot + conceive who have not experienced it; and it must depress the spirits of + the solitary settler to pass years in this state. His visible horizon + extends no farther than the tops of the trees which bound his + plantation—perhaps five hundred yards. Upwards he sees the sun, + and sky, and stars, but around him an + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">91</a></span> + eternal forest, from which he can never hope to emerge:—not + so in a thickly settled district; he cannot there enjoy any freedom of + prospect, yet there is variety, and some scope for the imprisoned vision. + In a hilly country a little more range of view may occasionally be + obtained; and a river is a stream of light as well as of water, which + feasts the eye with a delight inconceivable to the inhabitants of open + countries. + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + In direct contradiction to this longing for society was the passion which + the first generation of pioneers had for the wilderness. When the + population of one settlement became too thick, they were seized by an + irresistible impulse to "follow the migration," as the expression went. + The easy independence of the first hunter-agriculturalist was upset by the + advance of immigration. His range was curtailed, his freedom limited. His + very breath seems to have become difficult. So he sold out at a phenomenal + profit, put out his fire, shouldered his gun, called his dog, and set off + again in search of the solitude he craved. + </p> + <p> + Severe winter weather overtook Baily as he descended the Ohio River, until + below Grave Creek floating ice wrecked his boat and drove him ashore. Here + in the primeval forest, far from "Merrie England," Baily spent the + Christmas of 1796 in building a new flatboat. This task completed, he + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">92</a></span> + resumed his journey. Passing Marietta, where the bad condition of the + winter roads prevented a visit to a famous Indian mound, he reached + Limestone. In due time he sighted Columbia, the metropolis of the Miami + country. According to Baily, the sale of European goods in this part of + the Ohio Valley netted the importers a hundred per cent. Prices varied + with the ease of navigation. When ice blocked the Ohio the price of flour + went up until it was eight dollars a barrel; whiskey was a dollar a + gallon; potatoes, a dollar a bushel; and bacon, twelve cents a pound. At + these prices, the total produce which went by Fort Massac in the early + months of 1800 would have been worth on the Ohio River upwards of two + hundred thousand dollars! In the preceding summer Baily quoted flour at + Norfolk as selling at sixty-three shillings a barrel of 196 pounds, or + double the price it was bringing on the ice-gorged Ohio. It is by such + comparisons that we get some inkling of the value of western produce and + of the rates in western trade. + </p> + <p> + After a short stay at Cincinnati, Baily set out for the South on an + "Orleans boat" loaded with four hundred barrels of flour. At the mouth of + Pigeon Creek he noted the famous path to "Post + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">93</a></span> + St. Vincent's" (Vincennes), + over which he saw emigrants driving cattle to that ancient town on the + Wabash. At Fort Massac he met Captain Zebulon M. Pike, whose tact in + dealing with intoxicated Indians he commended. At New Madrid Baily made a + stay of some days. This settlement, consisting of some two hundred and + fifty houses, was in the possession of Spain. It was within the province + of Louisiana, soon to be ceded to Napoleon. New Orleans supplied this + district with merchandise, but smuggling from the United States was + connived at by the Spanish officials. + </p> + <p> + From New Madrid Baily proceeded to Natchez, which then contained about + eighty-five houses. The town did not boast a tavern, but, as was true of + other places in the interior, this lack was made up for by the hospitality + of its inhabitants. Rice and tobacco were being grown, Baily notes, and + Georgian cotton was being raised in the neighborhood. Several jennies were + already at work, and their owners received a royalty of one-eighth of the + product. The cotton was sent to New Orleans, where it usually sold for + twenty dollars a hundred weight. From Natchez to New Orleans the charge + for transportation by flatboat was a dollar and a half a bag. The bags + contained from one hundred + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">94</a></span> + and fifty to two hundred and fifty pounds, and + each flatboat carried about two hundred and fifty bags. Baily adds two + items to the story of the development of the mechanical operation of + watercraft. He tells us that in the fall of 1796 a party of "Dutchmen," in + the Pittsburgh region, fashioned a boat with side paddle wheels which were + turned by a treadmill worked by eight horses under the deck. This strange + boat, which passed Baily when he was wrecked on the Ohio near Grave Creek, + appeared "to go with prodigious swiftness." Baily does not state how much + business the boat did on its downward trip to New Orleans but contents + himself with remarking that the owners expected the return trip to prove + very profitable. When he met the boat on its upward voyage at Natchez, it + had covered three hundred miles in six days. It was, however, not loaded, + "so little occasion was there for a vessel of this kind." As this run + between New Orleans and Natchez came to be one of the most profitable in + the United States in the early days of steamboating, less than fifteen + years later, the experience of these "Flying Dutchmen" affords a very + pretty proof that something more than a means of transportation is needed + to create commerce. The owners + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">95</a></span> + abandoned their craft at Natchez in disgust and returned home across + country, wiser and poorer. + </p> + <p> + Baily also noted that a Dr. Waters of New Madrid built a schooner "some + few years since" at the head of the Ohio and navigated it down the Ohio + and Mississippi and around to Philadelphia, "where it is now employed in + the commerce of the United States." It is thus apparent, solely from this + traveler's record, that an ocean-going vessel and a side-paddle-wheel boat + had been seen on the Western Waters of the United States at least four + years before the nineteenth century arrived. + </p> + <p> + Baily finally reached New Orleans. The city then contained about a + thousand houses and was not only the market for the produce of the river + plantations but also the center of an extensive Indian trade. The goods + for this trade were packed in little barrels which were carried into the + interior on pack-horses, three barrels to a horse. The traders traveled + for hundreds of miles through the woods, bartering with the Indians on the + way and receiving, in exchange for their goods, bear and deer skins, + beaver furs, and wild ponies which had been caught by lariat in the + neighboring Apalousa country. + </p> + <p> + Baily had intended to return to New York by + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">96</a></span> + sea, but on his arrival at New + Orleans he was unable to find a ship sailing to New York. He therefore + decided to proceed northward by way of the long and dangerous Natchez + Trace and the Tennessee Path. Though few Europeans had made this laborious + journey before 1800, the Natchez Trace had been for many years the land + route of thousands of returning rivermen who had descended the Mississippi + in flatboat and barge. In practically all cases these men carried with + them the proceeds of their investment, and, as on every thoroughfare in + the world traveled by those returning from market, so here, too, + highwaymen and desperadoes, red and white, built their lairs and lay in + wait. Some of the most revolting crimes of the American frontier were + committed on these northward pathways and their branches. + </p> + <p> + Joining a party bound for Natchez, a hundred and fifty miles distant + overland, Baily proceeded to Lake Pontchartrain and thence "north by west + through the woods," by way of the ford of the Tangipahoa, Cooper's + Plantation, Tickfaw River, Amite River, and the "Hurricane" (the path of a + tornado) to the beginning of the Apalousa country. This tangled region of + stunted growth was reputed to be seven miles in width from "shore to + shore" + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">97</a></span> + and three hundred miles in length. It took the party half a day to + reach the opposite "shore," and they had to quench their thirst on the way + with dew. + </p> + <p> + At Natchez, Baily organized a party which included the five "Dutchmen" + whose horse boat had proved a failure. For their twenty-one days' journey + to Nashville the party laid in the following provisions: 15 pounds of + biscuit, 6 pounds of flour, 12 pounds of bacon, 10 pounds of dried beef, + 3 pounds of rice, 1½ pounds of coffee, 4 pounds of sugar, and a + quantity of pounded corn, such as the Indians used on all their journeys. + After celebrating the Fourth of July, 1797, with "all the inhabitants who + were hostile to the Spanish Government," and bribing the baker at the + Spanish fort to bake them a quarter of a hundredweight of bread, the party + started on their northward journey. + </p> + <p> + They reached without incident the famous Grindstone Ford of Bayou Pierre, + where crayfishes had destroyed a pioneer dam. Beyond, at the forks of the + path where the Choctaw Trail bore off to the east the party pursued the + alternate Chickasaw Trail by Indian guidance, and soon noted the change in + the character of the soil from black loam to sandy gravel, which indicated + that + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">98</a></span> + they had reached the Piedmont region. Indian marauders stole one + horse from the camp, and three of the party fell ill. The others, pressed + for food, were compelled to leave the sick men in an improvised camp and + to hasten on, promising to send to their aid the first Indian they should + meet "who understood herbs." After appalling hardships, they crossed the + Tennessee and entered the Nashville country, where the roads were good + enough for coaches, for they met two on the way. Thence Baily proceeded to + Knoxville, seeing, as he went, droves of cattle bound for the settlements + of west Tennessee. With his arrival at Knoxville, his journal ends + abruptly; but from other sources we learn that he sailed from New York on + his return to England in January, 1798. His interesting record, however, + remained unpublished until after his death in 1844. + </p> + <p> + Not only to Francis Baily but to scores of other travelers, even those of + unfriendly eyes, do modern readers owe a debt of gratitude. These men have + preserved a multitude of pictures and a wealth of data which would + otherwise have been lost. The men of America in those days were writing + the story of their deeds not on parchment or paper but on the virgin soil + of the wilderness. But + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">99</a></span> + though the stage driver, the tavern keeper, and the + burly riverman left no description of the life of their highways and their + commerce, these visitors from other lands have bequeathed to us their + thousands of pages full of the enterprising life of these pioneer days in + the history of American commerce. + </p> + <div class="chapterhead"> + <a name="Chapter07" id="Chapter07"></a> + <br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">100</a></span> + <br /><br /><br /> + <h2><a href="#Contents">CHAPTER VII</a></h2> + </div> + + <p class="chaptertitle">The Birth Of The Steamboat</p> + + <p class="noindent"> + <span class="smcap">The</span> crowds who welcomed the successive + stages in the development of + American transportation were much alike in essentials—they were all + optimistic, self-congratulatory, irrepressible in their enthusiasm, and + undaunted in their outlook. Dickens, perhaps, did not miss the truth + widely when, in speaking of stage driving, he said that the cry of "Go + Ahead!" in America and of "All Right!" in England were typical of the + civilizations of the two countries. Right or wrong, "Go Ahead!" has always + been the underlying passion of all men interested in the development of + commerce and transportation in these United States. + </p> + <p> + During the era of river improvement already described, men of imagination + were fascinated with the idea of propelling boats by mechanical means. + Even when Washington fared westward in 1784, he met at Bath, Virginia, one + of these + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">101</a></span> + early experimenters, James Rumsey, who haled him forthwith to a + neighboring meadow to watch a secret trial of a boat moved by means of + machinery which worked setting-poles similar to the ironshod poles used by + the rivermen to propel their boats upstream. "The model," wrote + Washington, "and its operation upon the water, which had been made to run + pretty swift, not only convinced me of what I before thought next to, if + not quite impracticable, but that it might be to the greatest possible + utility in inland navigation." Later he mentions the "discovery" as one of + those "circumstances which have combined to render the present epoch + favorable above all others for securing a large portion of the produce of + the western settlements, and of the fur and peltry of the Lakes, also." + </p> + <p> + From that day forward, scarcely a week passed without some new development + in the long and difficult struggle to improve the means of navigation. + Among the scores of men who engaged in this engrossing but discouraging + work, there is one whom the world is coming to honor more highly than in + previous years—John Fitch, of Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and + Kentucky. As early as August, 1785, Fitch launched on a rivulet in Bucks + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">102</a></span> + County, Pennsylvania, a boat propelled by an engine which moved an endless + chain to which little paddles were attached. The next year, Fitch's second + boat, operated by twelve paddles, six on a side—an arrangement + suggesting the "side-wheeler" of the future—successfully plied the + Delaware off "Conjuror's Point," as the scene of Fitch's labors was dubbed + in whimsical amusement and derision. In 1787 Rumsey, encouraged by + Franklin, fashioned a boat propelled by a stream of water taken in at the + prow and ejected at the stern. In 1788 Fitch's third boat traversed the + distance from Philadelphia to Burlington on numerous occasions and ran as + a regular packet in 1790, covering over a thousand miles. In this model + Fitch shifted the paddles from the sides to the rear, thus anticipating in + principle the modern stern-wheeler. + </p> + <p> + It was doubtless Fitch's experiments in 1785 that led to the first plan in + America to operate a land vehicle by steam. Oliver Evans, a neighbor and + acquaintance of Fitch's, petitioned the Pennsylvania Legislature in 1786 + for the right of operating wagons propelled by steam on the highways of + that State. This petition was derisively rejected; but a similar one made + to the Legislature of Maryland + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">103</a></span> + was granted on the ground that such action + could hurt nobody. Evans in 1802 took fiery revenge on the scoffers by + actually running his little five-horse-power carriage through + Philadelphia. The rate of speed, however, was so slow that the idea of + moving vehicles by steam was still considered useless for practical + purposes. Eight years later, Evans offered to wager $3000 that, on a level + road, he could make a carriage driven by steam equal the speed of the + swiftest horse, but he found no response. In 1812 he asserted that he was + willing to wager that he could drive a steam carriage on level rails at a + rate of fifteen miles an hour. Evans thus anticipated the belief of + Stephenson that steam-driven vehicles would travel best on railed tracks. + </p> + <p> + In the development of the steamboat almost all earlier means of + propulsion, natural and artificial, were used as models by the inventors. + The fins of fishes, the webbed feet of amphibious birds, the paddles of + the Indian, and the poles and oars of the riverman, were all imitated by + the patient inventors struggling with the problem. Rumsey's first effort + was a copy of the old setting-pole idea. Fitch's model of 1785 had side + paddle wheels operated by an endless chain. Fitch's second and third + models were practically paddle-wheel models, one + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">104</a></span> + having the paddles at the + side and the other at the stern. Ormsbee of Connecticut made a model, in + 1792, on the plan of a duck's foot. Morey made what may be called the + first real stern-wheeler in 1794. Two years later Fitch ran a veritable + screw propeller on Collect Pond near New York City. Although General + Benjamin Tupper of Massachusetts had been fashioning devices of this + character eight years previously, Fitch was the first to apply the idea + effectively. In 1798 he evolved the strange, amphibious creation known as + his "model of 1798," which has never been adequately explained. It was a + steamboat on iron wheels provided with flanges, as though it was intended + to be run on submerged tracks. What may have been the idea of its + inventor, living out his last gloomy days in Kentucky, may never be known; + but it is possible to see in this anomalous machine an anticipation of the + locomotive not approached by any other American of the time. Thus, prior + to 1800 almost every type of mechanism for the propulsion of steamboats + had been suggested and tried; and in 1804, Stevens's twin-screw propeller + completed the list. + </p> + <p> + It is not alone Fitch's development of the devices of the endless chain, + paddle wheel, and screw + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">105</a></span> + propeller and of his puzzling earth-and-water + creature that gives luster to his name. His prophetic insight into the + future national importance of the steamboat and his conception, as an + inventor, of his moral obligations to the people at large were as original + and striking in the science of that age as were his models. + </p> + <p> + The early years of the national life of the United States were the golden + age of monopoly. Every colony, as a matter of course, had granted to + certain men special privileges, and, as has already been pointed out, the + questions of monopolies and combinations in restraint of trade had arisen + even so early as the beginning of the eighteenth century. Interwoven + inextricably with these problems was the whole problem of colonial + rivalry, which in its later form developed into an insistence on state + rights. Every improvement in the means of transportation, every + development of natural resources, every new invention was inevitably + considered from the standpoint of sectional interests and with a view to + its monopolistic possibilities. This was particularly true in the case of + the steamboat, because of its limitation to rivers and bays which could be + specifically enumerated and defined. For instance, Washington in 1784 + attests the fact + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">106</a></span> + that Rumsey operated his mechanical boat at Bath in + secret "until he saw the effect of an application he was about to make to + the Assembly of this State, for a reward." The application was successful, + and Rumsey was awarded a monopoly in Virginia waters for ten years. + </p> + <p> + Fitch, on the other hand, when he applied to Congress in 1785, desired + merely to obtain official encouragement and intended to allow his + invention to be used by all comers. Meeting only with rebuff, he realized + that his only hope of organizing a company that could provide working + capital lay in securing monopolistic privileges. In 1786 he accordingly + applied to the individual States and secured the sole right to operate + steamboats on the waterways of New Jersey, Delaware, New York, + Pennsylvania, and Virginia. How different would have been the story of the + steamboat if Congress had accepted Fitch at his word and created a + precedent against monopolistic rights on American rivers! + </p> + <p> + Fitch, in addition to the high purpose of devoting his new invention to + the good of the nation without personal considerations, must be credited + with perceiving at the very beginning the peculiar importance of the + steamboat to the American West. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">107</a></span> + His original application to Congress in + 1785 opened: "The subscriber begs leave to lay at the feet of Congress, an + attempt he has made to facilitate the internal Navigation of the United + States, adapted especially to the Waters of the Mississippi." At another + time with prophetic vision he wrote: "The Grand and Principle object must + be on the Atlantick, which would soon overspread the wild forests of + America with people, and make us the most oppulent Empire on Earth. Pardon + me, generous public, for suggesting ideas that cannot be dijested at this + day." + </p> + <p> + Foremost in exhibiting high civic and patriotic motives, Fitch was also + foremost in appreciating the importance of the steamboat in the expansion + of American trade. This significance was also clearly perceived by his + brilliant successor, Robert Fulton. That the West and its commerce were + always predominant in Fulton's great schemes is proved by words which he + addressed in 1803 to James Monroe, American Ambassador to Great Britain: + "You have perhaps heard of the success of my experiments for navigating + boats by steam engines and you will feel the importance of establishing + such boats on the Mississippi and other rivers of the United States as + soon as possible." + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">108</a></span> + Robert Fulton had been interested in steamboats for a + period not definitely known, possibly since his sojourn in Philadelphia in + the days of Fitch's early efforts. That he profited by the other + inventor's efforts at the time, however, is not suggested by any of his + biographers. He subsequently went to London and gave himself up to the + study and practice of engineering. There he later met James Rumsey, who + came to England in 1788, and by him no doubt was informed, if he was not + already aware, of the experiments and models of Rumsey and Fitch. He + obtained the loan of Fitch's plans and drawings and made his own trial of + various existing devices, such as oars, paddles, duck's feet, and Fitch's + endless chain with "resisting-boards" attached. Meanwhile Fulton was also + devoting his attention to problems of canal construction and to the + development of submarine boats and submarine explosives. He was engaged in + these researches in France in 1801 when the new American minister, Robert + R. Livingston, arrived, and the two men soon formed a friendship destined + to have a vital and enduring influence upon the development of steam + navigation on the inland waterways of America. + </p> + <p> + Livingston already had no little experience in + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">109</a></span> + the same field of invention as Fulton. In 1798 he had obtained, for a + period of twenty years, the right to operate steamboats on all the + waters of the State of New York, a monopoly which had just lapsed owing + to the death of Fitch. In the same year Livingston had built a steamboat + which had made three miles an hour on the Hudson. He had experimented + with most of the models then in existence—upright paddles at the + side, endless-chain paddles, and stern paddle wheels. Fulton was soon + inspired to resume his efforts by Livingston's account of his own + experiments and of recent advances in England, where a steamboat had + navigated the Thames in 1801 and a year later the famous stern-wheeler + <i>Charlotte Dundas</i> had towed boats of 140 tons' burden on the Forth + and Clyde Canal at the rate of five miles an hour. In this same year + Fulton and Livingston made successful experiments on the Seine. + </p> + <p> + It is fortunate that, in one particular, Livingston's influence did not + prevail with Fulton, for the American Minister was distinctly prejudiced + against paddle wheels. Although Livingston had previously ridden as a + passenger on Morey's stern-wheeler at the rate of five miles an hour, yet + he had turned a deaf ear when his partner in + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">110</a></span> + experimentation, Nicholas J. + Roosevelt, had insisted strongly on "throwing wheels over the sides." At + the beginning, Fulton himself was inclined to agree with Livingston in + this respect; but, probably late in 1803, he began to investigate more + carefully the possibilities of the paddle wheel as used twice in America + by Morey and by four or five experimenters in Europe. In 1804 an + eight-mile trip which Fulton made on the <i>Charlotte Dundas</i> in an + hour and twenty minutes established his faith in the undeniable + superiority of two fundamental factors of early navigation—paddle + wheels and British engines. Fulton's splendid fame rests, and rightly so, + on his perception of the fact that no mere ingenuity of design could + counterbalance weakness, uncertainty, and inefficiency in the mechanism + which was intended to make a steamboat run and keep running. As early as + November, 1803, Fulton had written to Boulton and Watt of Birmingham that + he had "not confidence in any other engines" than theirs and that he was + seeking a means of getting one of those engines to America. "I cannot + establish the boat without the engine," he now emphatically wrote to James + Monroe, then Ambassador to the Court of St. James. "The question then is + shall we or shall we not have such boats." + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">111</a></span> + But there were difficulties in the way. Though England forbade the + exportation of engines, Fulton knew that, in numerous instances, this rule + had not been enforced, and he had hopes of success. "The British + Government," Fulton wrote Monroe, "must have little friendship or even + civility toward America, if they refuse such a request." Before the + steamboat which Fulton and Livingston proposed to build in America could + be operated there was another obstacle to be surmounted. The rights of + steam navigation of New York waters which Livingston had obtained on the + death of Fitch in 1798 had lapsed because of his failure to run a + steamboat at the rate of four miles an hour, which was one provision of + the grant. In April, 1803, the grant was renewed to Livingston, Roosevelt, + and Fulton jointly for another period of twenty years, and the date when + the boat was to make the required four miles an hour was extended finally + to 1807. + </p> + <p> + Any one who is inclined to criticize the Livingston-Roosevelt-Fulton + monopoly which now came into existence should remember that the previous + state grants formed a precedent of no slight moment. The whole proceeding + was in perfect accord with the spirit of the times, for it was an + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">112</a></span> + era of speculation and monopoly ushered in by the toll-road and turnpike + organizations, when probably no less than two hundred companies were + formed. It was young America showing itself in an unmistakable + manner—"conceived in liberty" and starting on the long road to + learn that obedience to law and respect for public rights constitute + true liberty. Finally, it must be pointed out that Fulton, like his + famous predecessor, Fitch, was impelled by motives far higher than the + love of personal gain. "I consider them [steamboats] of such infinite + use in America," he wrote Monroe, "that I should feel a culpable neglect + toward my country if I relaxed for a moment in pursuing every necessary + measure for carrying it into effect." And later, when repeating his + argument, he says: "I plead this not for myself alone but for our + country." + </p> + <p> + It is now evident why the alliance of Fulton with Livingston was of such + epoch-making importance, for, although it may have in some brief measure + delayed Fulton's adoption of paddle wheels, it gave him an entry to the + waters of New York. Livingston and Fulton thus supplemented each other; + Livingston possessed a monopoly and Fulton a correct estimate of the value + of paddle wheels + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">113</a></span> + and, secondly, of Boulton and Watt engines. It was a rare + combination destined to crown with success a long period of effort and + discouragement in the history of navigation. + </p> + <p> + After considerable delay and difficulty, the two Americans obtained + permission to export the necessary engine from Great Britain and shipped + it to New York, whither Fulton himself proceeded to construct his + steamboat. The hull was built by Charles Brown, a New York shipbuilder, + and the Boulton and Watt machinery, set in masonry, was finally installed. + </p> + <p> + The voyage to Albany, against a stiff wind, occupied thirty-two hours; the + return trip was made in thirty. H. Freeland, one of the spectators who + stood on the banks of the Hudson when the boat made its maiden voyage in + 1807, gives the following description: + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + Some imagined it to be a sea-monster whilst others did not hesitate to + express their belief that it was a sign of the approaching judgment. What + seemed strange in the vessel was the substitution of lofty and straight + smoke-pipes, rising from the deck, instead of the gracefully tapered + masts … and, in place of the spars and rigging, the curious play of + the walking-beam and pistons, and the slow turning and splashing of the + huge and naked paddle-wheels, met the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">114</a></span> + astonished gaze. The dense clouds of smoke, as they rose, wave upon wave, + added still more to the wonderment of the rustics.… On her return + trip the curiosity she excited was scarcely less intense … + fishermen became terrified, and rode homewards, and they saw nothing but + destruction devastating their fishing grounds, whilst the wreaths of + black vapor and rushing noise of the paddle-wheels, foaming with the + stirred-up water, produced great excitement.… + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + With the launching of the <i>Clermont</i> on the Hudson a new era in + American history began. How quick with life it was many of the preceding + pages bear testimony. The infatuation of the public for building toll and + turnpike roads was now at its height. Only a few years before, a + comprehensive scheme of internal improvements had been outlined by + Jefferson's Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin. When a boy, it + is said, he had lain on the floor of a surveyor's cabin on the western + slopes of the Alleghanies and had heard Washington describe to a rough + crowd of Westerners his plan to unite the Great Lakes with the Potomac + in one mighty chain of inland commerce. Jefferson's Administration was + now about to devote the surplus in the Treasury to the construction of + national highways and canals. The Cumberland Road, to be built across + the Alleghanies + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">115</a></span> + by the War Department, was authorized by the President in the same + year in which the <i>Clermont</i> made her first trip; and Jesse Hawley, + at his table in a little room in a Pittsburgh boarding house, was even + now penning in a series of articles, published in the Pittsburgh + <i>Commonwealth,</i> beginning in January, 1807, the first clear + challenge to the Empire State to connect the Hudson and Lake Erie + by a canal. Thus the two next steps in the history of inland commerce + in America were ready to be taken. + </p> + <div class="chapterhead"> + <a name="Chapter08" id="Chapter08"></a> + <br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">116</a></span> + <br /><br /><br /> + <h2><a href="#Contents">CHAPTER VIII</a></h2> + </div> + + <p class="chaptertitle">The Conquest Of The Alleghanies</p> + + + <p class="noindent"> + <span class="smcap">The</span> two great thoroughfares of American + commerce in the first half of the nineteenth century were the Cumberland + Road and the Erie Canal. The first generation of the new century + witnessed the great burst of population into the West which at once + gave Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin a place of national + importance which they have never relinquished. So far as pathways of + commerce contributed to the creation of this veritable new republic in + the Middle West, the Cumberland Road and the Erie Canal, coöperating + respectively with Ohio River and Lake Erie steamboats, were of the utmost + importance. The national spirit, said to have arisen from the second war + with England, had its clearest manifestation in the throwing of a great + macadamized roadway across the Alleghanies to the Ohio River and the + digging of the Erie + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">117</a></span> + Canal through the swamps and wildernesses of New York. + </p> + <p> + Both of these pathways were essentially the fruition of the doctrine to + which Washington gave wide circulation in his letter to Harrison in 1784, + wherein he pictured the vision of a vast Republic united by commercial + chains. Both were essentially Western enterprises. The highway was built + to fulfil the promise which the Government had made in 1802 to use a + portion of the money accruing from the sale of public lands in Ohio in + order to connect that young State with Atlantic waters. It was proposed to + build the canal, according to one early plan, with funds to be obtained by + the sale of land in Michigan. So firmly did the promoters believe in the + national importance of this project that subscriptions, according to + another plan, were to be solicited as far afield as Vermont in the North + and Kentucky in the Southwest. All that Washington had hoped for, and all + that Aaron Burr is supposed to have been hopeless of, were epitomized in + these great works of internal improvement. They bespoke coöperation + of the highest existing types of loyalty, optimism, financial skill, and + engineering ability. + </p> + <p> + Yet, on the other hand, the contrasts between + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">118</a></span> + these undertakings were + great. The two enterprises, one the work of the nation and the other that + of a single State, were practically contemporaneous and were therefore + constantly inviting comparison. The Cumberland Road was, for its day, a + gigantic government undertaking involving problems of finance, civil + engineering, eminent domain, state rights, local favoritism, and political + machination. Its purpose was noble and its successful construction a + credit to the nation; but the paternalism to which it gave rise and the + conflicts which it precipitated in Congress over questions of + constitutionality were remembered soberly for a century. The Erie Canal, + after its projectors had failed to obtain national aid, became the + undertaking of one commonwealth conducted, amid countless doubts and + jeers, to a conclusion unbelievably successful. As a result many States, + foregoing Federal aid, attempted to duplicate the successful feat of New + York. In this respect the northern canal resembled the Lancaster Turnpike + and tempted scores of States and corporations to expenditures which were + unwise in circumstances less favorable than those of the fruitful and + strategic Empire State. + </p> + <p> + In the conception of both the roadway and the canal, it should be noted, + the old idea of making + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">119</a></span> + use of navigable rivers still persisted. The act + foreshadowing the Cumberland Road, passed in 1802, called for "making + public roads leading from the navigable waters emptying into the Atlantic, + to the Ohio, to said State Ohio and through the same"; and Hawley's + original plan was to build the Erie Canal from Utica to Buffalo using the + Mohawk from Utica to the Hudson. + </p> + <p> + Historic Cumberland, in Maryland, was chosen by Congress as the eastern + terminus of the great highway which should bind Ohio to the Old Thirteen. + Commissioners were appointed in 1806 to choose the best route by which the + great highway could reach the Ohio River between Steubenville, Ohio and + the mouth of Grave Creek; but difficulties of navigation in the + neighborhood of the Three Sister Islands near Charlestown, or Wellsburg, + West Virginia, led to the choice of Wheeling, farther down, as a temporary + western terminus. + </p> + <p> + The route selected was an excellent compromise between the long standing + rival claims of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia to the trade of the + West. If Baltimore and Alexandria were to be better served than + Philadelphia, the advantage was slight; and Pennsylvania gained + compensation, ere the State gave the National Government + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">120</a></span> + permission to + build the road within its limits, by dictating that it should pass through + Uniontown and Washington. In this way Pennsylvania obtained, without cost, + unrivaled advantages for a portion of the State which might otherwise have + been long neglected. + </p> + <p> + The building of the road, however satisfactory in the main, was not + undertaken without arousing many sectional and personal hopes and + prejudices and jealousies, of which the echoes still linger in local + legends today. Land-owners, mine-owners, factory-owners, innkeepers and + countless townsmen and villagers anxiously watched the course of the road + and were bitterly disappointed if the new sixty-four-foot thoroughfare did + not pass immediately through their property. On the other hand, promoters + of toll and turnpike companies, who had promising schemes and long lists + of shareholders, were far from eager to have their property taken for a + national road. No one believed that, if it proved successful, it would be + the only work of its kind, and everywhere men looked for the construction + of government highways out of the overflowing wealth of the treasury + within the next few years. + </p> + <p> + In April, 1811, the first contracts were let for + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">121</a></span> + building the first ten miles of the road from its eastern terminus and + were completed in 1812. More contracts were let in 1812, 1813, and 1815. + Even in those days of war when the drain on the national treasury was + excessive, over a quarter of a million dollars was appropriated for the + construction of the road. Onward it crawled, through the beautiful + Cumberland gateway of the Potomac, to Big Savage and Little Savage + Mountains, to Little Pine Run (the first "Western" water), to Red Hill + (later called "Shades of Death" because of the gloomy forest growth), + to high-flung Negro Mountain at an elevation of 2325 feet, and thence + on to the Youghiogheny, historic Great Meadows, Braddock's Grave, Laurel + Hill, Uniontown, and Brownsville, where it crossed the Monongahela. + Thence, on almost a straight line, it sped by way of Washington to + Wheeling. Its average cost was upwards of thirteen thousand dollars a + mile from the Potomac to the Ohio. The road was used in 1817, and in + another year the mail coaches of the United States were running from + Washington to Wheeling, West Virginia. Within five years one + of the five commission houses doing business at Wheeling is said to have + handled over a thousand wagons carrying freight of nearly two tons each. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">122</a></span> + The Cumberland Road at once leaped into a position of leadership, both in + volume of commerce and in popularity, and held its own for two famous + decades. The pulse of the nation beat to the steady throb of trade along + its highway. Maryland at once stretched out her eager arms, along stone + roads, through Frederick and Hagerstown to Cumberland, and thus formed a + single route from the Ohio to Baltimore. Great stagecoach and freight + lines were soon established, each patronizing its own stage house or wagon + stand in the thriving towns along the road. The primitive box stage gave + way to the oval or football type with curved top and bottom, and this was + displaced in turn by the more practical Concord coach of national fame. + The names of the important stagecoach companies were quite as well known, + a century ago, as those of our great railways today. Chief among them were + the <i>National, Good Intent, June Bug,</i> and <i>Pioneer</i> lines. + The coaches, drawn by four and sometimes six horses, were usually painted + in brilliant colors and were named after eminent statesmen. The drivers + of these gay chariots were characters quite as famous locally as the + personages whose names were borne by the coaches. Westover and his record + of forty-five + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">123</a></span> + minutes for the twenty miles between Uniontown and Brownsville, and + "Red" Bunting, with his drive of a hundred and thirty-one miles in + twelve hours with the declaration of war against Mexico, will be long + famous on the curving stretches of the Cumberland Road. + </p> + <p> + Although the freight and express traffic of those days lacked the + picturesqueness of the passenger coaches, nothing illustrates so + conclusively what the great road meant to an awakening West as the long + lines of heavy Conestogas and rattling express wagons which raced at + "unprecedented" speed across hill and vale. Searight, the local historian + of the road, describes these large, broad-wheeled wagons covered with + white canvas as + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + visible all the day long, at every point, making the highway look more + like a leading avenue of a great city than a road through rural + districts.… I have staid over night with William Cheets on Nigger + [Negro] Mountain when there were about thirty six-horse teams in the wagon + yard, a hundred Kentucky mules in an adjoining lot, a thousand hogs in + their enclosures, and as many fat cattle in adjoining fields. The music + made by this large number of hogs eating corn on a frosty night I shall + never forget. After supper and attention to the teams, the wagoners would + gather in the bar-room and listen to the music on the violin furnished by + one of their fellows, have a Virginia + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">124</a></span> + hoe-down, sing songs, tell + anecdotes, and hear the experiences of drivers and drovers from all points + of the road, and, when it was all over, unroll their beds, lay them down + on the floor before the bar-room fire side by side, and sleep with their + feet near the blaze as soundly as under the parental roof. + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + Meanwhile New York, the other great rival for Western trade, was intent on + its own darling project, the Erie Canal. In 1808, three years before the + building of the Cumberland Road, Joshua Forman offered a bill in favor of + the canal in the Legislature of New York. In plain but dignified language + this document stated that New York possessed "the best route of + communication between the Atlantic and western waters," and that it held + "the first commercial rank in the United States." The bill also noted + that, while "several of our sister States" were seeking to secure "the + trade of that wide extended country," their natural advantages were + "vastly inferior." Six hundred dollars was the amount appropriated for a + brief survey, and Congress was asked to vote aid for the construction of + the "Buffalo-Utica Canal." The matter was widely talked about but action + was delayed. Doubt as to the best route to be pursued caused some + discussion. If the western terminus were to + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">125</a></span> + be located on Lake Ontario at + the mouth of the Oswego, as some advocated, would produce not make its way + to Montreal instead of to New York? In 1810 a new committee was appointed + and, though their report favored the paralleling of the course of the + Mohawk and Oswego rivers, their engineer, James Geddes, gave strength to + the party which believed a direct canal would best serve the interests of + the State. It is worth noting that Livingston and Fulton were added to the + committee in 1811. + </p> + <p> + The hopes of outside aid from Congress and adjacent States met with + disappointment. In vain did the advocates of the canal in 1812 plead that + its construction would promote "a free and general intercourse between + different parts of the United States, tend to the aggrandizement and + prosperity of the country, and consolidate and strengthen the Union." The + plan to have the Government subsidize the canal by vesting in the State of + New York four million acres of Michigan land brought out a protest from + the West which is notable not so much because it records the opposition of + this section as because it illustrates the shortsightedness of most of the + arguments raised against the New York enterprise. The purpose of the + canal, the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">126</a></span> + detractors asserted, was to build up New York City to the detriment of + Montreal, and the navigation of Lake Ontario, whose beauty they touchingly + described, was to be abandoned for a "narrow, winding obstructed canal + … for an expense which arithmetic dares not approach." + It was, in their minds, unquestionably a selfish object, and they believed + that "both correct science, and the dictates of patriotism and + philanthropy [should] lead to the adoption of more liberal principles." It + was a shortsighted object, "predicated on the eternal adhesion of the + Canadas to England." It would never give satisfaction since trade would + always ignore artificial and seek natural routes. The attempting of such + comparatively useless projects would discourage worthy schemes, relax the + bonds of Union, and depress the national character. But though these + Westerners thus misjudged the possibilities of the Erie Canal, we must + doff our hats to them for their foresight in suggesting that, instead of + aiding the Erie Canal, the nation ought to build canals at Niagara Falls + and Panama! + </p> + <p> + The War of 1812 suspended all talk of the canal, but the subject was again + brought up by Judge Platt in the autumn of 1816. With alacrity strong men + came to the aid of the measure. De Witt + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">127</a></span> + Clinton's <i>Memorial</i> of 1816 + addressed to the State Legislature may well rank with Washington's letter + to Harrison in the documentary history of American commercial development. + It sums up the geographical position of New York with reference to the + Great Lakes and the Atlantic, her relationship to the West and to Canada, + the feasibility of the proposed route from an engineering standpoint, the + timeliness of the moment for such a work of improvement, the value that + the canal would give to the state lands of the interior, and the trade + that it would bring to the towns along its pathway. + </p> + <p> + The Erie Canal was born in the Act of April 14, 1817, but the decision of + the Council of Revision, which held the power of veto, was in doubt. An + anecdote related by Judge Platt tends to prove that fear of another war + with England was the straw that broke the camel's back of opposition. + Acting-Governor Taylor, Chief Justice Thompson, Chancellor Kent, Judge + Yates, and Judge Platt composed the Council. The two first named were open + opponents of the measure; Kent, Yates, and Platt were warm advocates of + the project, but one of them doubted if the time was ripe to undertake it. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">128</a></span> + Taylor opposed the canal on the ground that the late treaty with England + was a mere truce and that the resources of the State should be husbanded + against renewed war. + </p> + <p> + "Do you think so, Sir?" Chancellor Kent is said to have asked the + Governor. + </p> + <p> + "Yes, Sir," was the reported reply. "England will never forgive us for our + victories, and, my word for it, we shall have another war with her within + two years." + </p> + <p> + The Chancellor rose to his feet with determination and sealed the fate of + the great enterprise in a word. + </p> + <p> + "If we must have war," he exclaimed, "I am in favor of the canal and I + cast my vote for this bill." + </p> + <p> + On July 4, 1817, work was formally inaugurated at Rome with simple + ceremonies. Thus the year 1817 was marked by three great undertakings: the + navigation of the Mississippi River upstream and down by steamboats, the + opening of the national road across the Alleghany Mountains, and the + beginning of the Erie Canal. No single year in the early history of the + United States witnessed three such important events in the material + progress of the country. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">129</a></span> + What days the ancient "Long House of the Iroquois" now saw! The engineers + of the Cumberland Road, now nearing the Ohio River, had enjoyed the + advantage of many precedents and examples; but the Commissioners of the + Erie Canal had been able to study only such crude examples of + canal-building as America then afforded. Never on any continent had such + an inaccessible region been pierced by such a highway. The total length of + the whole network of canals in Great Britain did not equal that of the + waterway which the New Yorkers now undertook to build. The lack of roads, + materials, vehicles, methods of drilling and efficient business systems + was overcome by sheer patience and perseverance in experiment. The frozen + winter roads saved the day by making it possible to accumulate a proper + supply of provisions and materials. As tools of construction, the plough + and scraper with their greater capacity for work soon supplanted the + shovel and the wheelbarrow, which had been the chief implements for such + construction in Europe. Strange new machinery born of Mother Necessity was + now heard groaning in the dark swamps of New York. These giants, worked by + means of a cable, wheel, and endless screw, were made to hoist + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">130</a></span> + green + stumps bodily from the ground and, without the use of axe, to lay trees + prostrate, root and branch. A new plough was fashioned with which a yoke + of oxen could cut roots two inches in thickness well beneath the surface + of the ground. + </p> + <p> + Handicaps of various sorts wore the patience of commissioners, engineers, + and contractors. Lack of snow during one winter all but stopped the work + by cutting off the source of supplies. Pioneer ailments, such as fever and + ague, reaped great harvests, incapacitated more than a thousand workmen at + one time and for a brief while stopped work completely. + </p> + <p> + For the most part, however, work was carried on simultaneously on all the + three great links or sections into which the enterprise was divided. Local + contractors were given preference by the commissioners, and three-fourths + of the work was done by natives of the State. Forward up the Mohawk by + Schenectady and Utica to Rome, thence bending southward to Syracuse, and + from there by way of Clyde, Lyons, and Palmyra, the canal made its way to + the giant viaduct over the Genesee River at Rochester. Keeping close to + the summit level on the dividing ridge between Lake Ontario streams and + the Valley of the Tonawanda, the line + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">131</a></span> + ran to Lockport, where a series of + locks placed the canal on the Lake Erie level, 365 miles from and 564 feet + above Albany. By June, 1823, the canal was completed from Rochester to + Schenectady; in October boats passed into the tidewaters of the Hudson at + Albany; and in the autumn of 1825 the canal was formally opened by the + passage of a triumphant fleet from Lake Erie to New York Bay. Here two + kegs of lake water were emptied into the Atlantic, while the Governor of + the State of New York spoke these words: + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + This solemnity, at this place, on the first arrival of vessels from Lake + Erie, is intended to indicate and commemorate the navigable communication, + which has been accomplished between our Mediterranean Seas and the + Atlantic Ocean, in about eight years, to the extent of more than four + hundred and twenty-five miles, by the wisdom, public spirit, and energy of + the people of the State of New York; and may the God of the Heavens and + the Earth smile most propitiously on this work, and render it subservient + to the best interests of the human race. + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + Throughout these last seven years, the West was subconsciously getting + ready to meet the East halfway by improving and extending her steamboat + operations. Steamboats were first run on the Great Lakes by enterprising + Buffalo citizens who, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">132</a></span> + in 1818, secured rights from the Fulton-Livingston monopoly to build + the <i>Walk-in-the-Water,</i> the first of the great fleet of ships + that now whiten the inland seas of the United States. Regular lines + of steamboats were now formed on the Ohio to connect with the Cumberland + Road at Wheeling, although the steamboat monopoly threatened to stifle the + natural development of transportation on Western rivers. + </p> + <p> + The completion of the Erie Canal—coupled with the new appropriation + by Congress for extending the Cumberland Road from the Ohio River to + Missouri and the beginning of the Pennsylvania and the Chesapeake and Ohio + canals, reveal the importance of these concluding days of the first + quarter of the nineteenth century in the annals of American + transportation. Never since that time have men doubted the ability of + Americans to accomplish the physical domination of their continent. With + the conquest of the Alleghanies and of the forests and swamps of the "Long + House" by pick and plough and scraper, and the mastery of the currents of + the Mississippi by the paddle wheel, the vast plains beyond seemed smaller + and the Rockies less formidable. Men now looked forward confidently, with + an optimist of + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">133</a></span> + these days, to the time "when circulation and association between the + Atlantic and Pacific and the Mexican Gulf shall be as free and perfect + as they are at this moment in England" between the extremities of that + country. The vision of a nation closely linked by well-worn paths of + commerce was daily becoming clearer. What further westward progress was + soon to be made remains to be seen. + </p> + <div class="chapterhead"> + <a name="Chapter09" id="Chapter09"></a> + <br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">134</a></span> + <br /><br /><br /> + <h2><a href="#Contents">CHAPTER IX</a></h2> + </div> + <p class="chaptertitle">The Dawn Of The Iron Age</p> + + <p class="noindent"> + <span class="smcap">Despite</span> the superiority of the new iron + age that quickly followed the widespreading canal movement, there was a + generous spirit and a chivalry in the "good old days" of the stagecoach, + the Conestoga, and the lazy canal boat, which did not to an equal degree + pervade the iron age of the railroad. When machinery takes the place of + human brawn and patience, there is an indefinable eclipse of human + interest. Somehow, cogs and levers and differentials do not have the + same appeal as fingers and eyes and muscles. The old days of coach and + canal boat had a picturesqueness and a comradeship of their own. In the + turmoil and confusion and odd mixing of every kind of humanity along the + lines of travel in the days of the hurtling coach-and-six, a friendliness, + a robust sympathy, a ready interest in the successful and the unfortunate, + a knowledge of how the other half lives, and a familiarity + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">135</a></span> + with men as well as with mere places, was common to all who took the + road. As Thackeray so vividly describes it: + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + The land rang yet with the tooting horns and rattling teams of + mail-coaches; a gay sight was the road in those days, before steam-engines + arose and flung its hostelry and chivalry over. To travel in coaches, to + know coachmen and guards, to be familiar with inns along the road, to + laugh with the jolly hostess in the bar, to chuck the pretty chamber-maid + under the chin, were the delight of men who were young not very long ago. + The road was an institution, the ring was an institution. Men rallied + around them; and, not without a kind of conservatism expatiated on the + benefits with which they endowed the country, and the evils which would + occur when they should be no more:—decay of British spirit, decay + of manly pluck, ruin of the breed of horses, and so forth and so forth. + To give and take a black eye was not unusual nor derogatory in a + gentleman: to drive a stage-coach the enjoyment, the emulation, of + generous youth. Is there any young fellow of the present time, who + aspires to take the place of a stoker? One sees occasionally in the + country a dismal old drag with a lonely driver. Where are you, + charioteers? Where are you, O rattling <i>Quicksilver</i>, O swift + <i>Defiance</i>? You are passed by racers stronger and swifter than you. + Your lamps are out, and the music of your horns has died away. + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + Behind this change from the older and more picturesque days which is thus + lamented there lay + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">136</a></span> + potent economic forces and a strong commercial rivalry + between different parts of the country. The Atlantic States were all + rivals of each other, reaching out by one bold stroke after another across + forest, mountain, and river to the gigantic and fruitful West. Step after + step the inevitable conquest went on. Foremost in time marched the sturdy + pack-horsemen, blazing the way for the heavier forces quietly biding their + time in the rear—the Conestogas, the steamboat, the canal boat, and, + last and greatest of them all, the locomotive. + </p> + <p> + Through a long preliminary period the principal center of interest was the + Potomac Valley, towards whose strategic head Virginia and Maryland, by + river-improvement and road-building, were directing their commercial + routes in amiable rivalry for the conquest of the Western trade. Suddenly + out from the southern region of the Middle Atlantic States went the + Cumberland National Road to the Ohio. New York instantly, in her zone, + took up the challenge and thrust her great Erie Canal across to the Great + Lakes. In rapid succession, Pennsylvania and Maryland and Virginia, eager + not to be outdone in winning the struggle for Western trade, sent their + canals into the Alleghanies toward the Ohio. + </p> + <p> + It soon developed, however, that Baltimore, both + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">137</a></span> + powerful and ambitious, + was seriously handicapped. In order to retain her commanding position as + the metropolis of Western trade she was compelled to resort to a new and + untried method of transportation which marks an era in American history. + </p> + <p> + It seems plain that the Southern rivals of New York City—Philadelphia, + Baltimore, and Alexandria—had relied for a while on the deterring + effect of a host of critics who warned all men that a canal of such + proportions as the Erie was not practicable, that no State could bear the + financial drain which its construction would involve, that theories which + had proved practical on a small scale would fail in so large an + undertaking, that the canal would be clogged by floods or frozen up for + half of each year, and that commerce would ignore artificial courses and + cling to natural channels. But the answer of the Empire State to her + rivals was the homely but triumphant cry "Low Bridge!"—the warning + to passengers on the decks of canal boats as they approached the numerous + bridges which spanned the route. When this cry passed into a byword it + afforded positive proof that the Erie Canal traffic was firmly + established. The words rang in the counting-houses of Philadelphia and out + and along the Lancaster and the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">138</a></span> + Philadelphia-Pittsburgh turnpikes—"Low + Bridge! Low Bridge!" Pennsylvania had granted, it has been pointed out, + that her Southern neighbors might have their share of the Ohio Valley + trade but maintained that the splendid commerce of the Great Lakes was her + own peculiar heritage. Men of Baltimore who had dominated the energetic + policy of stone-road building in their State heard this alarming challenge + from the North. The echo ran "Low Bridge!" in the poor decaying locks of + the Potomac Company where, according to the committee once appointed to + examine that enterprise, flood-tides "gave the only navigation that was + enjoyed." Were their efforts to keep the Chesapeake metropolis in the lead + to be set at naught? + </p> + <p> + There could be but one answer to the challenge, and that was to rival + canal with canal. These more southerly States, confronted by the towering + ranges of the Alleghanies to the westward, showed a courage which was + superb, although, as time proved in the case of Maryland, they might well + have taken more counsel of their fears. Pennsylvania acted swiftly. Though + its western waterway—the roaring Juniata, which entered the + Susquehanna near Harrisburg—had a drop from head to mouth greater + than that of the entire New + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">139</a></span> + York canal, and, though the mountains of the + Altoona region loomed straight up nearly three thousand feet, Pennsylvania + overcame the lowlands by main strength and the mountain peaks by strategy + and was sending canal boats from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh within nine + years of the completion of the Erie Canal. + </p> + <p> + The eastern division of the Pennsylvania Canal, known as the Union Canal, + from Reading on the Schuylkill to Middletown on the Susquehanna, was + completed in 1827. The Juniata section was then driven on up to + Hollidaysburg. Beyond the mountain barrier, the Conemaugh, the + Kiskiminitas, and the Allegheny were followed to Pittsburgh. But the + greatest feat in the whole enterprise was the conquest of the mountain + section, from Hollidaysburg to Johnstown. This was accomplished by the + building of five inclined planes on each slope, each plane averaging about + 2300 feet in length and 200 feet in height. Up or down these slopes and + along the intermediate level sections cars and giant cradles (built to be + lowered into locks where they could take an entire canal boat as a load) + were to be hauled or lowered by horsepower, and later, by steam. After the + plans had been drawn up by Sylvester Welch and Moncure + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">140</a></span> + Robinson, the + Pennsylvania Legislature authorized the work in 1831, and traffic over + this aerial route was begun in March, 1834. In autumn of that year, the + stanch boat <i>Hit or Miss,</i> from the Lackawanna country, owned by Jesse + Crisman and captained by Major Williams, made the journey across the whole + length of the canal. It rested for a night on the Alleghany summit "like + Noah's Ark on Ararat," wrote Sherman Day, "descended the next morning into + the Valley of the Mississippi, and sailed for St. Louis." + </p> + <p> + Well did Robert Stephenson, the famous English engineer, say that, in + boldness of design and difficulty of execution, this Pennsylvania scheme + of mastering the Alleghanies could be compared with no modern triumph + short of the feats performed at the Simplon Pass and Mont Cenis. Before + long this line of communication became a very popular thoroughfare; even + Charles Dickens "heartily enjoyed" it—in retrospect—and left + interesting impressions of his journey over it: + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + Even the running up, bare-necked, at five o'clock in the morning from the + tainted cabin to the dirty deck; scooping up the icy water, plunging one's + head into it, and drawing it out, all fresh and glowing with the cold; was + a good thing. The fast, brisk walk upon the towing-path, between that time + and breakfast, when + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">141</a></span> + every vein and artery seemed to tingle with health; + the exquisite beauty of the opening day, when light came gleaming off from + everything; the lazy motion of the boat, when one lay idly on the deck, + looking through, rather than at, the deep blue sky; the gliding on, at + night, so noiselessly, past frowning hills, sullen with dark trees, and + sometimes angry in one red burning spot high up, where unseen men lay + crouching round a fire; the shining out of the bright stars, undisturbed + by noise of wheels or steam, or any other sound than the liquid rippling + of the water as the boat went on; all these were pure delights. ¹ + </p> + </blockquote> + <div class="footer"> + <p class="footer"> + <a id="footer_141-1" name="footer_141-1"></a> + ¹ <i>American Notes</i> (Gadshill Edition), pp. 180-181. + </p> + </div> + <p class="noindent"> + Dickens also thus graphically depicts the unique experience of being + carried over the mountain peaks on the aerial railway: + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + There are ten inclined planes; five ascending and five descending; the + carriages are dragged up the former, and let slowly down the latter, by + means of stationary engines; the comparatively level spaces between being + traversed, sometimes by horse, and sometimes by engine power, as the case + demands. Occasionally the rails are laid upon the extreme verge of a giddy + precipice; and looking from the carriage window, the traveler gazes sheer + down, without a stone or scrap of fence between, into the mountain depths + below. The journey is very carefully made, however; only two carriages + traveling together; and while proper precautions are taken, is not to be + dreaded for its dangers. + </p> + <p> + It was very pretty traveling thus, at a rapid pace + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">142</a></span> + along the heights of the mountain in a keen wind, to look down into a + valley full of light and softness; catching glimpses, through the + tree-tops, of scattered cabins; children running to the doors; dogs + bursting out to bark, whom we could see without hearing; terrified pigs + scampering homewards; families sitting out in their rude gardens; + cows gazing upward with a stupid indifference; men in their shirt-sleeves + looking on at their unfinished houses, planning out tomorrow's work; and + we riding onward, high above them, like a whirl-wind. It was amusing, + too, when we had dined, and rattled down a steep pass, having no other + motive power than the weight of the carriages themselves, to see the + engine released, long after us, come buzzing down alone, like a great + insect, its back of green and gold so shining in the sun, that if it + had spread a pair of wings and soared away, no one would have had + occasion, as I fancied, for the least surprise. But it stopped short of + us in a very business-like manner when we reached the canal; and, + before we left the wharf, went panting up this hill again, with the + passengers who had waited our arrival for the means of traversing the road + by which we had come. ¹ + </p> + </blockquote> + <div class="footer"> + <p class="footer"> + <a id="footer_142-1" name="footer_142-1"></a> + ¹ <i>Op. cit.</i> + </p> + </div> + <p class="noindent"> + This Pennsylvania route was likewise famous because it included the first + tunnel in America; but with the advance of years, tunnel, planes, and + canal were supplanted by what was to become in time the Pennsylvania + Railroad, the pride of the State and one of the great highways of the + nation. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">143</a></span> + In the year before Pennsylvania investigated her western water route, a + joint bill was introduced into the legislatures of the Potomac Valley + States, proposing a Potomac Canal Company which should construct a + Chesapeake and Ohio canal at the expense of Maryland, Virginia, and the + District of Columbia. The plan was of vital moment to Alexandria and + Georgetown on the Potomac, but unless a lateral canal could be built to + Baltimore, that city—which paid a third of Maryland's + taxes—would be called on to supply a great sum to benefit only her + chief rivals. The bitter struggle which now developed is one of the most + significant in commercial history because of its sequel. + </p> + <p> + The conditions underlying this rivalry must not be lost sight of. + Baltimore had done more than any other Eastern city to ally herself with + the West and to obtain its trade. She had instinctively responded to every + move made by her rivals in the great game. If Pennsylvania promoted a + Lancaster Turnpike, Baltimore threw out her superb Baltimore-Reisterstown + boulevard, though her northern road to Philadelphia remained the slough + that Brissot and Baily had found it. If New York projected an Erie Canal, + Baltimore successfully championed the building of a Cumberland Road + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">144</a></span> + by a + governmental godmother. So thoroughly and quickly, indeed, did she link + her system of stone roads to that great artery, that even today many + well-informed writers seem to be under the impression that the Cumberland + Road ran from the Ohio to Washington and Baltimore. Now, with canals + building to the north of her and canals to the south of her, what of her + prestige and future? + </p> + <p> + For the moment Baltimore compromised by agreeing to a Chesapeake and Ohio + canal which, by a lateral branch, should still lead to her market square. + Her scheme embraced a vision of conquest regal in its sweep, beyond that + of any rival, and comprehending two ideas worthy of the most farseeing + strategist and the most astute politician. It called not only for the + building of a transmontane canal to the Ohio but also for a connecting + canal from the Ohio to the Great Lakes. Not only would the trade of the + Northwest be secured by this means—for this southerly route would + not be affected by winter frosts as would those of Pennsylvania and New + York—but the good godmother at Washington would be almost certain to + champion it and help to build it since the proposed route was so + thoroughly interstate in character. With the backing of Maryland, + Virginia, Western + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">145</a></span> + Pennsylvania, Ohio, and probably several States + bordering the Inland Lakes, government aid in the undertaking seemed + feasible and proper. + </p> + <p> + Theoretically the daring scheme captured the admiration of all who were to + be benefited by it. At a great banquet at Washington, late in 1823, the + project was launched. Adams, Clay, and Calhoun took the opportunity to + ally themselves with it by robustly declaring themselves in favor of + widespread internal improvements. Even the godmother smiled upon it for, + following Monroe's recommendation, Congress without hesitation voted + thirty thousand dollars for the preliminary survey from Washington to + Pittsburgh. Quickly the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company and the + connecting Maryland Canal Company were formed, and steps were taken to + have Ohio promote an Ohio and Lake Erie Company. + </p> + <p> + As high as were the hopes awakened by this movement, just so deep was the + dejection and chagrin into which its advocates were thrown upon receiving + the report of the engineers who made the preliminary survey. The estimated + cost ran towards a quarter of a billion, four times the capital stock of + the company; and there were not lacking those who pointed out that the + Erie Canal had cost + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">146</a></span> + more than double the original appropriation made for + it. + </p> + <p> + The situation was aggravated for Baltimore by the fact that Maryland and + Virginia were willing to take half a loaf if they could not get a whole + one: in other words, they were willing to build the canal up the Potomac + to Cumberland and stop there. Baltimore, even if linked to this partial + scheme, would lose her water connection with the West, the one prized + asset which the project had held out, and her Potomac Valley rivals would, + on this contracted plan, be in a particularly advantageous position to + surpass her. But the last blow was yet to come. Engineers reported that a + lateral canal connecting the Potomac and Chesapeake Bay was not feasible. + It was consequently of little moment whether the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal + could be built across the Alleghanies or not, for, even if it could have + been carried through the Great Plains or to the Pacific, Baltimore was, + for topographical reasons, out of the running. + </p> + <p> + The men of Baltimore now gave one of the most striking illustrations of + spirit and pluck ever exhibited by the people of any city. They refused to + accept defeat. If engineering science held a means of overcoming the + natural disadvantages of + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">147</a></span> + their position, they were determined to adopt + that means, come what would of hardship, difficulty, and expenditure. If + roads and canals would not serve the city on the Chesapeake, what of the + railroad on which so many experiments were being made in England? + </p> + <p> + The idea of controlling the trade of the West by railroads was not new. As + early as February, 1825, certain astute Pennsylvanians had advocated + building a railroad to Pittsburgh instead of a canal, and in a memorial to + the Legislature they had set forth the theory that a railroad could be + built in one-third of the time and could be operated with one-third of the + number of employees required by a canal, that it would never be frozen, + and that its cost of construction would be less. But these arguments did + not influence the majority, who felt that to follow the line of least + resistance and to do as others had done would involve the least hazard. + But Baltimore, with her back against the wall, did not have the + alternative of a canal. It was a leap into the unknown for her or + commercial stagnation. + </p> + <p> + It is regrettable that, as Baltimore began to break this fresh track, she + should have had political as well as physical and mechanical obstacles to + overcome. The conquest of the natural + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">148</a></span> + difficulties alone required + superhuman effort and endurance. But Baltimore had also to fight a + miserable internecine warfare in her own State, for Maryland immediately + subscribed half a million to the canal as well as to the newly formed + Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. In rival pageants, both companies broke + ground on July 4, 1828, and the race to the Ohio was on. The canal company + clung doggedly to the idle belief that their enterprise was still of + continental proportions, since it would connect at Cumberland with the + Cumberland Road. This exaggerated estimate of the importance of the + undertaking shines out in the pompous words of President Mercer, at the + time when construction was begun: + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + There are moments in the progress of time, which are counters of whole + ages. There are events, the monuments of which, surviving every other + memorial of human existence, eternize the nation to whose history they + belong, after all other vestiges of its glory have disappeared from the + globe. At such a moment have we now arrived. + </p> + </blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + This oracular language lacks the simple but winning straightforwardness of + the words which Director Morris uttered on the same day near Baltimore + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">149</a></span> + and + which prove how distinctly Western the new railway project was held to be: + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + We are about opening a channel through which the commerce of the mighty + country beyond the Allegheny must seek the ocean—we are about + affording facilities of intercourse between the East and West, which will + bind the one more closely to the other, beyond the power of an increased + population or sectional differences to disunite. + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + The difficulties which faced the Baltimore enthusiasts in their task of + keeping their city "on the map" would have daunted men of less heroic + mold. Every conceivable trial and test which nature and machinery could + seemingly devise was a part of their day's work for twelve + years—struggles with grades, locomotives, rails, cars. As Rumsey, + Fitch, and Fulton in their experiments with boats had floundered + despondently with endless chains, oars, paddles, duck's feet, so now + Thomas and Brown in their efforts to make the railroad effective wandered + in a maze of difficulties testing out such absurd and impossible ideas + as cars propelled by sails and cars operated by horse treadmills. By May, + 1830, however, cars on rails, running by "brigades" and drawn by horses, + were in operation in America. It was only in this year + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">150</a></span> + that in England locomotives were used with any marked success on the + Liverpool and Manchester Railroad; yet in August of this year Peter + Cooper's engine, <i>Tom Thumb,</i> built in Baltimore in 1829, traversed + the twelve miles between that city and Ellicott's Mills in seventy-two + minutes. Steel springs came in 1832, together with car wheels of + cylindrical and conical section which made it easier to turn curves. + </p> + <p> + The railroad was just beginning to master its mechanical problems when a + new obstacle confronted it in the Potomac Valley. It could not cross + Maryland to the Cumberland mountain gateway unless it could follow the + Potomac. But its rival, the canal, had inherited from the old Potomac + Company the only earthly asset it possessed of any value—the right + of way up the Maryland shore. Five years of quarreling now ensued, and the + contest, though it may not have seriously delayed either enterprise, + aroused much bitterness and involved the usual train of lawsuits and + injunctions. + </p> + <p> + In 1833 the canal company yielded the railroad a right of way through the + Point of Rocks—the Potomac chasm through the Blue Ridge wall, just + below Harper's Ferry—on condition that the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">151</a></span> + railroad should not build + beyond Harper's Ferry until the canal was completed to Cumberland. But + probably nothing but the financial helplessness of the canal company could + have brought a solution satisfactory to all concerned. A settlement of the + long quarrel by compromise was the price paid for state aid, and, in 1835 + Maryland subsidized to a large degree both canal and railroad by her + famous eight million dollar bill. The railroad received three millions + from the State, and the city of Baltimore was permitted to subscribe an + equal amount of stock. With this support and a free right of way, the + railroad pushed on up the Potomac. Though delayed by the financial + disasters of 1837, in 1842 it was at Hancock; in 1851, at Piedmont; in + 1852, at Fairmont; and the next year it reached the Ohio River at + Wheeling. + </p> + <p> + Spurred by the enterprise shown by these Southerners, Pennsylvania and New + York now took immediate steps to parallel their own canals by railways. + The line of the Union Canal in Pennsylvania was paralleled by a railroad + in 1834, the same year in which the Allegheny Portage Railway was + constructed. New York lines reached Buffalo in 1842. The Pennsylvania + Railroad, which was incorporated in 1846, was completed to Pittsburgh in + 1854. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">152</a></span> + It is thus obvious that, with the completion of these lines and the + building of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway through the "Sapphire Country" + of the Southern Alleghanies, the new railway era pursued its paths of + conquest through the very same mountain passageways that had been + previously used by pack-horseman and Conestoga and, in three instances out + of four, by the canal boat. If one motors today in the Juniata Valley in + Pennsylvania, he can survey near Newport a scene full of meaning to one + who has a taste for history. Traveling along the heights on the highway + that was once the red man's trail, he can enjoy a wide prospect from this + vantage point. Deep in the valley glitters the little Juniata, route of + the ancient canoe and the blundering barge. Beside it lies a long lagoon, + an abandoned portion of the Pennsylvania Canal. Beside this again, as + though some monster had passed leaving a track clear of trees, stretches + the right of way of the first "Pennsylvania," and a little nearer swings + the magnificent double-tracked bed of the railroad of today. Between these + lines of travel may be read the history of the past two centuries of + American commerce, for the vital factors in the development of the nation + have been the evolution of transportation + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">153</a></span> + and its manifold and + far-reaching influence upon the expansion of population and commerce and + upon the rise of new industries. + </p> + <p> + Thus all the rivals in the great contest for the trade of the West + speedily reached their goal, New York with the Erie and the New York + Central, and Pennsylvania and Maryland with the Pennsylvania and the + Baltimore and Ohio. But what of this West for whose commerce the great + struggle was being waged? When the railheads of these eager Atlantic + promoters were laid down at Buffalo on Lake Erie and at Pittsburgh on the + Ohio they looked out on a new world. The centaurs of the Western rivers + were no less things of the far past than the tinkling bells borne by the + ancient ponies of the pack-horse trade. The sons of this new West had + their eyes riveted on the commerce of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi + Valley. With road, canal, steamboat, and railway, they were renewing the + struggle of their fathers but for prizes greater than their fathers ever + knew. + </p> + <p> + New York again proved the favored State. Her Mohawk pathway gave her + easiest access to the West and here, at her back door on the Niagara + frontier, lay her path by way of the Great Lakes to the North and the + Northwest. + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <hr /> + + <div class="chapterhead"> + <a name="Chapter10" id="Chapter10"></a> + <br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">154</a></span> + <br /><br /><br /> + <h2><a href="#Contents">CHAPTER X</a></h2> + </div> + + <p class="chaptertitle">The Pathway of the Lakes</p> + + <p class="noindent"> + <span class="smcap">As</span> one stands in imagination at the early + railheads of the West—on + the Ohio River at the end of the Cumberland Road, or at Buffalo, the + terminus of the Erie Canal—the vision which Washington caught breaks + upon him and the dream of a nation made strong by trans-Alleghany routes + of commerce. Link by link the great interior is being connected with the + sea. Behind him all lines of transportation lead eastward to the cities of + the coast. Before him lies the giant valley where the Father of Waters + throws out his two splendid arms, the Ohio and the Missouri, one reaching + to the Alleghanies and the other to the Rockies. Northward, at the end of + the Erie Canal, lies the empire of the Great Lakes, inland seas that wash + the shores of a Northland having a coastline longer than that of the + Atlantic from Maine to Mexico. + </p> + <p> + Ships and conditions of navigation were much + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">155</a></span> + the same on the lakes as on + the ocean. It was therefore possible to imagine the rise of a coasting + trade between Illinois and Ohio as profitable as that between + Massachusetts and New York. Yet the older colonies on the Atlantic had an + outlet for trade, whereas the Great Lakes had none for craft of any size, + since their northern shores lay beyond the international boundary. If + there had been danger from Spain in the Southwest, what of the danger of + Canada's control of the St. Lawrence River and of the trade of the + Northwest through the Welland Canal which was to join Lake Ontario to Lake + Erie? But in those days the possibility of Canadian rivalry was not + treated with great seriousness, and many men failed to see that the West + was soon to contain a very large population. The editor of a newspaper at + Munroe, New York, commenting in 1827 on a proposed canal to connect Lake + Erie with the Mississippi by way of the Ohio, believed that the rate of + Western development was such that this waterway could be expected only + "some hundred of years hence." Even so gifted a man as Henry Clay spoke of + the proposed canal between Lake Michigan and Lake Superior in 1825 as one + relating to a region beyond the pale of civilization "if not in the moon." + Yet in twenty-five years + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">156</a></span> + Michigan, which had numbered one thousand + inhabitants in 1812, had gained two hundredfold, and Ohio, Indiana, and + Illinois had their hundreds of thousands who were clamoring for ways and + means of sending their surplus products to market. + </p> + <p> + Early in the century representatives of the Fulton-Livingston monopoly + were at the shores of Lake Ontario to prove that their steamboats could + master the waves of the inland sea and serve commerce there as well as in + tidewater rivers. True, the luckless <i>Ontario,</i> built in 1817 at + Sackett's Harbor, proved unseaworthy when the waves lifted the shaft + of her paddle wheels off their bearings and caused them to demolish the + wooden covering built for their protection; but the + <i>Walk-in-the-Water,</i> completed at Black Rock (Buffalo) in August, + 1818, plied successfully as far as Mackinac Island until her + destruction three years later. Her engines were then inherited by the + <i>Superior</i> of stronger build, and with the launching of such boats + as the <i>Niagara,</i> the <i>Henry Clay,</i> and the <i>Pioneer,</i> the + fleet builders of Buffalo, Cleveland, and Detroit proved themselves not + unworthy fellow-countrymen of the old seafarers of Salem and Philadelphia. + </p> + <p> + But how were cargoes to reach these vessels + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">157</a></span> + from the vast regions beyond + the Great Lakes? Those thousands of settlers who poured into the Northwest + had cargoes ready to fill every manner of craft in so short a space of + time that it seems as if they must have resorted to arts of necromancy. It + was not magic, however, but perseverance that had triumphed. The story of + the creating of the main lakeward-reaching canals is long and involved. A + period of agitation and campaigning preceded every such undertaking; and + when construction was once begun, financial woes usually brought + disappointing delays. When a canal was completed after many vicissitudes + and doubts, traffic overwhelmed every method provided to handle it: locks + proved altogether too small; boats were inadequate; wharfs became + congested; blockades which occurred at locks entailed long delay. In the + end only lines and double lines of steel rails could solve the problem of + rapid and adequate transportation, but the story of the railroad builders + is told elsewhere. ¹ + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p class="footer"> + <a id="footer_10-1" name="footer_10-1"></a> + ¹ See <i>The Railroad Builders,</i> by John Moody (in + <i>The Chronicles of America</i>). + </p> + </div> + <p> + Ohio and Illinois caught the canal fever even before the Erie Canal was + completed, and the Ohio Canal and the Illinois-Michigan Canal saw + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">158</a></span> + preliminary surveying done in 1822 and 1824 respectively. Ohio + particularly had cause to seek a northern outlet to Eastern markets by way + of Lake Erie. The valleys of the Muskingum, Scioto, and Miami rivers were + producing wheat in large quantities as early as 1802, when Ohio was + admitted to the Union. Flour which brought $3.50 a barrel in Cincinnati + was worth $8 in New York. There were difficulties in the way of + transportation. Sometimes ice prevented produce and merchandise from + descending the Ohio to Cincinnati. At other times merchants of that city + had as many as a hundred thousand barrels awaiting a rise in the river + which would make it possible for boats to go over the falls at Louisville. + As these conditions involved a delay which often seemed intolerable, the + project to build canals to Lake Erie met with generous acclaim. A + northward route, though it might be blocked by ice for a few months each + winter, had an additional value in the eyes of numerous merchants whose + wheat, sent in bulk to New Orleans, had soured either in the long delay at + Louisville or in the semi-tropical heat of the Southern port. + </p> + <p> + The Ohio Legislature in 1822 authorized the survey of all possible routes + for canals which would give Ohio an outlet for its produce on Lake Erie. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">159</a></span> + The three wheat zones which have been mentioned were favored in the + proposed construction of two canals which, together, should satisfy the + need of increased transportation: the Ohio Canal to connect Portsmouth on + the Ohio River with Cleveland on Lake Erie and to traverse the richest + parts of the Scioto and Muskingum valleys, and to the west the Miami Canal + to pierce the fruitful Miami and Maumee valleys and join Cincinnati with + Toledo. De Witt Clinton, the presiding genius of the Erie Canal, was + invited to Ohio to play godfather to these northward arteries which should + ultimately swell the profits of the commission merchants of New York City, + and amid the cheers of thousands he lifted the first spadefuls of earth in + each undertaking. + </p> + <p> + The Ohio Canal, which was opened in 1833, had a marked effect upon the + commerce of Lake Erie. Before that date the largest amount of wheat + obtained from Cleveland by a Buffalo firm had been a thousand bushels; but + in the first year of its operation the Ohio Canal brought to the village + of Cleveland over a quarter of a million bushels of wheat, fifty thousand + barrels of flour, and over a million pounds of butter and lard. In return, + the markets of the world sent into Ohio by canal in this same + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">160</a></span> + year thirty + thousand barrels of salt and above five million pounds of general + merchandise. + </p> + <p> + Ever since the time when the Erie Canal was begun, Canadian statesmen had + been alive to the strong bid New York was making for the trade of the + Great Lakes. Their answer to the Erie Canal was the Welland Canal, built + between 1824 and 1832 and connecting Lake Erie with Lake Ontario by a + series of twenty-seven locks with a drop of three hundred feet in + twenty-six miles. This undertaking prepared the way for the subsequent + opening of the St. Lawrence canal system (183 miles) and of the Rideau + system by way of the Ottawa River (246 miles). There was thus provided an + ocean outlet to the north, although it was not until 1856 that an American + vessel reached London by way of the St. Lawrence. + </p> + <p> + With the Hudson and the St. Lawrence in the East thus competing for the + trade of the Great Lakes, it is not surprising that the call of the + Mississippi for improved highways was presently heard. From the period of + the War of 1812 onward the position of the Mississippi River in relation + to Lake Michigan was often referred to as holding possibilities of great + importance in the development of Western commerce. Already the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">161</a></span> + old portage-path links between the Fox and Wisconsin and the Chicago and + Illinois rivers had been worn deep by the fur traders of many generations, + and with the dawning of the new era enthusiasts of Illinois were pointing + out the strategic position of the latter route for a great trade between + Lake Michigan and the Gulf of Mexico. Thus the wave of enthusiasm for + canal construction that had swept New York and Ohio now reached Indiana + and Illinois. Indian ownership of land in the latter State for a moment + seemed to block the promotion of the proposed Illinois and Michigan Canal, + but a handsome grant of a quarter of a million acres by the Federal + Government in 1827 came as a signal recognition of the growing importance + of the Northwest; and an appropriation for the lighting and improving of + the harbor of the little village of Chicago was hailed by ardent promoters + as sure proof that the wedding of Lake Michigan and the Mississippi was + but a matter of months. + </p> + <p> + All the difficulties encountered by the advocates of earlier works of this + character, in the valleys of the Potomac, the Susquehanna, and the Mohawk, + were the portion of these dogged promoters of Illinois. Here, as + elsewhere, there were rival routes and methods of construction, opposition + of + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">162</a></span> + jealous sections not immediately benefited, estimates which had to be + reconsidered and augmented, and so on. The land grants pledged to pay the + bonds were at first of small value, and their advance in price depended on + the success of the canal itself, which could not be built—unless the + State underwrote the whole enterprise—if the lands were not worth + the bonds. Thus the argument ran in a circle, and no one could foresee the + splendid traffic and receipts from tolls that would result from the + completed canal. + </p> + <p> + The commissioners in charge of the project performed one interesting + service in these early days by putting Chicago on the map; but the two + terminals, Ottawa on the Illinois and Chicago on Lake Michigan—both + plotted in 1830—were very largely figures of speech at that time. + The day of miracles was at hand, however, for the little town of one + hundred people at the foot of Lake Michigan. The purchase of the lands of + the Potawatomies, the Black Hawk War in 1832, which brought steamboats to + Chicago for the first time, and the decision of Illinois in 1836 to pledge + her good name in favor of the Illinois and Michigan Canal made Chicago a + city of four thousand people by the panic year of 1837. So absorbed were + these Chicago + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">163</a></span> + folk in the building of their canal and in wresting from + their lake firm foothold for a city (reclaiming four hundred feet of lake + bed in two years) that the panic affected their town less than it did many + a rival. Although the canal enterprise came to an ominous pause in 1842, + after the expenditure of five millions, the pledge of the State stood the + enterprise in good stead. Local financiers, together with New York and + Boston promoters, advanced about a quarter of a million, while French and + English bankers, notably Baring Brothers, contributed about three-quarters + of a million. With this assistance the work was carried to a successful + ending. On April 10, 1848, the first boat passed over the ninety-mile route + from Chicago to Ottawa, and the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Basin were + united by this Erie Canal of the West. Though its days of greatest value + were soon over, no one can exaggerate the importance of this waterway in + the growth and prosperity of Chicago between 1848 and 1860. By 1857 + Chicago was sending north and south annually by boat over twenty million + bushels of wheat and corn. + </p> + <p> + The awakening of the lands behind Lake Erie, Lake Huron, and Lake Michigan + brought forth innumerable demands for roads, canals, and railways + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">164</a></span> + to the + ports of Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Chicago. + There were actually hundreds of these enterprises undertaken. The + development of the land behind Lake Superior was particularly spectacular + and important, not only because of its general effect on the industrial + world but also because out of it came the St. Mary's River Ship Canal. + Nowhere in the zone of the Great Lakes has any region produced such + unexpected changes in American industrial and commercial life as did the + region of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota contributory to Lake + Superior. If, as the story goes, Benjamin Franklin said, when he drew at + Paris the international boundary line through Lake Superior, that this was + his greatest service to America, he did not exaggerate. The line running + north of Isle Royale and thence to the Lake of the Woods gave the United + States the lion's share of that great inland seaboard and the inestimably + rich deposits of copper and iron that have revolutionized American + industry. + </p> + <p> + From earliest days rumors of deposits of bright copper in the land behind + Lake Superior had been reported by Indians to fur traders who in turn had + passed the story on to fur company agents and thus to the outside world. + As a result of her "Toledo + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">165</a></span> + War"—as her boundary dispute was called—Michigan + had reluctantly accepted the northern peninsula lying between Lake + Superior and Lake Michigan in lieu of the strip of Ohio territory which + she believed to be hers. If Michigan felt that she had lost by this + compromise, her state geologist, Douglass Houghton, soon found a splendid + jewel in the toad's head of defeat, for the report of his survey of 1840 + confirmed the story of the existence of large copper deposits, and the + first rush to El Dorado followed. Amid the usual chaos, conflict, and + failure incident to such stampedes, order and system at last triumphed and + the richest copper mines of the New World were uncovered. Then came the + unexpected finding of the mammoth iron-ore beds by William A. Burt, + inventor of the solar compass. The circumstance of this discovery is of + such national importance that a contemporary description by a member of + Burt's party which was surveying a line near Marquette, Michigan, is worth + quoting: + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + I shall never forget the excitement of the old gentleman when viewing the + changes of the variation. He kept changing his position to take + observations, all the time saying "How would they survey this country + without my compass" and "What could be done here + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">166</a></span> + without my compass." At length the compassman called for us all to "come + and see a variation which will beat them all." As we looked at the + instrument, to our astonishment, the north end of the needle was + traversing a few degrees to the south west. Mr. Burt called out "Boys, + look around and see what you can find." We all left the line, some going + to the east, some going to the west, and all of us returned with + specimens of iron ore. + </p> + </blockquote> + <p> + But it was not enough that this Aladdin's Land in the Northwest should + revolutionize the copper and steel industry of the world, for as soon as + the soil took to its bosom an enterprising race of agriculturists it bade + fair to play as equally important a part in the grain industry. Copper and + iron no less came out of the blue of this cold northern region than did + the mighty crops of Minnesota wheat, corn, and oats. In the decade + preceding the Civil War the export of wheat from Lake Superior rose from + fourteen hundred bushels to three and a quarter millions of bushels, while + in 1859 nearly seven million bushels of corn and oats were sent out to the + world. + </p> + <p> + The commerce of Lake Superior could not await the building of a canal + around the foaming rapids of the St. Mary's River, its one outlet to the + lower lakes. In the decade following the discovery of + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">167</a></span> + copper and iron more + than a dozen ships, one even of as much as five hundred tons, were hauled + bodily across the portage between Lake Huron and Lake Superior. The last + link of navigation in the Great Lake system, however, was made possible in + 1852 by a grant by Congress of 750,000 acres of Michigan land. Although + only a mile in length, the work proved to be of unusual difficulty since + the pathway for the canal had to be blasted throughout practically its + whole length out of solid rock. It was completed in 1855, and the princely + empire "in the moon" was in a position to make its terms with the coal + fields of Pennsylvania and to usher in the iron age of transportation and + construction. + </p> + <p> + It is only in the light of this awakening of the lands around the Great + Lakes that one can see plainly the task which fell to the lot of the + successors of the frail <i>Walk-in-the-Water</i> and sturdier + <i>Superior</i> of the + early twenties. For the first fifteen years the steamboat found its + mission in carrying the thousands of emigrants pouring into the Northwest, + a heterogeneous multitude which made the Lake Erie boats seem, to one + traveler at least, filled with "men, women and children, beds, cradles, + kettles, and frying pans." These craft were built after the pattern of the + <i>Walk-in-the-Water</i>—side-wheelers + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">168</a></span> + with a steering wheel at the stern. + No cabins or staterooms on deck were provided; and amid such freight as + the thriving young towns provided were to be found the twenty or thirty + cords of wood which the engines required as fuel. + </p> + <p> + The second period of steamboating began with the opening of the Ohio Canal + and the Welland Canal about 1834 and extended another fifteen years to the + middle of the century, when it underwent a transformation owing to the + great development of Chicago, the completion of the Illinois and Michigan + and St. Mary's canals, and the new railways. This second period was marked + by the building of such steamers as the <i>Michigan,</i> the <i>Great + Western,</i> and the <i>Illinois.</i> These were the first boats with an + upper cabin and were looked upon with marked suspicion by those best + acquainted with the severe storms upon the Great Lakes. The + <i>Michigan,</i> of 475 tons, built by Oliver Newberry at Detroit in 1833, + is said to have been the first ship of this type. These boats proved their + seaworthiness and caused a revolution in the construction of lake craft. + Later in this period freight transportation saw an equally radical advance + with the building of the first propellers. The sloop-rigged + <i>Vandalia,</i> built by Sylvester Doolittle + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">169</a></span> + at Oswego on Lake Ontario in 1841-42, was the first of the propeller + type and was soon followed by the <i>Hercules,</i> the <i>Samson,</i> + and the <i>Detroit.</i> + </p> + <p> + One very great handicap in lake commerce up to this time had been the lack + of harbors. Detroit alone of the lake ports was distinctly favored in this + respect. The harbors of Buffalo, Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Chicago were + improved slowly, but it was not until the great Chicago convention of 1846 + that the nation's attention was focused on the needs of Western rivers and + harbors, and there dawned a new era of lighthouses and buoys, breakwaters + and piers, and dredged channels. Another handicap to the volume of + business which the lake boats handled in the period just previous to the + Civil War was the inadequacy of the feeders, the roads, riverways, and + canals. The Erie Canal was declared too small almost before the cries of + its virulent opponents had died away, and the enlargement of its locks was + soon undertaken. The same thing proved true of the Ohio and Illinois + canals. The failure of the Welland Canal was similarly a very serious + handicap. Although its locks were enlarged in 1841, it was found by 1850 + that despite the improvements it could not admit more than about one-third + of the grain-carrying + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">170</a></span> + boats, while only one in four of the new propellers could enter its locks. + </p> + <p> + As late as the middle forties men did not in the least grasp the + commercial situation which now confronted the Northwest nor could they + foresee that the land behind the Great Lakes was about to deluge the + country with an output of produce and manufactures of which the roads, + canals, ships, wharfs, or warehouses in existence could handle not a tenth + part. They did not yet understand that this trade was to become + national. It was well on in the forties before the Galena lead mines, for + instance, were given up as the terminal of the Illinois Central Railroad + and the main line was directed to Chicago. The middle of the century was + reached before the Lake Shore was considered at Cleveland or Chicago as + important commercially as the neighboring portage paths which by the + Ordinance of 1787 had been created "common highways forever free." The + idea of joining Buffalo, Cleveland, and Chicago with the interior—an + idea as old as the Indian trails thither—still dominated men's minds + even in the early part of the railroad epoch. Chicago desired to be + connected with Cairo, the ice-free port on the Mississippi; and Cleveland + was eager to be joined to Columbus + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">171</a></span> + and Cincinnati. The enthusiastic railway promoters of Ohio, Indiana, and + Illinois drew splendid plans for uniting all parts of those States by + railway lines; but the strategic position of the cities on the + continental alignment from New York to the Pacific by way of South Pass + never came within their horizon. The ten million dollar Illinois scheme + did not even contemplate a railway running eastward from Chicago. But the + future of the commerce of the Great Lakes depended absolutely upon this + development. There was no hope of any canals being able to handle the + traffic of the mighty empire which was now awake and fully conscious of + its power. The solution lay in joining the cities to each other and to + the Atlantic world markets by iron rails running east and west. + </p> + <p> + This railroad expansion is what makes the last decade before the Civil War + such a remarkable series of years in the West. In the half decade, + 1850-55, the Baltimore and Ohio and Pennsylvania railways reached the Ohio + River; the links of the present Lake Shore system between Buffalo and + Chicago by way of Cleveland and Toledo were constructed; and the + Pennsylvania line was put through from Pittsburgh to Chicago. The place of + the lake country on the continental alignment + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">172</a></span> + and the imperial situation of Chicago, and later of Omaha, came to be + realized. The new view transformed men's conceptions of every port on + the Great Lakes in the chain from Buffalo to Chicago. At a dozen southern + ports on Ontario, Erie, Huron, and Michigan, commerce now touched the + swiftest and most economical means of transcontinental traffic. This + development culminated in the miracle we call Chicago. In 1847 not a line + of rail entered the town; its population then numbered about twenty-five + thousand and its property valuation approximated seven millions. Ten + years later four thousand miles of railway connected with all four points + of the compass a city of nearly one hundred thousand people, and property + valuation had increased five hundred per cent. The growth of Buffalo, + Cleveland, and Detroit during this period was also phenomenal. + </p> + <p> + When the crisis of 1861 came, the service performed by the + <i>Walk-in-the-Water</i> and her successors was seen in its true light. + The Great Lakes as avenues of migration had played a providential part + in filling a northern empire with a proud and loyal race; from farm and + factory regiment on regiment marched forth to fight for unity; from fields + without number produce to sustain a nation on + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">173</a></span> + trial poured forth in abundance; enormous quantities of iron were at hand + for the casting of cannon and cannon balls; and, finally, pathways of + water and steel were in readiness in the nick of time to carry these + resources where they would count tremendously in the four long years of + conflict. + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <hr /> + + <div class="chapterhead"> + <a name="Chapter11" id="Chapter11"></a> + <br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">174</a></span> + <br /><br /><br /> + <h2><a href="#Contents">CHAPTER XI</a></h2> + </div> + + <p class="chaptertitle">The Steamboat And The West</p> + + <p class="noindent"> + <span class="smcap">Two</span> great fields of service lay open before + those who were to achieve by + steam the mastery of the inland waterways. On the one hand the cotton + kingdom of the South, now demanding great stores of manufactured goods, + produce, and machinery, was waiting to be linked to the valleys and + industrial cities of the Middle West; and, on the other hand, along those + great eastward and westward rivers, the Ohio and Missouri, lay the + commerce of the prairies and the Great Plains. But before the steamboat + could serve the inland commerce of the West, it had to be constructed on + new lines. The craft brought from the seaboard were of too deep draft to + navigate shallow streams which ran through this more level country. + </p> + <p> + The task of constructing a great inland river marine to play the dual + rôle of serving the cotton empire and of extending American + migration and + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">175</a></span> + commerce into the trans-Mississippi region was solved by + Henry Shreve when he built the <i>Washington</i> at Wheeling in 1816. + Shreve was the American John Hawkins. Hawkins, that sturdy old admiral + of Elizabethan days, took the English ship of his time, trimmed down the + high stern and poop decks, and cut away the deep-lying prow and stern, + after the fashion of our modern cup defenders, and in a day gave England + the key to sea mastery in the shape of a new ship that would take sail + and answer her rudder beyond anything the maritime world until then had + known. Shreve, like Hawkins, flagrantly ignoring the conventional wisdom + of his day and craft, built the <i>Washington</i> to sail <em>on</em> + the water instead of <em>in</em> it, doing away altogether with a hold + and supplying an upper deck in its place. + </p> + <p> + To few inventors, indeed, does America owe a greater debt of thanks than + to this Ohio River shipbuilder. A dozen men were on the way to produce a + <i>Clermont</i> had Fulton failed; but Shreve had no rival in his plan to + build a flat-bottomed steamboat. The remarkable success of his design is + attested by the fact that in two decades the boats built on his model + outweighed in tonnage all the ships of the Atlantic seaboard and Great + Lakes + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">176</a></span> + combined. Immediately the Ohio became in effect the western extension of + the great national highway and opened an easy pathway for immigration to + the eastern as well as the western lands of the Mississippi Basin. The + story goes that an old phlegmatic negro watched the approach of one of the + first steamboats to the wharf of a Southern city. Like many others, he had + doubted the practicability of this new-fangled Yankee notion. The boat, + however, came and went with ease and dispatch. The old negro was + converted. "By golly," he shouted, waving his cap, "the Mississippi's got + her Massa now." + </p> + <p> + The Mississippi had indeed found her master, but only by slow degrees and + after intervals of protracted rebellion did she succumb to that master. + Luckily, however, there was at hand an army of unusual men—the + "alligator-horses" of the flatboat era—upon whom the steamboat could + call with supreme confidence that they would not fail. Theodore Roosevelt + has said of the Western pioneers that they "had to be good and + strong—especially, strong." If these men upon whom the success of + the steamboat depended were not always good, they were beyond any doubt + behemoths in strength. + </p> + <p> + The task before them, however, was a task worthy + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">177</a></span> + of Hercules. The great river boldly fought its conquerors, asking and + giving no quarter, biding its time when opposed by the brave but + crushing the fearful on sight. In one respect alone could it be + depended upon—it was never the same. It is said to bring down + annually four hundred million tons of mud, but its eccentricity in + deciding where to wash away and where to deposit its load is still + the despair of river pilots. The great river could destroy islands and + build new ones overnight with the nonchalance of a child playing with + clay. It could shorten itself thirty miles at a single lunge. It could + move inland towns to its banks and leave river towns far inland. + It transferred the town of Delta, for instance, from three miles below + Vicksburg to two miles above it. Men have gone to sleep in one State and + have wakened unharmed in another, because the river decided in the night + to alter the boundary line. In this way the village of Hard Times, the + original site of which was in Louisiana, found itself eventually in + Mississippi. Were La Salle to descend the river today by the route he + traversed two and a half centuries ago, he would follow dry ground most of + the way, for the river now lies practically everywhere either to the right + or left of its old course. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">178</a></span> + If the Mississippi could perform such miracles upon its whole course + without a show of effort, what could it not do with the little winding + canal through its center called by pilots the "channel"? The flatboatmen + had laboriously acquired the art of piloting the commerce of the West + through this mazy, shifting channel, but as steamboats developed in size + and power the man at the wheel had to become almost a superman. He needed + to be. He must know the stage of water anywhere by a glance at the river + banks. He must guess correctly the amount of "fill" at the head of + dangerous chutes, detect bars "working down," distinguish between bars and + "sand reefs" or "wind reefs" or "bluff reefs" by night as well as by day, + avoid the "breaks" in the "graveyard" behind Goose Island, navigate the + Hat Island chutes, or find the "middle crossing" at Hole-in-the-Wall. He + must navigate his craft in fogs, in storms, in the face of treacherous + winds, on black nights, with thousands of dollars' worth of cargo and + hundreds of lives at stake. + </p> + <p> + As the golfer knows each knoll and tuft of grass on his home links, so the + pilot learned his river by heart. Said one of these pilots to an + apprentice: + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + You see this has got to be learned.… A clear starlight night throws + such heavy shadows that if you + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">179</a></span> + didn't know the shape of a shore perfectly + you would claw away from every bunch of timber because you would take the + black shadow of it for a solid cape; and you see you would be getting + scared to death every fifteen minutes by the watch. You would be fifty + yards from shore all the time when you ought to be within fifty feet of + it. You can't see a snag in one of those shadows, but you know exactly + where it is, and the shape of the river tells you when you are coming to + it. Then there's your pitch-dark night; the river is a very different + shape on a pitch-dark night from what it is on a starlight night. All + shores seem to be straight lines, then, and mighty dim ones, too; and + you'd <em>run</em> them for straight lines only you know better. You + boldly drive your boat right into what seems to be a solid, straight wall + (you knowing very well that in reality there is a curve there) and that + wall falls back and makes way for you. Then there's your gray mist. You + take a night when there's one of these grisly, drizzly, gray mists, and + then there isn't <em>any</em> particular shape to a shore. A gray mist + would tangle the head of the oldest man that ever lived. Well, then, + different kinds of <em>moonlight</em> change the shape of the river in + different ways.… You only learn the shape of the river; and you + learn it with such absolute certainty that you can always steer by the + shape that's <em>in your head</em> and never mind the one that's before + your eyes. ¹ + </p> + </blockquote> + <div class="footer"> + <p class="footer"> + <a id="footer_179-1" name="footer_179-1"></a> + ¹ Mark Twain, <i>Life on the Mississippi,</i> pp. 103-04. + </p> + </div> + <p class="noindent"> + No wonder that the two hundred miles of the Mississippi from the mouth of + the Ohio to St. Louis + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">180</a></span> + in time contained the wrecks of two hundred steamboats. + </p> + <p> + The river trade reached its zenith between 1840 and 1860, in the two + decades previous to the Civil War, that period before the railroads began + to parallel the great rivers. It was a time which saw the rise of Ohio, + Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, and Arkansas, and which witnessed the + spread of the cotton kingdom into the Southwest. The story of King + Cotton's conquest of the Mississippi South is best told in statistics. In + 1811, the year of the first voyage which the <i>New Orleans</i> made down + the Ohio River, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Mississippi exported five + million pounds of cotton. In 1834 these same States exported almost two + hundred million pounds of cotton. To take care of this crop and to supply + the cotton country, which was becoming wealthy, with the necessaries and + luxuries of life, more and more steamboats were needed. The great + shipyards situated, because of the proximity of suitable timber, at St. + Louis, Cincinnati, and Louisville became busy hives, not since paralleled + except by such centers of shipbuilding as Hog Island in 1917-18, during + the time of the Great War. The steamboat tonnage of the Mississippi Valley + (exclusive of New Orleans) in + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">181</a></span> + the hustling forties exceeded that of the Atlantic ports (exclusive of + New York City) by 15,000 tons. The steamboat tonnage of New Orleans alone + in 1843 was more than double that of New York City. + </p> + <p> + Those who, if the old story is true, ran in fear to the hills when the + little <i>New Orleans</i> went puffing down the Ohio, in 1811, would have + been doubly amazed at the splendid development in the art of boat + building, could they have seen the stately <i>Sultana</i> or <i>Southern + Belle</i> of the fifties sweep swiftly by. After a period of gaudy + ornamentation (1830-40) steamboat architecture settled down, as has that + of Pullman cars today, to sane and practical lines, and the boats gained + in length and strength, though they contained less weight of timber. The + value of one of the greater boats of this era would be about fifty + thousand dollars. When Captain Bixby made his celebrated night crossing + at Hat Island a quarter of a million dollars in ship and cargo would have + been the price of an error in judgment, according to Mark Twain, ¹ + a good authority. + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p class="footer"> + <a id="footer_181-1" name="footer_181-1"></a> + ¹ <i>Op. cit.</i>, p. 101. + </p> + </div> + <p> + The <i>Yorktown,</i> built in 1844 for the Ohio-Mississippi trade, was + typical of that epoch of inland commerce. Her length was 182 feet, breadth + of beam 31 feet, and the diameter of wheels 28 feet. + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">182</a></span> + Though her hold was 8 feet in depth, yet she drew but 4 feet of water + light and barely over 8 feet when loaded with 500 tons of freight. She + had 4 boilers, 30 feet long and 42 inches in diameter, double engines, + and two 24-inch cylinders. The stateroom cabin had come in with Captain + Isaiah Sellers's <i>Prairie</i> in 1836, the first boat with such luxuries + ever seen in St. Louis, according to Sellers. The <i>Yorktown</i> had 40 + private cabins. It is interesting to compare the <i>Yorktown</i> with + <i>The Queen of the West,</i> the giant British steamer built for the + Falmouth-Calcutta trade in 1839. <i>The Queen of the West</i> had a + length of 310 feet, a beam of 31 feet, a draft of 15 feet, and 16 private + cabins. The building of this great vessel led a writer in the New York + <i>American</i> to say: "It would really seem that we as a nation had no + interest in this new application of steam power, or no energy to + appropriate it to our own use." The statement—written in a day when + the Mississippi steamboat tonnage exceeded that of the entire British + Empire—is one of the best examples of provincial ignorance + concerning the West. + </p> + <p> + On these steamboats there was a multiplicity of arrangements and + equipments for preventing and for fighting fire. One of the innovations on + the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">183</a></span> + new boats in this particular was the substitution of wire for the + combustible rope formerly used to control the tiller, so that even in time + of fire the pilot could "hold her nozzle agin' the bank." Much of the + great loss of life in steamboat fires had been due to the tiller-ropes + being burned and the boats becoming unmanageable. + </p> + <p> + The arrival of the railroad at the head of the Ohio River in the early + fifties brought the East into an immediate touch with the Mississippi + Valley unknown before. But however bold railway engineers were in the face + of the ragged ranges of the Alleghanies, they could not then out-guess the + tricks of the Ohio, the Mississippi, or the Missouri, and railway + promoters could not afford to take chances on having their stations and + tracks unexpectedly isolated, if not actually carried away, by swirling, + yellow floods. The Mississippi, too, had been known at times to achieve a + width of seventy miles, and tributaries have overflowed their banks to a + proportionate extent. It was several decades ere the Ohio was paralleled + by a railway, and the Mississippi for long distances even today has not + yet heard the shrill cry of the locomotive. So the steamboat entered its + heyday and encountered little competition. Until the Civil War + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">184</a></span> + the rivers of the West remained the great arteries of trade, carrying + grain and merchandise of every description southward and bringing back + cotton, rice, and sugar. + </p> + <p> + The rivalries of the great lines of packets established in these days of + the steamboat, however, equaled anything ever known in railway + competition, and, in the matter of fast time, became more spectacular than + anything of its kind in any line of transportation in our country. With + flags flying, boilers heated white with abundance of pine and resin, and + bold and skillful pilots at the steering wheels, no sport of kings ever + aroused the enthusiasm of hundreds of thousands to such a pitch as did + many of the old-time races northward from New Orleans. + </p> + <p> + The <i>J. M. White</i> and her performances stand out conspicuously + in the annals of the river. Her builder, familiarly known to a generation + of rivermen as Billy King, deserves to rank with Henry Shreve. + Commissioned in 1844 to build the <i>J. M. White</i> for + J. M. Converse of St. Louis, with funds supplied + by Robert Chouteau of that city, King proceeded to put into effect the + knowledge which he had derived from a close study of the swells made by + steamboats when under way. When the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">185</a></span> + boat was being built in the famous shipyards at Elizabeth, on the + Monongahela, the wheel beams were set twenty feet farther back than was + customary. Converse was struck with this unheard-of radicalism in design, + and balked; King was a man given to few words; he was resolved to throw + convention to the winds and trust his judgment; he refused to build the + boat on other lines. Converse felt compelled to let Chouteau pass on the + question; in time the laconic answer came: "Let King put the beams where + he pleases." + </p> + <p> + Thus the craft which Converse thought a monstrosity became known far and + wide for both its design and its speed. In 1844 the <i>J. M. + White</i> made the record of three days, twenty-three hours, and nine + minutes between New Orleans and St. Louis. ¹ Of course the secret + of Billy King's success soon became known. He had placed his paddle wheels + where they would bite into the swell + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">186</a></span> + produced by every boat just under its engines. He had + transformed what had been a handicap into a positive asset. It is said + that he attempted to shield his prize against competition by destroying + the model of the <i>J. M. White,</i> as well as to have refused + large offers to build a boat that would beat her. But it is said also + that an exhibition model of the boat was a cherished possession of + E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War, and that it hung in his office + during Lincoln's administration. + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p class="footer"> + <a id="footer_11-3" name="footer_11-3"></a> + ¹ This performance is illustrated by the following comparative + table showing the best records of later years between New Orleans and + St. Louis, a distance estimated in 1844 as 1300 miles but in 1870 as + 1218 miles, owing to the action of the river in shortening its course. + </p> + <table class="boat" + summary="Record times traveling by boat from New Orleans to St. Louis"> + <thead> + <tr> + <th>Year</th> + <th>Boat</th> + <th colspan="3" class="big-right-pad">Time</th> + </tr> + </thead> + <tbody> + <tr> + <td>1844</td> + <td class="italic big-right-pad">J. M. White</td> + <td>3 d.</td><td class="right">23 h.</td><td>9 m.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1849</td> + <td class="italic big-right-pad">Missouri</td> + <td>4 d.</td><td class="right">19 h.</td><td>—</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1869</td> + <td class="italic big-right-pad">Dexter</td> + <td>4 d.</td><td class="right">9 h.</td><td>—</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1870</td> + <td class="italic big-right-pad">Natchez</td> + <td>3 d.</td><td class="right">21 h.</td><td>58 m.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1870</td> + <td class="italic big-right-pad">R. E. Lee</td> + <td>3 d.</td><td class="right">18 h.</td><td>14 m.</td> + </tr> + </tbody> + </table> + </div> + <p> + The steamboat now extended its service to the West and North. The ancient + fur trade with the Indians of the upper Mississippi, the Missouri, and the + Arkansas, had its headquarters at St. Louis, whence the notable band of + men engaged in that trade were reaching out to the Rockies. The roll + includes Ashley, Campbell, Sublette, Manuel Lisa, Perkins, Hempstead, + William Clark, Labadie, the Chouteaus, and Menard—men of different + races and colors and alike only in their energy, bravery, and initiative. + Through them the village of St. Louis had grown to a population of four + thousand in 1819, when Major Long's expedition passed up the Missouri in + the first steamboat to ascend that river. This boat, the <i>Western + Engineer,</i> was built at Pittsburgh and was modeled cunningly for its + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">187</a></span> + work. It was one of the first stern wheelers built in the West; and the + saving in width meant much on streams having such narrow channels as the + Missouri and the Platte, especially when barges were to be towed. Then, + too, its machinery, which was covered over or boarded up, was shrouded in + mystery. A fantastic figure representing a serpent's open mouth contained + the exhaust pipe. If the <i>New Orleans</i> alarmed the population of the + Ohio Valley, the sensation caused among the red children of the Missouri + at the sight of this gigantic snake belching fire and smoke must have + thoroughly satisfied the whim of its designer. + </p> + <p> + The admission of Missouri to statehood and the independence of Mexico mark + the beginning of real commercial relations between St. Louis and Santa + Fé. In 1822 Captain William Becknell organized the first wagon + train which left the Missouri (at Franklin, near Independence) for the + long dangerous journey to the Arkansas and on to Santa Fé. In the + following year two expeditions set forth, carrying out cottons and other + drygoods to exchange for horses, mules, furs, and silver. + </p> + <p> + Despite the handicaps of Indian opposition and Mexican tariffs, the Santa + Fé trade became an important factor in the growth of St. Louis and + the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">188</a></span> + Missouri River steamboat lines. In 1825 the pathway was "surveyed" from + Franklin to San Fernando, then in Mexico. This Santa Fé trade grew + from fifteen thousand pounds of freight in 1822 to nearly half a million + pounds twenty years later. + </p> + <p> + By 1826 steamboat traffic up the Missouri began to assume regularity. The + navigation was dangerous and difficult because the Missouri never kept + even an approximately constant head of water. In times of drought it + became very shallow, and in times of flood it tore its wayward course open + in any direction it chose. "Of all variable things in creation," wrote a + Western editor, "the most uncertain are the action of a jury, the state of + a woman's mind, and the condition of the Missouri River." A further + handicap, and one which was unknown on the Ohio and rare on the + Mississippi, was the lack of forests to supply the necessary fuel. The + Missouri, it is true, had its cottonwoods, but in a green state they were + poor fuel, and along vast stretches they were not obtainable in any + quantity. + </p> + <p> + The steamboat linked St. Louis with that vital stretch of the river lying + between the mouth of the Kansas and the mouth of the Nebraska. From this + region the great Western trail ran on to California and Oregon. In the + early thirties + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">189</a></span> + Bonneville, Walker, Kelley, and Wyeth successively essayed + this Overland Trail by way of the Platte through the South Pass of the + Rockies to the Humboldt, Snake, and Columbia rivers. From Independence on + the Missouri this famous pathway led to Fort Laramie, a distance of 672 + miles; another 300-mile climb brought the traveler through South Pass; and + so, by way of Fort Bridger, Salt Lake, and Sutter's Fort, to San + Francisco. The route, well known by hundreds of Oregon pioneers in the + early forties, became a thoroughfare in the eager days of the + Forty-Niners. ¹ + </p> + <div class="footer"> + <p class="footer"> + <a id="footer_189-1" name="footer_189-1"></a> + ¹ For map see <i>The Passing of the Frontier,</i> by Emerson Hough + (in <i>The Chronicles of America</i>). + </p> + </div> + <p> + The earliest overland stage line to Great Salt Lake was established by + Hockaday and Liggett. After the founding of the famous Overland Stage + Company by Russell, Majors, and Waddell in 1858, stages were soon + ascending the Platte from the steamboat terminals on the Missouri and + making the twelve hundred miles from St. Joseph to Salt Lake City in ten + days. Stations were established from ten to fifteen miles apart, and the + line was soon extended on to Sacramento. The nineteen hundred miles from + St. Joseph to Sacramento were made in fifteen days, although the + government + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">190</a></span> + contract with the company for handling United States mail allowed nineteen + days. A host of employees was engaged in this exciting but not very + remunerative enterprise—station-agents and helpers, drivers, + conductors who had charge of passengers, in addition to mail and express + and road agents who acted as division superintendents. In 1862 the + Overland Route was taken over by the renowned Ben Holliday, who operated + it until the railway was constructed seven years later. Freight was hauled + by the same company in wagons known as the "J. Murphy wagons," which were + made in St. Louis. These wagons went out from Leavenworth loaded with six + thousand pounds of freight each. A train usually consisted of twenty-five + wagons and was known, in the vernacular of the plains, as a "bull-outfit"; + the drivers were "bull-whackers"; and the wagon master was the "bull-wagon + boss." + </p> + <p> + The old story, however, was repeated again here on the boundless plains of + the West. The Western trails streaming out from the terminus of steamboat + traffic between Kansas City and Omaha had scarcely time to become well + known before the railway conquerors of the Atlantic and Great Lakes + regions were planning the conquest of the greater plains and the Rockies + beyond. The opening of + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">191</a></span> + the Chinese ports in 1844 turned men's minds as never before to the + Pacific coast. The acquisition of Oregon within a few years and of + California at the close of the Mexican War opened the way for a newspaper + and congressional discussion as to whether the first railway to parallel + the Santa Fé or the Overland Trail should run from Memphis, + St. Louis, or Chicago. The building of the Union Pacific from Omaha + westward assured the future of that city, and it was soon joined to + Chicago and the East by several lines which were building toward Clinton, + Rock Island, and Burlington. + </p> + <p> + But the construction of a few main lines of railway across the continent + could only partially satisfy the commercial needs of the West. True, the + overland trade was at once transferred to the railroad, but the enormous + equipment of stage and express companies previously employed in westward + overland trade was now devoted to joining the railway lines with the vast + regions to the north and the south. The rivers of the West could not alone + take care of this commerce and for many years these great transportation + companies went with their stages and their wagons into the growing Dakota + and Montana trade and opened up direct lines of communication to the + nearest railway. On the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">192</a></span> + south the cattle industry of Texas came northward into touch with the + railways of Kansas. Eventually lateral and trunk lines covered the West + with their network of lines and thus obliterated all rivalry and + competition by providing unmatched facilities for quick transportation. + </p> + <p> + In the last days previous to the opening of the first transcontinental + railway line a unique method of rapid transportation for mail and light + parcels was established when the famous "Pony Express" line was put into + operation between St. Joseph and San Francisco in 1860. By relays of + horsemen, who carried pouches not exceeding twenty pounds in weight, the + time was cut to nine days. The innovation was the new wonder of the world + for the time being and led to an outburst on the part of the enthusiastic + editor of the St. Joseph <i>Free Democrat</i> that deserves reading + because it breathes so fully the Western spirit of exultant conquest: + </p> + <blockquote> + <p class="noindent"> + Take down your map and trace the footprints of our quadrupedantic animal: + From St. Joseph, on the Missouri, to San Francisco, on the Golden + Horn—two thousand miles—more than half the distance across + our boundless continent; through Kansas, through Nebraska, by Fort + Kearney, along the Platte, by Fort Laramie, past the Buttes, over the + Mountains, through the narrow passes and along the steep defiles, + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">193</a></span> + Utah, Fort Bridger, Salt Lake City, he witches Brigham with his swift + pony-ship—through the valleys, along the grassy slopes, into the + snow, into the sand, faster than Thor's Thialfi, away they go, rider and + horse—did you see them? They are in California, leaping over its + golden sands, treading its busy streets. The courser has unrolled to us + the great American panorama, allowed us to glance at the home of one + million people, and has put a girdle around the earth in forty minutes. + Verily the riding is like the riding of Jehu, the son of Nimshi for he + rideth furiously. Take out your watch. We are eight days from New York, + eighteen from London. The race is to the swift. ¹ + </p> + </blockquote> + <div class="footer"> + <p class="footer"> + <a id="footer_193-1" name="footer_193-1"></a> + ¹ Quoted in Inman's <i>The Great Salt Lake Trail,</i> p. 171. + </p> + </div> + <p> + The lifetime of many and many a man has covered a period longer than that + interval of eighty-six years between 1783, when George Washington had his + vision of "the vast inland navigation of these United States," and the + year 1869, when the two divisions of the Union Pacific were joined by a + golden spike at Promontory Point in Utah. In point of time, those + eighty-six years are as nothing; in point of accomplishment, they stand + unparalleled. When Washington's horse splashed across the Youghiogheny in + October, 1784, the boundary lines of the United States were guarded with + all the jealousy and provincial selfishness of European kingdoms. But + overnight, so to speak, these + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">194</a></span> + limitations became no more than mere geometrical expressions. "Pennamite," + "Erie," and "Toledo" wars between the States, suggesting a world of + bitterness and recrimination, are remembered today, if at all, only by + the cartoonist and the playwright. The ancient false pride in mock values, + so cherished in Europe, has quite departed from the provincial areas of + the United States, and Americans can fly in a day, unwittingly, through + many States. Problems that would have cost Europe blood are settled + without turmoil in the solemn cloisters of that American "international + tribunal," the Supreme Court, and they appear only as items of passing + interest in our newspapers. + </p> + <p> + In unifying the nation the influence of the Supreme Court has been + priceless, for it has given to Americans, in place of the colonial or + provincial mind, a continental mind. But great is the debt of Americans to + the men who laid the foundations of interstate commerce. No antidote + served so well to counteract the poison of clannish rivalry as did their + enthusiasm and their constructive energy. These men, dreamers and + promoters, were building better than they knew. They thought to overcome + mountains, obliterate swamps, conquer stormy lakes, master great rivers + and endless plains; + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">195</a></span> + but, as their labors are judged today, the greater + service which these men rendered appears in its true light. They stifled + provincialism; they battered down Chinese Walls of prejudice and + separatism; they reduced the aimless rivalry of bickering provinces to a + businesslike common denominator; and, perhaps more than any class of men, + they made possible the wide-spreading and yet united Republic that is + honored and loved today. + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <hr /> + + <div class="chapterhead"> + <a name="Bibliography" id="Bibliography"></a> + <br /><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">197</a></span> + <br /><br /><br /> + <h2><a href="#Contents">BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE</a></h2> + </div> + + + <p class="noindent"> + <span class="smcap">The</span> history of the early phase of American + transportation is dealt with in three general works. John Luther + Ringwalt's <i>Development of Transportation Systems in the United + States</i> (1888) is a reliable summary of the general subject at the + time. Archer B. Hulbert's <i>Historic Highways of America,</i> 16 vols. + (1902-1905), is a collection of monographs of varying quality + written with youthful enthusiasm by the author, who traversed in good part + the main pioneer roads and canals of the eastern portion of the United + States; Indian trails, portage paths, the military roads of the Old French + War period, the Ohio River as a pathway of migration, the Cumberland Road, + and three of the canals which played a part in the western movement, form + the subject of the more valuable volumes. The temptation of a writer on + transportation to wander from his subject is illustrated in this work, as + it is illustrated afresh in Seymour Dunbar's <i>A History of Travel in + America,</i> 4 vols. (1915). The reader will take great pleasure in this + magnificently illustrated work, which, in completer fashion than it has + ever been attempted, gives a readable running story of the whole subject + for the whole country, despite detours, which some will make around the + many pages devoted to Indian relations. + </p> + <p> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">198</a></span> + For almost every phase of the general topic books, monographs, pamphlets, + and articles are to be found in the corners of any great library, ranging + in character from such productions as William F. Ganong's <i>A Monograph + of Historic Sites in the Province of New Brunswick</i> (<i>Proceedings and + Transactions</i> of the Royal Society of Canada, Second Series, vol. V, + 1899) which treats of early travel in New England and Canada, or St. + George L. Sioussat's <i>Highway Legislation in Maryland and its Influence + on the Economic Development of the State</i> (<i>Maryland Geological + Survey,</i> III, 1899) treating of colonial road making and legislation + thereon, or Elbert J. Benton's <i>The Wabash Trade Route in the + Development of the Old Northwest</i> (<i>Johns Hopkins University Studies + in Historical and Political Science,</i> vol. XXI, 1903) and Julius + Winden's <i>The Influence of the Erie Canal upon the Population along its + Course</i> (University of Wisconsin, 1901), which treat of the economic + and political influence of the opening of inland water routes, to volumes + of a more popular character such as Francis W. Halsey's <i>The Old New + York Frontier</i> (1901), Frank H. Severance's <i>Old Trails on the + Niagara Frontier</i> (1903) for the North, and Charles A. Hanna's <i>The + Wilderness Trail,</i> 2 vols. (1911), and Thomas Speed's <i>The + Wilderness Road</i> (<i>The Filson Club Publications,</i> vol. II, + 1886) for Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Kentucky. The value of Hanna's work + deserves special mention. + </p> + <p> + For the early phases of inland navigation John Pickell's <i>A New Chapter + in the Early Life of Washington</i> (1856), is an excellent work of the + old-fashioned type, while in Herbert B. Adams's <i>Maryland's Influence + upon Land Cessions to the United States</i> (<i>Johns Hopkins + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">199</a></span> + University Studies in Historical and Political Science, Third Series,</i> + I, 1885) a master-hand pays Washington his due for originating plans of + trans-Alleghany solidarity; this likewise is the theme of Archer B. + Hulbert's <i>Washington and the West</i> (1905) wherein is printed + Washington's <i>Diary of September, 1784,</i> containing the first and + unexpurgated draft of his classic letter to Harrison of that year. The + publications of the various societies for internal improvement and state + boards of control and a few books, such as Turner Camac's <i>Facts and + Arguments Respecting the Great Utility of an Extensive Plan of Inland + Navigation in America</i> (1805), give the student distinct impressions + of the difficulties and the ideals of the first great American promoters + of inland commerce. Elkanah Watson's <i>History of the … Western + Canals in the State of New York</i> (1820), despite inaccuracies due + to lapses of memory, should be specially remarked. + </p> + <p> + For the rise and progress of turnpike building one must remember W. + Kingsford's <i>History, Structure, and Statistics of Plank Roads</i> + (1852), a reliable book by a careful writer. The Cumberland (National) + Road has its political influence carefully adjudged by Jeremiah S. Young + in <i>A Political and Constitutional Study of the Cumberland Road</i> + (1904), while the social and personal side is interestingly treated in + county history style in Thomas B. Searight's <i>The Old Pike</i> (1894). + Motorists will appreciate Robert Bruce's <i>The National Road</i> (1916), + handsomely illustrated and containing forty-odd sectional maps. + </p> + <p> + The best life of Fulton is H. W. Dickinson's <i>Robert Fulton, + Engineer and Artist: His Life and Works</i> (1913), while in Alice Crary + Sutcliffe's <i>Robert Fulton and the + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">200</a></span> + "Clermont"</i> (1909), the more intimate picture of a family biography + is given. For the controversy concerning the Fulton-Livingston monopoly, + note W. A. Duer's <i>A Course of Lectures on Constitutional + Jurisprudence</i> and his pamphlets addressed to Cadwallader D. Colden. + The life of that stranger to success, the forlorn John Fitch, + was written sympathetically and after assiduous research by Thompson + Westcott in his <i>Life of John Fitch the Inventor of the Steamboat</i> + (1858). For the pamphlet war between Fitch and Rumsey see Allibone's + Dictionary. + </p> + <p> + The Great Lakes have not been adequately treated. E. Channing and + M. F. Lansing's <i>The Story of the Great Lakes</i> (1909) is + reliable but deals very largely with the routine history covered by + the works of Parkman. J. O. Curwood's <i>The Great Lakes</i> (1909) + is stereotyped in its scope but has certain chapters of interest to + students of commercial development, as has also <i>The Story of the + Great Lakes.</i> The vast bulk of material of value on the subject lies + in the publications of the New York, Buffalo, Michigan, Wisconsin, + Illinois, and Chicago Historical Societies, whose lists should + be consulted. These publications also give much data on the Mississippi + River and western commercial development. S. L. Clemens's <i>Life on + the Mississippi</i> (in his <i>Writings,</i> vol. IX, 1869-1909) is + invaluable for its graphic pictures of steamboating in the heyday of + river traffic. A. B. Hulbert's <i>Waterways of Western Expansion</i> + (<i>Historic Highways,</i> vol. IX, 1903) and <i>The Ohio River</i> (1906) + give chapters on commerce and transportation. For the beginnings of + traffic into the Far West, H. Inman's <i>The Old Santa Fé Trail</i> + (1897) and <i>The Great Salt Lake Trail</i> (1914) may be consulted, + together with the publications + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">201</a></span> + of the various state historical societies of the + trans-Mississippi States. + </p> + <p> + Various bibliographies on this general subject have been issued by the + Library of Congress. Seymour Dunbar gives a good bibliography in his + <i>A History of Travel in America,</i> 4 vols. (1915). The student will + find quantities of material in books of travel, in which connection he + would do well to consult Solon J. Buck's <i>Travel and Description, + 1765-1865</i> (<i>Illinois State Historical Library Collections,</i> + vol. IX, 1914). + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <hr /> + + + + + <div class="chapterhead"> + <a name="Index" id="Index"></a> + <br /> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">203</a></span> + <br /><br /><br /> + <h2><a href="#Contents">INDEX</a></h2> + </div> + + <h3>A.</h3> + <div class="indexfont"> + Adams, J. Q., and internal improvements, + <a href="#Page_145">145</a>.<br /> + Albany, Old Bay Path to, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>; + road to Baltimore, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>; + <i>Clermont's</i> voyage to, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>.<br /> + Alexandria (Va.), rival of New York City, + <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.<br /> + Alleghanies, pathways across, + <a href="#Page_17">17</a>-<a href="#Page_19">19</a>, + <a href="#Page_116">116</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> + Allegheny Portage Railway, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.<br /> + <i>American,</i> New York, quoted, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.<br /> + Appalachian Mountains, pathways across, + <a href="#Page_15">15</a>-<a href="#Page_21">21</a>.<br /> + Arkansas, influence of river trade on, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.<br /> + "Army" plan of occupying West, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.<br /> + Ashley, fur trader, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.<br /> + Audubon, J. J., description of barge journey, + <a href="#Page_72">72</a>-<a href="#Page_73">73</a>.<br /> + <p><br /></p> + </div> + <h3>B.</h3> + <div class="indexfont"> + Baily, Francis, journey in United States (1796-97), + <a href="#Page_81">81</a>-<a href="#Page_98">98</a>; + quoted, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>-<a href="#Page_91">91</a>.<br /> + Balcony Falls, + trail between James and Great Kanawha Rivers at, + <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> + Baltimore, road to Albany, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>; + part in transportation development, + <a href="#Page_136">136</a>-<a href="#Page_137">137</a>, + <a href="#Page_143">143</a>-<a href="#Page_151">151</a>.<br /> + Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>; + Washington's vision realized by, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>; + follows old trail, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, + <a href="#Page_29">29</a>; + state appropriation, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>; + contest with canal company, + <a href="#Page_150">150</a>-<a href="#Page_151">151</a>; + reaches Ohio, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, + <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.<br /> + Baltimore-Frederick Turnpike, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.<br /> + Baltimore-Reisterstown Turnpike, + <a href="#Page_58">58</a>-<a href="#Page_59">59</a>, + <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.<br /> + Baring Brothers contribute to canal work, + <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.<br /> + Bay Path, <i>see</i> Old Bay Path.<br /> + Becknell, Captain William, + organizes first wagon train for Sante Fé, + <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.<br /> + Bedford, Fort, established, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.<br /> + Bixby, Captain, at Hat Island, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.<br /> + Black Hawk War (1832), <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.<br /> + Bonneville, Captain B. L. E., + on Overland Trail, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.<br /> + "Bonnyclabber Country," <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, + <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.<br /> + Boone, Daniel, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> + Bouquet, Colonel Henry, criticizes Washington, + <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.<br /> + Boston and Albany Railroad, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, + <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.<br /> + Boulton and Watt of Birmingham, + Fulton uses engine of, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, + <a href="#Page_113">113</a>.<br /> + Braddock's Road, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.<br/> + Brissot, French traveler in America, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, + <a href="#Page_83">83</a>.<br /> + Broad River, trail on, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> + Brown, Charles, builds hull of <i>Clermont,</i> + <a href="#Page_113">113</a>.<br /> + Brown, George, and Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, + <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.<br /> + Brownsville (Penn.) growth of, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.<br /> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">204</a></span> + Bryan, Guy, of Philadelphia, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.<br /> + Buffalo, demand for means of transportation, + <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>; + harbor improvement, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>; + growth, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.<br /> + Buffalo-Utica Canal, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>; + <i>see also</i> Erie Canal.<br /> + Bunting, "Red," stagecoach driver, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.<br /> + Burt, W. A., discovers iron ore in Michigan, + <a href="#Page_165">165</a>-<a href="#Page_166">166</a>.<br /> + <p><br /></p> + </div> + <h3>C.</h3> + <div class="indexfont"> + Calhoun, J. C., and internal improvements, + <a href="#Page_145">145</a>.<br /> + California, western trail to, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>; + acquisition of, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.<br /> + Campbell, fur trader, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.<br /> + Canals, early projects, + <a href="#Page_37">37</a>-<a href="#Page_38">38</a>; + inadequacy of, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>; + in the West, <a href="#Page_157">157</a> <i>et seq.; + see also</i> Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, Erie Canal, Welland Canal. + <br /> + Catskill Turnpike, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.<br /> + Céloron de Blainville + sends English traders from Ohio country, + <a href="#Page_25">25</a>-<a href="#Page_26">26</a>.<br /> + Charleston (S. C.), trails to Tennessee from, + <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> + Charleston (Wellsburg) made port of entry, + <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.<br /> + <i>Charlotte Dundas</i> (steamboat), <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, + <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.<br /> + Chastellux, Chevalier de, Washington's letter to, + <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.<br /> + Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, + Washington's vision realized in, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>; + plan for, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, + <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>; + Company formed, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>; + engineering difficulties, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>; + state subscription, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>; + contest with Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, + <a href="#Page_150">150</a>-<a href="#Page_151">151</a>.<br /> + Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>; + Washington's vision realized in, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>; + follows old route, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.<br /> + Chicago, harbor improvement, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, + <a href="#Page_169">169</a>; + canal terminal, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>; + growth, + <a href="#Page_162">162</a>-<a href="#Page_163">163</a>, + <a href="#Page_172">172</a>; + demand for means of transportation, + <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>; + convention discusses rivers and harbors (1846), + <a href="#Page_169">169</a>; + Illinois Central Railroad to, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>.<br /> + Chickasaw Trail, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.<br /> + Chillicothe (O.), grant to Zane at, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.<br /> + China, influence on West of opening ports, + <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.<br /> + Chiswell, Fort, "Warrior's Path" from, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> + Choctaw Trail, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.<br /> + Chouteau, Robert, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>.<br /> + Cincinnati, founded, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>; + ship-building, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, + <a href="#Page_180">180</a>; + made port of entry, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>; + <i>see also</i> Columbia.<br /> + Clark, William, fur trader, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.<br /> + Clay, Henry, and internal improvements, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>; + on Western canal project, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>.<br /> + <i>Clermont</i> (steamboat), <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, + <a href="#Page_113">113</a>-<a href="#Page_114">114</a>.<br /> + Cleveland, demand for means of transportation, + <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>; + harbor improvement, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>; + growth, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.<br /> + Clinton, DeWitt, <i>Memorial</i> (1816), <a href="#Page_127">127</a>; + and Ohio and Miami canals, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>.<br /> + Columbia (Cincinnati), port of entry, + <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>; + Baily at, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>; + <i>see also</i> Cincinnati. <br /> + <i>Comet</i> (steamboat), <a href="#Page_78">78</a>.<br /> + Conemaugh River, Kittanning Trail follows, + <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.<br /> + Congress, Fitch appeals to, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>; + appropriation for canal survey, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>.<br /> + Connecticut Path, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.<br /> + Connecticut River, Old Bay Path, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.<br /> + Connellsville (Penn.), growth of, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.<br /> + Converse, J. M., <a href="#Page_184">184</a>.<br /> + Cooper, Peter, builds engine <i>Tom Thumb</i>, + <a href="#Page_150">150</a>.<br /> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">205</a></span> + Cotton, influence on river navigation, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.<br /> + Cowpens, description of inhabitants, + <a href="#Page_22">22</a>-<a href="#Page_24">24</a>.<br /> + Crawford, agent for Washington, letter to, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.<br /> + Crisman, Jesse, owner of <i>Hit or Miss</i>, + <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.<br /> + Cumberland (Md.), + eastern terminus of Cumberland Road, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.<br /> + Cumberland Gap, "Warrior's Path" through, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>; + railroad through, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.<br /> + Cumberland Road, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>; + Washington's vision realized in, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>; + building authorized, + <a href="#Page_114">114</a>-<a href="#Page_115">115</a>; + importance, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>; + plan, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>-<a href="#Page_119">119</a>; + route, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>-<a href="#Page_120">120</a>; + building of, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>-<a href="#Page_121">121</a>; + cost, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>; + stage lines, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>-<a href="#Page_123">123</a>; + freight traffic, + <a href="#Page_123">123</a>-<a href="#Page_124">124</a>; + extension to Missouri, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>; + Baltimore and, + <a href="#Page_143">143</a>-<a href="#Page_144">144</a>; + bibliography, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>.<br /> + <p><br /></p> + </div> + <h3>D.</h3> + <div class="indexfont"> + Day, Sherman, quoted, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.<br /> + Deane, Silas, + plan for payment of Revolutionary War debt, + <a href="#Page_2">2</a>-<a href="#Page_3">3</a>.<br /> + Delaware Water Gap, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.<br /> + Delta (La.), changed by Mississippi River, + <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.<br /> + Detroit, + Washington marks out commercial lines to, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>; + port of entry, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>; + demand for transportation facilities, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>; + harbor, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>; + growth, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.<br /> + <i>Detroit</i> (lake steamer), <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.<br /> + Dickens, Charles, cited, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>; + describes canal boat journey, + <a href="#Page_140">140</a>-<a href="#Page_141">141</a>; + describes aerial railway, + <a href="#Page_141">141</a>-<a href="#Page_142">142</a>.<br /> + Doddridge, <i>Notes</i>, quoted, + <a href="#Page_27">27</a>-<a href="#Page_28">28</a>.<br /> + Doolittle, Sylvester, builds <i>Vandalia</i>, + <a href="#Page_168">168</a>.<br /> + <i>Duane</i> (ship), + <a href="#Page_76">76</a>-<a href="#Page_77">77</a>.<br /> + Duquesne, Fort, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, + <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.<br /> + <p><br /></p> + </div> + <h3>E.</h3> + <div class="indexfont"> + <i>Enterprise</i> (steamboat), <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.<br /> + "Era of Good Feeling," <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.<br /> + Erie (Penn.), + as place of embarkation, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>; + port of entry, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.<br /> + Erie Canal, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, + <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, + <a href="#Page_116">116</a>-<a href="#Page_117">117</a>; + Washington foresees, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, + <a href="#Page_12">12</a>; + work begun (1817), <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, + <a href="#Page_128">128</a>; + Hawley writes challenge to New York concerning, + <a href="#Page_115">115</a>; + state enterprise, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, + <a href="#Page_124">124</a>-<a href="#Page_128">128</a>, + <a href="#Page_136">136</a>; + Hawley's original plan, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>; + building of, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>-<a href="#Page_131">131</a>; + completion, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>; + locks enlarged, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.<br /> + Erie Railroad, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>; + Washington forecasts, + <a href="#Page_9">9</a>-<a href="#Page_10">10</a>; + follows Indian trade route, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.<br /> + "Erie" war, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.<br /> + Evans, Oliver, and steam propelled wagon, + <a href="#Page_102">102</a>-<a href="#Page_103">103</a>.<br /> + Everett, Edward, quoted, + <a href="#Page_12">12</a>-<a href="#Page_13">13</a>.<br /> + <p><br /></p> + </div> + <h3>F.</h3> + <div class="indexfont"> + Fallen Timber, battle of, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.<br /> + Ferries, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>-<a href="#Page_47">47</a>.<br /> + Fink, Mike, "the Snag," <a href="#Page_64">64</a>; + "Snapping Turtle," <a href="#Page_64">64</a>.<br /> + Fitch, John, + steamboat experiments, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, + <a href="#Page_101">101</a>-<a href="#Page_102">102</a>, + <a href="#Page_103">103</a>-<a href="#Page_105">105</a>; + petition to Congress, + <a href="#Page_106">106</a>-<a href="#Page_107">107</a>; + obtains monopoly from States, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>; + Fulton and, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.<br /> + Forbes, General John, captures Fort Duquesne, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>; + breaks army road, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.<br /> + Forman, Joshua, bill for Erie Canal project, + <a href="#Page_124">124</a>.<br /> + Franklin, Benjamin, + on making rivers navigable, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>; + and international boundary line, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.<br /> + Frederick (Md.), trail from, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.<br /> + <i>Free Democrat,</i> St. Joseph, quoted, + <a href="#Page_192">192</a>-<a href="#Page_193">193</a>.<br /> + Freeland, H., account of the <i>Clermont</i>, + <a href="#Page_113">113</a>-<a href="#Page_114">114</a>.<br /> + French as commercial rivals, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.<br /> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">206</a></span> + Fulton, Robert, steamboat experiments, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, + <a href="#Page_107">107</a>-<a href="#Page_114">114</a>; + and Livingston, + <a href="#Page_108">108</a>-<a href="#Page_112">112</a>; + on Erie Canal committee, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>; + bibliography, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>.<br /> + Fur trade, French and, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>; + with Illinois country, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>; + headquarters at St. Louis, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.<br /> + <p><br /></p> + </div> + <h3>G.</h3> + <div class="indexfont"> + Gallatin, Albert, scheme of internal improvements, + <a href="#Page_114">114</a>.<br /> + Geddes, James, engineer, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.<br /> + Gibbons, Thomas, steamboat competitor of Ogden, + <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.<br /> + Great Britain, steamboat experiments in, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>; + Fulton imports engine from, + <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>.<br /> + Great Kanawha River, + Washington outlines route by way of, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>; + as trade route, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> + Great Lakes, Washington's vision concerning, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>; + French on, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>; + navigation of, + <a href="#Page_154">154</a> <i>et seq.</i><br /> + Great Meadows, Washington on, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>; + Nemacolin's Path by, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.<br /> + "Great Trail," <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.<br /> + <i>Great Western</i> (lake steamer), <a href="#Page_168">168</a>.<br /> + Greensburg (Penn.), growth of, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.<br /> + Greenville, Treaty of, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.<br /> + <p><br /></p> + </div> + <h3>H.</h3> + <div class="indexfont"> + Hamilton County (O.) organized, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.<br /> + Hard Times (Miss.), location changed by Mississippi River, + <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.<br /> + Hawkins, John, Shreve compared with, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.<br /> + Hawley, Jesse, and Erie Canal, + <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.<br /> + Hazard, of Pennsylvania, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>; + and Lehigh coal, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.<br /> + Hempstead, fur trader, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.<br /> + <i>Henry Clay</i> (steamboat), <a href="#Page_156">156</a>.<br /> + <i>Hercules</i> (lake freighter), <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.<br /> + Heydt, Jost, leads immigrants south, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.<br /> + "Highland Trail," + <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.<br /> + <i>Hit or Miss</i> (canal boat), <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.<br /> + Hockaday and Liggett establish stage line to Great Salt Lake, + <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.<br /> + Holliday, Ben, and Overland Route, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.<br /> + Horses, pack, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>; + in "Bonnyclabber Country," <a href="#Page_86">86</a>.<br /> + Hough, Emerson, + <i>The Passing of the Frontier</i>, cited, + <a href="#Page_189">189</a> (note).<br /> + Houghton, Douglass, discovers copper in Michigan, + <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.<br /> + Hudson River, + Washington foresees joining to Great Lakes, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>; + pathway along, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>; + <i>see also</i> Erie Canal.<br /> + <p><br /></p> + </div> + <h3>I.</h3> + <div class="indexfont"> + Illinois, trade with, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>; + growth of population, + <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>; + canal fever, + <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>; + railway projects, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>; + influence of river trade on, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.<br /> + <i>Illinois</i> (lake steamer), <a href="#Page_168">168</a>.<br /> + Illinois Central Railroad, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>.<br /> + Illinois-Michigan Canal, + <a href="#Page_157">157</a>-<a href="#Page_158">158</a>, + <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, + <a href="#Page_168">168</a>.<br /> + Illinois River, French on, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.<br /> + Independence (Mo.), Overland Trail from, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.<br /> + Indiana, migration to, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>; + growth of population, + <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>; + canal enthusiasm, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>; + railway projects, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>; + influence of river trade on, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.<br /> + Indians, trails, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>; + pack-horse trade with, + <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.<br /> + Ingles ferry, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.<br /> + Iowa, influence of river trade on, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.<br /> + <p><br /></p> + </div> + <h3>J.</h3> + <div class="indexfont"> + <i>J. M. White</i> (river boat), + <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, + <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.<br /> + James-Kanawha Turnpike, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.<br /> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">207</a></span> + James River, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>; + Washington's vision regarding, + <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>; + as trade route, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> + Jefferson, Thomas, + plan for settlement of West, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.<br /> + <i>June Bug</i>, stagecoach line, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.<br /> + Juniata River, Kittanning Trail along, + <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.<br /> + <p><br /></p> + </div> + <h3>K.</h3> + <div class="indexfont"> + Keever, Captain, + builds steamboat on Ohio, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>.<br /> + Kent, Chancellor, and Erie Canal, + <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.<br /> + Kentucky, wagon road constructed to, + <a href="#Page_49">49</a>-<a href="#Page_50">50</a>; + migration to, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.<br /> + King, Billy, builder of the <i>J. M. White</i>, + <a href="#Page_184">184</a>.<br /> + Kittanning Trail, + <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.<br /> + Knoxville (Tenn.), Baily reaches, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.<br /> + <p><br /></p> + </div> + <h3>L.</h3> + <div class="indexfont"> + Labadie, fur trader, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.<br /> + Lake Shore Railroad, + <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.<br /> + Lancaster (O.) grant to Zane at, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.<br /> + Lancaster Turnpike, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, + <a href="#Page_53">53</a>-<a href="#Page_58">58</a>.<br /> + Laramie, Fort, Overland Trail to, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.<br /> + Lee, Arthur, + on cost of transportation (1784), <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.<br /> + Lee, Henry, Washington writes to, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>.<br /> + Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, + <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.<br /> + Lehigh Coal Company, + <a href="#Page_42">42</a>-<a href="#Page_43">43</a>.<br /> + Lehigh Navigation Company, + <a href="#Page_42">42</a>-<a href="#Page_43">43</a>.<br /> + Lewis and Clark expedition, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.<br /> + Liggett and Holliday run stage to Salt Lake, + <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.<br /> + Ligonier (Penn.), growth of, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.<br /> + Ligonier, Fort, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.<br /> + Lisa, Manuel, fur trader, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.<br /> + Livingston, R. R., and Fulton, + <a href="#Page_108">108</a>-<a href="#Page_112">112</a>; + on Erie Canal committee, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.<br /> + Long, Major, expedition up Missouri River, + <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.<br /> + Louisiana cotton exports, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.<br /> + <i>Louisiana of Marietta</i> (ship), <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.<br /> + Louisiana Purchase, + <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.<br /> + Louisville, importance and growth, + <a href="#Page_68">68</a>-<a href="#Page_69">69</a>; + as river port, + <a href="#Page_73">73</a>-<a href="#Page_74">74</a>, + <a href="#Page_77">77</a>; + shipbuilding, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.<br /> + Ludlow, actor, + sings <i>The Hunters of Kentucky</i>, + <a href="#Page_62">62</a>-<a href="#Page_63">63</a>.<br /> + <p><br /></p> + </div> + <h3>M.</h3> + <div class="indexfont"> + Mackinaw Island, port of entry, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.<br /> + Marietta (O.), founded, + <a href="#Page_67">67</a>-<a href="#Page_68">68</a>; + shipbuilding, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>; + as port of entry, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.<br /> + Maryland, Washington outlines trade routes for, + <a href="#Page_10">10</a>; + roads, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, + <a href="#Page_58">58</a>-<a href="#Page_59">59</a>; + cotton grown in, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>; + Cumberland Road, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>; + canals, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>; + Canal Company formed, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>; + <i>see also</i> Baltimore.<br /> + Massac, Fort (Ill.), port of entry, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>; + <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>; + Baily at, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.<br /> + Massachusetts, Old Bay Path, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>; + roads, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, + <a href="#Page_54">54</a>-<a href="#Page_55">55</a>.<br /> + Mauch Chunk (Penn.), coal from, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.<br /> + Maynard and Morrison, + trade with Illinois, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.<br /> + Menard, fur trader, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.<br /> + Mercer quoted, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.<br /> + Miami Canal, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>.<br /> + Michigan, growth of population, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, + <a href="#Page_156">156</a>; + plan for Erie Canal funds from sale of land in, + <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>; + development, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>; + "Toledo War," <a href="#Page_164">164</a>-<a href="#Page_165">165</a>; + minerals, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.<br /> + <i>Michigan</i> (lake steamer), <a href="#Page_168">168</a>.<br /> + Milwaukee, demand for transportation facilities, + <a href="#Page_164">164</a>; + harbor improvement, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.<br /> + Minnesota, development, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.<br /> + <i>Mirror,</i> New York, + prints <i>The Hunters of Kentucky,</i> + <a href="#Page_62">62</a>.<br /> + Mississippi cotton exports, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.<br /> + Mississippi River, + Washington's vision of navigation on, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>; + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">208</a></span> + French on, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>; + importance to commerce, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>; + canal to connect with Lake Michigan, + <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>; + navigation, <a href="#Page_176">176</a> <i>et seq.</i>; + eccentricities, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, + <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.<br /> + Missouri, influence of river trade on, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>; + admitted as State, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.<br /> + Missouri River, navigation on, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, + <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.<br /> + Mohawk River, + route through Appalachians, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.<br /> + Mohawk Trail, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.<br /> + Mohawk Turnpike, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.<br /> + Mohawk Valley, Washington and, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>.<br /> + <i>Monongahela Farmer</i> (ship), <a href="#Page_76">76</a>.<br/> + Monroe, James, + Fulton writes to, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, + <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>; + recommends congressional aid for canals, + <a href="#Page_145">145</a>.<br /> + Montreal, furs brought to, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>; + rival of New York City, + <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.<br /> + Moody, John, <i>The Railroad Builders</i>, cited, + <a href="#Page_157">157</a> (note).<br /> + Morey, Samuel, inventor of stern-wheeler, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, + <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.<br /> + Morgantown (Penn.), growth of, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.<br /> + Morris, Gouverneur, of New York, + <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.<br /> + <p><br /></p> + </div> + <h3>N.</h3> + <div class="indexfont"> + Nashville (Tenn.), trails to, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> + Natchez (Miss.), Baily at, + <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>.<br /> + Natchez Trace, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>.<br /> + <i>National</i>, stagecoach line, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.<br /> + Nemacolin Path, + <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.<br /> + Newberry, Oliver, of Detroit, builds <i>Michigan</i>, + <a href="#Page_168">168</a>.<br /> + New Madrid, Baily at, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.<br /> + New Orleans, made open port, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>; + Baily at, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>; + steamboat tonnage of (1843), <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.<br /> + <i>New Orleans</i> (steamboat), <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, + <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.<br /> + New York (State), + Washington foresees communication lines of, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>; + canal project, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>-<a href="#Page_38">38</a>; + roads, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>; + Livingston obtains steamboat monopoly, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>; + steamboat grant to Livingston, Roosevelt and Fulton, + <a href="#Page_111">111</a>; + railroads, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>; + <i>see also</i> Erie Canal.<br /> + New York Central Railroad, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>; + Washington and, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>; + follows Mohawk Trail, + <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.<br /> + New York City, Baily at, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>; + Erie Canal and, + <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>; + tonnage compared to that of river ports, + <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.<br /> + Niagara, French at, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.<br /> + <i>Niagara</i> (steamboat), <a href="#Page_156">156</a>.<br /> + Nickel Plate Railroad, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.<br /> + Northwest, Deane's plan for, + <a href="#Page_2">2</a>-<a href="#Page_3">3</a>; + navigation of Great Lakes, <a href="#Page_154">154</a> <i>et seq.</i>; + immigration to, + <a href="#Page_167">167</a>-<a href="#Page_168">168</a>.<br /> + <p><br /></p> + </div> + <h3>O.</h3> + <div class="indexfont"> + Ogden, Aaron, <i>vs.</i> Gibbon, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.<br /> + Ohio, migration to, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>; + growth of population, + <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>; + and Cumberland Road, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>; + canals, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>-<a href="#Page_160">160</a>; + admitted as State (1802), <a href="#Page_158">158</a>; + railroads, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>; + influence of river trade on, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.<br /> + Ohio and Lake Erie Company, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>.<br /> + Ohio Canal, + <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, + <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.<br /> + Ohio River, Washington and, + <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>; + access of French and English to, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>; + value of cargoes on (1800), <a href="#Page_74">74</a>; + Baltimore and Ohio Railroad reaches (1853), + <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>; + navigation, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.<br /> + Old Bay Path, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.<br /> + <i>Ontario</i> (steamboat), <a href="#Page_156">156</a>.<br /> + Orange, Fort (Albany), <a href="#Page_16">16</a>; + <i>see also</i> Albany.<br /> + Ordinance of 1787, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>.<br /> + Oregon, western trail to, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>; + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">209</a></span> + effect of acquisition on transportation, + <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.<br /> + <i>Orleans</i> (steamboat), <a href="#Page_78">78</a>.<br /> + Ormsbee, of Connecticut, makes steamboat model, + <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.<br /> + Ottawa (Ill.) canal terminal, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.<br /> + Overland Stage Company, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.<br /> + Overland Trail, + <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.<br /> + <p><br /></p> + </div> + <h3>P.</h3> + <div class="indexfont"> + Palmyra (Tenn.), as river port, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.<br /> + Pedee River, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.<br /> + "Pennamite" war, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.<br /> + Pennsylvania, Washington and transportation in, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, + <a href="#Page_10">10</a>-<a href="#Page_11">11</a>; + canals, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>-<a href="#Page_35">35</a>, + <a href="#Page_136">136</a>; + roads, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, + <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, + <a href="#Page_48">48</a>-<a href="#Page_49">49</a>, + <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, + <a href="#Page_53">53</a>-<a href="#Page_54">54</a>, + <a href="#Page_119">119</a>-<a href="#Page_120">120</a>; + "Bonnyclabber Country," + <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>; + and Great Lakes, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>; + railways, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.<br /> + Pennsylvania Canal, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>; + Washington forecasts, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>; + route, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>; + engineering achievement, + <a href="#Page_139">139</a>-<a href="#Page_140">140</a>.<br /> + Pennsylvania Railroad, + <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>; + Washington and, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>-<a href="#Page_10">10</a>; + follows Indian trail, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>; + incorporated (1846), <a href="#Page_151">151</a>; + reaches Ohio River, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.<br /> + Perkins, fur trader, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.<br /> + Philadelphia, roads to, + <a href="#Page_48">48</a>-<a href="#Page_49">49</a>; + meeting to protest against monopoly of Lancaster Turnpike, + <a href="#Page_55">55</a>; + Baily at, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>; + rival of New York City, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.<br /> + Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike Road Company, + <a href="#Page_53">53</a>-<a href="#Page_54">54</a>.<br/> + Philadelphia Road, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.<br /> + Pickering plan of occupying West, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.<br /> + Pike, Captain Z. M., <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.<br /> + <i>Pioneer</i>, stagecoach line, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.<br /> + <i>Pioneer</i> (steamboat), <a href="#Page_156">156</a>.<br /> + Pitt, Fort, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.<br /> + Pittsburgh, growth, + <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>; + trade with, + <a href="#Page_65">65</a>-<a href="#Page_66">66</a>, + <a href="#Page_66">66</a>-<a href="#Page_67">67</a>, + <a href="#Page_75">75</a>; + shipbuilding, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>; + port of entry, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>; + Baily reaches, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.<br /> + Platt, Judge, and Erie Canal, + <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.<br /> + Pontiac's Rebellion, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>-<a href="#Page_27">27</a>, + <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.<br /> + "Pony Express," <a href="#Page_192">192</a>.<br /> + Potomac Canal Company, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.<br /> + Potomac Company, + <a href="#Page_31">31</a>-<a href="#Page_33">33</a>, + <a href="#Page_138">138</a>.<br /> + Potomac River, Washington's vision regarding, + <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>; + commerce on, + <a href="#Page_17">17</a>-<a href="#Page_18">18</a>.<br /> + <i>Prairie</i> (steamboat), <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.<br /> + Presq'Isle (Erie) + recommended as place of embarkation, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.<br /> + Prices in 1800, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>.<br /> + Putnam, General Rufus, + advocates Pickering plan, + <a href="#Page_3">3</a>-<a href="#Page_4">4</a>.<br /> + <p><br /></p> + </div> + <h3>Q.</h3> + <div class="indexfont"> + Quebec, furs brought to, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.<br /> + <i>Queen of the West</i> (British steamer), + <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.<br /> + <p><br /></p> + </div> + <h3>R.</h3> + <div class="indexfont"> + Railroads, <a href="#Page_134">134</a> <i>et seq.</i>; + <i>see also</i> names of railroads. <br /> + Revolutionary War, plans for payment of debt of, + <a href="#Page_2">2</a>-<a href="#Page_3">3</a>.<br /> + Rhodes, Mayor of Philadelphia, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.<br /> + Rideau canal system, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>.<br /> + Rivers and harbors, + government policy of improvement, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>; + Chicago convention (1846), <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.<br /> + Roads, <a href="#Page_44">44</a> <i>et seq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_83">83</a>; + tolls, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>-<a href="#Page_60">60</a>; + <i>see also</i> Cumberland Road. <br /> + Robinson, Moncure, + <a href="#Page_139">139</a>-<a href="#Page_140">140</a>.<br /> + Roosevelt, Theodore, quoted, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.<br /> + Rumsey, James, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>; + general manager of Potomac Company, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>; + steamboat experiments, + <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, + <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>; + Virginia grants monopoly to, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>; + Fulton and, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.<br /> + Russell, Majors, and Waddell found Overland Stage Company, + <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.<br /> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">210</a></span> + Rutherfordton Trail, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> + <p><br /></p> + </div> + <h3>S.</h3> + <div class="indexfont"> + Sacramento, stage line to, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.<br /> + <i>St. Clair</i> (brig), <a href="#Page_76">76</a>.<br /> + St. Joseph (Mo.), stage line from, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.<br /> + St. Lawrence canal system, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>.<br /> + St. Louis, shipbuilding, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>; + headquarters for fur trade, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>; + trade with Santa Fé, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.<br /> + St. Mary's River Ship Canal, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, + <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>.<br /> + Salt Lake City, stage line to, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.<br /> + <i>Samson</i> (lake freighter), <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.<br /> + Sandusky, port of entry, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.<br /> + San Francisco, Overland Trail to, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.<br /> + San Lorenzo, Treaty of, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.<br /> + Santa Fé, trade with, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.<br /> + Santa Fé Trail, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.<br /> + "Sapphire Country," <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, + <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.<br /> + <i>Saturday Advertiser</i>, Liverpool, + on the <i>Duane</i>, + <a href="#Page_76">76</a>-<a href="#Page_77">77</a>.<br /> + Schoph, J. D., crosses mountains in chaise, + <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.<br /> + Schuylkill-Susquehanna Canal, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.<br /> + Searight describes freight wagons on Cumberland Road, + <a href="#Page_123">123</a>-<a href="#Page_124">124</a>.<br /> + Sellers, Captain Isaiah, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.<br /> + Shreve, Henry, builds double-decked steamboat, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>; + invents flat-bottomed steamboat, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.<br /> + Society for Promoting the Improvement of Roads and Inland Navigation, + <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, + <a href="#Page_34">34</a>-<a href="#Page_35">35</a>, + <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.<br /> + South, trade with, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>; + demands for commerce, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.<br /> + <i>Southern Belle</i> (steamboat), <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.<br /> + Southern Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.<br /> + Southern Railway, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> + Stanton, E. M., + has model of <i>J. M. White</i>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.<br /> + Stephenson, Robert, + on Pennsylvania Canal, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.<br /> + Stevens, E. A., invents twin-screw propeller, + <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.<br /> + Sublette, fur trader, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.<br /> + <i>Sultana</i> (steamboat), <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.<br /> + <i>Superior</i> (steamboat), + <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>.<br /> + Superior, Lake, copper and iron deposits near, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>; + commerce from, + <a href="#Page_166">166</a>-<a href="#Page_167">167</a>.<br /> + Susquehanna River, Washington foresees joining to West, + <a href="#Page_8">8</a>.<br /> + <p><br /></p> + </div> + <h3>T.</h3> + <div class="indexfont"> + Taverns, + <a href="#Page_56">56</a>-<a href="#Page_57">57</a>, + <a href="#Page_82">82</a>-<a href="#Page_83">83</a>.<br /> + Taylor, Acting-Governor of New York, + and Erie Canal, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, + <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.<br /> + Tennessee, trails to, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>; + cotton exports, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.<br /> + Tennessee Path, Baily on, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>.<br /> + Thackeray, W. M., quoted, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.<br /> + Thomas, P. E., and Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, + <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.<br /> + Thompson, Chief Justice of New York, and Erie Canal, + <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.<br /> + Toledo (O.), demand for transportation facilities, + <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.<br /> + "Toledo War," + <a href="#Page_164">164</a>-<a href="#Page_165">165</a>, + <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.<br /> + <i>Tom Thumb</i>, Peter Cooper's engine, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>. + <br /> + Transportation, Conestoga wagons, + <a href="#Page_57">57</a>-<a href="#Page_58">58</a>, + <a href="#Page_86">86</a>; + steamboats, <a href="#Page_100">100</a> <i>et seq.</i>; + stagecoaches, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>; + "J. Murphy wagons," <a href="#Page_190">190</a>; + <i>see also</i> Canals, Ferries, Horses, Railroads, Roads. <br /> + Tupper, General Benjamin, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.<br /> + Twain, Mark, cited, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.<br /> + Tyson, Jonathan, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.<br /> + <p><br /></p> + </div> + <h3>U.</h3> + <div class="indexfont"> + Unaka Mountains, <i>see</i> Alleghanies. <br /> + Union Canal, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, + <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>; + <i>see also</i> Pennsylvania Canal. <br /> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">211</a></span> + Union Pacific Railroad, + <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.<br /> + Uniontown (Penn.), growth of, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.<br /> + <p><br /></p> + </div> + <h3>V.</h3> + <div class="indexfont"> + <i>Vandalia</i> (lake freighter), <a href="#Page_168">168</a>.<br /> + <i>Vesuvius</i> (steamboat), <a href="#Page_78">78</a>.<br /> + Virginia, Washington's vision of trade routes for, + <a href="#Page_10">10</a>; + Indian trails, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>; + roads, + <a href="#Page_44">44</a>-<a href="#Page_45">45</a>, + <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>; + negroes, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>; + tobacco, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>; + canals, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, + <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.<br /> + Virginia Road (Braddock's Road), <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.<br /> + <p><br /></p> + </div> + <h3>W.</h3> + <div class="indexfont"> + <i>Walk-in-the-Water</i> (steamboat), + <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, + <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.<br /> + "Warrior's Path," + <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.<br /> + Washington (D. C.), Baily at, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, + <a href="#Page_85">85</a>-<a href="#Page_86">86</a>.<br /> + <i>Washington</i>, first double-decked steamboat, + <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.<br /> + Washington, Fort, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.<br /> + Washington, George, + vision of inland navigation, <a href="#Page_4">4</a> <i>et seq.</i>, + <a href="#Page_193">193</a>; + doctrine of expansion, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>; + journey to West, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>-<a href="#Page_9">9</a>; + letter to Harrison, + <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, + <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>; + <i>Journal</i>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>; + and river improvement, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>; + president of Potomac Company, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>; + and army roads, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>; + and crop rotation, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>; + prophecy regarding millstones, + <a href="#Page_87">87</a>-<a href="#Page_88">88</a>; + Rumsey and, + <a href="#Page_100">100</a>-<a href="#Page_101">101</a>, + <a href="#Page_105">105</a>-<a href="#Page_106">106</a>.<br /> + Watauga, Fort, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> + Waters, Dr., of New Madrid, builds schooner, + <a href="#Page_95">95</a>.<br /> + Watson, Elkanah, of New York, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, + <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, + <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>.<br /> + Wayne, Anthony, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.<br /> + Webster, Pelatiah, and settlement of Northwest, + <a href="#Page_3">3</a>.<br /> + Weiser, Conrad, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.<br /> + Welch, Sylvester, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.<br /> + Welland Canal, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, + <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, + <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.<br /> + <i>Western Engineer</i> (steamboat), <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.<br /> + Western Inland Lock Navigation Company, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, + <a href="#Page_36">36</a>-<a href="#Page_37">37</a>.<br /> + Western Maryland Railway, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.<br /> + Westfield River, Old Bay Path along, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.<br /> + Westover, stagecoach driver, + <a href="#Page_122">122</a>-<a href="#Page_123">123</a>.<br /> + Wheeling, western terminus of Cumberland Road, + <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.<br /> + White, of Pennsylvania, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, + <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.<br /> + Wickham, Nathan, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.<br /> + Wilderness Road, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, + <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.<br /> + Winchester (Va.), trail from, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.<br /> + Wisconsin, development of, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.<br /> + Woodworth, Samuel, + <i>The Hunters of Kentucky</i>, + <a href="#Page_62">62</a>-<a href="#Page_63">63</a>; + <i>The Old Oaken Bucket</i>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>.<br /> + <p><br /></p> + </div> + + <h3>Y.</h3> + <div class="indexfont"> + Yadkin River, trail on, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>.<br /> + Yates, Judge, and Erie Canal, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.<br /> + Yoder, Jacob, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>-<a href="#Page_65">65</a>.<br /> + York Road, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.<br /> + <i>Yorktown</i> (steamboat), <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, + <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.<br /> + <p><br /></p> + </div> + + <h3>Z.</h3> + <div class="indexfont"> + Zane, Ebenezer, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, + <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.<br /> + Zanesville (O.), grants to Zane near, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.<br /> + <p><br /></p> + </div> + + + + + + <hr /> + <div class="chapterhead"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2><a href="#Contents">The Chronicles of America Series</a></h2> + <ol> + <li>The Red Man's Continent<br /> by Ellsworth Huntington</li> + <li>The Spanish Conquerors<br /> by Irving Berdine Richman</li> + <li>Elizabethan Sea-Dogs<br /> by William Charles Henry Wood</li> + <li>The Crusaders of New France<br /> by William Bennett Munro</li> + <li>Pioneers of the Old South<br /> by Mary Johnson</li> + <li>The Fathers of New England<br /> by Charles McLean Andrews</li> + <li>Dutch and English on the Hudson<br /> by Maud Wilder Goodwin</li> + <li>The Quaker Colonies<br /> by Sydney George Fisher</li> + <li>Colonial Folkways<br /> by Charles McLean Andrews</li> + <li>The Conquest of New France<br /> + by George McKinnon Wrong</li> + <li>The Eve of the Revolution<br /> by Carl Lotus Becker</li> + <li>Washington and His Comrades in Arms<br /> by George McKinnon Wrong</li> + <li>The Fathers of the Constitution<br /> by Max Farrand</li> + <li>Washington and His Colleagues<br /> by Henry Jones Ford</li> + <li>Jefferson and his Colleagues<br /> by Allen Johnson</li> + <li>John Marshall and the Constitution<br /> by Edward Samuel Corwin</li> + <li>The Fight for a Free Sea<br /> by Ralph Delahaye Paine</li> + <li>Pioneers of the Old Southwest<br /> by Constance Lindsay Skinner</li> + <li>The Old Northwest<br /> by Frederic Austin Ogg</li> + <li>The Reign of Andrew Jackson<br /> by Frederic Austin Ogg</li> + <li><span class="smcap">The Paths of Inland Commerce<br /> + by Archer Butler Hulbert</span></li> + <li>Adventurers of Oregon<br /> by Constance Lindsay Skinner</li> + <li>The Spanish Borderlands<br /> by Herbert Eugene Bolton</li> + <li>Texas and the Mexican War<br /> by Nathaniel Wright Stephenson</li> + <li>The Forty-Niners<br /> by Stewart Edward White</li> + <li>The Passing of the Frontier<br /> by Emerson Hough</li> + <li>The Cotton Kingdom<br /> by William E. Dodd</li> + <li>The Anti-Slavery Crusade<br /> by Jesse Macy</li> + <li>Abraham Lincoln and the Union<br /> by Nathaniel Wright Stephenson</li> + <li>The Day of the Confederacy<br /> by Nathaniel Wright Stephenson</li> + <li>Captains of the Civil War<br /> by William Charles Henry Wood</li> + <li>The Sequel of Appomattox<br /> by Walter Lynwood Fleming</li> + <li>The American Spirit in Education<br /> by Edwin E. Slosson</li> + <li>The American Spirit in Literature<br /> + by Bliss Perry</li> + <li>Our Foreigners<br /> by Samuel Peter Orth</li> + <li>The Old Merchant Marine<br /> by Ralph Delahaye Paine</li> + <li>The Age of Invention<br /> by Holland Thompson</li> + <li>The Railroad Builders<br /> by John Moody</li> + <li>The Age of Big Business<br /> by Burton Jesse Hendrick</li> + <li>The Armies of Labor<br /> by Samuel Peter Orth</li> + <li>The Masters of Capital<br /> by John Moody</li> + <li>The New South<br /> by Holland Thompson</li> + <li>The Boss and the Machine<br /> by Samuel Peter Orth</li> + <li>The Cleveland Era<br /> by Henry Jones Ford</li> + <li>The Agrarian Crusade<br /> by Solon Justus Buck</li> + <li>The Path of Empire<br /> by Carl Russell Fish</li> + <li>Theodore Roosevelt and His Times<br /> by Harold Howland</li> + <li>Woodrow Wilson and the World War<br /> by Charles Seymour</li> + <li>The Canadian Dominion<br /> by Oscar D. Skelton</li> + <li>The Hispanic Nations of the New World<br /> by William R. Shepherd</li> + </ol> + <hr /> + + <div class="chapterhead"> + <br /> + <a name="Hulbert" id="Hulbert"></a> + <br /><br /><br /> + <h2><a href="#Contents">Historic Highways of America</a></h2> + </div> + + +<ol> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40873"> + Paths of the Mound-Building Indians and Great Game Animals</a></li> +<li>Indian Thoroughfares</li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40932"> + Washington's Road (Nemacolin's Path):<br /> + The First Chapter of the Old French War</a></li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41152"> + Braddock's Road and Three Relative Papers</a></li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41118"> + The Old Glade (Forbes) Road: <br />Pennsylvania State Road</a> </li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41143"> + Boone's Wilderness Road</a> </li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41179"> + Portage Paths: The Keys of the Continent</a></li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41167"> + Military Roads of the Mississippi Basin: + <br />The Conquest of the Old Northwest</a></li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41103"> + Waterways of Westward Expansion: + <br />The Ohio River and Its Tributaries</a> </li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41041"> + The Cumberland Road </a> </li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41067"> + Pioneer Roads and Experiences of Travelers: Volume I </a> </li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41030"> + Pioneer Roads and Experiences of Travelers: Volume II </a></li> +<li>The Great American Canals:<br /> + Volume I The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and Pennsylvania Canal</li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/41008"> + The Great American Canals: <br /> + Volume II The Erie Canal </a> </li> +<li><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33706"> + The Future of Road-Making in America: A Symposium</a> </li> +<li>Index</li> +</ol> + +<p> +Archer Hulbert completed a fifteen-part series from 1902-1905 on the historic +highways of America, which he distilled into this one volume for the +<i>Chronicles of America Series</i>. <span class="smcap">Project +Gutenberg</span> offers thirteen of the fifteen volumes in the historic +roads series. We are also missing the sixteenth volume from our collection, +which is an index of the other fifteen volumes. +</p> + + + <hr /> + <div class="chapterhead"> + <br /> + <br /><br /><br /> + <h2>Transcriber's Notes</h2> + <p><br /></p> + <h3>Introduction:</h3> + </div> + <p> + The Chronicles of America Series has two similar editions of each volume in + the series. One version is the Abraham Lincoln edition of the series, a + premium version which includes full-page pictures. A textbook edition was + also produced, which does not contain the pictures and captions associated + with the pictures, but is otherwise the same book. This book was produced + to match the textbook edition of the book. + </p> + <p> + We have retained the original punctuation and spelling in the book, but + there are a few exceptions. Obvious errors were corrected--and all of + these changes can be found in the <i>Detailed Notes Section</i> of these + notes. The <i>Detailed Notes Section</i> also includes + issues that have come up during transcription. One common issue is that + words are sometimes split into two lines for spacing purposes in the + original text. These words are hyphenated in the physical book, but there + is a question sometimes as to whether the hyphen should be retained in + transcription. The reasons behind some of these decisions are itemized. + </p> + + <p><br /></p> + + <h3>Detailed Notes Section:</h3> + + <h4>Chapter 2</h4> + <p> + On <a href="#Page_28">Page 28</a>, pack-saddles was hyphenated between + two lines for spacing. The word was used inside a quote, so + prior references may not give us the right transcription. However, + it is the best information that we have available. On page 22, + packsaddle was not hyphenated and appeared in the middle of a line. + A word with the same prefix, pack-horse, was consistently spelled with a + hyphen. We transcribed the word without the hyphen, because the + evidence suggests that the author intended packsaddles without the + hyphen, but pack-horse and pack-horsemen with the hyphen. + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <h4>Chapter 3</h4> + <p> + On <a href="#Page_32">Page 32</a>, stock-holders was hyphenated between + two lines for spacing. On page 41, stockholders was spelled without + a hyphen. Also, on page 56, stockholders was spelled without a hyphen. + We transcribed the word without the hyphen. + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <h4>Chapter 4</h4> + <p> + On <a href="#Page_57">Page 57</a>, stage-coach was hyphenated between + two lines for spacing. In several other instances, stagecoach was + spelled without the hyphen. You will find one instance of stage-coach + with a hyphen, on page 135: it is from quoted text. We transcribed + the word without the hyphen. + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <h4>Chapter 6</h4> + <p> + On <a href="#Page_86">Page 86</a>, pack-horse was hyphenated between + two lines for spacing. In many other instances, pack-horse was + spelled with the hyphen. We transcribed the word with the hyphen. + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <h4>Chapter 7</h4> + <p> + On <a href="#Page_101">Page 101</a>, iron-shod was hyphenated between + two lines for spacing. There was no other use of the word in this book. + We transcribed the word without the hyphen. + </p> + <p> + On <a href="#Page_109">Page 109</a>, stern-wheeler was hyphenated + between two lines for spacing. On the same page, stern-wheeler was + used again, hyphenated, in the middle of a line. We transcribed the + word with the hyphen. + </p> + <p><br /></p> + <h4>Index</h4> + <p> + On <a href="#Page_210">Page 210</a>, stage-coach was hyphenated between + two lines for spacing. We transcribed the word without the hyphen. + See the note in this section under <i>Chapter 4</i> for a further + explanation. + </p> + <hr /> + + + + + + + + + + <p> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </p> + + + + + +<p class="noindent bold double-space-top"> +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PATH OF INLAND COMMERCE *** +</p> + +<p class="noindent double-space-top"> +***** This file should be named 3098-h.htm or 3098-h.zip ***** +</p> + +<p class="boilerplate"> +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:</p> +<p class="noindent center no-space-top"> + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/0/9/3098 +</p> + +<p class="boilerplate"> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions +will be renamed. +</p> + +<p class="boilerplate"> +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.</p> + +<p class="boilerplate"> +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:</p> + +<p class="noindent center no-space-top"> +https://www.gutenberg.org +</p> + +<p class="boilerplate"> +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg™, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.</p> + + + + </body> +</html> diff --git a/3098-h/images/cover.jpg b/3098-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0fb7153 --- /dev/null +++ b/3098-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/3098.txt b/3098.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..726ff26 --- /dev/null +++ b/3098.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4367 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Paths of Inland Commerce, by Archer B. Hulbert + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Paths of Inland Commerce + A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The + Chronicles of America Series + +Author: Archer B. Hulbert + +Editor: Allen Johnson + +Posting Date: February 28, 2009 [EBook #3098] +Release Date: February, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PATHS OF INLAND COMMERCE *** + + + + +Produced by The James J. Kelly Library Of St. Gregory's +University, Alev Akman, Dianne Bean, and Doris Ringbloom + + + + + + +THE PATHS OF INLAND COMMERCE, + +A CHRONICLE OF TRAIL, ROAD, AND WATERWAY + + +By Archer B. Hulbert + + + + +PREFACE + +If the great American novel is ever written, I hazard the guess that its +plot will be woven around the theme of American transportation, for +that has been the vital factor in the national development of the United +States. Every problem in the building of the Republic has been, in the +last analysis, a problem in transportation. The author of such a +novel will find a rich fund of material in the perpetual rivalries of +pack-horseman and wagoner, of riverman and canal boatman, of steamboat +promoter and railway capitalist. He will find at every point the old +jostling and challenging; the new pack-horsemen demolishing wagons in +the early days of the Alleghany traffic; wagoners deriding Clinton's +Ditch; angry boatmen anxious to ram the paddle wheels of Fulton's +Clermont, which threatened their monopoly. Such opposition has always +been an incident of progress; and even in this new country, receptive +as it was to new ideas, the Washingtons, the Fitches, the Fultons, the +Coopers, and the Whitneys, who saw visions and dreamed dreams, all had +to face scepticism and hostility from those whom they would serve. + +A. B. H. + +Worcester, Mass., June, 1919. + + +CONTENTS + + I. THE MAN WHO CAUGHT THE VISION + II. THE RED MAN'S TRAIL + III. THE MASTERY OF THE RIVERS + IV. A NATION ON WHEELS + V. THE FLATBOAT AGE + VI. THE PASSING SHOW OF 1800 + VII. THE BIRTH OF THE STEAMBOAT + VIII. THE CONQUEST OF THE ALLEGHANIES + IX. THE DAWN OF THE IRON AGE + X. THE PATHWAY OF THE LAKES + XI. THE STEAMBOAT AND THE WEST + + BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + + + + +THE PATHS OF INLAND COMMERCE + + + +CHAPTER I. The Man Who Caught The Vision + +Inland America, at the birth of the Republic, was as great a mystery to +the average dweller on the Atlantic seaboard as the elephant was to the +blind men of Hindustan. The reports of those who had penetrated this +wilderness--of those who had seen the barren ranges of the Alleghanies, +the fertile uplands of the Unakas, the luxuriant blue-grass regions, the +rich bottom lands of the Ohio and Mississippi, the wide shores of the +inland seas, or the stretches of prairie increasing in width beyond +the Wabash--seemed strangely contradictory, and no one had been able to +patch these reports together and grasp the real proportions of the giant +inland empire that had become a part of the United States. It was a +pathless desert; it was a maze of trails, trodden out by deer, buffalo, +and Indian. Its great riverways were broad avenues for voyagers and +explorers; they were treacherous gorges filled with the plunder of a +million floods. It was a rich soil, a land of plenty; the natives +were seldom more than a day removed from starvation. Within its broad +confines could dwell a great people; but it was as inaccessible as the +interior of China. It had a great commercial future; yet its +gigantic distances and natural obstructions defied all known means of +transportation. + +Such were the varied and contradictory stories told by the men who had +entered the portals of inland America. It is not surprising, therefore, +that theories and prophecies about the interior were vague and +conflicting nor that most of the schemes of statesmen and financiers for +the development of the West were all parts and no whole. They all agreed +as to the vast richness of that inland realm and took for granted an +immense commerce therein that was certain to yield enormous profits. +In faraway Paris, the ingenious diplomat, Silas Deane, writing to +the Secret Committee of Congress in 1776, pictured the Old +Northwest--bounded by the Ohio, the Alleghanies, the Great Lakes, and +the Mississippi--as paying the whole expense of the Revolutionary War. +* Thomas Paine in 1780 drew specifications for a State of from twenty +to thirty millions of acres lying west of Virginia and south of the Ohio +River, the sale of which land would pay the cost of three years of the +war. ** On the other hand, Pelatiah Webster, patriotic economist that he +was, decried in 1781 all schemes to "pawn" this vast westward region; he +likened such plans to "killing the goose that laid an egg every day, in +order to tear out at once all that was in her belly." He advocated the +township system of compact and regular settlement; and he argued that +any State making a cession of land would reap great benefit "from the +produce and trade" of the newly created settlements. + + + * Deane's plan was to grant a tract two hundred miles square at +the junction of the Ohio and the Mississippi to a company on the +condition that a thousand families should be settled on it within +seven years. He added that, as this company would be in a great degree +commercial, the establishing of commerce at the junction of those large +rivers would immediately give a value to all the lands situated on or +near them. + + + ** Paine thought that while the new State could send its exports +southward down the Mississippi, its imports must necessarily come from +the East through Chesapeake Bay because the current of the Mississippi +was too strong to be overcome by any means of navigation then known. + + +There were mooted many other schemes. General Rufus Putnam, for example, +advocated the Pickering or "Army" plan of occupying the West; he wanted +a fortified line to the Great Lakes, in case of war with England, and +fortifications on the Ohio and the Mississippi, in case Spain should +interrupt the national commerce on these waterways. And Thomas +Jefferson theorized in his study over the toy states of Metropotamia and +Polypotamia--brought his + +...trees and houses out And planted cities all about. + +But it remained for George Washington, the Virginia planter, to catch, +in something of its actual grandeur, the vision of a Republic stretching +towards the setting sun, bound and unified by paths of inland commerce. +It was Washington who traversed the long ranges of the Alleghanies, +slept in the snows of Deer Park with no covering but his greatcoat, +inquired eagerly of trapper and trader and herder concerning the courses +of the Cheat, the Monongahela, and the Little Kanawha, and who drew from +these personal explorations a clear and accurate picture of the future +trade routes by which the country could be economically, socially, and +nationally united. + +Washington's experience had peculiarly fitted him to catch this vision. +Fortune had turned him westward as he left his mother's knee. First as +a surveyor for Lord Fairfax in the Shenandoah Valley and later, under +Braddock and Forbes, in the armies fighting for the Ohio against the +French he had come to know the interior as it was known by no other man +of his standing. His own landed property lay largely along the upper +Potomac and in and beyond the Alleghanies. Washington's interest in this +property was very real. Those who attempt to explain his early concern +with the West as purely altruistic must misread his numerous letters and +diaries. Nothing in his unofficial character shows more plainly than his +business enterprise and acumen. On one occasion he wrote to his agent, +Crawford, concerning a proposed land speculation: "I recommend that you +keep this whole matter a secret or trust it only to those in whom you +can confide. If the scheme I am now proposing to you were known, it +might give alarm to others, and by putting them on a plan of the same +nature, before we could lay a proper foundation for success ourselves, +set the different interests clashing and in the end overturn the whole." +Nor can it be denied that Washington's attitude to the commercial +development of the West was characterized in his early days by a +narrow colonial partisanship. He was a stout Virginian; and all stout +Virginians of that day refused to admit the pretensions of other +colonies to the land beyond the mountains. But from no man could the +shackles of self-interest and provincial rivalry drop more quickly than +they dropped from Washington when he found his country free after the +close of the Revolutionary War. He then began to consider how that +country might grow and prosper. And he began to preach the new doctrine +of expansion and unity. This new doctrine first appears in a letter +which he wrote to the Marquis de Chastellux in 1783, after a tour from +his camp at Newburg into central New York, where he had explored the +headwaters of the Mohawk and the Susquehanna: "I could not help taking a +more extensive view of the vast inland navigation of these United States +[the letter runs] and could not but be struck by the immense extent and +importance of it, and of the goodness of that Providence which has dealt +its favors to us with so profuse a hand. Would to God we may have wisdom +enough to improve them. I shall not rest contented till I have explored +the Western country, and traversed those lines, or great part of them, +which have given bounds to a new empire." + +"The vast inland navigation of these United States!" It is an +interesting fact that Washington should have had his first glimpse of +this vision from the strategic valley of the Mohawk, which was soon +to rival his beloved Potomac as an improved commercial route from the +seaboard to the West, and which was finally to achieve an unrivaled +superiority in the days of the Erie Canal and the Twentieth Century +Limited. + +We may understand something of what the lure of the West meant to +Washington when we learn that in order to carry out his proposed journey +after the Revolution, he was compelled to refuse urgent invitations +to visit Europe and be the guest of France. "I found it indispensably +necessary," he writes, "to visit my Landed property West of the +Apalacheon Mountains.... One object of my journey being to obtain +information of the nearest and best communication between Eastern +& Western waters; & to facilitate as much as in me lay the Inland +Navigation of the Potomack." + +On September 1, 1784, Washington set out from Mount Vernon on his +journey to the West. Even the least romantic mind must feel a thrill in +picturing this solitary horseman, the victor of Yorktown, threading the +trails of the Potomac, passing on by Cumberland and Fort Necessity and +Braddock's grave to the Monongahela. The man, now at the height of his +fame, is retracing the trails of his boyhood--covering ground over which +he had passed as a young officer in the last English and French war--but +he is seeing the land in so much larger perspective that, although +his diary is voluminous, the reader of those pages would not know that +Washington had been this way before. Concerning Great Meadows, where +he first saw the "bright face of danger" and which he once described +gleefully as "a charming place for an encounter," he now significantly +remarks: "The upland, East of the meadow, is good for grain." Changed +are the ardent dreams that filled the young man's heart when he wrote to +his mother from this region that singing bullets "have truly a charming +sound." Today, as he looks upon the flow of Youghiogheny, he sees it +reaching out its finger tips to Potomac's tributaries. He perceives a +similar movement all along the chain of the Alleghanies: on the west +are the Great Lakes and the Ohio, and reaching out towards them from the +east, waiting to be joined by portage road and canal, are the Hudson, +the Susquehanna, the Potomac, and the James. He foresees these streams +bearing to the Atlantic ports the golden produce of the interior and +carrying back to the interior the manufactured goods of the seaboard. He +foresees the Republic becoming homogeneous, rich, and happy. "Open +ALL the communication which nature has afforded," he wrote Henry Lee, +"between the Atlantic States and the Western territory, and encourage +the use of them to the utmost... and sure I am there is no other tie by +which they will long form a link in the chain of Federal Union." + +Crude as were the material methods by which Washington hoped to +accomplish this end, in spirit he saw the very America that we know +today; and he marked out accurately the actual pathways of inland +commerce that have played their part in the making of America. Taking +the city of Detroit as the key position, commercially, he traced the +main lines of internal trade. He foresaw New York improving her natural +line of communication by way of the Mohawk and the Niagara frontier on +Lake Erie--the present line of the Erie Canal and the New York Central +Railway. For Pennsylvania, he pointed out the importance of linking the +Schuylkill and the Susquehanna and of opening the two avenues westward +to Pittsburgh and to Lake Erie. In general, he thus forecast the +Pennsylvania Canal and the Pennsylvania and the Erie railways. For +Maryland and Virginia he indicated the Potomac route as the nearest for +all the trade of the Ohio Valley, with the route by way of the James +and the Great Kanawha as an alternative for the settlements on the lower +Ohio. His vision here was realized in a later day by the Potomac and the +Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, the Cumberland Road, the Baltimore and Ohio +Railway, and by the James-Kanawha Turnpike and the Chesapeake and Ohio +Railway. + +Washington's general conclusions are stated in a summary at the end of +his Journal, which was reproduced in his classic letter to Harrison, +written in 1784. His first point is that every State which had water +routes reaching westward could enhance the value of its lands, increase +its commerce, and quiet the democratic turbulence of its shut-in pioneer +communities by the improvement of its river transportation. Taking +Pennsylvania as a specific example, he declared that "there are one +hundred thousand souls West of the Laurel Hill, who are groaning under +the inconveniences of a long land transportation.... If this cannot be +made easy for them to Philadelphia... they will seek a mart elsewhere.... +An opposition on the part of [that] government... would ultimately bring +on a separation between its Eastern and Western settlements; towards +which there is not wanting a disposition at this moment in that part of +it beyond the mountains." + +Washington's second proposal was the achievement of a new and lasting +conquest of the West by binding it to the seaboard with chains of +commerce. He thus states his point: "No well informed mind need be told +that the flanks and rear of the United territory are possessed by other +powers, and formidable ones too--nor how necessary it is to apply the +cement of interest to bind all parts of it together, by one indissoluble +bond--particularly the middle States with the Country immediately back +of them--for what ties let me ask, should we have upon those people; +and how entirely unconnected should we be with them if the Spaniards +on their right or Great Britain on their left, instead of throwing +stumbling blocks in their way as they do now, should invite their trade +and seek alliances with them?" + +Some of the pictures in Washington's vision reveal, in the light +of subsequent events, an almost uncanny prescience. He very plainly +prophesied the international rivalry for the trade of the Great Lakes +zone, embodied today in the Welland and the Erie canals. He declared +the possibility of navigating with oceangoing vessels the tortuous +two-thousand-mile channel of the Ohio and the Mississippi River; and +within sixteen years ships left the Ohio, crossed the Atlantic, +and sailed into the Mediterranean. His description of a possible +insurrection of a western community might well have been written later; +it might almost indeed have made a page of his diary after he became +President of the United States and during the Whiskey Insurrection in +western Pennsylvania. He approved and encouraged Rumsey's mechanical +invention for propelling boats against the stream, showing that he had +a glimpse of what was to follow after Fitch, Rumsey, and Fulton should +have overcome the mighty currents of the Hudson and the Ohio with the +steamboat's paddle wheel. His proposal that Congress should undertake +a survey of western rivers for the purpose of giving people at large +a knowledge of their possible importance as avenues of commerce was a +forecast of the Lewis and Clark expedition as well as of the policy of +the Government today for the improvement of the great inland rivers and +harbors. + +"The destinies of our country run east and west. Intercourse between +the mighty interior west and the sea coast is the great principle of +our commercial prosperity." These are the words of Edward Everett in +advocating the Boston and Albany Railroad. In effect Washington had +uttered those same words half a century earlier when he gave momentum to +an era filled with energetic but unsuccessful efforts to join with the +waters of the West the rivers reaching inland from the Atlantic. The +fact that American engineering science had not in his day reached a +point where it could cope with this problem successfully should in no +wise lessen our admiration for the man who had thus caught the vision of +a nation united and unified by improved methods of transportation. + + + +CHAPTER II. The Red Man's Trail + +For the beginnings of the paths of our inland commerce, we must look far +back into the dim prehistoric ages of America. The earliest routes that +threaded the continent were the streams and the tracks beaten out by the +heavier four-footed animals. The Indian hunter followed the migrations +of the animals and the streams that would float his light canoe. Today +the main lines of travel and transportation for the most part still +cling to these primeval pathways. + +In their wanderings, man and beast alike sought the heights, the passes +that pierced the mountain chains, and the headwaters of navigable +rivers. On the ridges the forest growth was lightest and there was +little obstruction from fallen timber; rain and frost caused least +damage by erosion; and the winds swept the trails clear of leaves in +summer and of snow in winter. Here lay the easiest paths for the heavy, +blundering buffalo and the roving elk and moose and deer. Here, high up +in the sun, where the outlook was unobstructed and signal fires could +be seen from every direction, on the longest watersheds, curving around +river and swamp, ran the earliest travel routes of the aboriginal +inhabitants and of their successors, the red men of historic times. For +their encampments and towns these peoples seem to have preferred the +more sheltered ground along the smaller streams; but, when they fared +abroad to hunt, to trade, to wage war, to seek new, material for pipe +and amulet, they followed in the main the highest ways. + +If in imagination one surveys the eastern half of the North American +continent from one of the strategic passageways of the Alleghanies, +say from Cumberland Gap or from above Kittanning Gorge, the outstanding +feature in the picture will be the Appalachian barrier that separates +the interior from the Atlantic coast. To the north lie the Adirondacks +and the Berkshire Hills, hedging New England in close to the ocean. Two +glittering waterways lie east and west of these heights--the Connecticut +and the Hudson. Upon the valleys of these two rivers converged the +two deeply worn pathways of the Puritan, the Old Bay Path and the +Connecticut Path. By way of Westfield River, that silver tributary +which joins the Connecticut at Springfield, Massachusetts, the Bay Path +surmounted the Berkshire highlands and united old Massachusetts to the +upper Hudson Valley near Fort Orange, now Albany. + +Here, north of the Catskills, the Appalachian barrier subsides and gives +New York a supreme advantage over all the other Atlantic States--a level +route to the Great Lakes and the West. The Mohawk River threads the +smiling landscape; beyond lies the "Finger Lake country" and the valley +of the Genesee. Through this romantic region ran the Mohawk Trail, +sending offshoots to Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence, to the +Susquehanna, and to the Allegheny. A few names have been altered in the +course of years--the Bay Path is now the Boston and Albany Railroad, +the Mohawk Trail is the New York Central, and Fort Orange is Albany--and +thus we may tell in a dozen words the story of three centuries. + +Upon Fort Orange converged the score of land and water pathways of the +fur trade of our North. These Indian trade routes were slowly widened +into colonial roads, notably the Mohawk and Catskill turnpikes, and +these in turn were transformed into the Erie, Lehigh, Nickel Plate, and +New York Central railways. But from the day when the canoe and the keel +boat floated their bulky cargoes of pelts or the heavy laden Indian +pony trudged the trail, the routes of trade have been little or nothing +altered. + +Traversing the line of the Alleghanies southward, the eye notes first +the break in the wall at the Delaware Water Gap, and then that long arm +of the Susquehanna, the Juniata, reaching out through dark Kittanning +Gorge to its silver playmate, the dancing Conemaugh. Here amid its leafy +aisles ran the brown and red Kittanning Trail, the main route of the +Pennsylvania traders from the rich region of York, Lancaster, and +Chambersburg. On this general alignment the Broadway Limited flies today +toward Pittsburgh and Chicago. A little to the south another important +pathway from the same region led, by way of Carlisle, Bedford, and +Ligonier, to the Ohio. The "Highland Trail" the Indian traders called +it, for it kept well on the watershed dividing the Allegheny tributaries +on the north from those of the Monongahela on the south. + +Farther to the south the scene shows a change, for the Atlantic plain +widens considerably. The Potomac River, the James, the Pedee, and the +Savannah flow through valleys much longer than those of the northern +rivers. Here in the South commerce was carried on mainly by shallop and +pinnace. The trails of the Indian skirted the rivers and offered for +trader and explorer passageway to the West, especially to the towns of +the Cherokees in the southern Alleghanies or Unakas; but the waterways +and the roads over which the hogsheads of tobacco were rolled (hence +called "rolling roads") sufficed for the needs of the thin fringes of +population settled along the rivers. Trails from Winchester in Virginia +and Frederick in Maryland focused on Cumberland at the head of the +Potomac. Beyond, to the west, the finger tips of the Potomac interlocked +closely with the Monongahela and Youghiogheny, and through this network +of mountain and river valley, by the "Shades of Death" and Great +Meadows, coiled Nemacolin's Path to the Ohio. Even today this ancient +route is in part followed by the Baltimore and Ohio and the Western +Maryland Railway. + +A bird's-eye view of the southern Alleghanies shows that, while the +Atlantic plain of Virginia and the Carolinas widens out, the mountain +chains increase in number, fold on fold, from the Blue Ridge to the +ragged ranges of the Cumberlands. Few trails led across this manifold +barrier. There was a connection at Balcony Falls between the James River +and the Great Kanawha; but as a trade route it was of no such value +to the men of its day as the Chesapeake and Ohio system over the +same course is to us. As in the North, so in the South, trade avoided +obstacles by taking a roundabout, and often the longest route. In order +to double the extremity of the Unakas, for instance, the trails reached +down by the Valley of Virginia and New River to the uplands of the +Tennessee, and here, near Elizabethton, they met the trails leading up +the Broad and the Yadkin rivers from Charleston, South Carolina. + +To the west rise the somber heights of Cumberland Gap. Through this +portal ran the famous "Warrior's Path," known to wandering hunters, the +"trail of iron" from Fort Watauga and Fort Chiswell, which Daniel Boone +widened for the settlers of Kentucky. To the southwest lay the Blue +Grass region of Tennessee with its various trails converging on +Nashville from almost every direction. Today the Southern Railway enters +the "Sapphire Country," in which Asheville lies, by practically the same +route as the old Rutherfordton Trail which was used for generations by +red man and pioneer from the Carolina coast. In our entire region of +the Appalachians, from the Berkshire Hills southward, practically every +old-time pathway from the seaboard to the trans-Alleghany country is +now occupied by an important railway system, with the exception of the +Warrior's Trail through Cumberland Gap to central Ohio and the +Highland Trail across southern Pennsylvania. And even Cumberland Gap is +accessible by rail today, and a line across southern Pennsylvania was +once planned and partially constructed only to be killed by jealous +rivals. + +These numerous keys to the Alleghanies were a challenge to the men of +the seaboard to seize upon the rich trade of the West which had been +early monopolized by the French in Canada. But the challenge brought its +difficult problems. What land canoes could compete with the flotillas +that brought their priceless cargoes of furs each year to Montreal and +Quebec? What race of landlubbers could vie with the picturesque bands +of fearless voyageurs who sang their songs on the Great Lakes, the Ohio, +the Illinois, and the Mississippi? + +In the solution of this problem of diverting trade probably the factor +of greatest importance, next to open pathways through the mountain +barriers, was the rich stock-breeding ground lying between the Delaware +and the Susquehanna rivers, a region occupied by the settlers familiarly +known as the Pennsylvania Dutch. In this famous belt, running from +Pennsylvania into Virginia, originated the historic pack-horse trade +with the "far Indians" of the Ohio Valley. Here, in the first granary +of America, Germans, Scotch-Irish, and English bred horses worthy of +the name. "Brave fat Horses" an amazed officer under Braddock called +the mounts of five Quakers who unexpectedly rode into camp as though +straight "from the land of Goshen." These animals, crossed with the +Indian "pony" from New Spain, produced the wise, wiry, and sturdy +pack-horse, fit to transport nearly two hundred pounds of merchandise +across the rough and narrow Alleghany trails. This animal and the heavy +Conestoga horse from the same breeding ground revolutionized inland +commerce. + +The first American cow pony was not without his cowboy. Though the +drivers were not all of the same type and though the proprietors, so to +speak, of the trans-Alleghany pack-horse trade came generally from the +older settlements, the bulk of the hard work was done by a lusty army of +men not reproduced again in America until the picturesque figure of the +cow-puncher appeared above the western horizon. This breed of men was +nurtured on the outer confines of civilization, along the headwaters of +the Susquehanna, the Potomac, the James, and the Broad--the country of +the "Cowpens." Rough as the wilderness they occupied, made strong by +their diet of meat and curds, these Tatars of the highlands played +a part in the commercial history of America that has never had its +historian. In their knowledge of Indian character, of horse and +packsaddle lore, of the forest and its trails in every season, these men +of the Cowpens were the kings of the old frontier. + +An officer under Braddock has left us one of the few pictures of these +people *: + + + * "Extracts of Letters from an Officer" (London, 1755). + + +"From the Heart of the Settlements we are now got into the Cow-pens; the +Keepers of these are very extraordinary Kind of Fellows, they drive up +their Herds on Horseback, and they had need do so, for their Cattle +are near as wild as Deer; a Cow-pen generally consists of a very large +Cottage or House in the Woods, with about four-score or one hundred +Acres, inclosed with high Rails and divided; a small Inclosure they keep +for Corn, for the family, the rest is the Pasture in which they keep +their calves; but the Manner is far different from any Thing you ever +saw; they may perhaps have a Stock of four or five hundred to a thousand +Head of Cattle belonging to a Cow-pen, these run as they please in the +Great Woods, where there are no Inclosures to stop them. In the Month of +March the Cows begin to drop their Calves, then the Cow-pen Master, with +all his Men, rides out to see and drive up the Cows with all their +new fallen Calves; they being weak cannot run away so as to escape, +therefore are easily drove up, and the Bulls and other Cattle follow +them; and they put these Calves into the Pasture, and every Morning and +Evening suffer the Cows to come and suckle them, which done they let the +Cows out into the great Woods to shift for their Food as well as they +can; whilst the Calf is sucking one Tit of the Cow, the Woman of the +Cow-Pen is milking one of the other Tits, so that she steals some Milk +from the Cow, who thinks she is giving it to the Calf; soon as the Cow +begins to go dry, and the Calf grows Strong, they mark them, if they +are Males they cut them, and let them go into the Wood. Every Year in +September and October they drive up the Market Steers, that are fat and +of a proper Age, and kill them; they say they are fat in October, but I +am sure they are not so in May, June and July; they reckon that out of +100 Head of Cattle they can kill about 10 or 12 steers, and four or five +Cows a Year; so they reckon that a Cow-Pen for every 100 Head of Cattle +brings about 40 pounds Sterling per Year. The Keepers live chiefly +upon Milk, for out of their Vast Herds, they do condescend to tame Cows +enough to keep their Family in Milk, Whey, Curds, Cheese and Butter; +they also have Flesh in Abundance such as it is, for they eat the old +Cows and lean Calves that are like to die. The Cow-Pen Men are hardy +People, are almost continually on Horseback, being obliged to know the +Haunts of their Cattle". "You see, Sir, what a wild set of Creatures Our +English Men grow into, when they lose Society, and it is surprising +to think how many Advantages they throw away, which our industrious +Country-Men would be glad of: Out of many hundred Cows they will not +give themselves the trouble of milking more than will maintain their +Family." + +With such a race of born horsemen, every whit as bold and resourceful +as the voyageurs, to bear the brunt of a new era of transportation, all +that was needed to challenge French trade beyond the Alleghanies was +competent and aggressive leadership. The situation called for men of +means, men of daring, men closely in touch with governors and assemblies +and acquainted with the web of politics that was being spun at +Philadelphia, Williamsburg, New York, London, and Paris. Generations of +tenacious struggle along the American frontier had developed such men. +The Weisers, Croghans, Gists, Washingtons, Franklins, Walkers, and +Cresaps were men of varied descent and nationality. They had the +cunning, the boldness, and the resources to undertake successfully the +task of conquering commercially the Great West. They were the first men +of the colonies to be unafraid of that bugbear of the trader, Distance. +We may aptly call them the first Americans because, though not a few +were actually born abroad, they were the first whose plans, spirit, +and very life were dominated by the vision of an America of continental +dimensions. + +The long story of French and English rivalry and of the war which ended +it concerns us here chiefly as a commercial struggle. The French at +Niagara (1749) had access to the Ohio by way of Lake Erie and any one of +several rivers--the Allegheny, the Muskingum, the Scioto, or the Miami. +The main routes of the English were the Nemacolin and Kittanning paths. +The French, laboring under the disadvantages of the longer distance over +which their goods had to be transported to the Indians and of the higher +price necessarily demanded for them, had to meet the competition of the +traders from the rival colonies of Pennsylvania and Virginia, each of +them jealous of and underbidding the other. + +When Celoron de Blainville was sent to the Allegheny in 1749, by the +Governor of New France, his message was that "the Governor of Canada +desired his children on Ohio to turn away the English Traders from +amongst them and discharge them from ever coming to trade there again, +or on any of the Branches." He sent away all the traders whom he found, +giving them letters addressed to their respective governors denying +England's right to trade in the West. To offset this move, within two +years Pennsylvania sent goods to the value of nine hundred pounds in +order to hold the Indians constant. The Governor had already ordered +the traders to sell whiskey to the Indians at "5 Bucks" per cask and had +told the Indians, through his agent Conrad Weiser, that if any trader +refused to sell the liquor at that price they might "take it from him +and drink it for nothing." There was but one way for the French to meet +such competition. Without delay they fortified the Allegheny and began +to coerce the natives. Driving away the carpenters of the Ohio Company +from the present site of Pittsburgh, they built Fort Duquesne. The +beginning of the Old French War ended what we may call the first era of +the pack-horse trade. + +The capture of Fort Duquesne by the English army under General Forbes +in 1758 and the final conquest of New France two years later removed the +French barrier and opened the way to expansion beyond the Alleghanies. +Thereafter settlements in the Monongahela country grew apace. +Pittsburgh, Uniontown, Morgantown, Brownsville, Ligonier, Greensburg, +Connellsville--we give the modern names--became centers of a great +migration which was halted only for a season by Pontiac's Rebellion, +the aftermath of the French War, and was resumed immediately on the +suppression of that Indian rising. The pack-horse trade now entered its +final and most important era. The earlier period was one in which the +trade was confined chiefly to the Indians; the later phase was concerned +with supplying the needs of the white man in his rapidly developing +frontier settlements. Formerly the principal articles of merchandise for +the western trade were guns, ammunition, knives, kettles, and tools for +their repair, blankets, tobacco, hatchets, and liquor. In the new +era every known product of the East found a market in the thriving +communities of the upper Ohio. As time went on the West began to send to +the East, in addition to skins and pelts, whiskey that brought a dollar +a gallon. Each pony could carry sixteen gallons and every drop could +be sold for real money. On the return trip the pack-horses carried back +chiefly salt and iron. + +Doddridge's "Notes", one of the chief sources of our information, gives +this lively picture: + +"In the fall of the year, after seeding time, every family formed +an association with some of their neighbors, for starting the little +caravan. A master driver was to be selected from among them, who was +to be assisted by one or more young men and sometimes a boy or two. The +horses were fitted out with packsaddles, to the latter part of which was +fastened a pair of hobbles made of hickory withes,--a bell and collar +ornamented their necks. The bags provided for the conveyance of the +salt were filled with bread, jerk, boiled ham, and cheese furnished a +provision for the drivers. At night, after feeding, the horses, whether +put in pasture or turned out into the woods, were hobbled and the bells +were opened. The barter for salt and iron was made first at Baltimore; +Frederick, Hagerstown, Oldtown, and Fort Cumberland, in succession, +became the places of exchange. Each horse carried two bushels of alum +salt, weighing eighty-four pounds to the bushel. This, to be sure, was +not a heavy load for the horses, but it was enough, considering the +scanty subsistence allowed them on the journey. The common price of a +bushel of alum salt, at an early period, was a good cow and a calf." + +Thus, with the English flag afloat at Fort Pitt, as Duquesne was renamed +after its capture, a new day dawned for the great region to the West. +Beyond the Alleghanies and as far as the Rockies, a new science of +transportation was now to be learned--the art of finding the dividing +ridge. Here the first routes, like the "Great Trail" from Pittsburgh +to Detroit, struck out with an assurance that is in marvelous agreement +with the findings of the surveyors of a later day. The railways, when +they came, found the valleys and penetrated with their tunnels the +watersheds from the heads of the streams of one drainage area to the +streams of another. Thus on the Pennsylvania, the Baltimore and Ohio, +the Southern, the Chesapeake and Ohio, and other railroads, important +tunnels are to be found lying immediately under the Red Man's trail +which clung to the long ascending slope and held persistently to the +dividing ridges. + +Even this necessarily brief survey shows plainly how that preeminently +American institution, the ridge road, came about. East and west, it +was the legitimate and natural successor to the ancient trail. With the +coming of the wagon, whose rattle was heard among the hills as early +as Braddock's campaign, the process of lowering these paths from the +heights was inevitably begun, and it was to the riverways that men first +looked for a solution of the difficult problems of inland commerce. +Eventually the paths of inland commerce constituted a vast network +of canals, roads, and railway lines in those very valleys to which +Washington had called the nation's attention in 1784. + + + +CHAPTER III. The Mastery Of The Rivers + +It would perhaps have been well, in the light of later difficulties and +failures, if the men who at Washington's call undertook to master the +capricious rivers of the seaboard had studied a stately Spanish +decree which declared that, since God had not made the rivers of Spain +navigable, it were sacrilege for mortals to attempt to do so. +Even before the Revolution, Mayor Rhodes of Philadelphia was in +correspondence with Franklin in London concerning the experiences of +European engineers in harnessing foreign streams. That sage philosopher, +writing to Rhodes in 1772, uttered a clear word of warning: "rivers +are ungovernable things," he had said, and English engineers "seldom or +never use a River where it can be avoided." But it was the birthright +of New World democracy to make its own mistakes and in so doing to prove +for itself the errors of the Old World. + +As energetic men all along the Atlantic Plain now took up the problem +of improving the inland rivers, they faced a storm of criticism and +ridicule that would have daunted any but such as Washington and Johnson +of Virginia or White and Hazard of Pennsylvania or Morris and Watson of +New York. Every imaginable objection to such projects was advanced--from +the inefficiency of the science of engineering to the probable +destruction of all the fish in the streams. In spite of these +discouragements, however, various men set themselves to form in rapid +succession the Potomac Company in 1785, the Society for Promoting +the Improvement of Inland Navigation in 1791, the Western Inland Lock +Navigation Company in 1792, and the Lehigh Coal Mine Company in 1793. +A brief review of these various enterprises will give a clear if not a +complete view of the first era of inland water commerce in America. + +The Potomac Company, authorized in 1785 by the legislatures of Maryland +and Virginia, received an appropriation of $6666 from each State for +opening a road from the headwaters of the Potomac to either the Cheat +or the Monongahela, "as commissioners... shall find most convenient and +beneficial to the Western settlers." This was the only public aid which +the enterprise received; and the stipulated purpose clearly indicates +the fact that, in the minds of its promoters, the transcontinental +character of the undertaking appeared to be vital. The remainder of the +money required for the work was raised by public subscription in the +principal cities of the two States. In this way 40,300 pounds was +subscribed, Virginia men taking 266 shares and Maryland men 137 shares. +The stock holders elected George Washington as president of the company, +at a salary of thirty shillings a year, with four directors to aid him, +and they chose as general manager James Rumsey, the boat mechanician. +These men then proceeded to attack the chief impediments in the +Potomac--the Great Falls above Washington, the Seneca Falls at the mouth +of Seneca Creek, and the Shenandoah Falls at Harper's Ferry. But, as +they had difficulty in obtaining workmen and sufficient liquor to +cheer them in their herculean tasks, they made such slow progress that +subscribers, doubting Washington's optimistic prophecy that the stock +would increase in value twenty per cent, paid their assessments only +after much deliberation or not at all. Thirty-six years later, though +$729,380 had been spent and lock canals had been opened about the +unnavigable stretches of the Potomac River, a commission appointed +to examine the affairs of the company reported "that the floods and +freshets nevertheless gave the only navigation that was enjoyed." As +for the road between the Potomac and the Cheat or the Monongahela, the +records at hand do not show that the money voted for that enterprise had +been used. + +The Potomac Company nevertheless had accomplished something: it had +acquired an asset of the greatest value--a right of way up the strategic +Potomac Valley; and it had furnished an object lesson to men in other +States who were struggling with a similar problem. When, as will soon be +apparent, New York men undertook the improvement of the Mohawk waterway +there was no pattern of canal construction for them to follow in America +except the inadequate wooden locks erected along the Potomac. It is +interesting to know that Elkanah Watson, prominent in inland navigation +to the North, went down from New York in order to study these wooden +locks and that New Yorkers adopted them as models, though they changed +the material to brick and finally to stone. + +Pennsylvania had been foremost among the colonies in canal building, for +it had surveyed as early as 1762 the first lock canal in America, from +near Reading on the Schuylkill to Middletown on the Susquehanna. Work, +however, had to be suspended when Pontiac's Rebellion threw the inland +country into a panic. But the enterprise of Maryland and Virginia in +1785 in developing the Potomac aroused the Pennsylvanians to renewed +activity. The Society for Promoting the Improvement of Roads and Inland +Navigation set forth a programme that was as broad as the Keystone State +itself. Their ultimate object was to capture the trade of the Great +Lakes. "If we turn our view," read the memorial which the Society +presented to the Legislature, "to the immense territories connected with +the Ohio and Mississippi waters, and bordering on the Great Lakes, +it will appear... that our communication with those vast countries +(considering Fort Pitt as the port of entrance upon them) is as easy +and may be rendered as cheap, as to any other port on the Atlantic tide +waters." + +Pennsylvania, lying between Virginia and New York, occupied a peculiar +position. Her Susquehanna Valley stretched northwest--not so directly +west as did the Potomac on the south and the Mohawk on the north. This +more northerly trend led these early Pennsylvania promoters to believe +that, while they might "only have a share in the trade of those [the +Ohio] waters," they could absolutely secure for themselves the trade +of the Great Lakes, "taking Presq' Isle [Erie, Pennsylvania] which is +within our own State, as the great mart or place of embarkation." + +The plan which the Society proposed involved the improvement of water +and land routes by way of the Delaware to Lake Ontario and Lake Otsego, +and of eight routes by the Susquehanna drainage, north, northwest, +and west. A bill which passed the Legislature on April 13, 1791, +appropriated money for these improvements. Work was begun immediately on +the Schuylkill-Susquehanna Canal, but only four miles had been completed +by 1794, when the Lancaster Turnpike directed men's attention to +improved highways as an alternative more likely than canals to provide +the desired facilities for inland transportation. The work on the canal +was renewed, however, in 1821, when the rival Erie Canal was nearing +completion, and was finished in 1827. It became known as the Union Canal +and formed a link in the Pennsylvania canal system, the development of +which will be described in a later chapter. + +In New York State, throughout the period of the Old French and the +Revolutionary wars, barges and keel boats had plied the Mohawk, Wood +Creek, and the Oswego to Lake Ontario. Around such obstructions as +Cohoes Falls, Little Falls, and the portage at Rome to Wood Creek, +wagons, sleds, and pack-horses had transferred the cargoes. To avoid +this labor and delay men soon conceived of conquering these obstacles by +locks and canals. As early as 1777 the brilliant Gouverneur Morris had a +vision of the economic development of his State when "the waters of the +great western inland seas would, by the aid of man, break through their +barriers and mingle with those of the Hudson." + +Elkanah Watson was in many ways the Washington of New York. He had +the foresight, patience, and persistence of the Virginia planter. +His "Journal" of a tour up the Mohawk in 1788 and a pamphlet which he +published in 1791 may be said to be the ultimate sources in any history +of the internal commerce of New York. As a result, a company known +as "The President, Directors, and Company of the Western Inland Lock +Navigation in the State of New York," with a capital stock of $25,000, +was authorized by act of legislature in March, 1792, and the State +subscribed for $12,500 in stock. Many singular provisions were inserted +in this charter, but none more remarkable than one which stipulated that +all profits over fifteen per cent should revert to the State Treasury. +This hint concerning surplus profits, however, did not cause a stampede +when the books were opened for subscriptions in New York and Albany. In +later years, when the Erie Canal gave promise of a new era in American +inland commerce, Elkanah Watson recalled with a grim satisfaction the +efforts of these early days. The subscription books at the old Coffee +House in New York, he tells us, lay open three days without an entry, +and at Lewis's tavern in Albany, where the books were opened for a +similar period, "no mortal" had subscribed for more than two shares. + +The system proposed for the improvement of the waterways of New York was +similar to that projected for the Potomac. A canal was to be cut from +the Mohawk to the Hudson in order to avoid Cohoes Falls; a canal with +locks would overcome the forty-foot drop at Little Falls; another canal +over five thousand feet in length was to connect the Mohawk and Wood +Creek at Rome; minor improvements were to be made between Schenectady +and the mouth of the Schoharie; and finally the Oswego Falls at +Rochester were to be circumvented also by canal. All the objections, +difficulties, and discouragements which had attended efforts to improve +waterways elsewhere in America confronted these New York promoters. They +began in 1793 at Little Falls but were soon forced to cease owing to the +failure of funds. Under the encouraging spur of a state subscription to +two hundred shares of stock, they renewed their efforts in 1794 but +were again forced to abandon the work before the year had passed. By +November, 1795, however, they had completed the canal and in thirty days +had received toll to the amount of about four hundred dollars. + +The total actual work done is not clearly shown by the documents, but +it is evident that the measure of success achieved was not equaled +elsewhere on similar improvements on a large scale. From 1796 to 1804 +the tolls received at Rome amounted to over fifteen thousand dollars, +and at Little Falls to over fifty-eight thousand dollars--a sum which +exceeded the original cost of construction. Dividends had crept up from +three per cent in 1798 to five and a half per cent in 1817, the year in +which work was begun on the Erie Canal. + +No struggle for the mastery of an American river matches in certain +respects the effort of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company to bridle +the Lehigh and make it play its part in the commercial development of +Pennsylvania. The failures and trials of the promoters of this company +were no less remarkable than was the great success that eventually +crowned the effort. In 1793 the Lehigh Coal Mine Company was organized +and purchased some ten thousand acres in the Mauch Chunk anthracite +region, nine miles from the Lehigh River. It then appropriated a sum +of money to build a road from the mines to the river in the expectation +that the State would improve the navigation of the waterway, for which, +it has already been noted, an appropriation had been made in 1791, +in accordance with the programme of the Society for Promoting the +Improvement of Roads and Inland Navigation. Nothing was done, however, +to improve the river, and the company, after various attempts at +shipping coal to Philadelphia, gave up the effort and allowed the +property, which was worth millions, to lie idle. In 1807 the Lehigh +Coal Mine Company, in another effort to get its wares before the public, +granted to Rowland and Butland, a private firm, free right to operate +one of its veins of coal; but this operation also resulted in failure. +In 1813 the company made a third attempt and granted to a private +concern a lease of the entire property on the condition that +ten thousand bushels of coal should be taken to market annually. +Difficulties immediately made themselves apparent. No contractor could +be found who would haul the output to the Lehigh River for less than +four dollars a ton, and the man who accepted those terms lost money. +Of five barges filled at Mauch Chunk three went to pieces on the way +to Philadelphia. Although the contents of the other two sold for twenty +dollars a ton, the proceeds failed to meet expenses, and the operating +company threw up the lease. + +But it happened that White and Hazard, the wire manufacturers who +purchased this Lehigh coal, were greatly pleased with its quality. +Believing that coal could be obtained more cheaply from Mauch Chunk than +from the mines along the Schuylkill, White, Hauto, and Hazard formed a +company, entered into negotiation with the owners of the Lehigh mines, +and obtained the lease of their properties for a period of twenty years +at an annual rental of one ear of corn. The company agreed, moreover, to +ship every year at least forty thousand bushels of coal to Philadelphia +for its own consumption, to prove the value of the property. + +White and his partners immediately applied to the Legislature for +permission to improve the navigation of the Lehigh, stating the purpose +of the improvement and citing the fact that their efforts would tend to +serve as a model for the improvement of other Pennsylvania streams. +The desired opportunity "to ruin themselves," as one member of the +Legislature put it, was granted by an act passed March 20, 1818. The +various powers applied for, and granted, embraced the whole range of +tried and untried methods for securing "a navigation downward once in +three days for boats loaded with one hundred barrels, or ten tons." The +State kept its weather eye open in this matter, however, for a small +minority felt that these men would not ruin themselves. Accordingly, +the act of grant reserved to the commonwealth the right to compel the +adoption of a complete system of slack-water navigation from Easton to +Stoddartsville if the service given by the company did not meet "the +wants of the country." + +Capital was subscribed by a patriotic public on condition that a +committee of stockholders should go over the ground and pass judgment on +the probable success of the effort. The report was favorable, so far as +the improvement of the river was concerned; but the nine-mile road to +the mines was unanimously voted impracticable. "To give you an idea +of the country over which the road is to pass," wrote one of the +commissioners, "I need only tell you that I considered it quite an +easement when the wheel of my carriage struck a stump instead of a +stone." The public mind was divided. Some held that the attempt to +operate the coal mine was farcical, but that the improvement of the +Lehigh River was an undertaking of great value and of probable profit to +investors. Others were just as positive that the river improvement would +follow the fate of so many similar enterprises but that a fortune was in +store for those who invested in the Lehigh mines. + +The direct result of the examiners' report and of the public debate it +provoked was the organization of the first interlocking companies in the +commercial history of America. The Lehigh Navigation Company was formed +with a capital stock of $150,000 and the Lehigh Coal Company with a +capital stock of $55,000. This incident forms one of the most striking +illustrations in American history of the dependence of a commercial +venture upon methods of inland transportation. The Lehigh Navigation +Company proceeded to build its dams and walls while the Lehigh +Coal Company constructed the first roadway in America built on the +principle--later adopted by the railway--of dividing the total distance +by the total descent in order to determine the grade. Not to be outdone +in point of ingenuity, the Lehigh Navigation Company, then suffering +from an unprecedented dearth of water, adopted White's invention of +sluice gates connecting with pools which could be filled with reserve +water to be drawn upon as navigation required. By 1819 the necessary +depth of water between Mauch Chunk and Easton was obtained. The two +companies were immediately amalgamated under the title of the Lehigh +Coal and Navigation Company and by 1823 had sent over two thousand tons +of coal to market. + +As most of the efforts to improve the rivers, however, met with +indifferent success and many failures were recorded, the pendulum of +public confidence in this aid to inland commerce swung away, and highway +improvement by means of stone roads and toll road companies came into +favor in the interval between the nation's two eras of river improvement +and canal building. + + + +CHAPTER IV. A Nation On Wheels + +In early days the Indian had not only followed the watercourses in his +canoe but had made his way on foot over trails through the woods and +over the mountains. In colonial days, Englishman and Frenchman followed +the footsteps of the Indian, and as settlement increased and trade +developed, the forest path widened into the highway for wheeled +vehicles. Massachusetts began the work of road making in 1639 by passing +an act which decreed that "the ways" should be six to ten rods wide "in +common grounds," thus allowing sufficient room for more than one track. +Similar broad "ways" were authorized in New York and Pennsylvania +in 1664; stumps and shrubs were to be cut close to the ground, and +"sufficient bridges" were to be built over streams and marshy places. +Virginia passed legislation for highways at an early date, but it was +not until 1669 that strict laws were enacted with a view to keeping the +roads in a permanently good condition. Under these laws surveyors were +appointed to establish in each county roads forty feet wide to the +church and to the courthouse. In 1700, Pennsylvania turned her local +roads over to the county justices, put the King's highway and the main +public roads under the care of the governor and his council, and ordered +each county to erect bridges over its streams. + +The word "roadmaking" was capable of several interpretations. In +general, it meant outlining the course for the new thoroughfare, +clearing away fallen timber, blazing or notching the trees so that the +traveler might not miss the track, and building bridges or laying logs +"over all the marshy, swampy, and difficult dirty places." + +The streams proved serious obstacles to early traffic. It has been shown +already that the earliest routes of animal or man sought the watersheds; +the trails therefore usually encountered one stream near its junction +with another. At first, of course, fording was the common method of +crossing water, and the most advantageous fording places were generally +found near the mouths of tributary streams, where bars and islands are +frequently formed and where the water is consequently shallow. When +ferries began to be used, they were usually situated just above or below +the fords; but when the bridge succeeded the ferry, the primitive bridge +builder went back to the old fording place in order to take advantage +of the shallower water, bars, and islands. With the advent of improved +engineering, the character of river banks and currents was more +frequently taken into consideration in choosing a site for a bridge than +was the case in the olden times, but despite this fact the bridges of +today, generally speaking, span the rivers where the deer or the buffalo +splashed his way across centuries ago. + +On the broader streams, where fording was impossible and traffic was +perforce carried by ferry, the canoe and the keel boat of the earliest +days gave way in time to the ordinary "flat" or barge. At first the +obligation of the ferryman to the public, though recognized by English +law, was ignored in America by legislators and monopolists alike. Men +obtained the land on both sides of the rivers at the crossing places +and served the public only at their own convenience and at their own +charges. In many cases, to encourage the opening of roads or of ferries, +national and state authorities made grants of land on the same principle +followed in later days in the case of Western railroads. Such, for +instance, was the grant to Ebenezer Zane, at Zanesville, Lancaster, and +Chillicothe in the Northwest Territory. These monopolies sometimes were +extremely profitable: a descendant of the owners of the famous +Ingles ferry across New River, on the Wilderness Road to Kentucky, +is responsible for the statement that in the heyday of travel to the +Southwest the privilege was worth from $10,000 to $15,000 annually to +the family. But as local governments became more efficient, monopolies +were abolished and the collection of tolls was taken over by the +authorities. The awakening of inland trade is most clearly indicated +everywhere by the action of assemblies regarding the operation of +ferries, and in general, by the beginning of the eighteenth century, +tolls and ferries were being regulated by law. + +But neither roads nor ferries were of themselves sufficient to put a +nation on wheels. The early polite society of the settled neighborhoods +traveled in horse litters, in sedan chairs, or on horseback, the women +seated on pillions or cushions behind the saddle riders, while oxcarts +and horse barrows brought to town the produce of the outlying farms. +Although carts and rude wagons could be built entirely of wood, there +could be no marked advance in transportation until the development +of mining in certain localities reduced the price of iron. With the +increase of travel and trade, the old world coach and chaise and +wain came into use, and iron for tire and brace became an imperative +necessity. The connection between the production of iron and the care of +highways was recognized by legislation as early as 1732, when Maryland +excused men and slaves in the ironworks from labor on the public roads, +though by the middle of the century owners of ironworks were obliged to +detail one man out of every ten in their employ for such work. + +While the coastwise trade between the colonies was still preeminently +important as a means of transporting commodities, by the beginning of +the eighteenth century the land routes from New York to New England, +from New York across New Jersey to Philadelphia, and those radiating +from Philadelphia in every direction, were coming into general use. +The date of the opening of regular freight traffic between New York and +Philadelphia is set by the reply of the Governor of New Jersey in 1707 +to a protest against monopolies granted on one of the old widened Indian +trails between Burlington and Amboy. "At present," he says, "everybody +is sure, ONCE A FORTNIGHT, to have an opportunity of sending any +quantity of goods, great or small, at reasonable rates, without being in +danger of imposition; and the sending of this wagon is so far from being +a grievance or monopoly, THAT BY THIS MEANS AND NO OTHER, a trade has +been carried on between Philadelphia, Burlington, Amboy, and New York, +which was never known before." + +The long Philadelphia Road from the Lancaster region into the Valley of +Virginia, by way of Wadkins on the Potomac, was used by German and Irish +traders probably as early as 1700. In 1728 the people of Maryland were +petitioning for a road from the ford of the Monocacy to the home of +Nathan Wickham. Four years later Jost Heydt, leading an immigrant party +southward, broke open a road from the York Barrens toward the Potomac +two miles above Harper's Ferry. This avenue by way of the Berkeley, +Staunton, Watauga, and Greenbrier regions to Tennessee and Kentucky--was +the longest and most important in America during the Revolutionary +period. The Virginia Assembly in 1779 appointed commissioners to view +this route and to report on the advisability of making it a wagon road +all the way to Kentucky. In 1795, efforts were made in Kentucky to +turn the Wilderness Trail into a wagon road, and in this same year the +Kentucky Legislature passed an act making the route from Crab Orchard to +Cumberland Gap a wagon road thirty feet in width. + +From Pennsylvania and from Virginia commerce westward bound followed +in the main the army roads hewn out by Braddock and Forbes in their +campaigns against Fort Duquesne. In 1755, Braddock, marching from +Alexandria by way of Fort Cumberland, had opened a passage for his +artillery and wagons to Laurel Hill, near Uniontown, Pennsylvania. His +force included a corps of seamen equipped with block and tackle to raise +and lower his wagons in the steep inclines of the Alleghanies. Three +years later, Forbes, in his careful, dogged campaign, followed a +more northerly route. Advancing from Philadelphia and Carlisle, he +established Fort Bedford and Fort Ligonier as bases of supply and broke +a new road through the interminable forest which clothed the rugged +mountain ranges. From the first there was bitter rivalry between these +two routes, and the young Colonel Washington was roundly criticized by +both Forbes and Bouquet, his second in command, for his partisan +effort to "drive me down," as Forbes phrased it, into the Virginia or +Braddock's Road. This rivalry between the two routes continued when the +destruction of the French power over the roads in the interior threw +open to Pennsylvania and her southern neighbors alike the lucrative +trade of the Ohio country. + +From the journals of the time may be caught faint glimpses of the toils +and dangers of travel through these wild hill regions. Let the traveler +of today, as he follows the track that once was Braddock's Road, picture +the scene of that earlier time when, in the face of every natural +obstacle, the army toiled across the mountain chains. Where the earth +in yonder ravine is whipped to a black froth, the engineers have +thrown down the timber cut in widening the trail and have constructed a +corduroy bridge, or rather a loose raft on a sea of muck. The wreck of +the last wagon which tried to pass gives some additional safety to the +next. Already the stench from the horse killed in the accident deadens +the heavy, heated air of the forest. The sailors, stripped to the waist, +are ready with ropes and tackle to let the next wagon down the +incline; the pulleys creak, the ropes groan. The horses, weak and +terror-stricken, plunge and rear; in the final crash to the level the +leg of the wheel horse is caught and broken; one of the soldiers shoots +the animal; the traces are unbuckled; another beast is substituted. +Beyond, the seamen are waiting with tackle attached to trees on the +ridge above to assist the horses on the cruel upgrade--and Braddock, the +deceived, maligned, misrepresented, and misjudged, creeps onward in his +brave conquest of the Alleghanies in a campaign that, in spite of its +military failure, deserves honorable mention among the achievements of +British arms. + +Everywhere, north and south, the early American road was a veritable +Slough of Despond. Watery pits were to be encountered wherein horses +were drowned and loads sank from sight. Frequently traffic was stopped +for hours by wagons which had broken down and blocked the way. Thirteen +wagons at one time were stalled on Logan's Hill on the York Road. +Frightful accidents occurred in attempting to draw out loads. Jonathan +Tyson, for instance, in 1792, near Philadelphia saw a horse's lower jaw +torn off by the slipping of a chain. + +Save in the winter, when in the northern colonies snow filled the ruts +and frost built solid bridges over the streams, travel on these early +roads was never safe, rapid, nor comfortable. The comparative ease of +winter travel for the carriage of heavy freight and for purposes of +trade and social intercourse gave the colder regions an advantage over +the southern that was an important factor in the development of the +country. + +No genuine improvement of roads and highways seems to have been +attempted until the era heralded by Washington's letter to Harrison +in 1784. But the problem slowly forced itself upon all sections of +the country, and especially upon Pennsylvania and Maryland, whose +inhabitants began to fear lest New York, Alexandria, or Richmond should +snatch the Western trade from Philadelphia or Baltimore. The truth that +underlies the proverb that "history repeats itself" is well illustrated +by the fact that the first macadamized road in America was built in +Pennsylvania, for here also originated the pack-horse trade and the +Conestoga horse and wagon; here the first inland American canal was +built, the first roadbed was graded on the principle of dividing the +whole distance by the whole descent, and the first railway was operated. +Macadam and Telford had only begun to show the people of England how +to build roads of crushed stone--an art first developed by the French +engineer Tresaguet--when Pennsylvanians built the Lancaster Turnpike. +The Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike Road Company was chartered +April 9, 1792, as a part of the general plan of the Society for the +Improvement of Roads and Inland Navigation already described. This road, +sixty-two miles in length, was built of stone at a cost of $465,000 and +was completed in two years. Never before had such a sum been invested in +internal improvement in the United States. The rapidity with which the +undertaking was carried through and the profits which accrued from the +investment were alike astonishing. The subscription books were opened +at eleven o'clock one morning and by midnight 2226 shares had been +subscribed, each purchaser paying down thirty dollars. At the same time +Elkanah Watson was despondently scanning the subscription books of his +Mohawk River enterprise at Albany where "no mortal" had risked more than +two shares. + +The success of the Lancaster Turnpike was not achieved without a protest +against the monopoly which the new venture created. It is true that in +all the colonies the exercise of the right of eminent domain had been +conceded in a veiled way to officials to whose care the laying out +of roads had been delegated. As early as 1639 the General Court of +Massachusetts had ordered each town to choose men who, cooperating with +men from the adjoining town, should "lay out highways where they may +be most convenient, notwithstanding any man's property, or any corne +ground, so as it occasion not the pulling down of any man's house, or +laying open any garden or orchard." But the open and extended exercise +of these rights led to vigorous opposition in the case of this +Pennsylvania road. A public meeting was held at the Prince of Wales +Tavern in Philadelphia in 1793 to protest in round terms against the +monopolistic character of the Lancaster Turnpike. Blackstone and Edward +III were hurled at the heads of the "venal" legislators who had made +this "monstrosity" possible. The opposition died down, however, in the +face of the success which the new road instantly achieved. The Turnpike +was, indeed, admirably situated. Converging at the quaint old "borough +of Lancaster," the various routes--northeast from Virginia, east from +the Carlisle and Chambersburg region and the Alleghanies, and southeast +from the upper Susquehanna country--poured upon the Quaker City a +trade that profited every merchant, landholder, and laborer. The nine +tollgates, on the average a little less than seven miles apart, turned +in a revenue that allowed the "President and Managers" to declare +dividends to stockholders running, it is said, as high as fifteen per +cent. + +The Lancaster Turnpike is interesting from three points of view: it +began a new period of American transportation; it ushered in an era of +speculation unheard of in the previous history of the country; and it +introduced American lawmakers to the great problem of controlling public +corporations. + +Along this thirty-seven-foot road, of which twenty-four feet were laid +with stone, the new era of American inland travel progressed. The +array of two-wheeled private equipages and other family carriages, +the stagecoaches of bright color, and the carts, Dutch wagons, and +Conestogas, gave token of what was soon to be witnessed on the great +roads of a dozen States in the next generation. Here, probably, the +first distinction began to be drawn between the taverns for passengers +and those patronized by the drivers of freight. The colonial taverns, +comparatively few and far between, had up to this time served the +traveling public, high and low, rich and poor, alike. But in this new +era members of Congress and the elite of Philadelphia and neighboring +towns were not to be jostled at the table by burly hostlers, drivers, +wagoners, and hucksters. Two types of inns thus came quickly into +existence: the tavern entertained the stagecoach traffic, while the +democratic roadhouse served the established lines of Conestogas, +freighters, and all other vehicles which poured from every town, +village, and hamlet upon the great thoroughfare leading to the +metropolis on the Delaware. + +Among American inventions the Conestoga wagon must forever be remembered +with respect. Originating in the Lancaster region of Pennsylvania and +taking its name either from the horses of the Conestoga Valley or from +the valley itself, this vehicle was unlike the old English wain or the +Dutch wagon because of the curve of its bed. This peculiarly shaped +bottom, higher by twelve inches or more at each end than in the middle, +made the vehicle a safer conveyance across the mountains and over all +rough country than the old straight-bed wagon. The Conestoga was covered +with canvas, as were other freight vehicles, but the lines of the bed +were also carried out in the framework above and gave the whole the +effect of a great ship swaying up and down the billowy hills. The wheels +of the Conestoga were heavily built and wore tires four and six inches +in width. The harness of the six horses attached to the wagon was +proportionately heavy, the back bands being fifteen inches wide, the +hip straps ten, and the traces consisting of ponderous iron chains. The +color of the original Conestoga wagons never varied: the underbody was +always blue and the upper parts were red. The wagoners and drivers who +manned this fleet on wheels were men of a type that finds no parallel +except in the boatmen on the western rivers who were almost their +contemporaries. Fit for the severest toil, weathered to the color of the +red man, at home under any roof that harbored a demijohn and a fiddle, +these hardy nomads of early commerce were the custodians of the largest +amount of traffic in their day. + +The turnpike era overlaps the period of the building of national roads +and canals and the beginning of the railway age, but it is of greatest +interest during the first twenty-five years of the nineteenth century, +up to the time when the completion of the Erie Canal set new standards. +During this period roads were also constructed westward from Baltimore +and Albany to connect, as the Lancaster Turnpike did at its terminus, +with the thoroughfares from the trans-Alleghany country. The metropolis +of Maryland was quickly in the field to challenge the bid which the +Quaker City made for western trade. The Baltimore-Reisterstown and +Baltimore-Frederick turnpikes were built at a cost of $10,000 and +$8,000 a mile respectively; and the latter, connecting with roads to +Cumberland, linked itself with the great national road to Ohio which +the Government built between 1811 and 1817. These famous stone roads of +Maryland long kept Baltimore in the lead as the principal outlet for the +western trade. New York, too, proved her right to the title of Empire +State by a marvelous activity in improving her magnificent strategic +position. In the first seven years of the nineteenth century +eighty-eight incorporated road companies were formed with a total +capital of over $8,000,000. Twenty large bridges and more than three +thousand miles of turnpike were constructed. The movement, indeed, +extended from New England to Virginia and the Carolinas, and turnpike +companies built all kinds of roads--earth, corduroy, plank, and stone. + +In many cases the kind of road to be constructed, the tolls to be +charged, and the amount of profit to be permitted, were laid down in +the charters. Thus new problems confronted the various legislatures, and +interesting principles of regulation were now established. In most +cases companies were allowed, on producing their books of receipts and +expenditures, to increase their tolls until they obtained a profit of +six per cent on the investment, though in a number of cases nine per +cent was permitted. When revenues increased beyond the six per cent +mark, however, the tendency was to reduce tolls or to use the extra +profit to purchase the stock for the State, with the expectation +of ultimately abolishing tollgates entirely. The theories of state +regulation of corporations and the obligations of public carriers, +extending even to the compensation of workmen in case of accident, were +developed to a considerable degree in this turnpike era; but, on the +other hand, the principle of permitting fair profit to corporations upon +public examination of their accounts was also recognized. + +The stone roads, which were passable at all seasons, brought a new era +in correspondence and business. Lines of stages and wagons, as well +known at that time as are the great railways of today, plied the new +thoroughfares, provided some of the comforts of travel, and assured the +safer and more rapid delivery of goods. This period is sometimes known +in American history as "The Era of Good Feeling" and the turnpike +contributed in no small degree to make the phrase applicable not only to +the domain of politics but to all the relations of social and commercial +life. + +While road building in the East gives a clear picture of the rise and +growth of commerce and trade in that section, it is to the rivers of the +trans-Alleghany country that we must look for a corresponding picture in +this early period. The canoe and pirogue could handle the packs and kegs +brought westward by the files of Indian ponies; but the heavy loads of +the Conestoga wagons demanded stancher craft. The flatboat and barge +therefore served the West and its commerce as the Conestoga and turnpike +served the East. + + + +CHAPTER V. The Flatboat Age + +In the early twenties of the last century one of the popular songs of +the day was "The Hunters of Kentucky." Written by Samuel Woodworth, the +author of "The Old Oaken Bucket," it had originally been printed in the +New York Mirror but had come into the hands of an actor named Ludlow, +who was playing in the old French theater in New Orleans. The poem +chants the praises of the Kentucky riflemen who fought with Jackson at +New Orleans and indubitably proved + +That every man was half a horse And half an alligator. + +Ludlow knew his audience and he saw his chance. Setting the words to +Risk's tune, "Love Laughs" at Locksmiths, donning the costume of a +Western riverman, and arming himself with a long "squirrel" rifle, he +presented himself before the house. The rivermen who filled the pit +received him, it is related, with "a prolonged whoop, or howl, such as +Indians give when they are especially pleased." And to these sturdy men +the words of his song made a strong appeal: + +We are a hardy, freeborn race, Each man to fear a stranger; +Whate'er the game, we join in chase, Despising toil and danger; +And if a daring foe annoys, No matter what his force is, +We'll show him that Kentucky boys Are Alligator-horses. + +The title "alligator-horse," of which Western rivermen were very proud, +carried with it a suggestion of amphibious strength that made it both +apt and figuratively accurate. On all the American rivers, east and +west, a lusty crew, collected from the waning Indian trade and the +disbanded pioneer armies, found work to its taste in poling the long +keel boats, "corralling" the bulky barges--that is, towing them by +pulling on a line attached to the shore--or steering the "broadhorns" +or flatboats that transported the first heavy inland river cargoes. Like +longshoremen of all ages, the American riverman was as rough as the +work which calloused his hands and transformed his muscles into bands +of tempered steel. Like all men given to hard but intermittent labor, he +employed his intervals of leisure in coarse and brutal recreation. Their +roistering exploits, indeed, have made these rivermen almost better +known at play than at work. One of them, the notorious Mike Fink, known +as "the Snag" on the Mississippi and as the "Snapping Turtle" on the +Ohio, has left the record, not that he could load a keel boat in a +certain length of time, or lift a barrel of whiskey with one arm, or +that no tumultuous current had ever compelled him to back water, but +that he could "out-run, out-hop, out-jump, throw down, drag out, and +lick any man in the country," and that he was "a Salt River roarer." + +Such men and the craft they handled were known on the Atlantic rivers, +but it was on the Mississippi and its branches, especially the Ohio, +that they played their most important part in the history of American +inland commerce. Before the beginning of the nineteenth century wagons +and Conestogas were bringing great loads of merchandise to such points +on the headwaters as Brownsville, Pittsburgh, and Wheeling. As early as +1782, we are told, Jacob Yoder, a Pennsylvania German, set sail from +the Monongahela country with the first flatboat to descend the Ohio +and Mississippi. As the years passed, the number of such craft grew +constantly larger. The custom of fixing the widespreading horns +of cattle on the prow gave these boats the alternative name of +"broadhorns," but no accurate classification can be made of the various +kinds of craft engaged in this vast traffic. Everything that would +float, from rough rafts to finished barges, was commandeered into +service, and what was found unsuitable for the strenuous purposes +of commercial transportation was palmed off whenever possible on +unsuspecting emigrants en route to the lands of promise beyond. + +Flour, salt, iron, cider and peach brandy were staple products of the +Ohio country which the South desired. In return they shipped molasses, +sugar, coffee, lead, and hides upon the few keel boats which crept +upstream or the blundering barges which were propelled northward +by means of oar, sail, and cordelle. It was not, however, until the +nineteenth century that the young West was producing any considerable +quantity of manufactured goods. Though the town of Pittsburgh had been +laid out in 1764, by the end of the Revolution it was still little more +than a collection of huts about a fort. A notable amount of local trade +was carried on, but the expense of transportation was very high even +after wagons began crossing the Alleghanies. For example, the cost +from Philadelphia and Baltimore was given by Arthur Lee, a member of +Congress, in 1784 as forty-five shillings a hundredweight, and a few +months later it is quoted at sixpence a pound when Johann D. Schoph +crossed the mountains in a chaise--a feat "which till now had been +considered quite impossible." Opinions differed widely as to the future +of the little town of five hundred inhabitants. The important product of +the region at first was Monongahela flour which long held a high place +in the New Orleans market. Coal was being mined as early as 1796 and was +worth locally threepence halfpenny a bushel, though within seven years +it was being sold at Philadelphia at thirty-seven and a half cents a +bushel. The fur trade with the Illinois country grew less important as +the century came to its close, but Maynard and Morrison, cooperating +with Guy Bryan at Philadelphia, sent a barge laden with merchandise to +Illinois annually between 1790 and 1796, which returned each season with +a cargo of skins and furs. Pittsburgh was thus a distributing center +of some importance; but the fact that no drayman or warehouse was to +be found in the town at this time is a significant commentary on the +undeveloped state of its commerce and manufacture. + +After Wayne's victory at the battle of the Fallen Timber in 1794 and +the signing of the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, which ended the earlier +Indian wars of the Old Northwest and opened for settlement the country +beyond the Ohio, a great migration followed into Ohio, Indiana, and +Kentucky, and the commercial activity of Pittsburgh rapidly increased. +By 1800 a score of profitable industries had arisen, and by 1803 the +first bar-iron foundry was, to quote the advertisement of its owner, +"sufficiently upheld by the hand of the Almighty" to supply in part +the demand for iron and castings. Glass factories were established, and +ropewalks, sail lofts, boatyards, anchor smithies, and brickyards, were +soon ready to supply the rapidly increasing demands of the infant cities +and the countryside on the lower Ohio. When the new century arrived the +Pittsburgh district had a population of upwards of two thousand. + +One by one the other important centers of trade in the great valley +beyond began to show evidences of life. Marietta, Ohio, founded in 1788 +by Revolutionary officers from New England, became the metropolis of +the rich Muskingum River district, which was presently sending many +flatboats southward. Cincinnati was founded in the same year as +Marietta, with the building of Fort Washington and the formal +organization of Hamilton County. The soil of the Miami country was as +"mellow as an ash heap" and in the first four months of 1802 over +four thousand barrels of flour were shipped southward to challenge the +prestige of the Monongahela product. Potters, brickmakers, gunsmiths, +cotton and wool weavers, coopers, turners, wheelwrights, dyers, +printers, and ropemakers were at work here within the next decade. A +brewery turned out five thousand barrels of beer and porter in 1811, and +by the next year the pork-packing business was thoroughly established. + +Louisville, the "Little Falls" of the West, was the entrepot of the Blue +Grass region. It had been a place of some importance since Revolutionary +days, for in seasons of low water the rapids in the Ohio at this point +gave employment to scores of laborers who assisted the flatboatmen in +hauling their cargoes around the obstruction which prevented the passage +of the heavily loaded barges. The town, which was incorporated in 1780, +soon showed signs of commercial activity. It was the proud possessor of +a drygoods house in 1783. The growth of its tobacco industry was rapid +from the first. The warehouses were under government supervision and +inspection as early as 1795, and innumerable flatboats were already +bearing cargoes of bright leaf southward in the last decade of the +century. The first brick house in Louisville was erected in 1789 with +materials brought from Pittsburgh. Yankees soon established the "Hope +Distillery"; and the manufacture of whiskey, which had long been +a staple industry conducted by individuals, became an incorporated +business of great promise in spite of objections raised against the +"creation of gigantic reservoirs of this damning drink." + +Thus, about the year 1800, the great industries of the young West +were all established in the regions dominated by the growing cities +of Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville. But, since the combined +population of these centers could not have been over three thousand in +the year 1800, it is evident that the adjacent rural population and the +people living in every neighboring creek and river valley were chiefly +responsible for the large trade that already existed between this corner +of the Mississippi basin and the South. + +In this trade the riverman was the fundamental factor. Only by means of +his brawn and his genius for navigation could these innumerable tons of +flour, tobacco, and bacon have been kept from rotting on the shores. Yet +the man himself remains a legend grotesque and mysterious, one of the +shadowy figures of a time when history was being made too rapidly to be +written. If we ask how he loaded his flatboat or barge, we are told that +"one squint of his eye would blister a bull's heel." When we inquire how +he found the channel amid the shifting bars and floating islands of that +tortuous two-thousand-mile journey to New Orleans, we are informed that +he was "the very infant that turned from his mother's breast and called +out for a bottle of old rye." When we ask how he overcame the natural +difficulties of trade--lack of commission houses, varying standards of +money, want of systems of credit and low prices due to the glutting +of the market when hundreds of flatboats arrived in the South +simultaneously on the same freshet--we are informed that "Billy +Earthquake is the geniwine, double-acting engine, and can out-run, +out-swim, chaw more tobacco and spit less, drink more whiskey and keep +soberer than any other man in these localities." + +The reason for this lack of information is that our descriptions of +flatboating and keel boating are written by travelers who, as is always +the case, are interested in what is unusual, not in what is typical and +commonplace. It is therefore only dimly, as through a mist, that we +can see the two lines of polemen pass from the prow to the stern on the +narrow running-board of a keel boat, lifting and setting their poles to +the cry of steersman or captain. The struggle in a swift "rife" or rapid +is momentous. If the craft swerves, all is lost. Shoulders bend with +savage strength; poles quiver under the tension; the captain's voice is +raucous, and every other word is an oath; a pole breaks, and the next +man, though half-dazed in the mortal crisis, does for a few moments +the work of two. At last they reach the head of the rapid, and the boat +floats out on the placid pool above, while the "alligator-horse" who +had the mishap remarks to the scenery at large that he'd be "fly-blowed +before sun-down to a certingty" if that were not the very pole with +which he "pushed the broadhorn up Salt River where the snags were +so thick that a fish couldn't swim without rubbing his scales off." +Audubon, the naturalist-merchant of the Mississippi, has left us a clear +picture of the process by which these heavy tubs, loaded with forty or +fifty tons of freight, were forced upstream against a swift current: + +"Wherever a point projected so as to render the course or bend below it +of some magnitude, there was an eddy, the returning current of which +was sometimes as strong as that of the middle of the great stream. The +bargemen, therefore, rowed up pretty close under the bank and had merely +to keep watch in the bow lest the boat should run against a planter or +sawyer. But the boat has reached the point, and there the current is +to all appearance of double strength and right against it. The men, who +have rested a few minutes, are ordered to take their stations and lay +hold of their oars, for the river must be crossed, it being seldom +possible to double such a point and proceed along the same shore. The +boat is crossing, its head slanting to the current, which is, however, +too strong for the rowers, and when the other side of the river has been +reached, it has drifted perhaps a quarter of a mile. The men are by this +time exhausted and, as we shall suppose it to be 12 o'clock, fasten the +boat to a tree on the shore. A small glass of whiskey is given to +each, when they cook and eat their dinner and, after resting from their +fatigue for an hour, recommence their labors. The boat is again seen +slowly advancing against the stream. It has reached the lower end of a +sandbar, along the edge of which it is propelled by means of long poles, +if the bottom be hard. Two men, called bowsmen, remain at the prow to +assist, in concert with the steersman, in managing the boat and keeping +its head right against the current. The rest place themselves on the +land side of the footway of the vessel, put one end of their poles on +the ground and the other against their shoulders and push with all their +might. As each of the men reaches the stern, he crosses to the other +side, runs along it and comes again to the landward side of the bow, +when he recommences operations. The barge in the meantime is ascending +at a rate not exceeding one mile in the hour." + +Trustworthy statistics as to the amount and character of the Western +river trade have never been gathered. They are to be found, if anywhere, +in the reports of the collectors of customs located at the various +Western ports of entry and departure. Nothing indicates more definitely +the hour when the West awoke to its first era of big business than the +demand for the creation of "districts" and their respective ports, for +by no other means could merchandise and produce be shipped legally to +Spanish territory beyond or down the Mississippi or to English territory +on the northern shores of the Great Lakes. + +Louisville is as old a port of the United States as New York or +Philadelphia, having been so created when our government was established +in 1789, but oddly enough the first returns to the National Treasury +(1798) are credited to the port of Palmyra, Tennessee, far inland on the +Cumberland River. In 1799 the following Western towns were made ports +of entry: Erie, Sandusky, Detroit, Mackinaw Island, and Columbia +(Cincinnati). The first port on the Ohio to make returns was Fort +Massac, Illinois, and it is from the collector at this point that we get +our first hint as to the character and volume of Western river traffic. +In the spring months of March, April, and May, 1800, cargoes to the +value of 28,581 pounds, Pennsylvania currency, went down the Ohio. This +included 22,714 barrels of flour, 1017 barrels of whiskey, 12,500 pounds +of pork, 18,710 pounds of bacon, 75,814 pounds of cordage, 3650 yards +of country linen, 700 bottles, and 700 barrels of potatoes. In the three +autumn months of 1800, for instance, twenty-one boats ascended the Ohio +by Fort Massac, with cargoes amounting to 36 hundredweight of lead and +a few hides. Descending the river at the same time, flatboats and barges +carried 245 hundredweight of drygoods valued at $32,550. When we compare +these spring and fall records of commerce downstream we reach the +natural conclusion that the bulk of the drygoods which went down in the +fall of the year had been brought over the mountains during the summer. +The fact that the Alleghany pack-horses and Conestogas were transporting +freight to supply the Spanish towns on the Mississippi River in the +first year of the nineteenth century seems proved beyond a doubt by +these reports from Fort Massac. + +The most interesting phase of this era is the connection between western +trade and the politics of the Mississippi Valley which led up to the +Louisiana Purchase. By the Treaty of San Lorenzo in 1795 Spain made New +Orleans an open port, and in the next seven years the young West made +the most of its opportunity. But before the new century was two years +old the difficulties encountered were found to be serious. The lack of +commission merchants, of methods of credit, of information as to the +state of the market, all combined to handicap trade and to cause loss. +Pittsburgh shippers figured their loss already at $60,000 a year. In +consequence men began to look elsewhere, and an advocate of big business +wrote in 1802: "The country has received a shock; let us immediately +extend our views and direct our efforts to every foreign market." + +One of the most remarkable plans for the capture of foreign trade to +be found in the annals of American commerce originated almost +simultaneously in the Muskingum and Monongahela regions. With a view to +making the American West independent of the Spanish middlemen, it was +proposed to build ocean-going vessels on the Ohio that should carry the +produce of the interior down the Mississippi and thence abroad through +the open port of New Orleans. The idea was typically Western in its +arrogant originality and confident self-assertion. Two vessels were +built: the brig St. Clair, of 110 tons, at Marietta, and the Monongahela +Farmer, of 250 tons, at Elizabeth on the Monongahela. The former reached +Cincinnati April 27, 1801; the latter, loaded with 750 barrels of flour, +passed Pittsburgh on the 13th of May. Eventually, the St. Clair reached +Havana and thus proved that Muskingum Valley black walnut, Ohio hemp, +and Marietta carpenters, anchor smiths, and skippers could defy the +grip of the Spaniard on the Mississippi. Other vessels followed these +adventurers, and shipbuilding immediately became an important industry +at Pittsburgh, Marietta, Cincinnati, and other points. The Duane of +Pittsburgh was said by the Liverpool "Saturday Advertiser" of July 9, +1803, to have been the "first vessel which ever came to Europe from the +western waters of the United States." Probably the Louisiana of Marietta +went as far afield as any of the one hundred odd ships built in these +years on the Ohio. The official papers of her voyage in 1805, dated at +New Orleans, Norfolk (Virginia), Liverpool, Messina, and Trieste at +the head of the Adriatic, are preserved today in the Marietta College +Library. + +The growth of the shipbuilding industry necessitated a readjustment of +the districts for the collection of customs. Columbia (Cincinnati) at +first served the region of the upper Ohio; but in 1803 the district was +divided and Marietta was made the port for the Pittsburgh-Portsmouth +section of the river. In 1807 all the western districts were +amalgamated, and Pittsburgh, Charleston (Wellsburg), Marietta, +Cincinnati, Louisville, and Fort Massac were made ports of entry. + +The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 gave a marked impulse to inland +shipbuilding; but the embargo of 1807, which prohibited foreign trade, +following so soon, killed the shipyards, which, for a few years, had +been so busy. The great new industry of the Ohio Valley was ruined. By +this time the successful voyage of Fulton's steamboat, the Clermont, +between New York and Albany, had demonstrated the possibilities of steam +navigation. Not a few men saw in the novel craft the beginning of a new +era in Western river traffic; but many doubted whether it was possible +to construct a vessel powerful enough to make its way upstream against +such sweeping currents as those of the Mississippi and the Ohio. Surely +no one for a moment dreamed that in hardly more than a generation the +Western rivers would carry a tonnage larger than that of the cities of +the Atlantic seaboard combined and larger than that of Great Britain! + +As early as 1805, two years before the trip of the Clermont, Captain +Keever built a "steamboat" on the Ohio, and sent her down to New Orleans +where her engine was to be installed. But it was not until 1811 that the +Orleans, the first steamboat to ply the Western streams, was built at +Pittsburgh, from which point she sailed for New Orleans in October +of that year. The Comet and Vesuvius quickly followed, but all three +entered the New Orleans-Natchez trade on the lower river and were never +seen again at the headwaters. As yet the swift currents and flood tides +of the great river had not been mastered. It is true that in 1815 the +Enterprise had made two trips between New Orleans and Louisville, but +this was in time of high water, when counter currents and backwaters had +assisted her feeble engine. In 1816, however, Henry Shreve conceived +the idea of raising the engine out of the hold and constructing an +additional deck. The Washington, the first doubledecker, was the result. +The next year this steamboat made the round trip from Louisville to New +Orleans and back in forty-one days. The doubters were now convinced. + +For a little while the quaint and original riverman held on in the new +age, only to disappear entirely when the colored roustabout became the +deckhand of post-bellum days. The riverman as a type was unknown except +on the larger rivers in the earlier years of water traffic. What +an experience it would be today to rouse one of those remarkable +individuals from his dreaming, as Davy Crockett did, with an oar, and +hear him howl "Halloe stranger, who axed you to crack my lice?"--to +tell him in his own lingo to "shut his mouth or he would get his teeth +sunburnt"--to see him crook his neck and neigh like a stallion--to +answer his challenge in kind with a flapping of arms and a cock's +crow--to go to shore and have a scrimmage such as was never known on +a gridiron--and then to resolve with Crockett, during a period of +recuperation, that you would never "wake up a ringtailed roarer with an +oar again." + +The riverman, his art, his language, his traffic, seem to belong to days +as distant as those of which Homer sang. + + + +CHAPTER VI. The Passing Show Of 1800 + +Foreign travelers who have come to the United States have always proved +of great interest to Americans. From Brissot to Arnold Bennett while in +the country they have been fed and clothed and transported wheresoever +they would go--at the highest prevailing prices. And after they have +left, the records of their sojourn that these travelers have published +have made interesting reading for Americans all over the land. Some +of these trans-Atlantic visitors have been jaundiced, disgruntled, and +contemptuous; others have shown themselves of an open nature, discreet, +conscientious, and fair-minded. + +One of the most amiable and clear-headed of such foreign guests was +Francis Baily, later in life president of the Royal Astronomical Society +of Great Britain, but at the time of his American tour a young man of +twenty-two. His journey in 1796-97 gave him a wide experience of +stage, flatboat, and pack-horse travel, and his genial disposition, +his observant eye, and his discriminating criticism, together with his +comments on the commercial features of the towns and regions he visited, +make his record particularly interesting and valuable to the historian. +* Using Baily's journal as a guide, therefore, one can today journey +with him across the country and note the passing show as he saw it in +this transitional period. + + + * "Journal of a Tour in Unsettled Parts of North America in 1796 +and 1797" by the late Francis Baily (London, 1856). + + +Landing at Norfolk, Virginia, Baily was immediately introduced to an +American tavern. Like most travelers, he was surprised to find that +American taverns were "boarding-places," frequented by crowds of "young, +able-bodied men who seemed to be as perfectly at leisure as the +loungers of ancient Europe." In those days of few newspapers, the tavern +everywhere in America was the center of information; in fact, it was a +common practice for travelers in the interior, after signing their names +in the register, to add on the same page any news of local interest +which they brought with them. The tavern habitues, Baily remarks, did +not sit and drink after meals but "wasted" their time at billiards and +cards. The passion for billiards was notorious, and taverns in the +most out-of-the-way places, though they lacked the most ordinary +conveniences, were nevertheless provided with billiard tables. This +custom seems to have been especially true in the South; and it is +significant that the first taxes in Tennessee levied before the +beginning of the nineteenth century were the poll tax and taxes on +billiard tables and studhorses! + +From Norfolk Baily passed northward to Baltimore, paying a fare of ten +dollars, and from there he went on to Philadelphia, paying six dollars +more. On the way his stagecoach stuck fast in a bog and the passengers +were compelled to leave it until the next morning. This sixty-mile road +out of Baltimore was evidently one of the worst in the East. Ten years +prior to this date, Brissot, a keen French journalist, mentions the +great ruts in its heavy clay soil, the overturned trees which blocked +the way, and the unexampled skilfulness of the stage drivers. All +travelers in America, though differing on almost every other subject, +invariably praise the ability of these sturdy, weather-beaten American +drivers, their kindness to their horses, and their attention to their +passengers. Harriet Martineau stated that, in her experience, American +drivers as a class were marked by the merciful temper which accompanies +genius, and their perfection in their art, their fertility of resource, +and the gentleness with which they treated female fears and fretfulness, +were exemplary. + +In the City of Brotherly Love Baily notes the geniality of the people, +who by many travelers are called aristocratic, and comments on Quaker +opposition to the theater and the inconsequence of the Peale Museum, +which travelers a generation later highly praise. Proceeding to New York +at a cost of six dollars, he is struck by the uncouthness of the public +buildings, churches excepted, the widespread passion for music, dancing, +and the theater, the craze for sleighing, and the promise which the +harbor gave of becoming the finest in America. Not a few travelers +in this early period gave expression to their belief in the future +greatness of New York City. These prophecies, taken in connection with +the investment of eight millions of dollars which New Yorkers made in +toll-roads in the first seven years of this new century, incline one +to believe that the influence of the Erie Canal as a factor in the +development of the city may have been unduly emphasized, great though it +was. + +From New York Baily returned to Baltimore and went on to Washington. +The records of all travelers to the site of the new national capital +give much the same picture of the countryside. It was a land worn out by +tobacco culture and variously described as "dried up," "run down," and +"hung out to dry." Even George Washington, at Mount Vernon, was giving +up tobacco culture and was attempting new crops by a system of rotation. +Cotton was being grown in Maryland, but little care was given to its +culture and manufacture. Tobacco was graded in Virginia in accordance +with the rigidity of its inspection at Hanover Court House, Pittsburgh, +Richmond, and Cabin-Point: leaf worth sixteen shillings at Richmond +was worth twenty-one at Hanover Court House; if it was refused at all +places, it was smuggled to the West Indies or consumed in the country. +Meadows were rapidly taking the place of tobacco-fields, for the +planters preferred to clear new land rather than to enrich the old. + +At Washington Baily found that lots to the value of $278,000 had been +sold, although only one-half of the proposed city had been "cleared." It +was to be forty years ere travelers could speak respectfully of what is +now the beautiful city of Washington. In these earlier days, the streets +were mudholes divided by vacant fields and "beautified by trees, swamps, +and cows." + +Departing for the West by way of Frederick, Baily, like all travelers, +was intensely interested upon entering the rich limestone region which +stretched from Pennsylvania far down into Virginia. It was occupied in +part by the Pennsylvania Dutch and was so famous for its rich milk +that it was called by many travelers the "Bonnyclabber Country." Most +Englishmen were delighted with this region because they found here the +good old English breed of horses, that is, the English hunter developed +into a stout coach-horse. Of native breeds, Baily found animals of all +degrees of strength and size down to hackneys of fourteen hands, as well +as the "vile dog-horses," or packhorses, whose faithful service to the +frontier could in no wise be appreciated by a foreigner. + +This region of Pennsylvania was as noted for its wagons as for +its horses. It was this wheat-bearing belt that made the common +freight-wagon in its colors of red and blue a national institution. It +was in this region of rich, well-watered land that the maple tree gained +its reputation. Men even prophesied that its delightful sap would prove +a cure for slavery, for, if one family could make fifteen hundred pounds +of maple sugar in a season, eighty thousand families could, at the same +rate, equal the output of cane sugar each year from Santo Domingo! + +The traveler at the beginning of the century noticed a change in +the temper of the people as well as a change in the soil when the +Bonnyclabber Country was reached. The time-serving attitude of the good +people of the East now gave place to a "consciousness of independence" +due, Baily remarks, to the fact that each man was self-sufficient and +passed his life "without regard to the smiles and frowns of men in +power." This spirit was handsomely illustrated in the case of one burly +Westerner who was "churched" for fighting. Showing a surly attitude +to the deacon-judges who sat on his case, he was threatened with civil +prosecution and imprisonment. "I don't want freedom," he is said to have +replied, bitterly; "I don't even want to live if I can't knock down a +man who calls me a liar." + +Pushing on westward by way of historic Sideling Hill and Bedford to +Statlers, Baily found here a prosperous millstone quarry, which sold its +stones at from fifteen to thirty dollars a pair. Twelve years earlier +Washington had prophesied that the Alleghanies would soon be furnishing +millstones equal to the best English burr. As he crossed the mountains +Baily found that taverns charged the following schedule: breakfast, +eighteen pence; dinner and supper from two shillings to two shillings +and sixpence each. Traversing Laurel Hill, he reached Pittsburgh just at +the time when it was awakening to activity as the trading center of the +West. + +In order to descend the Ohio, Baily obtained a flatboat, thirty-six feet +long and twelve feet broad, which drew eighteen inches of water and was +of ten tons burden. On the way downstream, Charleston and Wheeling were +the principal settlements which Baily first noted. Ebenezer Zane, the +founder of Wheeling, had just opened across Ohio the famous landward +route from the Monongahela country to Kentucky, which it entered at +Limestone, the present Maysville. This famous road, passing through +Zanesville, Lancaster, and Chillicothe, though at that time safe only +for men in parties, was a common route to and from Kentucky. + +On such inland pathways as this, early travelers came to take for +granted a hospitality not to be found on more frequented thoroughfares. +In this hospitality, roughness and good will, cleanliness and filth, +attempts to ape the style of Eastern towns and habits of the most +primitive kind, were singularly blended. In one instance, the traveler +might be cordially assigned by the landlord to a good position in "the +first rush for a chance at the head of the table"; at the next stopping +place he might be coldly turned away because the proprietor "had the +gout" and his wife the "delicate blue-devils"; farther on, where "soap +was unknown, nothing clean but birds, nothing industrious but pigs, and +nothing happy but squirrels," Daniel Boone's daughter might be seen in +high-heeled shoes, attended by white servants whose wages were a dollar +a week, skirting muddy roads under a ten-dollar bonnet and a six-dollar +parasol. Or, he might emerge from a lonely forest in Ohio or Indiana and +come suddenly upon a party of neighbors at a dreary tavern, enjoying a +corn shucking or a harvest home. Immediately dubbed "Doctor," "Squire," +or "Colonel" by the hospitable merrymakers, the passer-by would be +informed that he "should drink and lack no good thing." After he had +retired, as likely as not his quarters would be invaded at one or +two o'clock in the morning by the uproarious company, and the best +refreshment of the house would be forced upon him with a hilarity +"created by omnipotent whiskey." Sometimes, however, the traveler would +encounter pitiful instances of loneliness in the widespreading forests. +One man in passing a certain isolated cabin was implored by the woman +who inhabited it to rest awhile and talk, since she was, she confessed, +completely overwhelmed by "the lone!" + +Every traveler has remarked upon the yellow pallor of the first +inhabitants of the western forests and doubtless correctly attributed +this sickly appearance to the effects of malaria and miasma. The psychic +influences of the forest wilderness also weighed heavily upon the +spirits of the settlers, although, as Baily notes, it was the newcomers +who felt the depression to an exaggerated degree. As he says: + +"It is a feeling of confinement, which begins to damp the spirits, from +this complete exclusion of distant objects. To travel day after day, +among trees of a hundred feet high, is oppressive to a degree which +those cannot conceive who have not experienced it; and it must depress +the spirits of the solitary settler to pass years in this state. His +visible horizon extends no farther than the tops of the trees which +bound his plantation--perhaps five hundred yards. Upwards he sees the +sun, and sky, and stars, but around him an eternal forest, from which +he can never hope to emerge:---not so in a thickly settled district; he +cannot there enjoy any freedom of prospect, yet there is variety, and +some scope for the imprisoned vision. In a hilly country a little more +range of view may occasionally be obtained; and a river is a stream +of light as well as of water, which feasts the eye with a delight +inconceivable to the inhabitants of open countries." + +In direct contradiction to this longing for society was the passion +which the first generation of pioneers had for the wilderness. When the +population of one settlement became too thick, they were seized by an +irresistible impulse to "follow the migration," as the expression went. +The easy independence of the first hunter-agriculturalist was upset +by the advance of immigration. His range was curtailed, his freedom +limited. His very breath seems to have become difficult. So he sold out +at a phenomenal profit, put out his fire, shouldered his gun, called his +dog, and set off again in search of the solitude he craved. + +Severe winter weather overtook Baily as he descended the Ohio River, +until below Grave Creek floating ice wrecked his boat and drove him +ashore. Here in the primeval forest, far from "Merrie England," Baily +spent the Christmas of 1796 in building a new flatboat. This task +completed, he resumed his journey. Passing Marietta, where the bad +condition of the winter roads prevented a visit to a famous Indian +mound, he reached Limestone. In due time he sighted Columbia, the +metropolis of the Miami country. According to Baily, the sale of +European goods in this part of the Ohio Valley netted the importers a +hundred per cent. Prices varied with the ease of navigation. When ice +blocked the Ohio the price of flour went up until it was eight dollars a +barrel; whiskey was a dollar a gallon; potatoes, a dollar a bushel; and +bacon, twelve cents a pound. At these prices, the total produce which +went by Fort Massac in the early months of 1800 would have been worth on +the Ohio River upwards of two hundred thousand dollars! In the preceding +summer Baily quoted flour at Norfolk as selling at sixty-three shillings +a barrel of 196 pounds, or double the price it was bringing on the +ice-gorged Ohio. It is by such comparisons that we get some inkling of +the value of western produce and of the rates in western trade. + +After a short stay at Cincinnati, Baily set out for the South on an +"Orleans boat" loaded with four hundred barrels of flour. At the +mouth of Pigeon Creek he noted the famous path to "Post St. Vincent's" +(Vincennes), over which he saw emigrants driving cattle to that ancient +town on the Wabash. At Fort Massac he met Captain Zebulon M. Pike, whose +tact in dealing with intoxicated Indians he commended. At New Madrid +Baily made a stay of some days. This settlement, consisting of some two +hundred and fifty houses, was in the possession of Spain. It was within +the province of Louisiana, soon to be ceded to Napoleon. New Orleans +supplied this district with merchandise, but smuggling from the United +States was connived at by the Spanish officials. + +From New Madrid Baily proceeded to Natchez, which then contained about +eighty-five houses. The town did not boast a tavern, but, as was true +of other places in the interior, this lack was made up for by the +hospitality of its inhabitants. Rice and tobacco were being grown, Baily +notes, and Georgian cotton was being raised in the neighborhood. Several +jennies were already at work, and their owners received a royalty of +one-eighth of the product. The cotton was sent to New Orleans, where it +usually sold for twenty dollars a hundred weight. From Natchez to New +Orleans the charge for transportation by flatboat was a dollar and a +half a bag. The bags contained from one hundred and fifty to two hundred +and fifty pounds, and each flatboat carried about two hundred and +fifty bags. Baily adds two items to the story of the development of the +mechanical operation of watercraft. He tells us that in the fall of 1796 +a party of "Dutchmen," in the Pittsburgh region, fashioned a boat with +side paddle wheels which were turned by a treadmill worked by eight +horses under the deck. This strange boat, which passed Baily when he was +wrecked on the Ohio near Grave Creek, appeared "to go with prodigious +swiftness." Baily does not state how much business the boat did on its +downward trip to New Orleans but contents, himself with remarking that +the owners expected the return trip to prove very profitable. When +he met the boat on its upward voyage at Natchez, it had covered three +hundred miles in six days. It was, however, not loaded, "so little +occasion was there for a vessel of this kind." As this run between New +Orleans and Natchez came to be one of the most profitable in the United +States in the early days of steamboating, less than fifteen years later, +the experience of these "Flying Dutchmen" affords a very pretty proof +that something more than a means of transportation is needed to create +commerce. The owners abandoned their craft at Natchez in disgust and +returned home across country, wiser and poorer. + +Baily also noted that a Dr. Waters of New Madrid built a schooner "some +few years since" at the head of the Ohio and navigated it down the Ohio +and Mississippi and around to Philadelphia, "where it is now employed +in the commerce of the United States." It is thus apparent, solely +from this traveler's record, that an ocean-going vessel and a +side-paddle-wheel boat had been seen on the Western Waters of the United +States at least four years before the nineteenth century arrived. + +Baily finally reached New Orleans. The city then contained about a +thousand houses and was not only the market for the produce of the river +plantations but also the center of an extensive Indian trade. The goods +for this trade were packed in little barrels which were carried into the +interior on pack-horses, three barrels to a horse. The traders traveled +for hundreds of miles through the woods, bartering with the Indians on +the way and receiving, in exchange for their goods, bear and deer skins, +beaver furs, and wild ponies which had been caught by lariat in the +neighboring Apalousa country. + +Baily had intended to return to New York by sea, but on his arrival +at New Orleans he was unable to find a ship sailing to New York. He +therefore decided to proceed northward by way of the long and dangerous +Natchez Trace and the Tennessee Path. Though few Europeans had made this +laborious journey before 1800, the Natchez Trace had been for many years +the land route of thousands of returning rivermen who had descended the +Mississippi in flatboat and barge. In practically all cases these men +carried with them the proceeds of their investment, and, as on every +thoroughfare in the world traveled by those returning from market, so +here, too, highwaymen and desperadoes, red and white, built their lairs +and lay in wait. Some of the most revolting crimes of the American +frontier were committed on these northward pathways and their branches. + +Joining a party bound for Natchez, a hundred and fifty miles distant +overland, Baily proceeded to Lake Pontchartrain and thence "north by +west through the woods," by way of the ford of the Tangipahoa, Cooper's +Plantation, Tickfaw River, Amite River, and the "Hurricane" (the path of +a tornado) to the beginning of the Apalousa country. This tangled region +of stunted growth was reputed to be seven miles in width from "shore to +shore" and three hundred miles in length. It took the party half a day +to reach the opposite "shore," and they had to quench their thirst on +the way with dew. + +At Natchez, Baily organized a party which included the five "Dutchmen" +whose horse boat had proved a failure. For their twenty-one days' +journey to Nashville the party laid in the following provisions: 15 +pounds of biscuit, 6 pounds of flour, 12 pounds of bacon, 10 pounds of +dried beef, 8 pounds of rice, 1 1/2 pounds of coffee, 4 pounds of sugar, +and a quantity of pounded corn, such as the Indians used on all their +journeys. After celebrating the Fourth of July, 1797, with "all the +inhabitants who were hostile to the Spanish Government," and bribing the +baker at the Spanish fort to bake them a quarter of a hundredweight of +bread, the party started on their northward journey. + +They reached without incident the famous Grindstone Ford of Bayou +Pierre, where crayfishes had destroyed a pioneer dam. Beyond, at the +forks of the path where the Choctaw Trail bore off to the cast the party +pursued the alternate Chickasaw Trail by Indian guidance, and soon noted +the change in the character of the soil from black loam to sandy gravel, +which indicated that they had reached the Piedmont region. Indian +marauders stole one horse from the camp, and three of the party fell +ill. The others, pressed for food, were compelled to leave the sick men +in an improvised camp and to hasten on, promising to send to their +aid the first Indian they should meet "who understood herbs." After +appalling hardships, they crossed the Tennessee and entered the +Nashville country, where the roads were good enough for coaches, for +they met two on the way. Thence Baily proceeded to Knoxville, seeing, as +he went, droves of cattle bound for the settlements of west Tennessee. +With his arrival at Knoxville, his journal ends abruptly; but from other +sources we learn that he sailed from New York on his return to England +in January, 1798. His interesting record, however, remained unpublished +until after his death in 1844. + +Not only to Francis Baily but to scores of other travelers, even those +of unfriendly eyes, do modern readers owe a debt of gratitude. These men +have preserved a multitude of pictures and a wealth of data which would +otherwise have been lost. The men of America in those days were writing +the story of their deeds not on parchment or paper but on the virgin +soil of the wilderness. But though the stage driver, the tavern keeper, +and the burly riverman left no description of the life of their highways +and their commerce, these visitors from other lands have bequeathed +to us their thousands of pages full of the enterprising life of these +pioneer days in the history of American commerce. + + + +CHAPTER VII. The Birth Of The Steamboat + +The crowds who welcomed the successive stages in the development of +American transportation were much alike in essentials--they were all +optimistic, self-congratulatory, irrepressible in their enthusiasm, and +undaunted in their outlook. Dickens, perhaps, did not miss the truth +widely when, in speaking of stage driving, he said that the cry of "Go +Ahead!" in America and of "All Right!" in England were typical of the +civilizations of the two countries. Right or wrong, "Go Ahead!" +has always been the underlying passion of all men interested in the +development of commerce and transportation in these United States. + +During the era of river improvement already described, men of +imagination were fascinated with the idea of propelling boats by +mechanical means. Even when Washington fared westward in 1784, he met +at Bath, Virginia, one of these early experimenters, James Rumsey, who +haled him forthwith to a neighboring meadow to watch a secret trial of +a boat moved by means of machinery which worked setting-poles similar to +the ironshod poles used by the rivermen to propel their boats upstream. +"The model," wrote Washington, "and its operation upon the water, which +had been made to run pretty swift, not only convinced me of what I +before thought next to, if not quite impracticable, but that it might +be to the greatest possible utility in inland navigation." Later he +mentions the "discovery" as one of those "circumstances which have +combined to render the present epoch favorable above all others for +securing a large portion of the produce of the western settlements, and +of the fur and peltry of the Lakes, also." + +From that day forward, scarcely a week passed without some new +development in the long and difficult struggle to improve the means of +navigation. Among the scores of men who engaged in this engrossing but +discouraging work, there is one whom the world is coming to honor more +highly than in previous years--John Fitch, of Connecticut, Pennsylvania, +and Kentucky. As early as August, 1785, Fitch launched on a rivulet in +Bucks County, Pennsylvania, a boat propelled by an engine which moved +an endless chain to which little paddles were attached. The next year, +Fitch's second boat, operated by twelve paddles, six on a side--an +arrangement suggesting the "side-wheeler" of the future--successfully +plied the Delaware off "Conjuror's Point," as the scene of Fitch's +labors was dubbed in whimsical amusement and derision. In 1787 Rumsey, +encouraged by Franklin, fashioned a boat propelled by a stream of water +taken in at the prow and ejected at the stern. In 1788 Fitch's third +boat traversed the distance from Philadelphia to Burlington on numerous +occasions and ran as a regular packet in 1790, covering over a thousand +miles. In this model Fitch shifted the paddles from the sides to the +rear, thus anticipating in principle the modern stern-wheeler. + +It was doubtless Fitch's experiments in 1785 that led to the first plan +in America to operate a land vehicle by steam. Oliver Evans, a neighbor +and acquaintance of Fitch's, petitioned the Pennsylvania Legislature +in 1786 for the right of operating wagons propelled by steam on the +highways of that State. This petition was derisively rejected; but +a similar one made to the Legislature of Maryland was granted on the +ground that such action could hurt nobody. Evans in 1802 took fiery +revenge on the scoffers by actually running his little five-horse-power +carriage through Philadelphia. The rate of speed, however, was so slow +that the idea of moving vehicles by steam was still considered useless +for practical purposes. Eight years later, Evans offered to wager $3000 +that, on a level road, he could make a carriage driven by steam equal +the speed of the swiftest horse, but he found no response. In 1812 +he asserted that he was willing to wager that he could drive a steam +carriage on level rails at a rate of fifteen miles an hour. Evans thus +anticipated the belief of Stephenson that steam-driven vehicles would +travel best on railed tracks. + +In the development of the steamboat almost all earlier means of +propulsion, natural and artificial, were used as models by the +inventors. The fins of fishes, the webbed feet of amphibious birds, the +paddles of the Indian, and the poles and oars of the riverman, were all +imitated by the patient inventors struggling with the problem. Rumsey's +first effort was a copy of the old setting-pole idea. Fitch's model of +1785 had side paddle wheels operated by an endless chain. Fitch's second +and third models were practically paddle-wheel models, one having the +paddles at the side and the other at the stern. Ormsbee of Connecticut +made a model, in 1792, on the plan of a duck's foot. Morey made what may +be called the first real stern-wheeler in 1794. Two years later Fitch +ran a veritable screw propeller on Collect Pond near New York City. +Although General Benjamin Tupper of Massachusetts had been fashioning +devices of this character eight years previously, Fitch was the first to +apply the idea effectively. In 1798 he evolved the strange, amphibious +creation known as his "model of 1798," which has never been adequately +explained. It was a steamboat on iron wheels provided with flanges, as +though it was intended to be run on submerged tracks. What may have been +the idea of its inventor, living out his last gloomy days in Kentucky, +may never be known; but it is possible to see in this anomalous machine +an anticipation of the locomotive not approached by any other American +of the time. Thus, prior to 1800 almost every type of mechanism for +the propulsion of steamboats had been suggested and tried; and in 1804, +Stevens's twin-screw propeller completed the list. + +It is not alone Fitch's development of the devices of the endless chain, +paddle wheel, and screw propeller and of his puzzling earth-and-water +creature that gives luster to his name. His prophetic insight into the +future national importance of the steamboat and his conception, as +an inventor, of his moral obligations to the people at large were as +original and striking in the science of that age as were his models. + +The early years of the national life of the United States were the +golden age of monopoly. Every colony, as a matter of course, had granted +to certain men special privileges, and, as has already been pointed out, +the questions of monopolies and combinations in restraint of trade +had arisen even so early as the beginning of the eighteenth century. +Interwoven inextricably with these problems was the whole problem of +colonial rivalry, which in its later form developed into an insistence +on state rights. Every improvement in the means of transportation, every +development of natural resources, every new invention was inevitably +considered from the standpoint of sectional interests and with a view to +its monopolistic possibilities. This was particularly true in the case +of the steamboat, because of its limitation to rivers and bays which +could be specifically enumerated and defined. For instance, Washington +in 1784 attests the fact that Rumsey operated his mechanical boat at +Bath in secret "until he saw the effect of an application he was about +to make to the Assembly of this State, for a reward." The application +was successful, and Rumsey was awarded a monopoly in Virginia waters for +ten years. + +Fitch, on the other hand, when he applied to Congress in 1785, desired +merely to obtain official encouragement and intended to allow his +invention to be used by all comers. Meeting only with rebuff, he +realized that his only hope of organizing a company that could provide +working capital lay in securing monopolistic privileges. In 1786 he +accordingly applied to the individual States and secured the sole right +to operate steamboats on the waterways of New Jersey, Delaware, New +York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. How different would have been the +story of the steamboat if Congress had accepted Fitch at his word and +created a precedent against monopolistic rights on American rivers! + +Fitch, in addition to the high purpose of devoting his new invention to +the good of the nation without personal considerations, must be credited +with perceiving at the very beginning the peculiar importance of the +steamboat to the American West. His original application to Congress in +1785 opened: "The subscriber begs leave to lay at the feet of Congress, +an attempt he has made to facilitate the internal Navigation of the +United States, adapted especially to the Waters of the Mississippi." At +another time with prophetic vision he wrote: "The Grand and Principle +object must be on the Atlantick, which would soon overspread the wild +forests of America with people, and make us the most oppulent Empire on +Earth. Pardon me, generous public, for suggesting ideas that cannot be +dijested at this day." + +Foremost in exhibiting high civic and patriotic motives, Fitch was +also foremost in appreciating the importance of the steamboat in +the expansion of American trade. This significance was also clearly +perceived by his brilliant successor, Robert Fulton. That the West and +its commerce were always predominant in Fulton's great schemes is proved +by words which he addressed in 1803 to James Monroe, American Ambassador +to Great Britain: "You have perhaps heard of the success of my +experiments for navigating boats by steam engines and you will feel +the importance of establishing such boats on the Mississippi and other +rivers of the United States as soon as possible." Robert Fulton had been +interested in steamboats for a period not definitely known, possibly +since his sojourn in Philadelphia in the days of Fitch's early efforts. +That he profited by the other inventor's efforts at the time, however, +is not suggested by any of his biographers. He subsequently went to +London and gave himself up to the study and practice of engineering. +There he later met James Rumsey, who came to England in 1788, and by him +no doubt was informed, if he was not already aware, of the experiments +and models of Rumsey and Fitch. He obtained the loan of Fitch's plans +and drawings and made his own trial of various existing devices, such +as oars, paddles, duck's feet, and Fitch's endless chain with +"resisting-boards" attached. Meanwhile Fulton was also devoting his +attention to problems of canal construction and to the development +of submarine boats and submarine explosives. He was engaged in these +researches in France in 1801 when the new American minister, Robert R. +Livingston, arrived, and the two men soon formed a friendship destined +to have a vital and enduring influence upon the development of steam +navigation on the inland waterways of America. + +Livingston already had no little experience in the same field of +invention as Fulton. In 1798 he had obtained, for a period of twenty +years, the right to operate steamboats on all the waters of the State of +New York, a monopoly which had just lapsed owing to the death of Fitch. +In the same year Livingston had built a steamboat which had made three +miles an hour on the Hudson. He had experimented with most of the models +then in existence--upright paddles at the side, endless-chain paddles, +and stern paddle wheels. Fulton was soon inspired to resume his efforts +by Livingston's account of his own experiments and of recent advances in +England, where a steamboat had navigated the Thames in 1801 and a year +later the famous sternwheeler Charlotte Dundas had towed boats of 140 +tons' burden on the Forth and Clyde Canal at the rate of five miles +an hour. In this same year Fulton and Livingston made successful +experiments on the Seine. + +It is fortunate that, in one particular, Livingston's influence did not +prevail with Fulton, for the American Minister was distinctly prejudiced +against paddle wheels. Although Livingston had previously ridden as a +passenger on Morey's sternwheeler at the rate of five miles an hour, yet +he had turned a deaf ear when his partner in experimentation, Nicholas +J. Roosevelt, had insisted strongly on "throwing wheels over the sides." +At the beginning, Fulton himself was inclined to agree with Livingston +in this respect; but, probably late in 1803, he began to investigate +more carefully the possibilities of the paddle wheel as used twice in +America by Morey and by four or five experimenters in Europe. In 1804 an +eight-mile trip which Fulton made on the Charlotte Dundas in an hour and +twenty minutes established his faith in the undeniable superiority of +two fundamental factors of early navigation--paddle wheels and British +engines. Fulton's splendid fame rests, and rightly so, on his perception +of the fact that no mere ingenuity of design could counterbalance +weakness, uncertainty, and inefficiency in the mechanism which was +intended to make a steamboat run and keep running. As early as November, +1803, Fulton had written to Boulton and Watt of Birmingham that he +had "not confidence in any other engines" than theirs and that he was +seeking a means of getting one of those engines to America. "I cannot +establish the boat without the engine," he now emphatically wrote to +James Monroe, then Ambassador to the Court of St. James. "The question +then is shall we or shall we not have such boats." + +But there were difficulties in the way. Though England forbade the +exportation of engines, Fulton knew that, in numerous instances, this +rule had not been enforced, and he had hopes of success. "The British +Government," Fulton wrote Monroe, "must have little friendship or even +civility toward America, if they refuse such a request." Before the +steamboat which Fulton and Livingston proposed to build in America could +be operated there was another obstacle to be surmounted. The rights of +steam navigation of New York waters which Livingston had obtained on +the death of Fitch in 1798 had lapsed because of his failure to run a +steamboat at the rate of four miles an hour, which was one provision +of the grant. In April, 1803, the grant was renewed to Livingston, +Roosevelt, and Fulton jointly for another period of twenty years, and +the date when the boat was to make the required four miles an hour was +extended finally to 1807. + +Any one who is inclined to criticize the Livingston-Roosevelt-Fulton +monopoly which now came into existence should remember that the +previous state grants formed a precedent of no slight moment. The whole +proceeding was in perfect accord with the spirit of the times, for it +was an era of speculation and monopoly ushered in by the toll-road and +turnpike organizations, when probably no less than two hundred companies +were formed. It was young America showing itself in an unmistakable +manner--"conceived in liberty" and starting on the long road to learn +that obedience to law and respect for public rights constitute true +liberty. Finally, it must be pointed out that Fulton, like his famous +predecessor, Fitch, was impelled by motives far higher than the love +of personal gain. "I consider them [steamboats] of such infinite use in +America," he wrote Monroe, "that I should feel a culpable neglect toward +my country if I relaxed for a moment in pursuing every necessary measure +for carrying it into effect." And later, when repeating his argument, he +says: "I plead this not for myself alone but for our country." + +It is now evident why the alliance of Fulton with Livingston was of such +epoch-making importance, for, although it may have in some brief measure +delayed Fulton's adoption of paddle wheels, it gave him an entry to the +waters of New York. Livingston and Fulton thus supplemented each other; +Livingston possessed a monopoly and Fulton a correct estimate of the +value of paddle wheels and, secondly, of Boulton and Watt engines. It +was a rare combination destined to crown with success a long period of +effort and discouragement in the history of navigation. + +After considerable delay and difficulty, the two Americans obtained +permission to export the necessary engine from Great Britain and shipped +it to New York, whither Fulton himself proceeded to construct his +steamboat. The hull was built by Charles Brown, a New York shipbuilder, +and the Boulton and Watt machinery, set in masonry, was finally +installed. + +The voyage to Albany, against a stiff wind, occupied thirty-two hours; +the return trip was made in thirty. H. Freeland, one of the spectators +who stood on the banks of the Hudson when the boat made its maiden +voyage in 1807, gives the following description: + +"Some imagined it to be a sea-monster whilst others did not hesitate +to express their belief that it was a sign of the approaching judgment. +What seemed strange in the vessel was the substitution of lofty and +straight smoke-pipes, rising from the deck, instead of the gracefully +tapered masts... and, in place of the spars and rigging, the curious play +of the walking-beam and pistons, and the slow turning and splashing +of the huge and naked paddlewheels, met the astonished gaze. The dense +clouds of smoke, as they rose, wave upon wave, added still more to +the wonderment of the rustics.... On her return trip the curiosity she +excited was scarcely less intense... fishermen became terrified, and +rode homewards, and they saw nothing but destruction devastating their +fishing grounds, whilst the wreaths of black vapor and rushing noise +of the paddle-wheels, foaming with the stirred-up water, produced great +excitement...." + +With the launching of the Clermont on the Hudson a new era in American +history began. How quick with life it was many of the preceding pages +bear testimony. The infatuation of the public for building toll and +turnpike roads was now at its height. Only a few years before, a +comprehensive scheme of internal improvements had been outlined by +Jefferson's Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin. When a boy, it +is said, he had lain on the floor of a surveyor's cabin on the western +slopes of the Alleghanies and had heard Washington describe to a rough +crowd of Westerners his plan to unite the Great Lakes with the Potomac +in one mighty chain of inland commerce. Jefferson's Administration was +now about to devote the surplus in the Treasury to the construction of +national highways and canals. The Cumberland Road, to be built across +the Alleghanies by the War Department, was authorized by the president +in the same year in which the Clermont made her first trip; and Jesse +Hawley, at his table in a little room in a Pittsburgh boarding +house, was even now penning in a series of articles, published in the +Pittsburgh Commonwealth, beginning in January, 1807, the first clear +challenge to the Empire State to connect the Hudson and Lake Erie by +a canal. Thus the two next steps in the history of inland commerce in +America were ready to be taken. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. The Conquest Of The Alleghanies + +The two great thoroughfares of American commerce in the first half of +the nineteenth century were the Cumberland Road and the Erie Canal. +The first generation of the new century witnessed the great burst of +population into the West which at once gave Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, +Michigan, and Wisconsin a place of national importance which they have +never relinquished. So far as pathways of commerce contributed to +the creation of this veritable new republic in the Middle West, the +Cumberland Road and the Erie Canal, cooperating respectively with Ohio +River and Lake Erie steamboats, were of the utmost importance. The +national spirit, said to have arisen from the second war with England, +had its clearest manifestation in the throwing of a great macadamized +roadway across the Alleghanies to the Ohio River and the digging of the +Erie Canal through the swamps and wildernesses of New York. + +Both of these pathways were essentially the fruition of the doctrine +to which Washington gave wide circulation in his letter to Harrison +in 1784, wherein he pictured the vision of a vast Republic united +by commercial chains. Both were essentially Western enterprises. The +highway was built to fulfil the promise which the Government had made +in 1802 to use a portion of the money accruing from the sale of public +lands in Ohio in order to connect that young State with Atlantic waters. +It was proposed to build the canal, according to one early plan, with +funds to be obtained by the sale of land in Michigan. So firmly did +the promoters believe in the national importance of this project that +subscriptions, according to another plan, were to be solicited as far +afield as Vermont in the North and Kentucky in the Southwest. All that +Washington had hoped for, and all that Aaron Burr is supposed to have +been hopeless of, were epitomized in these great works of internal +improvement. They bespoke cooperation of the highest existing types of +loyalty, optimism, financial skill, and engineering ability. + +Yet, on the other hand, the contrasts between these undertakings were +great. The two enterprises, one the work of the nation and the other +that of a single State, were practically contemporaneous and were +therefore constantly inviting comparison. The Cumberland Road was, +for its day, a gigantic government undertaking involving problems +of finance, civil engineering, eminent domain, state rights, local +favoritism, and political machination. Its purpose was noble and its +successful construction a credit to the nation; but the paternalism to +which it gave rise and the conflicts which it precipitated in Congress +over questions of constitutionality were remembered soberly for a +century. The Erie Canal, after its projectors had failed to obtain +national aid, became the undertaking of one commonwealth conducted, amid +countless doubts and jeers, to a conclusion unbelievably successful. As +a result many States, foregoing Federal aid, attempted to duplicate +the successful feat of New York. In this respect the northern canal +resembled the Lancaster Turnpike and tempted scores of States and +corporations to expenditures which were unwise in circumstances less +favorable than those of the fruitful and strategic Empire State. + +In the conception of both the roadway and the canal, it should be noted, +the old idea of making use of navigable rivers still persisted. The act +foreshadowing the Cumberland Road, passed in 1802, called for "making +public roads leading from the navigable waters emptying into the +Atlantic, to the Ohio, to said State Ohio and through the same"; and +Hawley's original plan was to build the Erie Canal from Utica to Buffalo +using the Mohawk from Utica to the Hudson. + +Historic Cumberland, in Maryland, was chosen by Congress as the +eastern terminus of the great highway which should bind Ohio to the Old +Thirteen. Commissioners were appointed in 1806 to choose the best +route by which the great highway could reach the Ohio River between +Steubenville, Ohio and the mouth of Grave Creek; but difficulties +of navigation in the neighborhood of the Three Sister Islands near +Charlestown, or Wellsburg, West Virginia, led to the choice of Wheeling, +farther down, as a temporary western terminus. + +The route selected was an excellent compromise between the long standing +rival claims of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia to the trade of +the West. If Baltimore and Alexandria were to be better served than +Philadelphia, the advantage was slight; and Pennsylvania gained +compensation, ere the State gave the National Government permission +to build the road within its limits, by dictating that it should pass +through Uniontown and Washington. In this way Pennsylvania obtained, +without cost, unrivaled advantages for a portion of the State which +might otherwise have been long neglected. + +The building of the road, however satisfactory in the main, was not +undertaken without arousing many sectional and personal hopes and +prejudices and jealousies, of which the echoes still linger in local +legends today. Land-owners, mine-owners, factory-owners, innkeepers and +countless townsmen and villagers anxiously watched the course of +the road and were bitterly disappointed if the new sixty-four-foot +thoroughfare did not pass immediately through their property. On the +other hand, promoters of toll and turnpike companies, who had promising +schemes and long lists of shareholders, were far from eager to have +their property taken for a national road. No one believed that, if it +proved successful, it would be the only work of its kind, and everywhere +men looked for the construction of government highways out of the +overflowing wealth of the treasury within the next few years. + +In April, 1811, the first contracts were let for building the first ten +miles of the road from its eastern terminus and were completed in 18191. +More contracts were let in 1812, 1813, and 1815. Even in those days +of war when the drain on the national treasury was excessive, over a +quarter of a million dollars was appropriated for the construction of +the road. Onward it crawled, through the beautiful Cumberland gateway of +the Potomac, to Big Savage and Little Savage Mountains, to Little Pine +Run (the first "Western" water), to Red Hill (later called "Shades +of Death" because of the gloomy forest growth), to high-flung +Negro Mountain at an elevation of 2325 feet, and thence on to the +Youghiogheny, historic Great Meadows, Braddock's Grave, Laurel Hill, +Uniontown, and Brownsville, where it crossed the Monongahela. Thence, +on almost a straight line, it sped by way of Washington to Wheeling. Its +average cost was upwards of thirteen thousand dollars a mile from the +Potomac to the Ohio. The road was used in 1817, and in another year +the mail coaches of the United States were running from Washington to +Wheeling, West Virginia. Within five years one of the five commission +houses doing business at Wheeling is said to have handled over a +thousand wagons carrying freight of nearly two tons each. The Cumberland +Road at once leaped into a position of leadership, both in volume of +commerce and in popularity, and held its own for two famous decades. The +pulse of the nation beat to the steady throb of trade along its highway. +Maryland at once stretched out her eager arms, along stone roads, +through Frederick and Hagerstown to Cumberland, and thus formed a single +route from the Ohio to Baltimore. Great stagecoach and freight lines +were soon established, each patronizing its own stage house or wagon +stand in the thriving towns along the road. The primitive box stage gave +way to the oval or football type with curved top and bottom, and this +was displaced in turn by the more practical Concord coach of national +fame. The names of the important stagecoach companies were quite as well +known, a century ago, as those of our great railways today. Chief among +them were the National, Good Intent, June Bug, and Pioneer lines. The +coaches, drawn by four and sometimes six horses, were usually painted in +brilliant colors and were named after eminent statesmen. The drivers +of these gay chariots were characters quite as famous locally as the +personages whose names were borne by the coaches. Westover and his +record of forty-five minutes for the twenty miles between Uniontown +and Brownsville, and "Red" Bunting, with his drive of a hundred and +thirty-one miles in twelve hours with the declaration of war against +Mexico, will be long famous on the curving stretches of the Cumberland +Road. + +Although the freight and express traffic of those days lacked the +picturesqueness of the passenger coaches, nothing illustrates so +conclusively what the great road meant to an awakening West as the long +lines of heavy Conestogas and rattling express wagons which raced +at "unprecedented" speed across hill and vale. Searight, the local +historian of the road, describes these large, broad-wheeled wagons +covered with white canvas as + +"visible all the day long, at every point, making the highway look +more like a leading avenue of a great city than a road through rural +districts.... I have staid over night with William Cheets on Nigger +[Negro] Mountain when there were about thirty six-horse teams in the +wagon yard, a hundred Kentucky mules in an adjoining lot, a thousand +hogs in their enclosures, and as many fat cattle in adjoining fields. +The music made by this large number of hogs eating corn on a frosty +night I shall never forget. After supper and attention to the teams, +the wagoners would gather in the bar-room and listen to the music on the +violin furnished by one of their fellows, have a Virginia hoe-down, sing +songs, tell anecdotes, and hear the experiences of drivers and drovers +from all points of the road, and, when it was all over, unroll their +beds, lay them down on the floor before the bar-room fire side by +side, and sleep with their feet near the blaze as soundly as under the +parental roof." + +Meanwhile New York, the other great rival for Western trade, was intent +on its own darling project, the Erie Canal. In 1808, three years before +the building of the Cumberland Road, Joshua Forman offered a bill +in favor of the canal in the Legislature of New York. In plain but +dignified language this document stated that New York possessed "the +best route of communication between the Atlantic and western waters," +and that it held "the first commercial rank in the United States." The +bill also noted that, while "several of our sister States" were seeking +to secure "the trade of that wide extended country," their natural +advantages were "vastly inferior." Six hundred dollars was the amount +appropriated for a brief survey, and Congress was asked to vote aid for +the construction of the "Buffalo-Utica Canal." The matter was widely +talked about but action was delayed. Doubt as to the best route to +be pursued caused some discussion. If the western terminus were to be +located on Lake Ontario at the mouth of the Oswego, as some advocated, +would produce not make its way to Montreal instead of to New York? In +1810 a new committee was appointed and, though their report favored +the paralleling of the course of the Mohawk and Oswego rivers, their +engineer, James Geddes, gave strength to the party which believed a +direct canal would best serve the interests of the State. It is worth +noting that Livingston and Fulton were added to the committee in 1811. + +The hopes of outside aid from Congress and adjacent States met with +disappointment. In vain did the advocates of the canal in 1812 plead +that its construction would promote "a free and general intercourse +between different parts of the United States, tend to the aggrandizement +and prosperity of the country, and consolidate and strengthen the +Union." The plan to have the Government subsidize the canal by vesting +in the State of New York four million acres of Michigan land brought out +a protest from the West which is notable not so much because it +records the opposition of this section as because it illustrates the +shortsightedness of most of the arguments raised against the New York +enterprise. The purpose of the canal, the detractors asserted, was to +build up New York City to the detriment of Montreal, and the navigation +of Lake Ontario, whose beauty they touchingly described, was to be +abandoned for a "narrow, winding obstructed canal... for an expense which +arithmetic dares not approach." It was, in their minds, unquestionably +a selfish object, and they believed that "both correct science, and the +dictates of patriotism and philanthropy [should] lead to the adoption of +more liberal principles." It was a shortsighted object, "predicated on +the eternal adhesion of the Canadas to England." It would never give +satisfaction since trade would always ignore artificial and seek natural +routes. The attempting of such comparatively useless projects would +discourage worthy schemes, relax the bonds of Union, and depress the +national character. But though these Westerners thus misjudged the +possibilities of the Erie Canal, we must doff our hats to them for their +foresight in suggesting that, instead of aiding the Erie Canal, the +nation ought to build canals at Niagara Falls and Panama! + +The War of 1812 suspended all talk of the canal, but the subject was +again brought up by Judge Platt in the autumn of 1816. With alacrity +strong men came to the aid of the measure. De Witt Clinton's Memorial of +1816 addressed to the State Legislature may well rank with Washington's +letter to Harrison in the documentary history of American commercial +development. It sums up the geographical position of New York with +reference to the Great Lakes and the Atlantic, her relationship to +the West and to Canada, the feasibility of the proposed route from an +engineering standpoint, the timeliness of the moment for such a work of +improvement, the value that the canal would give to the state lands of +the interior, and the trade that it would bring to the towns along its +pathway. + +The Erie Canal was born in the Act of April 14, 1817, but the decision +of the Council of Revision, which held the power of veto, was in doubt. +An anecdote related by Judge Platt tends to prove that fear of +another war with England was the straw that broke the camel's back of +opposition. Acting-Governor Taylor, Chief Justice Thompson, Chancellor +Kent, Judge Yates, and Judge Platt composed the Council. The two first +named were open opponents of the measure; Kent, Yates, and Platt were +warm advocates of the project, but one of them doubted if the time was +ripe to undertake it. + +Taylor opposed the canal on the ground that the late treaty with England +was a mere truce and that the resources of the State should be husbanded +against renewed war. + +"Do you think so, Sir?" Chancellor Kent is said to have asked the +Governor. + +"Yes, Sir," was the reported reply. "England will never forgive us for +our victories, and, my word for it, we shall have another war with her +within two years." + +The Chancellor rose to his feet with determination and sealed the fate +of the great enterprise in a word. + +"If we must have war," he exclaimed, "I am in favor of the canal and I +cast my vote for this bill." + +On July 4, 1817, work was formally inaugurated at Rome with simple +ceremonies. Thus the year 1817 was marked by three great undertakings: +the navigation of the Mississippi River upstream and down by steamboats, +the opening of the national road across the Alleghany Mountains, and the +beginning of the Erie Canal. No single year in the early history of +the United States witnessed three such important events in the material +progress of the country. + +What days the ancient "Long House of the Iroquois" now saw! The +engineers of the Cumberland Road, now nearing the Ohio River, had +enjoyed the advantage of many precedents and examples; but the +Commissioners of the Erie Canal had been able to study only such crude +examples of canal-building as America then afforded. Never on any +continent had such an inaccessible region been pierced by such a +highway. The total length of the whole network of canals in Great +Britain did not equal that of the waterway which the New Yorkers now +undertook to build. The lack of roads, materials, vehicles, methods of +drilling and efficient business systems was overcome by sheer patience +and perseverance in experiment. The frozen winter roads saved the day +by making it possible to accumulate a proper supply of provisions and +materials. As tools of construction, the plough and scraper with +their greater capacity for work soon supplanted the shovel and the +wheelbarrow, which had been the chief implements for such construction +in Europe. Strange new machinery born of Mother Necessity was now heard +groaning in the dark swamps of New York. These giants, worked by means +of a cable, wheel, and endless screw, were made to hoist green stumps +bodily from the ground and, without the use of axe, to lay trees +prostrate, root and branch. A new plough was fashioned with which a yoke +of oxen could cut roots two inches in thickness well beneath the surface +of the ground. + +Handicaps of various sorts wore the patience of commissioners, +engineers, and contractors. Lack of snow during one winter all but +stopped the work by cutting off the source of supplies. Pioneer +ailments, such as fever and ague, reaped great harvests, incapacitated +more than a thousand workmen at one time and for a brief while stopped +work completely. + +For the most part, however, work was carried on simultaneously on all +the three great links or sections into which the enterprise was divided. +Local contractors were given preference by the commissioners, and +three-fourths of the work was done by natives of the State. Forward up +the Mohawk by Schenectady and Utica to Rome, thence bending southward to +Syracuse, and from there by way of Clyde, Lyons, and Palmyra, the canal +made its way to the giant viaduct over the Genesee River at Rochester. +Keeping close to the summit level on the dividing ridge between Lake +Ontario streams and the Valley of the Tonawanda, the line ran to +Lockport, where a series of locks placed the canal on the Lake Erie +level, 365 miles from and 564 feet above Albany. By June, 1823, the +canal was completed from Rochester to Schenectady; in October boats +passed into the tidewaters of the Hudson at Albany; and in the autumn of +1825 the canal was formally opened by the passage of a triumphant fleet +from Lake Erie to New York Bay. Here two kegs of lake water were emptied +into the Atlantic, while the Governor of the State of New York spoke +these words: + +"This solemnity, at this place, on the first arrival of vessels from +Lake Erie, is intended to indicate and commemorate the navigable +communication, which has been accomplished between our Mediterranean +Seas and the Atlantic Ocean, in about eight years, to the extent of more +than four hundred and twenty-five miles, by the wisdom, public spirit, +and energy of the people of the State of New York; and may the God of +the Heavens and the Earth smile most propitiously on this work, and +render it subservient to the best interests of the human race." + +Throughout these last seven years, the West was subconsciously getting +ready to meet the East halfway by improving and extending her steamboat +operations. Steamboats were first run on the Great Lakes by enterprising +Buffalo citizens who, in 1818, secured rights from the Fulton-Livingston +monopoly to build the Walk-in-the-Water, the first of the great fleet +of ships that now whiten the inland seas of the United States. Regular +lines of steamboats were now formed on the Ohio to connect with the +Cumberland Road at Wheeling, although the steamboat monopoly threatened +to stifle the natural development of transportation on Western rivers. + +The completion of the Erie Canal--coupled with the new appropriation +by Congress for extending the Cumberland Road from the Ohio River to +Missouri and the beginning of the Pennsylvania and the Chesapeake and +Ohio canals, reveal the importance of these concluding days of the +first quarter of the nineteenth century in the annals of American +transportation. Never since that time have men doubted the ability of +Americans to accomplish the physical domination of their continent. With +the conquest of the Alleghanies and of the forests and swamps of the +"Long House" by pick and plough and scraper, and the mastery of the +currents of the Mississippi by the paddle wheel, the vast plains beyond +seemed smaller and the Rockies less formidable. Men now looked +forward confidently, with an optimist of these days, to the time "when +circulation and association between the Atlantic and Pacific and the +Mexican Gulf shall be as free and perfect as they are at this moment in +England" between the extremities of that country. The vision of a nation +closely linked by wellworn paths of commerce was daily becoming clearer. +What further westward progress was soon to be made remains to be seen. + + + +CHAPTER IX. The Dawn Of The Iron Age + +Despite the superiority of the new iron age that quickly followed the +widespreading canal movement, there was a generous spirit and a chivalry +in the "good old days" of the stagecoach, the Conestoga, and the lazy +canal boat, which did not to an equal degree pervade the iron age of the +railroad. When machinery takes the place of human brawn and patience, +there is an indefinable eclipse of human interest. Somehow, cogs and +levers and differentials do not have the same appeal as fingers and eyes +and muscles. The old days of coach and canal boat had a picturesqueness +and a comradeship of their own. In the turmoil and confusion and odd +mixing of every kind of humanity along the lines of travel in the days +of the hurtling coach-and-six, a friendliness, a robust sympathy, a +ready interest in the successful and the unfortunate, a knowledge of how +the other half lives, and a familiarity with men as well as with mere +places, was common to all who took the road. As Thackeray so vividly +describes it: + +"The land rang yet with the tooting horns and rattling teams +of mail-coaches; a gay sight was the road in those days, before +steam-engines arose and flung its hostelry and chivalry over. To travel +in coaches, to know coachmen and guards, to be familiar with inns along +the road, to laugh with the jolly hostess in the bar, to chuck the +pretty chamber-maid under the chin, were the delight of men who were +young not very long ago. The road was an institution, the ring was +an institution. Men rallied around them; and, not without a kind of +conservatism expatiated on the benefits with which they endowed the +country, and the evils which would occur when they should be no more +decay of British spirit, decay of manly pluck, ruin of the breed of +horses, and so forth and so forth. To give and take a black eye was +not unusual nor derogatory in a gentleman: to drive a stage-coach the +enjoyment, the emulation, of generous youth. Is there any young fellow +of the present time, who aspires to take the place of a stoker? One +sees occasionally in the country a dismal old drag with a lonely driver. +Where are you, charioteers? Where are you, O rattling Quicksilver, O +swift Defiance? You are passed by racers stronger and swifter than you. +Your lamps are out, and the music of your horns has died away." + +Behind this change from the older and more picturesque days which is +thus lamented there lay potent economic forces and a strong commercial +rivalry between different parts of the country. The Atlantic States were +all rivals of each other, reaching out by one bold stroke after another +across forest, mountain, and river to the gigantic and fruitful West. +Step after step the inevitable conquest went on. Foremost in time +marched the sturdy pack-horsemen, blazing the way for the heavier forces +quietly biding their time in the rear--the Conestogas, the steamboat, +the canal boat, and, last and greatest of them all, the locomotive. + +Through a long preliminary period the principal center of interest was +the Potomac Valley, towards whose strategic head Virginia and Maryland, +by river-improvement and road-building, were directing their commercial +routes in amiable rivalry for the conquest of the Western trade. +Suddenly out from the southern region of the Middle Atlantic States went +the Cumberland National Road to the Ohio. New York instantly, in her +zone, took up the challenge and thrust her great Erie Canal across to +the Great Lakes. In rapid succession, Pennsylvania and Maryland and +Virginia, eager not to be outdone in winning the struggle for Western +trade, sent their canals into the Alleghanies toward the Ohio. + +It soon developed, however, that Baltimore, both powerful and ambitious, +was seriously handicapped. In order to retain her commanding position as +the metropolis of Western trade she was compelled to resort to a new and +untried method of transportation which marks an era in American history. + +It seems plain that the Southern rivals of New York City--Philadelphia, +Baltimore, and Alexandria--had relied for a while on the deterring +effect of a host of critics who warned all men that a canal of such +proportions as the Erie was not practicable, that no State could bear +the financial drain which its construction would involve, that theories +which had proved practical on a small scale would fail in so large an +undertaking, that the canal would be clogged by floods or frozen up for +half of each year, and that commerce would ignore artificial courses +and cling to natural channels. But the answer of the Empire State to her +rivals was the homely but triumphant cry "Low Bridge!"--the warning to +passengers on the decks of canal boats as they approached the numerous +bridges which spanned the route. When this cry passed into a byword +it afforded positive proof that the Erie Canal traffic was firmly +established. The words rang in the counting-houses of Philadelphia +and out and along the Lancaster and the Philadelphia-Pittsburgh +turnpikes--"Low Bridge! Low Bridge!" Pennsylvania had granted, it has +been pointed out, that her Southern neighbors might have their share of +the Ohio Valley trade but maintained that the splendid commerce of the +Great Lakes was her own peculiar heritage. Men of Baltimore who had +dominated the energetic policy of stone-road building in their State +heard this alarming challenge from the North. The echo ran "Low Bridge!" +in the poor decaying locks of the Potomac Company where, according to +the committee once appointed to examine that enterprise, flood-tides +"gave the only navigation that was enjoyed." Were their efforts to keep +the Chesapeake metropolis in the lead to be set at naught? + +There could be but one answer to the challenge, and that was to rival +canal with canal. These more southerly States, confronted by the +towering ranges of the Alleghanies to the westward, showed a courage +which was superb, although, as time proved in the case of Maryland, they +might well have taken more counsel of their fears. Pennsylvania acted +swiftly. Though its western waterway--the roaring Juniata, which entered +the Susquehanna near Harrisburg--had a drop from head to mouth greater +than that of the entire New York canal, and, though the mountains of +the Altoona region loomed straight up nearly three thousand feet, +Pennsylvania overcame the lowlands by main strength and the mountain +peaks by strategy and was sending canal boats from Philadelphia to +Pittsburgh within nine years of the completion of the Erie Canal. + +The eastern division of the Pennsylvania Canal, known as the Union +Canal, from Reading on the Schuylkill to Middletown on the Susquehanna, +was completed in 1827. The Juniata section was then driven on up +to Hollidaysburg. Beyond the mountain barrier, the Conemaugh, the +Kiskiminitas, and the Allegheny were followed to Pittsburgh. But the +greatest feat in the whole enterprise was the conquest of the mountain +section, from Hollidaysburg to Johnstown. This was accomplished by the +building of five inclined planes on each slope, each plane averaging +about 2300 feet in length and 200 feet in height. Up or down these +slopes and along the intermediate level sections cars and giant cradles +(built to be lowered into locks where they could take an entire canal +boat as a load) were to be hauled or lowered by horsepower, and later, +by steam. After the plans had been drawn up by Sylvester Welch and +Moncure Robinson, the Pennsylvania Legislature authorized the work in +1831, and traffic over this aerial route was begun in March, 1834. In +autumn of that year, the stanch boat Hit or Miss, from the Lackawanna +country, owned by Jesse Crisman and captained by Major Williams, made +the journey across the whole length of the canal. It rested for a night +on the Alleghany summit "like Noah's Ark on Ararat," wrote Sherman Day, +"descended the next morning into the Valley of the Mississippi, and +sailed for St. Louis." + +Well did Robert Stephenson, the famous English engineer, say that, in +boldness of design and difficulty of execution, this Pennsylvania scheme +of mastering the Alleghanies could be compared with no modern triumph +short of the feats performed at the Simplon Pass and Mont Cenis. Before +long this line of communication became a very popular thoroughfare; +even Charles Dickens "heartily enjoyed" it--in retrospect--and left +interesting impressions of his journey over it: + +"Even the running up, bare-necked, at five o'clock in the morning from +the tainted cabin to the dirty deck; scooping up the icy water, plunging +one's head into it, and drawing it out, all fresh and glowing with +the cold; was a good thing. The fast, brisk walk upon the towing-path, +between that time and breakfast, when every vein and artery seemed to +tingle with health; the exquisite beauty of the opening day, when light +came gleaming off from everything; the lazy motion of the boat, when +one lay idly on the deck, looking through, rather than at, the deep +blue sky; the gliding on, at night, so noiselessly, past frowning hills, +sullen with dark trees, and sometimes angry in one red burning spot high +up, where unseen men lay crouching round a fire; the shining out of +the bright stars, undisturbed by noise of wheels or steam, or any other +sound than the liquid rippling of the water as the boat went on; all +these were pure delights." * + + + * "American Notes" (Gadshill Edition), pp. 180-181. + + +Dickens also thus graphically depicts the unique experience of being +carried over the mountain peaks on the aerial railway: + +"There are ten inclined planes; five ascending and five descending; the +carriages are dragged up the former, and let slowly down the latter, +by means of stationary engines; the comparatively level spaces between +being traversed, sometimes by horse, and sometimes by engine power, as +the case demands. Occasionally the rails are laid upon the extreme verge +of a giddy precipice; and looking from the carriage window, the traveler +gazes sheer down, without a stone or scrap of fence between, into the +mountain depths below. The journey is very carefully made, however; +only two carriages traveling together; and while proper precautions are +taken, is not to be dreaded for its dangers. + +"It was very pretty traveling thus, at a rapid pace along the heights +of the mountain in a keen wind, to look down into a valley full of light +and softness; catching glimpses, through the tree-tops, of scattered +cabins; children running to the doors; dogs bursting out to bark, whom +we could see without hearing; terrified pigs scampering homewards; +families sitting out in their rude gardens; cows gazing upward with +a stupid indifference; men in their shirt-sleeves looking on at their +unfinished houses, planning out tomorrow's work; and we riding onward, +high abode them, like a whirl-wind. It was amusing, too, when we had +dined, and rattled down a steep pass, having no other motive power than +the weight of the carriages themselves, to see the engine released, +long after us, come buzzing down alone, like a great insect, its back +of green and gold so shining in the sun, that if it had spread a pair of +wings and soared away, no one would have had occasion, as I fancied, for +the least surprise. But it stopped short of us in a very business-like +manner when we reached the canal; and, before we left the wharf, went +panting up this hill again, with the passengers who had waited our +arrival for the means of traversing the road by which we had come." * + + + * Op. cit. + + +This Pennsylvania route was likewise famous because it included the +first tunnel in America; but with the advance of years, tunnel, planes, +and canal were supplanted by what was to become in time the Pennsylvania +Railroad, the pride of the State and one of the great highways of the +nation. + +In the year before Pennsylvania investigated her western water route, +a joint bill was introduced into the legislatures of the Potomac Valley +States, proposing a Potomac Canal Company which should construct a +Chesapeake and Ohio canal at the expense of Maryland, Virginia, and the +District of Columbia. The plan was of vital moment to Alexandria and +Georgetown on the Potomac, but unless a lateral canal could be built to +Baltimore, that city--which paid a third of Maryland's taxes--would be +called on to supply a great sum to benefit only her chief rivals. The +bitter struggle which now developed is one of the most significant in +commercial history because of its sequel. + +The conditions underlying this rivalry must not be lost sight of. +Baltimore had done more than any other Eastern city to ally herself with +the West and to obtain its trade. She had instinctively responded +to every move made by her rivals in the great game. If Pennsylvania +promoted a Lancaster Turnpike, Baltimore threw out her superb +Baltimore-Reisterstown boulevard, though her northern road to +Philadelphia remained the slough that Brissot and Baily had found it. If +New York projected an Erie Canal, Baltimore successfully championed the +building of a Cumberland Road by a governmental godmother. So thoroughly +and quickly, indeed, did she link her system of stone roads to that +great artery, that even today many well-informed writers seem to be +under the impression that the Cumberland Road ran from the Ohio to +Washington and Baltimore. Now, with canals building to the north of her +and canals to the south of her, what of her prestige and future? + +For the moment Baltimore compromised by agreeing to a Chesapeake and +Ohio canal which, by a lateral branch, should still lead to her market +square. Her scheme embraced a vision of conquest regal in its sweep, +beyond that of any rival, and comprehending two ideas worthy of the most +farseeing strategist and the most astute politician. It called not only +for the building of a transmontane canal to the Ohio but also for a +connecting canal from the Ohio to the Great Lakes. Not only would the +trade of the Northwest be secured by this means--for this southerly +route would not be affected by winter frosts as would those of +Pennsylvania and New York--but the good godmother at Washington would +be almost certain to champion it and help to build it since the proposed +route was so thoroughly interstate in character. With the backing of +Maryland, Virginia, Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, and probably several +States bordering the Inland Lakes, government aid in the undertaking +seemed feasible and proper. + +Theoretically the daring scheme captured the admiration of all who were +to be benefited by it. At a great banquet at Washington, late in 1823, +the project was launched. Adams, Clay, and Calhoun took the opportunity +to ally themselves with it by robustly declaring themselves in favor of +widespread internal improvements. Even the godmother smiled upon it for, +following Monroe's recommendation, Congress without hesitation voted +thirty thousand dollars for the preliminary survey from Washington +to Pittsburgh. Quickly the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company and the +connecting Maryland Canal Company were formed, and steps were taken to +have Ohio promote an Ohio and Lake Erie Company. + +As high as were the hopes awakened by this movement, just so deep was +the dejection and chagrin into which its advocates were thrown upon +receiving the report of the engineers who made the preliminary survey. +The estimated cost ran towards a quarter of a billion, four times the +capital stock of the company; and there were not lacking those who +pointed out that the Erie Canal had cost more than double the original +appropriation made for it. + +The situation was aggravated for Baltimore by the fact that Maryland and +Virginia were willing to take half a loaf if they could not get a whole +one: in other words, they were willing to build the canal up the Potomac +to Cumberland and stop there. Baltimore, even if linked to this partial +scheme, would lose her water connection with the West, the one prized +asset which the project had held out, and her Potomac Valley rivals +would, on this contracted plan, be in a particularly advantageous +position to surpass her. But the last blow was yet to come. Engineers +reported that a lateral canal connecting the Potomac and Chesapeake +Bay was not feasible. It was consequently of little moment whether the +Chesapeake and Ohio Canal could be built across the Alleghanies or not, +for, even if it could have been carried through the Great Plains or +to the Pacific, Baltimore was, for topographical reasons, out of the +running. + +The men of Baltimore now gave one of the most striking illustrations of +spirit and pluck ever exhibited by the people of any city. They refused +to accept defeat. If engineering science held a means of overcoming the +natural disadvantages of their position, they were determined to adopt +that means, come what would of hardship, difficulty, and expenditure. If +roads and canals would not serve the city on the Chesapeake, what of the +railroad on which so many experiments were being made in England? + +The idea of controlling the trade of the West by railroads was not new. +As early as February, 1825, certain astute Pennsylvanians had advocated +building a railroad to Pittsburgh instead of a canal, and in a memorial +to the Legislature they had set forth the theory that a railroad could +be built in one-third of the time and could be operated with one-third +of the number of employees required by a canal, that it would never +be frozen, and that its cost of construction would be less. But these +arguments did not influence the majority, who felt that to follow the +line of least resistance and to do as others had done would involve the +least hazard. But Baltimore, with her back against the wall, did not +have the alternative of a canal. It was a leap into the unknown for her +or commercial stagnation. + +It is regrettable that, as Baltimore began to break this fresh track, +she should have had political as well as physical and mechanical +obstacles to overcome. The conquest of the natural difficulties alone +required superhuman effort and endurance. But Baltimore had also to +fight a miserable internecine warfare in her own State, for Maryland +immediately subscribed half a million to the canal as well as to the +newly formed Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. In rival pageants, both +companies broke ground on July 4, 1828, and the race to the Ohio was +on. The canal company clung doggedly to the idle belief that their +enterprise was still of continental proportions, since it would connect +at Cumberland with the Cumberland Road. This exaggerated estimate of +the importance of the undertaking shines out in the pompous words of +President Mercer, at the time when construction was begun: + +"There are moments in the progress of time, which are counters of whole +ages. There are events, the monuments of which, surviving every other +memorial of human existence, eternize the nation to whose history they +belong, after all other vestiges of its glory have disappeared from the +globe. At such a moment have we now arrived." + +This oracular language lacks the simple but winning straightforwardness +of the words which Director Morris uttered on the same day near +Baltimore and which prove how distinctly Western the new railway project +was held to be: + +"We are about opening a channel through which the commerce of the mighty +country beyond the Allegheny must seek the ocean--we are about affording +facilities of intercourse between the East and West, which will bind +the one more closely to the other, beyond the power of an increased +population or sectional differences to disunite." + +The difficulties which faced the Baltimore enthusiasts in their task of +keeping their city "on the map" would have daunted men of less heroic +mold. Every conceivable trial and test which nature and machinery +could seemingly devise was a part of their day's work for twelve years +struggles with grades, locomotives, rails, cars. As Rumsey, Fitch, and +Fulton in their experiments with boats had floundered despondently with +endless chains, oars, paddles, duck's feet, so now Thomas and Brown +in their efforts to make the railroad effective wandered in a maze +of difficulties testing out such absurd and impossible ideas as cars +propelled by sails and cars operated by horse treadmills. By May, 1830, +however, cars on rails, running by "brigades" and drawn by horses, +were in operation in America. It was only in this year that in England +locomotives were used with any marked success on the Liverpool and +Manchester Railroad; yet in August of this year Peter Cooper's engine, +Tom Thumb, built in Baltimore in 1829, traversed the twelve miles +between that city and Ellicott's Mills in seventy-two minutes. Steel +springs came in 1832, together with car wheels of cylindrical and +conical section which made it easier to turn curves. + +The railroad was just beginning to master its mechanical problems when +a new obstacle confronted it in the Potomac Valley. It could not cross +Maryland to the Cumberland mountain gateway unless it could follow the +Potomac. But its rival, the canal, had inherited from the old Potomac +Company the only earthly asset it possessed of any value--the right of +way up the Maryland shore. Five years of quarreling now ensued, and the +contest, though it may not have seriously delayed either enterprise, +aroused much bitterness and involved the usual train of lawsuits and +injunctions. + +In 1833 the canal company yielded the railroad a right of way through +the Point of Rocks--the Potomac chasm through the Blue Ridge wall, just +below Harper's Ferry on condition that the railroad should not build +beyond Harper's Ferry until the canal was completed to Cumberland. But +probably nothing but the financial helplessness of the canal company +could have brought a solution satisfactory to all concerned. A +settlement of the long quarrel by compromise was the price paid for +state aid, and, in 1835 Maryland subsidized to a large degree both +canal and railroad by her famous eight million dollar bill. The railroad +received three millions from the State, and the city of Baltimore was +permitted to subscribe an equal amount of stock. With this support and a +free right of way, the railroad pushed on up the Potomac. Though delayed +by the financial disasters of 1837, in 1842 it was at Hancock; in 1851, +at Piedmont; in 1852, at Fairmont; and the next year it reached the Ohio +River at Wheeling. + +Spurred by the enterprise shown by these Southerners, Pennsylvania +and New York now took immediate steps to parallel their own canals by +railways. The line of the Union Canal in Pennsylvania was paralleled by +a railroad in 1834, the same year in which the Allegheny Portage +Railway was constructed. New York lines reached Buffalo in 1842. The +Pennsylvania Railroad, which was incorporated in 1846, was completed to +Pittsburgh in 1854. + +It is thus obvious that, with the completion of these lines and the +building of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway through the "Sapphire +Country" of the Southern Alleghanies, the new railway era pursued its +paths of conquest through the very same mountain passageways that +had been previously used by packhorseman and Conestoga and, in three +instances out of four, by the canal boat. If one motors today in the +Juniata Valley in Pennsylvania, he can survey near Newport a scene +full of meaning to one who has a taste for history. Traveling along the +heights on the highway that was once the red man's trail, he can enjoy +a wide prospect from this vantage point. Deep in the valley glitters +the little Juniata, route of the ancient canoe and the blundering barge. +Beside it lies a long lagoon, an abandoned portion of the Pennsylvania +Canal. Beside this again, as though some monster had passed leaving +a track clear of trees, stretches the right of way of the first +"Pennsylvania," and a little nearer swings the magnificent +double-tracked bed of the railroad of today. Between these lines of +travel may be read the history of the past two centuries of American +commerce, for the vital factors in the development of the nation have +been the evolution of transportation and its manifold and far-reaching +influence upon the expansion of population and commerce and upon the +rise of new industries. + +Thus all the rivals in the great contest for the trade of the West +speedily reached their goal, New York with the Erie and the New York +Central, and Pennsylvania and Maryland with the Pennsylvania and the +Baltimore and Ohio. But what of this West for whose commerce the great +struggle was being waged? When the railheads of these eager Atlantic +promoters were laid down at Buffalo on Lake Erie and at Pittsburgh on +the Ohio they looked out on a new world. The centaurs of the Western +rivers were no less things of the far past than the tinkling bells borne +by the ancient ponies of the pack-horse trade. The sons of this new +West had their eyes riveted on the commerce of the Great Lakes and the +Mississippi Valley. With road, canal, steamboat, and railway, they were +renewing the struggle of their fathers but for prizes greater than their +fathers ever knew. + +New York again proved the favored State. Her Mohawk pathway gave her +easiest access to the West and here, at her back door on the Niagara +frontier, lay her path by way of the Great Lakes to the North and the +Northwest. + + + +CHAPTER X. As one stands in imagination at the early railheads of +the West--on the Ohio River at the end of the Cumberland Road, or at +Buffalo, the terminus of the Erie Canal--the vision which Washington +caught breaks upon him and the dream of a nation made strong by +trans-Alleghany routes of commerce. Link by link the great interior is +being connected with the sea. Behind him all lines of transportation +lead eastward to the cities of the coast. Before him lies the giant +valley where the Father of Waters throws out his two splendid arms, the +Ohio and the Missouri, one reaching to the Alleghanies and the other to +the Rockies. Northward, at the end of the Erie Canal, lies the empire of +the Great Lakes, inland seas that wash the shores of a Northland having +a coastline longer than that of the Atlantic from Maine to Mexico. + +Ships and conditions of navigation were much the same on the lakes as on +the ocean. It was therefore possible to imagine the rise of a +coasting trade between Illinois and Ohio as profitable as that between +Massachusetts and New York. Yet the older colonies on the Atlantic had +an outlet for trade, whereas the Great Lakes had none for craft of any +size, since their northern shores lay beyond the international boundary. +If there had been danger from Spain in the Southwest, what of the danger +of Canada's control of the St. Lawrence River and of the trade of the +Northwest through the Welland Canal which was to join Lake Ontario to +Lake Erie? But in those days the possibility of Canadian rivalry was not +treated with great seriousness, and many men failed to see that the West +was soon to contain a very large population. The editor of a newspaper +at Munroe, New York, commenting in 1827 on a proposed canal to connect +Lake Erie with the Mississippi by way of the Ohio, believed that +the rate of Western development was such that this waterway could be +expected only "some hundred of years hence." Even so gifted a man as +Henry Clay spoke of the proposed canal between Lake Michigan and +Lake Superior in 1825 as one relating to a region beyond the pale of +civilization "if not in the moon." Yet in twenty-five years Michigan, +which had numbered one thousand inhabitants in 1812, had gained two +hundredfold, and Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois had their hundreds of +thousands who were clamoring for ways and means of sending their surplus +products to market. + +Early in the century representatives of the Fulton-Livingston monopoly +were at the shores of Lake Ontario to prove that their steamboats could +master the waves of the inland sea and serve commerce there as well +as in tidewater rivers. True, the luckless Ontario, built in 1817 at +Sackett's Harbor, proved unseaworthy when the waves lifted the shaft +of her paddle wheels off their bearings and caused them to demolish the +wooden covering built for their protection; but the Walk-in-the-Water, +completed at Black Rock (Buffalo) in August, 1818, plied successfully +as far as Mackinac Island until her destruction three years later. Her +engines were then inherited by the Superior of stronger build, and with +the launching of such boats as the Niagara, the Henry Clay, and the +Pioneer, the fleet builders of Buffalo, Cleveland, and Detroit proved +themselves not unworthy fellow-countrymen of the old seafarers of Salem +and Philadelphia. + +But how were cargoes to reach these vessels from the vast regions +beyond the Great Lakes? Those thousands of settlers who poured into the +Northwest had cargoes ready to fill every manner of craft in so short +a space of time that it seems as if they must have resorted to arts +of necromancy. It was not magic, however, but perseverance that had +triumphed. The story of the creating of the main lakeward-reaching +canals is long and involved. A period of agitation and campaigning +preceded every such undertaking; and when construction was once begun, +financial woes usually brought disappointing delays. When a canal was +completed after many vicissitudes and doubts, traffic overwhelmed every +method provided to handle it: locks proved altogether too small; boats +were inadequate; wharfs became congested; blockades which occurred at +locks entailed long delay. In the end only lines and double lines +of steel rails could solve the problem of rapid and adequate +transportation, but the story of the railroad builders is told +elsewhere. * + + + * See "The Railroad Builders," by John Moody (in "The Chronicles +of America"). + + +Ohio and Illinois caught the canal fever even before the Erie Canal +was completed, and the Ohio Canal and the Illinois-Michigan Canal +saw preliminary surveying done in 1822 and 1824 respectively. Ohio +particularly had cause to seek a northern outlet to Eastern markets by +way of Lake Erie. The valleys of the Muskingum, Scioto, and Miami rivers +were producing wheat in large quantities as early as 1802, when Ohio was +admitted to the Union. Flour which brought $3.50 a barrel in Cincinnati +was worth $8 in New York. There were difficulties in the way of +transportation. Sometimes ice prevented produce and merchandise from +descending the Ohio to Cincinnati. At other times merchants of that city +had as many as a hundred thousand barrels awaiting a rise in the +river which would make it possible for boats to go over the falls at +Louisville. As these conditions involved a delay which often seemed +intolerable, the project to build canals to Lake Erie met with generous +acclaim. A northward route, though it might be blocked by ice for a +few months each winter, had an additional value in the eyes of numerous +merchants whose wheat, sent in bulk to New Orleans, had soured either +in the long delay at Louisville or in the semi-tropical heat of the +Southern port. + +The Ohio Legislature in 1822 authorized the survey of all possible +routes for canals which would give Ohio an outlet for its produce on +Lake Erie. The three wheat zones which have been mentioned were favored +in the proposed construction of two canals which, together, should +satisfy the need of increased transportation: the Ohio Canal to connect +Portsmouth on the Ohio River with Cleveland on Lake Erie and to traverse +the richest parts of the Scioto and Muskingum valleys, and to the west +the Miami Canal to pierce the fruitful Miami and Maumee valleys and join +Cincinnati with Toledo. De Witt Clinton, the presiding genius of the +Erie Canal, was invited to Ohio to play godfather to these northward +arteries which should ultimately swell the profits of the commission +merchants of New York City, and amid the cheers of thousands he lifted +the first spadefuls of earth in each undertaking. + +The Ohio Canal, which was opened in 1833, had a marked effect upon the +commerce of Lake Erie. Before that date the largest amount of wheat +obtained from Cleveland by a Buffalo firm had been a thousand bushels; +but in the first year of its operation the Ohio Canal brought to the +village of Cleveland over a quarter of a million bushels of wheat, fifty +thousand barrels of flour, and over a million pounds of butter and lard. +In return, the markets of the world sent into Ohio by canal in this same +year thirty thousand barrels of salt and above five million pounds of +general merchandise. + +Ever since the time when the Erie Canal was begun, Canadian statesmen +had been alive to the strong bid New York was making for the trade of +the Great Lakes. Their answer to the Erie Canal was the Welland Canal, +built between 1824 and 1832 and connecting Lake Erie with Lake Ontario +by a series of twenty-seven locks with a drop of three hundred feet in +twenty-six miles. This undertaking prepared the way for the subsequent +opening of the St. Lawrence canal system (183 miles) and of the Rideau +system by way of the Ottawa River (246 miles). There was thus provided +an ocean outlet to the north, although it was not until 1856 that an +American vessel reached London by way of the St. Lawrence. + +With the Hudson and the St. Lawrence in the East thus competing for +the trade of the Great Lakes, it is not surprising that the call of the +Mississippi for improved highways was presently heard. From the period +of the War of 1812 onward the position of the Mississippi River in +relation to Lake Michigan was often referred to as holding possibilities +of great importance in the development of Western commerce. Already the +old portage-path links between the Fox and Wisconsin and the Chicago +and Illinois rivers had been worn deep by the fur traders of many +generations, and with the dawning of the new era enthusiasts of Illinois +were pointing out the strategic position of the latter route for a great +trade between Lake Michigan and the Gulf of Mexico. Thus the wave of +enthusiasm for canal construction that had swept New York and Ohio now +reached Indiana and Illinois. Indian ownership of land in the latter +State for a moment seemed to block the promotion of the proposed +Illinois and Michigan Canal, but a handsome grant of a quarter of +a million acres by the Federal Government in 1827 came as a signal +recognition of the growing importance of the Northwest; and an +appropriation for the lighting and improving of the harbor of the little +village of Chicago was hailed by ardent promoters as sure proof that the +wedding of Lake Michigan and the Mississippi was but a matter of months. + +All the difficulties encountered by the advocates of earlier works of +this character, in the valleys of the Potomac, the Susquehanna, and the +Mohawk, were the portion of these dogged promoters of Illinois. Here, +as elsewhere, there were rival routes and methods of construction, +opposition of jealous sections not immediately benefited, estimates +which had to be reconsidered and augmented, and so on. The land grants +pledged to pay the bonds were at first of small value, and their advance +in price depended on the success of the canal itself, which could not +be built unless the State underwrote the whole enterprise--if the lands +were not worth the bonds. Thus the argument ran in a circle, and no one +could foresee the splendid traffic and receipts from tolls that would +result from the completed canal. + +The commissioners in charge of the project performed one interesting +service in these early days by putting Chicago on the map; but the two +terminals, Ottawa on the Illinois and Chicago on Lake Michigan--both +plotted in 1830--were very largely figures of speech at that time. The +day of miracles was at hand, however, for the little town of one hundred +people at the foot of Lake Michigan. The purchase of the lands of the +Potawatomies, the Black Hawk War in 1832, which brought steamboats to +Chicago for the first time, and the decision of Illinois in 1836 to +pledge her good name in favor of the Illinois and Michigan Canal made +Chicago a city of four thousand people by the panic year of 1837. So +absorbed were these Chicago folk in the building of their canal and +in wresting from their lake firm foothold for a city (reclaiming four +hundred feet of lake bed in two years) that the panic affected their +town less than it did many a rival. Although the canal enterprise came +to an ominous pause in 1842, after the expenditure of five millions, +the pledge of the State stood the enterprise in good stead. Local +financiers, together with New York and Boston promoters, advanced about +a quarter of a million, while French and English bankers, notably Baring +Brothers, contributed about three-quarters of a million. With this +assistance the work was carried to a successful ending. On April +10,1848, the first boat passed over the ninety-mile route from Chicago +to Ottawa, and the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Basin were united by +this Erie Canal of the West. Though its days of greatest value were +soon over, no one can exaggerate the importance of this waterway in the +growth and prosperity of Chicago between 1848 and 1860. By 1857 Chicago +was sending north and south annually by boat over twenty million bushels +of wheat and corn. + +The awakening of the lands behind Lake Erie, Lake Huron, and Lake +Michigan brought forth innumerable demands for roads, canals, and +railways to the ports of Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Milwaukee, +and Chicago. There were actually hundreds of these enterprises +undertaken. The development of the land behind Lake Superior was +particularly spectacular and important, not only because of its general +effect on the industrial world but also because out of it came the St. +Mary's River Ship Canal. Nowhere in the zone of the Great Lakes has +any region produced such unexpected changes in American industrial and +commercial life as did the region of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota +contributory to Lake Superior. If, as the story goes, Benjamin Franklin +said, when he drew at Paris the international boundary line through +Lake Superior, that this was his greatest service to America, he did not +exaggerate. The line running north of Isle Royale and thence to the +Lake of the Woods gave the United States the lion's share of that great +inland seaboard and the inestimably rich deposits of copper and iron +that have revolutionized American industry. + +From earliest days rumors of deposits of bright copper in the land +behind Lake Superior had been reported by Indians to fur traders who +in turn had passed the story on to fur company agents and thus to the +outside world. As a result of her "Toledo War"--as her boundary dispute +was called--Michigan had reluctantly accepted the northern peninsula +lying between Lake Superior and Lake Michigan in lieu of the strip of +Ohio territory which she believed to be hers. If Michigan felt that she +had lost by this compromise, her state geologist, Douglass Houghton, +soon found a splendid jewel in the toad's head of defeat, for the report +of his survey of 1840 confirmed the story of the existence of large +copper deposits, and the first rush to El Dorado followed. Amid the +usual chaos, conflict, and failure incident to such stampedes, order and +system at last triumphed and the richest copper mines of the New World +were uncovered. Then came the unexpected finding of the mammoth iron-ore +beds by William A. Burt, inventor of the solar compass. The circumstance +of this discovery is of such national importance that a contemporary +description by a member of Burt's party which was surveying a line near +Marquette, Michigan, is worth quoting: + +"I shall never forget the excitement of the old gentleman when viewing +the changes of the variation. He kept changing his position to take +observations, all the time saying "How would they survey this country +without my compass" and "What could be done here without my compass." +At length the compassman called for us all to "come and see a variation +which will beat them all." As we looked at the instrument, to our +astonishment, the north end of the needle was traversing a few degrees +to the south west. Mr. Burt called out "Boys, look around and see what +you can find." We all left the line, some going to the east, some going +to the west, and all of us returned with specimens of iron ore." + +But it was not enough that this Aladdin's Land in the Northwest should +revolutionize the copper and steel industry of the world, for as soon +as the soil took to its bosom an enterprising race of agriculturists +it bade fair to play as equally important a part in the grain industry. +Copper and iron no less came out of the blue of this cold northern +region than did the mighty crops of Minnesota wheat, corn, and oats. +In the decade preceding the Civil War the export of wheat from Lake +Superior rose from fourteen hundred bushels to three and a quarter +millions of bushels, while in 1859 nearly seven million bushels of corn +and oats were sent out to the world. + +The commerce of Lake Superior could not await the building of a canal +around the foaming rapids of the St. Mary's River, its one outlet to the +lower lakes. In the decade following the discovery of copper and iron +more than a dozen ships, one even of as much as five hundred tons, were +hauled bodily across the portage between Lake Huron and Lake Superior. +The last link of navigation in the Great Lake system, however, was made +possible in 1852 by a grant by Congress of 750,000 acres of Michigan +land. Although only a mile in length, the work proved to be of unusual +difficulty since the pathway for the canal had to be blasted throughout +practically its whole length out of solid rock. It was completed in +1855, and the princely empire "in the moon" was in a position to make +its terms with the coal fields of Pennsylvania and to usher in the iron +age of transportation and construction. + +It is only in the light of this awakening of the lands around the Great +Lakes that one can see plainly the task which fell to the lot of the +successors of the frail Walk-in-the-Water and sturdier Superior of the +early twenties. For the first fifteen years the steamboat found +its mission in carrying the thousands of emigrants pouring into the +Northwest, a heterogeneous multitude which made the Lake Erie boats +seem, to one traveler at least, filled with "men, women and children, +beds, cradles, kettles, and frying pans." These craft were built after +the pattern of the Walk-in-the-Water--side-wheelers with a steering +wheel at the stern. No cabins or staterooms on deck were provided; and +amid such freight as the thriving young towns provided were to be found +the twenty or thirty cords of wood which the engines required as fuel. + +The second period of steamboating began with the opening of the Ohio +Canal and the Welland Canal about 1834 and extended another fifteen +years to the middle of the century, when it underwent a transformation +owing to the great development of Chicago, the completion of the +Illinois and Michigan and St. Mary's canals, and the new railways. +This second period was marked by the building of such steamers as the +Michigan, the Great Western, and the Illinois. These were the first +boats with an upper cabin and were looked upon with marked suspicion by +those best acquainted with the severe storms upon the Great Lakes. The +Michigan, of 475 tons, built by Oliver Newberry at Detroit in 1833, is +said to have been the first ship of this type. These boats proved their +seaworthiness and caused a revolution in the construction of lake craft. +Later in this period freight transportation saw an equally radical +advance with the building of the first propellers. The sloop-rigged +Vandalia, built by Sylvester Doolittle at Oswego on Lake Ontario in +1842, was the first of the propeller type and was soon followed by the +Hercules, the Samson, and the Detroit. + +One very great handicap in lake commerce up to this time had been the +lack of harbors. Detroit alone of the lake ports was distinctly favored +in this respect. The harbors of Buffalo, Cleveland, Milwaukee, and +Chicago were improved slowly, but it was not until the great Chicago +convention of 1846 that the nation's attention was focused on the needs +of Western rivers and harbors, and there dawned a new era of lighthouses +and buoys, breakwaters and piers, and dredged channels. Another handicap +to the volume of business which the lake boats handled in the period +just previous to the Civil War was the inadequacy of the feeders, the +roads, riverways, and canals. The Erie Canal was declared too small +almost before the cries of its virulent opponents had died away, and the +enlargement of its locks was soon undertaken. The same thing proved true +of the Ohio and Illinois canals. The failure of the Welland Canal was +similarly a very serious handicap. Although its locks were enlarged in +1841, it was found by 1850 that despite the improvements it could not +admit more than about one-third of the grain-carrying boats, while only +one in four of the new propellers could enter its locks. + +As late as the middle forties men did not in the least grasp the +commercial situation which now confronted the Northwest nor could they +foresee that the land behind the Great Lakes was about to deluge the +country with an output of produce and manufactures of which the roads, +canals, ships, wharfs, or warehouses in existence could handle not a +tenth part. They did not yet understand that--this trade was to become +national. It was well on in the forties before the Galena lead mines, +for instance, were given up as the terminal of the Illinois Central +Railroad and the main line was directed to Chicago. The middle of the +century was reached before the Lake Shore was considered at Cleveland or +Chicago as important commercially as the neighboring portage paths +which by the Ordinance of 1787 had been created "common highways forever +free." The idea of joining Buffalo, Cleveland, and Chicago with the +interior--an idea as old as the Indian trails thither--still dominated +men's minds even in the early part of the railroad epoch. Chicago +desired to be connected with Cairo, the ice-free port on the +Mississippi; and Cleveland was eager to be joined to Columbus and +Cincinnati. The enthusiastic railway promoters of Ohio, Indiana, and +Illinois drew splendid plans for uniting all parts of those States +by railway lines; but the strategic position of the cities on the +continental alignment from New York to the Pacific by way of South Pass +never came within their horizon. The ten million dollar Illinois scheme +did not even contemplate a railway running eastward from Chicago. But +the future of the commerce of the Great Lakes depended absolutely upon +this development. There was no hope of any canals being able to handle +the traffic of the mighty empire which was now awake and fully conscious +of its power. The solution lay in joining the cities to each other and +to the Atlantic world markets by iron rails running east and west. + +This railroad expansion is what makes the last decade before the Civil +War such a remarkable series of years in the West. In the half decade, +1850-55, the Baltimore and Ohio and Pennsylvania railways reached the +Ohio River; the links of the present Lake Shore system between Buffalo +and Chicago by way of Cleveland and Toledo were constructed; and the +Pennsylvania line was put through from Pittsburgh to Chicago. The +place of the lake country on the continental alignment and the imperial +situation of Chicago, and later of Omaha, came to be realized. The new +view transformed men's conceptions of every port on the Great Lakes in +the chain from Buffalo to Chicago. At a dozen southern ports on Ontario, +Erie, Huron, and Michigan, commerce now touched the swiftest and +most economical means of transcontinental traffic. This development +culminated in the miracle we call Chicago. In 1847 not a line of +rail entered the town; its population then numbered about twenty-five +thousand and its property valuation approximated seven millions. Ten +years later four thousand miles of railway connected with all four +points of the compass a city of nearly one hundred thousand people, and +property valuation had increased five hundred per cent. The growth of +Buffalo, Cleveland, and Detroit during this period was also phenomenal. + +When the crisis of 1861 came, the service performed by the +Walk-in-the-Water and her successors was seen in its true light. The +Great Lakes as avenues of migration had played a providential part in +filling a northern empire with a proud and loyal race; from farm and +factory regiment on regiment marched forth to fight for unity; from +fields without number produce to sustain a nation on trial poured forth +in abundance; enormous quantities of iron were at hand for the casting +of cannon and cannon balls; and, finally, pathways of water and steel +were in readiness in the nick of time to carry these resources where +they would count tremendously in the four long years of conflict. + + + +CHAPTER XI. The Steamboat And The West + +Two great fields of service lay open before those who were to achieve +by steam the mastery of the inland waterways. On the one hand the cotton +kingdom of the South, now demanding great stores of manufactured goods, +produce, and machinery, was waiting to be linked to the valleys and +industrial cities of the Middle West; and, on the other hand, along +those great eastward and westward rivers, the Ohio and Missouri, lay the +commerce of the prairies and the Great Plains. But before the steamboat +could serve the inland commerce of the West, it had to be constructed on +new lines. The craft brought from the seaboard were of too deep draft to +navigate shallow streams which ran through this more level country. + +The task of constructing a great inland river marine to play the dual +role of serving the cotton empire and of extending American migration +and commerce into the trans-Mississippi region was solved by Henry +Shreve when he built the Washington at Wheeling in 1816. Shreve was the +American John Hawkins. Hawkins, that sturdy old admiral of Elizabethan +days, took the English ship of his time, trimmed down the high stern +and poop decks, and cut away the deep-lying prow and stern, after the +fashion of our modern cup defenders, and in a day gave England the +key to sea mastery in the shape of a new ship that would take sail and +answer her rudder beyond anything the maritime world until then had +known. Shreve, like Hawkins, flagrantly ignoring the conventional wisdom +of his day and craft, built the Washington to sail on the water instead +of in it, doing away altogether with a hold and supplying an upper deck +in its place. + +To few inventors, indeed, does America owe a greater debt of thanks than +to this Ohio River shipbuilder. A dozen men were on the way to produce a +Clermont had Fulton failed; but Shreve had no rival in his plan to +build a flat-bottomed steamboat. The remarkable success of his design +is attested by the fact that in two decades the boats built on his model +outweighed in tonnage all the ships of the Atlantic seaboard and Great +Lakes combined. Immediately the Ohio became in effect the western +extension of the great national highway and opened an easy pathway +for immigration to the eastern as well as the western lands of the +Mississippi Basin. The story goes that an old phlegmatic negro watched +the approach of one of the first steamboats to the wharf of a Southern +city. Like many others, he had doubted the practicability of this +new-fangled Yankee notion. The boat, however, came and went with ease +and dispatch. The old negro was converted. "By golly," he shouted, +waving his cap, "the Mississippi's got her Massa now." + +The Mississippi had indeed found her master, but only by slow degrees +and after intervals of protracted rebellion did she succumb to that +master. Luckily, however, there was at hand an army of unusual men--the +"alligator-horses" of the flatboat era--upon whom the steamboat +could call with supreme confidence that they would not fail. Theodore +Roosevelt has said of the Western pioneers that they "had to be good and +strong--especially, strong." If these men upon whom the success of the +steamboat depended were not always good, they were beyond any doubt +behemoths in strength. + +The task before them, however, was a task worthy of Hercules. The great +river boldly fought its conquerors, asking and giving no quarter, biding +its time when opposed by the brave but crushing the fearful on sight. In +one respect alone could it be depended upon--it was never the same. It +is said to bring down annually four hundred million tons of mud, but +its eccentricity in deciding where to wash away and where to deposit its +load is still the despair of river pilots. The great river could destroy +islands and build new ones overnight with the nonchalance of a child +playing with clay. It could shorten itself thirty miles at a single +lunge. It could move inland towns to its banks and leave river towns far +inland. It transferred the town of Delta, for instance, from three miles +below Vicksburg to two miles above it. Men have gone to sleep in one +State and have wakened unharmed in another, because the river decided +in the night to alter the boundary line. In this way the village of +Hard Times, the original site of which was in Louisiana, found itself +eventually in Mississippi. Were La Salle to descend the river today by +the route he traversed two and a half centuries ago, he would follow dry +ground most of the way, for the river now lies practically everywhere +either to the right or left of its old course. + +If the Mississippi could perform such miracles upon its whole course +without a show of effort, what could it not do with the little winding +canal through its center called by pilots the "channel"? The flatboatmen +had laboriously acquired the art of piloting the commerce of the West +through this mazy, shifting channel, but as steamboats developed in +size and power the man at the wheel had to become almost a superman. He +needed to be. He must know the stage of water anywhere by a glance at +the river banks. He must guess correctly the amount of "fill" at the +head of dangerous chutes, detect bars "working down," distinguish +between bars and "sand reefs" or "wind reefs" or "bluff reefs" by night +as well as by day, avoid the" breaks" in the "graveyard" behind Goose +Island, navigate the Hat Island chutes, or find the "middle crossing" at +Hole-in-the-Wall. He must navigate his craft in fogs, in storms, in the +face of treacherous winds, on black nights, with thousands of dollars' +worth of cargo and hundreds of lives at stake. + +As the golfer knows each knoll and tuft of grass on his home links, so +the pilot learned his river by heart. Said one of these pilots to an +apprentice: + +"You see this has got to be learned.... A clear starlight night +throws such heavy shadows that if you didn't know the shape of a shore +perfectly you would claw away from every bunch of timber because you +would take the black shadow of it for a solid cape; and you see you +would be getting scared to death every fifteen minutes by the watch. You +would be fifty yards from shore all the time when you ought to be within +fifty feet of it. You can't see a snag in one of those shadows, but you +know exactly where it is, and the shape of the river tells you when you +are coming to it. Then there's your pitch-dark night; the river is +a very different shape on a pitch-dark night from what it is on a +starlight night. All shores seem to be straight lines, then, and mighty +dim ones, too; and you'd run them for straight lines only you know +better. You boldly drive your boat right into what seems to be a solid, +straight wall (you knowing very well that in reality there is a curve +there) and that wall falls back and makes way for you. Then there's your +gray mist. You take a night when there's one of these grisly, drizzly, +gray mists, and then there isn't any particular shape to a shore. A +gray mist would tangle the head of the oldest man that ever lived. Well, +then, different kinds of MOONLIGHT change the shape of the river in +different ways.... You only learn the shape of the river; and you learn +it with such absolute certainty that you can always steer by the shape +that's IN YOUR HEAD and never mind the one that's before your eyes." * + + + * Mark Twain, "Life on the Mississippi," pp. 103-04. + + +No wonder that the two hundred miles of the Mississippi from the mouth +of the Ohio to St. Louis in time contained the wrecks of two hundred +steamboats. + +The river trade reached its zenith between 1840 and 1860, in the two +decades previous to the Civil War, that period before the railroads +began to parallel the great rivers. It was a time which saw the rise +of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, and Arkansas, and which +witnessed the spread of the cotton kingdom into the Southwest. The +story of King Cotton's conquest of the Mississippi South is best told in +statistics. In 1811, the year of the first voyage which the New Orleans +made down the Ohio River, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Mississippi exported +five million pounds of cotton. In 1834 these same States exported almost +two hundred million pounds of cotton. To take care of this crop and +to supply the cotton country, which was becoming wealthy, with the +necessaries and luxuries of life, more and more steamboats were needed. +The great shipyards situated, because of the proximity of suitable +timber, at St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Louisville became busy hives, not +since paralleled except by such centers of shipbuilding as Hog Island in +1917-18, during the time of the Great War. The steamboat tonnage of the +Mississippi Valley (exclusive of New Orleans) in the hustling forties +exceeded that of the Atlantic ports (exclusive of New York City) by +15,000 tons. The steamboat tonnage of New Orleans alone in 1843 was more +than double that of New York City. + +Those who, if the old story is true, ran in fear to the hills when the +little New Orleans went puffing down the Ohio, in 1811, would have been +doubly amazed at the splendid development in the art of boat building, +could they have seen the stately Sultana or Southern Belle of the +fifties sweep swiftly by. After a period of gaudy ornamentation +(1830-40) steamboat architecture settled down, as has that of Pullman +cars today, to sane and practical lines, and the boats gained in length +and strength, though they contained less weight of timber. The value +of one of the greater boats of this era would be about fifty thousand +dollars. When Captain Bixby made his celebrated night crossing at Hat +Island a quarter of a million dollars in ship and cargo would have been +the price of an error in judgment, according to Mark Twain, * a good +authority. + + + *Op. cit., p. 101 + + +The Yorktown, built in 1844 for the Ohio-Mississippi trade, was typical +of that epoch of inland commerce. Her length was 182 feet, breadth of +beam 31 feet, and the diameter of wheels 28 feet. Though her hold was 8 +feet in depth, yet she drew but 4 feet of water light and barely over +8 feet when loaded with 500 tons of freight. She had 4 boilers, 30 +feet long and 42 inches in diameter, double engines, and two 24-inch +cylinders. The stateroom cabin had come in with Captain Isaiah Sellers's +Prairie in 1836, the first boat with such luxuries ever seen in St. +Louis, according to Sellers. The Yorktown had 40 private cabins. It +is interesting to compare the Yorktown with The Queen of the West, the +giant British steamer built for the Falmouth-Calcutta trade in 1839. The +Queen of the West had a length of 310 feet, a beam of 31 feet, a draft +of 15 feet, and 16 private cabins. The building of this great vessel led +a writer in the New York American to say: "It would really seem that we +as a nation had no interest in this new application of steam power, or +no energy to appropriate it to our own use." The statement--written in +a day when the Mississippi steamboat tonnage exceeded that of the entire +British Empire--is one of the best examples of provincial ignorance +concerning the West. + +On these steamboats there was a multiplicity of arrangements and +equipments for preventing and for fighting fire. One of the innovations +on the new boats in this particular was the substitution of wire for the +combustible rope formerly used to control the tiller, so that even in +time of fire the pilot could "hold her nozzle agin' the bank." Much +of the great loss of life in steamboat fires had been due to the +tiller-ropes being burned and the boats becoming unmanageable. + +The arrival of the railroad at the head of the Ohio River in the early +fifties brought the East into an immediate touch with the Mississippi +Valley unknown before. But however bold railway engineers were in +the face of the ragged ranges of the Alleghanies, they could not then +outguess the tricks of the Ohio, the Mississippi, or the Missouri, +and railway promoters could not afford to take chances on having their +stations and tracks unexpectedly isolated, if not actually carried away, +by swirling, yellow floods. The Mississippi, too, had been known +at times to achieve a width of seventy miles, and tributaries have +overflowed their banks to a proportionate extent. It was several decades +ere the Ohio was paralleled by a railway, and the Mississippi for long +distances even today has not yet heard the shrill cry of the locomotive. +So the steamboat entered its heyday and encountered little competition. +Until the Civil War the rivers of the West remained the great arteries +of trade, carrying grain and merchandise of every description southward +and bringing back cotton, rice, and sugar. + +The rivalries of the great lines of packets established in these days +of the steamboat, however, equaled anything ever known in railway +competition, and, in the matter of fast time, became more spectacular +than anything of its kind in any line of transportation in our country. +With flags flying, boilers heated white with abundance of pine and +resin, and bold and skillful pilots at the steering wheels, no sport +of kings ever aroused the enthusiasm of hundreds of thousands to such a +pitch as did many of the old-time races northward from New Orleans. + +The J. M. White and her performances stand out conspicuously in the +annals of the river. Her builder, familiarly known to a generation of +rivermen as Billy King, deserves to rank with Henry Shreve. Commissioned +in 1844 to build the J. M. White for J. M. Converse of St. Louis, with +funds supplied by Robert Chouteau of that city, King proceeded to put +into effect the knowledge which he had derived from a close study of the +swells made by steamboats when under way. When the boat was being built +in the famous shipyards at Elizabeth, on the Monongahela, the wheel +beams were set twenty feet farther back than was customary. Converse was +struck with this unheard-of radicalism in design, and balked; King was a +man given to few words; he was resolved to throw convention to the winds +and trust his judgment; he refused to build the boat on other lines. +Converse felt compelled to let Chouteau pass on the question; in time +the laconic answer came: "Let King put the beams where he pleases." + +Thus the craft which Converse thought a monstrosity became known far and +wide for both its design and its speed. In 1844 the J. M. White made the +record of three days, twenty-three hours, and nine minutes between New +Orleans and St. Louis. * Of course the secret of Billy King's success +soon became known. He had placed his paddle wheels where they would bite +into the swell produced by every boat just under its engines. He had +transformed what had been a handicap into a positive asset. It is said +that he attempted to shield his prize against competition by destroying +the model of the J. M. White, as well as to have refused large offers to +build a boat that would beat her. But it is said also that an exhibition +model of the boat was a cherished possession of E. M. Stanton, Secretary +of War, and that it hung in his office during Lincoln's administration. + + + * This performance is illustrated by the following comparative +table showing the best records of later years between New Orleans and +St. Louis, a distance estimated in 1844 as 1300 miles but in 1870 as +1218 miles, owing to the action of the river in shortening its course. + + YEAR BOAT TIME + 1844 J. M. White 3 d. 23 h. 9 m. + 1849 Missouri 4 d. 19 h. -- + 1889 Dexter 4 d. 9 h. -- + 1870 Natchez 8 d. 21 h. 58 m. + 1870 R. E. Lee 3 d. 18 h. 14 m. + + +The steamboat now extended its service to the West and North. The +ancient fur trade with the Indians of the upper Mississippi, the +Missouri, and the Arkansas, had its headquarters at St. Louis, whence +the notable band of men engaged in that trade were reaching out to the +Rockies. The roll includes Ashley, Campbell, Sublette, Manuel Lisa, +Perkins, Hempstead, William Clark, Labadie, the Chouteaus, and +Menard--men of different races and colors and alike only in their +energy, bravery, and initiative. Through them the village of St. Louis +had grown to a population of four thousand in 1819, when Major Long's +expedition passed up the Missouri in the first steamboat to ascend that +river. This boat, the Western Engineer, was built at Pittsburgh and was +modeled cunningly for its work. It was one of the first stern wheelers +built in the West; and the saving in width meant much on streams having +such narrow channels as the Missouri and the Platte, especially when +barges were to be towed. Then, too, its machinery, which was covered +over or boarded up, was shrouded in mystery. A fantastic figure +representing a serpent's open mouth contained the exhaust pipe. If the +New Orleans alarmed the population of the Ohio Valley, the sensation +caused among the red children of the Missouri at the sight of this +gigantic snake belching fire and smoke must have thoroughly satisfied +the whim of its designer. + +The admission of Missouri to statehood and the independence of Mexico +mark the beginning of real commercial relations between St. Louis and +Santa Fe. In 1822 Captain William Becknell organized the first wagon +train which left the Missouri (at Franklin, near Independence) for +the long dangerous journey to the Arkansas and on to Santa Fe. In the +following year two expeditions set forth, carrying out cottons and other +drygoods to exchange for horses, mules, furs, and silver. + +Despite the handicaps of Indian opposition and Mexican tariffs, the +Santa Fe trade became an important factor in the growth of St. Louis and +the Missouri River steamboat lines. In 1825 the pathway was "surveyed" +from Franklin to San Fernando, then in Mexico. This Santa Fe trade grew +from fifteen thousand pounds of freight in 1822 to nearly half a million +pounds twenty years later. + +By 1826 steamboat traffic up the Missouri began to assume regularity. +The navigation was dangerous and difficult because the Missouri never +kept even an approximately constant head of water. In times of drought +it became very shallow, and in times of flood it tore its wayward course +open in any direction it chose. "Of all variable things in creation," +wrote a Western editor, "the most uncertain are the action of a jury, +the state of a woman's mind, and the condition of the Missouri River." A +further handicap, and one which was unknown on the Ohio and rare on the +Mississippi, was the lack of forests to supply the necessary fuel. The +Missouri, it is true, had its cottonwoods, but in a green state they +were poor fuel, and along vast stretches they were not obtainable in any +quantity. + +The steamboat linked St. Louis with that vital stretch of the river +lying between the mouth of the Kansas and the mouth of the Nebraska. +From this region the great Western trail ran on to California and +Oregon. In the early thirties Bonneville, Walker, Kelley, and Wyeth +successively essayed this Overland Trail by way of the Platte through +the South Pass of the Rockies to the Humboldt, Snake, and Columbia +rivers. From Independence on the Missouri this famous pathway led to +Fort Laramie, a distance of 672 miles; another 800-mile climb brought +the traveler through South Pass; and so, by way of Fort Bridger, Salt +Lake, and Sutter's Fort, to San Francisco. The route, well known by +hundreds of Oregon pioneers in the early forties, became a thoroughfare +in the eager days of the Forty-Niners. * + + + * For map see "The Passing of the Frontier," by Emerson Hough (in +"The Chronicles of America"). + + +The earliest overland stage line to Great Salt Lake was established by +Hockaday and Liggett. After the founding of the famous Overland Stage +Company by Russell, Majors, and Waddell in 1858, stages were soon +ascending the Platte from the steamboat terminals on the Missouri and +making the twelve hundred miles from St. Joseph to Salt Lake City in ten +days. Stations were established from ten to fifteen miles apart, and the +line was soon extended on to Sacramento. The nineteen hundred miles +from St. Joseph to Sacramento were made in fifteen days although the +government contract with the company for handling United States mail +allowed nineteen days. A host of employees was engaged in this exciting +but not very remunerative enterprise--station-agents and helpers, +drivers, conductors who had charge of passengers, in addition to mail +and express and road agents who acted as division superintendents. In +1862 the Overland Route was taken over by the renowned Ben Holliday, who +operated it until the railway was constructed seven years later. Freight +was hauled by the same company in wagons known as the "J. Murphy +wagons," which were made in St. Louis. These wagons went out from +Leavenworth loaded with six thousand pounds of freight each. A train +usually consisted of twenty-five wagons and was known, in the vernacular +of the plains, as a "bull-outfit"; the drivers were "bull-whackers"; and +the wagon master was the "bull-wagon boss." + +The old story, however, was repeated again here on the boundless plains +of the West. The Western trails streaming out from the terminus of +steamboat traffic between Kansas City and Omaha had scarcely time to +become well known before the railway conquerors of the Atlantic and +Great Lakes regions were planning the conquest of the greater plains +and the Rockies beyond. The opening of the Chinese ports in 1844 turned +men's minds as never before to the Pacific coast. The acquisition of +Oregon within a few years and of California at the close of the Mexican +War opened the way for a newspaper and congressional discussion as to +whether the first railway to parallel the Santa Fe or the Overland Trail +should run from Memphis, St. Louis, or Chicago. The building of the +Union Pacific from Omaha westward assured the future of that city, and +it was soon joined to Chicago and the East by several lines which were +building toward Clinton, Rock Island, and Burlington. + +But the construction of a few main lines of railway across the continent +could only partially satisfy the commercial needs of the West. True, the +overland trade was at once transferred to the railroad, but the enormous +equipment of stage and express companies previously employed in westward +overland trade was now devoted to joining the railway lines with the +vast regions to the north and the south. The rivers of the West could +not alone take care of this commerce and for many years these great +transportation companies went with their stages and their wagons into +the growing Dakota and Montana trade and opened up direct lines of +communication to the nearest railway. On the south the cattle industry +of Texas came northward into touch with the railways of Kansas. +Eventually lateral and trunk lines covered the West with their network +of lines and thus obliterated all rivalry and competition by providing +unmatched facilities for quick transportation. + +In the last days previous to the opening of the first transcontinental +railway line a unique method of rapid transportation for mail and light +parcels was established when the famous "Pony Express" line was put into +operation between St. Joseph and San Francisco in 1860. By relays of +horsemen, who carried pouches not exceeding twenty pounds in weight, +the time was cut to nine days. The innovation was the new wonder of +the world for the time being and led to an outburst on the part of +the enthusiastic editor of the St. Joseph Free Democrat that deserves +reading because it breathes so fully the Western spirit of exultant +conquest: + +"Take down your map and trace the footprints of our quadrupedantic +animal: From St. Joseph, on the Missouri, to San Francisco, on the +Golden Horn two thousand miles--more than half the distance across our +boundless continent; through Kansas, through Nebraska, by Fort Kearney, +along the Platte, by Fort Laramie, past the Buttes, over the Mountains, +through the narrow passes and along the steep defiles, Utah, Fort +Bridger, Salt Lake City, he witches Brigham with his swift pony-ship +through the valleys, along the grassy slopes, into the snow, into the +sand, faster than Thor's Thialfi, away they go, rider and horse--did +you see them? They are in California, leaping over its golden sands, +treading its busy streets. The courser has unrolled to us the great +American panorama, allowed us to glance at the home of one million +people, and has put a girdle around the earth in forty minutes. Verily +the riding is like the riding of Jehu, the son of Nimshi for he rideth +furiously. Take out your watch. We are eight days from New York, +eighteen from London. The race is to the swift." * + + + * Quoted in Inman's "The Great Salt Lake Trail," p. 171. + + +The lifetime of many and many a man has covered a period longer than +that interval of eighty-six years between 1783, when George Washington +had his vision of "the vast inland navigation of these United States," +and the year 1869, when the two divisions of the Union Pacific were +joined by a golden spike at Promontory Point in Utah. In point of time, +those eighty-six years are as nothing; in point of accomplishment, +they stand unparalleled. When Washington's horse splashed across the +Youghiogheny in October, 1784, the boundary lines of the United States +were guarded with all the jealousy and provincial selfishness of +European kingdoms. But overnight, so to sneak these limitations became +no more than mere geometrical expressions. "Pennamite," "Erie," and +"Toledo" wars between the States, suggesting a world of bitterness and +recrimination, are remembered today, if at all, only by the cartoonist +and the playwright. The ancient false pride in mock values, so cherished +in Europe, has quite departed from the provincial areas of the United +States, and Americans can fly in a day, unwittingly, through many +States. Problems that would have cost Europe blood are settled without +turmoil in the solemn cloisters of that American "international +tribunal," the Supreme Court, and they appear only as items of passing +interest in our newspapers. + +In unifying the nation the influence of the Supreme Court has been +priceless, for it has given to Americans, in place of the colonial or +provincial mind, a continental mind. But great is the debt of Americans +to the men who laid the foundations of interstate commerce. No antidote +served so well to counteract the poison of clannish rivalry as did +their enthusiasm and their constructive energy. These men, dreamers and +promoters, were building better than they knew. They thought to overcome +mountains, obliterate swamps, conquer stormy lakes, master great rivers +and endless plains; but, as their labors are judged today, the greater +service which these men rendered appears in its true light. They +stifled provincialism; they battered down Chinese Walls of prejudice and +separatism; they reduced the aimless rivalry of bickering provinces to +a businesslike common denominator; and, perhaps more than any class of +men, they made possible the wide-spreading and yet united Republic that +is honored and loved today. + + + + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + +The history of the early phase of American transportation is dealt +with in three general works. John Luther Ringwalt's "Development of +Transportation Systems in the United States" (1888) is a reliable +summary of the general subject at the time. Archer B. Hulbert's +"Historic Highways of America," 16 vols. (1902-1905), is a collection +of monographs of varying quality written with youthful enthusiasm by the +author, who traversed in good part the main pioneer roads and canals of +the eastern portion of the United States; Indian trails, portage paths, +the military roads of the Old French War period, the Ohio River as a +pathway of migration, the Cumberland Road, and three of the canals which +played a part in the western movement, form the subject of the more +valuable volumes. The temptation of a writer on transportation to wander +from his subject is illustrated in this work, as it is illustrated +afresh in Seymour Dunbar's "A History of Travel in America," 4 vols. +(1915). The reader will take great pleasure in this magnificently +illustrated work, which, in completer fashion than it has ever been +attempted, gives a readable running story of the whole subject for the +whole country, despite detours, which some will make around the many +pages devoted to Indian relations. + +For almost every phase of the general topic books, monographs, +pamphlets, and articles are to be found in the corners of any great +library, ranging in character from such productions as William +F. Ganong's "A Monograph of Historic Sites in the Province of New +Brunswick" ("Proceedings and Transactions" of the Royal Society of +Canada, Second Series, vol. V, 1899) which treats of early travel in New +England and Canada, or St. George L. Sioussat's "Highway Legislation +in Maryland and its Influence on the Economic Development of the State" +("Maryland Geological Survey," III, 1899) treating of colonial road +making and legislation thereon, or Elbert J. Benton's "The Wabash +Trade Route in the Development of the Old Northwest" ("Johns Hopkins +University Studies in Historical and Political Science," vol. XXI, 1903) +and Julius Winden's "The Influence of the Erie Canal upon the Population +along its Course" (University of Wisconsin, 1901), which treat of the +economic and political influence of the opening of inland water routes, +to volumes of a more popular character such as Francis W. Halsey's "The +Old New York Frontier" (1901), Frank H. Severance's "Old Trails on the +Niagara Frontier" (1903) for the North, and Charles A. Hanna's "The +Wilderness Trail", 2 vols. (1911), and Thomas Speed's "The Wilderness +Road" ("The Filson Club Publications," vol. II, 1886) for Pennsylvania, +Virginia, and Kentucky. The value of Hanna's work deserves special +mention. + +For the early phases of inland navigation John Pickell's "A New Chapter +in the Early Life of Washington" (1856), is an excellent work of the +old-fashioned type, while in Herbert B. Adams's "Maryland's Influence +upon Land Cessions to the United States" ("Johns Hopkins University +Studies in Historical and Political Science, Third Series," I, 1885) +a master-hand pays Washington his due for originating plans of +trans-Alleghany solidarity; this likewise is the theme of Archer +B. Hulbert's "Washington and the West" (1905) wherein is printed +Washington's "Diary of September, 1784," containing the first and +unexpurgated draft of his classic letter to Harrison of that year. The +publications of the various societies for internal improvement and state +boards of control and a few books, such as Turner Camac's "Facts and +Arguments Respecting the Great Utility of an Extensive Plan of Inland +Navigation in America" (1805), give the student distinct impressions of +the difficulties and the ideals of the first great American promoters +of inland commerce. Elkanah Watson's "History of the... Western Canals +in the State of New York" (1820), despite inaccuracies due to lapses of +memory, should be specially remarked. + +For the rise and progress of turnpike building one must remember W. +Kingsford's "History, Structure, and Statistics of Plank Roads" (1852), +a reliable book by a careful writer. The Cumberland (National) Road has +its political influence carefully adjudged by Jeremiah S. Young in "A +Political and Constitutional Study of the Cumberland Road" (1904), while +the social and personal side is interestingly treated in county history +style in Thomas B. Searight's "The Old Pike" (1894). Motorists will +appreciate Robert Bruce's "The National Road" (1916), handsomely +illustrated and containing forty-odd sectional maps. + +The best life of Fulton is H. W. Dickinson's "Robert Fulton, Engineer +and Artist: His Life and Works" (1913), while in Alice Crary Sutcliffe's +"Robert Fulton and the 'Clermont'" (1909), the more intimate picture +of a family biography is given. For the controversy concerning the +Fulton-Livingston monopoly, note W. A. Duer's "A Course of Lectures on +Constitutional Jurisprudence" and his pamphlets addressed to Cadwallader +D. Colden. The life of that stranger to success, the forlorn John Fitch, +was written sympathetically and after assiduous research by Thompson +Westcott in his "Life of John Fitch the Inventor of the Steamboat" +(1858). For the pamphlet war between Fitch and Rumsey see Allibone's +Dictionary. + +The Great Lakes have not been adequately treated. E. Channing and M. F. +Lansing's "The Story of the Great Lakes" (1909) is reliable but deals +very largely with the routine history covered by the works of Parkman. +J. O. Curwood's "The Great Lakes" (1909) is stereotyped in its scope but +has certain chapters of interest to students of commercial development, +as has also "The Story of the Great Lakes." The vast bulk of material of +value on the subject lies in the publications of the New York, Buffalo, +Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Chicago Historical Societies, whose +lists should be consulted. These publications also give much data on the +Mississippi River and western commercial development. S. L. Clemens's +"Life on the Mississippi" (in his "Writings," vol. IX,1869-1909) is +invaluable for its graphic pictures of steamboating in the heyday +of river traffic. A. B. Hulbert's "Waterways of Western Expansion" +("Historic Highways," vol. IX, 1903) and "The Ohio River" (1906) give +chapters on commerce and transportation. For the beginnings of traffic +into the Far West, H. Inman's "The Old Santa Fe Trail" (1897) and +"The Great Salt Lake Trail" (1914) may be consulted, together with +the publications of the various state historical societies of the +trans-Mississippi States. + +Various bibliographies on this general subject have been issued by the +Library of Congress. Seymour Dunbar gives a good bibliography in his +"A History of Travel in America," 4 vols. (1915). The student will find +quantities of material in books of travel, in which connection he would +do well to consult Solon J. Buck's "Travel and Description, 1765-1865" +("Illinois State Historical Library Collections," vol. IX, 1914). + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Paths of Inland Commerce, by Archer B. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.12.12.00*END* + + + + + +This Book, Volume 21 In The Chronicles Of America Series, Allen +Johnson, Editor, Was Donated To Project Gutenberg By The James J. +Kelly Library Of St. Gregory's University; Thanks To Alev Akman. + +Scanned by Dianne Bean. Proofed by Doris Ringbloom. + + + + + +THE PATHS OF INLAND COMMERCE, A CHRONICLE OF TRAIL, ROAD, AND WATERWAY + +By Archer B. Hulbert + + + + +PREFACE + +If the great American novel is ever written, I hazard the guess +that its plot will be woven around the theme of American +transportation, for that has been the vital factor in the +national development of the United States. Every problem in the +building of the Republic has been, in the last analysis, a +problem in transportation. The author of such a novel will find a +rich fund of material in the perpetual rivalries of pack-horseman +and wagoner, of riverman and canal boatman, of steamboat promoter +and railway capitalist. He will find at every point the old +jostling and challenging the new pack-horsemen demolishing wagons +in the early days of the Alleghany traffic; wagoners deriding +Clinton's Ditch; angry boatmen anxious to ram the paddle wheels +of Fulton's Clermont, which threatened their monopoly. Such +opposition has always been an incident of progress; and even in +this new country, receptive as it was to new ideas, the +Washingtons, the Fitches, the Fultons, the Coopers, and the +Whitneys, who saw visions and dreamed dreams, all had to face +scepticism and hostility from those whom they would serve. + +A. B. H. + +Worcester, Mass., +June, 1919. + + +CONTENTS + +I. THE MAN WHO CAUGHT THE VISION +II. THE RED MAN'S TRAIL +III. THE MASTERY OF THE RIVERS +IV. A NATION ON WHEELS +V. THE FLATBOAT AGE +VI. THE PASSING SHOW OF 1800 +VII. THE BIRTH OF THE STEAMBOAT +VIII. THE CONQUEST OF THE ALLEGHANIES +IX. THE DAWN OF THE IRON AGE +X. THE PATHWAY OF THE LAKES +XI. THE STEAMBOAT AND THE WEST +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + + +THE PATHS OF INLAND COMMERCE + +CHAPTER I. The Man Who Caught The Vision + +Inland America, at the birth of the Republic, was as great a +mystery to the average dweller on the Atlantic seaboard as the +elephant was to the blind men of Hindustan. The reports of those +who had penetrated this wilderness--of those who had seen the +barren ranges of the Alleghanies, the fertile uplands of the +Unakas, the luxuriant blue-grass regions, the rich bottom lands +of the Ohio and Mississippi, the wide shores of the inland seas, +or the stretches of prairie increasing in width beyond the +Wabash--seemed strangely contradictory, and no one had been able +to patch these reports together and grasp the real proportions of +the giant inland empire that had become a part of the United +States. It was a pathless desert; it was a maze of trails, +trodden out by deer, buffalo, and Indian. Its great riverways +were broad avenues for voyagers and explorers; they were +treacherous gorges filled with the plunder of a million floods. +It was a rich soil, a land of plenty; the natives were seldom +more than a day removed from starvation. Within its broad +confines could dwell a great people; but it was as inaccessible +as the interior of China. It had a great commercial future; yet +its gigantic distances and natural obstructions defied all known +means of transportation. + +Such were the varied and contradictory stories told by the men +who had entered the portals of inland America. It is not +surprising, therefore, that theories and prophecies about the +interior were vague and conflicting nor that most of the schemes +of statesmen and financiers for the development of the West were +all parts and no whole. They all agreed as to the vast richness +of that inland realm and took for granted an immense commerce +therein that was certain to yield enormous profits. In faraway +Paris, the ingenious diplomat, Silas Deane, writing to the Secret +Committee of Congress in 1776, pictured the Old Northwest-- +bounded by the Ohio, the Alleghanies, the Great Lakes, and the +Mississippi--as paying the whole expense of the Revolutionary +War.* Thomas Paine in 1780 drew specifications for a State of +from twenty to thirty millions of acres lying west of Virginia +and south of the Ohio River, the sale of which land would pay the +cost of three years of the war.** On the other hand, Pelatiah +Webster, patriotic economist that he was, decried in 1781 all +schemes to "pawn" this vast westward region; he likened such +plans to "killing the goose that laid an egg every day, in order +to tear out at once all that was in her belly." He advocated the +township system of compact and regular settlement; and he argued +that any State making a cession of land would reap great benefit +"from the produce and trade" of the newly created settlements. + +* Deane's plan was to grant a tract two hundred miles square at +the junction of the Ohio and the Mississippi to a company on the +condition that a thousand families should be settled on it within +seven years. He added that, as this company would be in a great +degree commercial, the establishing of commerce at the junction +of those large rivers would immediately give a value to all the +lands situated on or near them. + +** Paine thought that while the new State could send its exports +southward down the Mississippi, its imports must necessarily come +from the East through Chesapeake Bay because the current of the +Mississippi was too strong to be overcome by any means of +navigation then known. + + +There were mooted many other schemes. General Rufus Putnam, for +example, advocated the Pickering or "Army" plan of occupying the +West; he wanted a fortified line to the Great Lakes, in case of +war with England, and fortifications on the Ohio and the +Mississippi, in case Spain should interrupt the national commerce +on these waterways. And Thomas Jefferson theorized in his study +over the toy states of Metropotamia and Polypotamia--brought his + +...trees and houses out +And planted cities all about. + +But it remained for George Washington, the Virginia planter, to +catch, in something of its actual grandeur, the vision of a +Republic stretching towards the setting sun, bound and unified by +paths of inland commerce. It was Washington who traversed the +long ranges of the Alleghanies, slept in the snows of Deer Park +with no covering but his greatcoat, inquired eagerly of trapper +and trader and herder concerning the courses of the Cheat, the +Monongahela, and the Little Kanawha, and who drew from these +personal explorations a clear and accurate picture of the future +trade routes by which the country could be economically, +socially, and nationally united. + +Washington's experience had peculiarly fitted him to catch this +vision. Fortune had turned him westward as he left his mother's +knee. First as a surveyor for Lord Fairfax in the Shenandoah +Valley and later, under Braddock and Forbes, in the armies +fighting for the Ohio against the French he had come to know the +interior as it was known by no other man of his standing. His own +landed property lay largely along the upper Potomac and in and +beyond the Alleghanies. Washington's interest in this property +was very real. Those who attempt to explain his early concern +with the West as purely altruistic must misread his numerous +letters and diaries. Nothing in his unofficial character shows +more plainly than his business enterprise and acumen. On one +occasion he wrote to his agent, Crawford, concerning a proposed +land speculation: "I recommend that you keep this whole matter a +secret or trust it only to those in whom you can confide. If the +scheme I am now proposing to you were known, it might give alarm +to others, and by putting them on a plan of the same nature, +before we could lay a proper foundation for success ourselves, +set the different interests clashing and in the end overturn the +whole." Nor can it be denied that Washington's attitude to the +commercial development of the West was characterized in his early +days by a narrow colonial partisanship. He was a stout Virginian; +and all stout Virginians of that day refused to admit the +pretensions of other colonies to the land beyond the mountains. +But from no man could the shackles of self-interest and +provincial rivalry drop more quickly than they dropped from +Washington when he found his country free after the close of the +Revolutionary War. He then began to consider how that country +might grow and prosper. And he began to preach the new doctrine +of expansion and unity. This new doctrine first appears in a +letter which he wrote to the Marquis de Chastellux in 1783, after +a tour from his camp at Newburg into central New York, where he +had explored the headwaters of the Mohawk and the Susquehanna: "I +could not help taking a more extensive view of the vast inland +navigation of these United States [the letter runs] and could not +but be struck by the immense extent and importance of it, and of +the goodness of that Providence which has dealt its favors to us +with so profuse a hand. Would to God we may have wisdom enough to +improve them. I shall not rest contented till I have explored the +Western country, and traversed those lines, or great part of +them, which have given bounds to a new empire." + +"The vast inland navigation of these United States!" It is an +interesting fact that Washington should have had his first +glimpse of this vision from the strategic valley of the Mohawk, +which was soon to rival his beloved Potomac as an improved +commercial route from the seaboard to the West, and which was +finally to achieve an unrivaled superiority in the days of the +Erie Canal and the Twentieth Century Limited. + +We may understand something of what the lure of the West meant to +Washington when we learn that in order to carry out his proposed +journey after the Revolution, he was compelled to refuse urgent +invitations to visit Europe and be the guest of France. "I found +it indispensably necessary," he writes, "to visit my Landed +property West of the Apalacheon Mountains.... One object of +my journey being to obtain information of the nearest and best +communication between Eastern & Western waters; & to facilitate +as much as in me lay the Inland Navigation of the Potomack." + +On September 1, 1784, Washington set out from Mount Vernon on his +journey to the West. Even the least romantic mind must feel a +thrill in picturing this solitary horseman, the victor of +Yorktown, threading the trails of the Potomac, passing on by +Cumberland and Fort Necessity and Braddock's grave to the +Monongahela. The man, now at the height of his fame, is retracing +the trails of his boyhood--covering ground over which he had +passed as a young officer in the last English and French war--but +he is seeing the land in so much larger perspective that, +although his diary is voluminous, the reader of those pages would +not know that Washington had been this way before. Concerning +Great Meadows, where he first saw the "bright face of danger" and +which he once described gleefully as "a charming place for an +encounter," he now significantly remarks: "The upland, East of +the meadow, is good for grain." Changed are the ardent dreams +that filled the young man's heart when he wrote to his mother +from this region that singing bullets "have truly a charming +sound." Today, as he looks upon the flow of Youghiogheny, he sees +it reaching out its finger tips to Potomac's tributaries. He +perceives a similar movement all along the chain of the +Alleghanies: on the west are the Great Lakes and the Ohio, and +reaching out towards them from the east, waiting to be joined by +portage road and canal, are the Hudson, the Susquehanna, the +Potomac, and the James. He foresees these streams bearing to the +Atlantic ports the golden produce of the interior and carrying +back to the interior the manufactured goods of the seaboard. He +foresees the Republic becoming homogeneous, rich, and happy. +"Open ALL the communication which nature has afforded," he wrote +Henry Lee, "between the Atlantic States and the Western +territory, and encourage the use of them to the utmost...and +sure I am there is no other tie by which they will long form a +link in the chain of Federal Union." + +Crude as were the material methods by which Washington hoped to +accomplish this end, in spirit he saw the very America that we +know today; and he marked out accurately the actual pathways of +inland commerce that have played their part in the making of +America. Taking the city of Detroit as the key position, +commercially, he traced the main lines of internal trade. He +foresaw New York improving her natural line of communication by +way of the Mohawk and the Niagara frontier on Lake Erie--the +present line of the Erie Canal and the New York Central Railway. +For Pennsylvania, he pointed out the importance of linking the +Schuylkill and the Susquehanna and of opening the two avenues +westward to Pittsburgh and to Lake Erie. In general, he thus +forecast the Pennsylvania Canal and the Pennsylvania and the Erie +railways. For Maryland and Virginia he indicated the Potomac +route as the nearest for all the trade of the Ohio Valley, with +the route by way of the James and the Great Kanawha as an +alternative for the settlements on the lower Ohio. His vision +here was realized in a later day by the Potomac and the +Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, the Cumberland Road, the Baltimore and +Ohio Railway, and by the James-Kanawha Turnpike and the +Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. + +Washington's general conclusions are stated in a summary at the +end of his Journal, which was reproduced in his classic letter to +Harrison, written in 1784. His first point is that every State +which had water routes reaching westward could enhance the value +of its lands, increase its commerce, and quiet the democratic +turbulence of its shut-in pioneer communities by the improvement +of its river transportation. Taking Pennsylvania as a specific +example, he declared that "there are one hundred thousand souls +West of the Laurel Hill, who are groaning under the +inconveniences of a long land transportation.... If this +cannot be made easy for them to Philadelphia...they will seek +a mart elsewhere.... An opposition on the part of [that] +government...would ultimately bring on a separation between +its Eastern and Western settlements; towards which there is not +wanting a disposition at this moment in that part of it beyond +the mountains." + +Washington's second proposal was the achievement of a new and +lasting conquest of the West by binding it to the seaboard with +chains of commerce. He thus states his point: "No well informed +mind need be told that the flanks and rear of the United +territory are possessed by other powers, and formidable ones +too--nor how necessary it is to apply the cement of interest to +bind all parts of it together, by one indissoluble +bond--particularly +the middle States with the Country immediately back of them--for +what ties let me ask, should we have upon those people; and how +entirely unconnected should we be with them if the Spaniards on +their right or Great Britain on their left, instead of throwing +stumbling blocks in their way as they do now, should invite their +trade and seek alliances with them?" + +Some of the pictures in Washington's vision reveal, in the light +of subsequent events, an almost uncanny prescience. He very +plainly prophesied the international rivalry for the trade of the +Great Lakes zone, embodied today in the Welland and the Erie +canals. He declared the possibility of navigating with oceangoing +vessels the tortuous two-thousand-mile channel of the Ohio and +the Mississippi River; and within sixteen years ships left the +Ohio, crossed the Atlantic, and sailed into the Mediterranean. +His description of a possible insurrection of a western community +might well have been written later; it might almost indeed have +made a page of his diary after he became President of the United +States and during the Whiskey Insurrection in western +Pennsylvania. He approved and encouraged Rumsey's mechanical +invention for propelling boats against the stream, showing that +he had a glimpse of what was to follow after Fitch, Rumsey, and +Fulton should have overcome the mighty currents of the Hudson and +the Ohio with the steamboat's paddle wheel. His proposal that +Congress should undertake a survey of western rivers for the +purpose of giving people at large a knowledge of their possible +importance as avenues of commerce was a forecast of the Lewis and +Clark expedition as well as of the policy of the Government today +for the improvement of the great inland rivers and harbors. + +"The destinies of our country run east and west. Intercourse +between the mighty interior west and the sea coast is the great +principle of our commercial prosperity." These are the words of +Edward Everett in advocating the Boston and Albany Railroad. In +effect Washington had uttered those same words half a century +earlier when he gave momentum to an era filled with energetic +but unsuccessful efforts to join with the waters of the West the +rivers reaching inland from the Atlantic. The fact that American +engineering science had not in his day reached a point where it +could cope with this problem successfully should in no wise +lessen our admiration for the man who had thus caught the vision +of a nation united and unified by improved methods of +transportation. + + + +CHAPTER II. The Red Man's Trail + +For the beginnings of the paths of our inland commerce, we must +look far back into the dim prehistoric ages of America. The +earliest routes that threaded the continent were the streams and +the tracks beaten out by the heavier four-footed animals. The +Indian hunter followed the migrations of the animals and the +streams that would float his light canoe. Today the main lines of +travel and transportation for the most part still cling to these +primeval pathways. + +In their wanderings, man and beast alike sought the heights, the +passes that pierced the mountain chains, and the headwaters of +navigable rivers. On the ridges the forest growth was lightest +and there was little obstruction from fallen timber; rain and +frost caused least damage by erosion; and the winds swept the +trails clear of leaves in summer and of snow in winter. Here lay +the easiest paths for the heavy, blundering buffalo and the +roving elk and moose and deer. Here, high up in the sun, where +the outlook was unobstructed and signal fires could be seen from +every direction, on the longest watersheds, curving around river +and swamp, ran the earliest travel routes of the aboriginal +inhabitants and of their successors, the red men of historic +times. For their encampments and towns these peoples seem to have +preferred the more sheltered ground along the smaller streams; +but, when they fared abroad to hunt, to trade, to wage war, to +seek new, material for pipe and amulet, they followed in the main +the highest ways. + +If in imagination one surveys the eastern half of the North +American continent from one of the strategic passageways of the +Alleghanies, say from Cumberland Gap or from above Kittanning +Gorge, the outstanding feature in the picture will be the +Appalachian barrier that separates the interior from the Atlantic +coast. To the north lie the Adirondacks and the Berkshire Hills, +hedging New England in close to the ocean. Two glittering +waterways lie east and west of these heights--the Connecticut and +the Hudson. Upon the valleys of these two rivers converged the +two deeply worn pathways of the Puritan, the Old Bay Path and the +Connecticut Path. By way of Westfield River, that silver +tributary which joins the Connecticut at Springfield, +Massachusetts, the Bay Path surmounted the Berkshire highlands +and united old Massachusetts to the upper Hudson Valley near Fort +Orange, now Albany. + +Here, north of the Catskills, the Appalachian barrier subsides +and gives New York a supreme advantage over all the other +Atlantic States--a level route to the Great Lakes and the West. +The Mohawk River threads the smiling landscape; beyond lies the +"Finger Lake country" and the valley of the Genesee. Through this +romantic region ran the Mohawk Trail, sending offshoots to Lake +Champlain and the St. Lawrence, to the Susquehanna, and to the +Allegheny. A few names have been altered in the course of years-- +the Bay Path is now the Boston and Albany Railroad, the Mohawk +Trail is the New York Central, and Fort Orange is Albany--and +thus we may tell in a dozen words the story of three centuries. + +Upon Fort Orange converged the score of land and water pathways +of the fur trade of our North. These Indian trade routes were +slowly widened into colonial roads, notably the Mohawk and +Catskill turnpikes, and these in turn were transformed into the +Erie, Lehigh, Nickel Plate, and New York Central railways. But +from the day when the canoe and the keel boat floated their bulky +cargoes of pelts or the heavy laden Indian pony trudged the +trail, the routes of trade have been little or nothing altered. + +Traversing the line of the Alleghanies southward, the eye notes +first the break in the wall at the Delaware Water Gap, and then +that long arm of the Susquehanna, the Juniata, reaching out +through dark Kittanning Gorge to its silver playmate, the dancing +Conemaugh. Here amid its leafy aisles ran the brown and red +Kittanning Trail, the main route of the Pennsylvania traders from +the rich region of York, Lancaster, and Chambersburg. On this +general alignment the Broadway Limited flies today toward +Pittsburgh and Chicago. A little to the south another important +pathway from the same region led, by way of Carlisle, Bedford, +and Ligonier, to the Ohio. The "Highland Trail" the Indian +traders called it, for it kept well on the watershed dividing the +Allegheny tributaries on the north from those of the Monongahela +on the south. + +Farther to the south the scene shows a change, for the Atlantic +plain widens considerably. The Potomac River, the James, the +Pedee, and the Savannah flow through valleys much longer than +those of the northern rivers. Here in the South commerce was +carried on mainly by shallop and pinnace. The trails of the +Indian skirted the rivers and offered for trader and explorer +passageway to the West, especially to the towns of the Cherokees +in the southern Alleghanies or Unakas; but the waterways and the +roads over which the hogsheads of tobacco were rolled (hence +called "rolling roads") sufficed for the needs of the thin +fringes of population settled along the rivers. Trails from +Winchester in Virginia and Frederick in Maryland focused on +Cumberland at the head of the Potomac. Beyond, to the west, the +finger tips of the Potomac interlocked closely with the +Monongahela and Youghiogheny, and through this network of +mountain and river valley, by the "Shades of Death" and Great +Meadows, coiled Nemacolin's Path to the Ohio. Even today this +ancient route is in part followed by the Baltimore and Ohio and +the Western Maryland Railway. + +A bird's-eye view of the southern Alleghanies shows that, while +the Atlantic plain of Virginia and the Carolinas widens out, the +mountain chains increase in number, fold on fold, from the Blue +Ridge to the ragged ranges of the Cumberlands. Few trails led +across this manifold barrier. There was a connection at Balcony +Falls between the James River and the Great Kanawha; but as a +trade route it was of no such value to the men of its day as the +Chesapeake and Ohio system over the same course is to us. As in +the North, so in the South, trade avoided obstacles by taking a +roundabout, and often the longest route. In order to double the +extremity of the Unakas, for instance, the trails reached down by +the Valley of Virginia and New River to the uplands of the +Tennessee, and here, near Elizabethton, they met the trails +leading up the Broad and the Yadkin rivers from Charleston, South +Carolina. + +To the west rise the somber heights of Cumberland Gap. Through +this portal ran the famous "Warrior's Path," known to wandering +hunters, the "trail of iron" from Fort Watauga and Fort Chiswell, +which Daniel Boone widened for the settlers of Kentucky. To the +southwest lay the Blue Grass region of Tennessee with its various +trails converging on Nashville from almost every direction. Today +the Southern Railway enters the "Sapphire Country," in which +Asheville lies, by practically the same route as the old +Rutherfordton Trail which was used for generations by red man and +pioneer from the Carolina coast. In our entire region of the +Appalachians, from the Berkshire Hills southward, practically +every old-time pathway from the seaboard to the trans-Alleghany +country is now occupied by an important railway system, with the +exception of the Warrior's Trail through Cumberland Gap to +central Ohio and the Highland Trail across southern Pennsylvania. +And even Cumberland Gap is accessible by rail today, and a line +across southern Pennsylvania was once planned and partially +constructed only to be killed by jealous rivals. + +These numerous keys to the Alleghanies were a challenge to the +men of the seaboard to seize upon the rich trade of the West +which had been early monopolized by the French in Canada. But the +challenge brought its difficult problems. What land canoes could +compete with the flotillas that brought their priceless cargoes +of furs each year to Montreal and Quebec? What race of +landlubbers could vie with the picturesque bands of fearless +voyageurs who sang their songs on the Great Lakes, the Ohio, the +Illinois, and the Mississippi? + +In the solution of this problem of diverting trade probably the +factor of greatest importance, next to open pathways through the +mountain barriers, was the rich stock-breeding ground lying +between the Delaware and the Susquehanna rivers, a region +occupied by the settlers familiarly known as the Pennsylvania +Dutch. In this famous belt, running from Pennsylvania into +Virginia, originated the historic pack-horse trade with the "far +Indians" of the Ohio Valley. Here, in the first granary of +America, Germans, Scotch-Irish, and English bred horses worthy of +the name. "Brave fat Horses" an amazed officer under Braddock +called the mounts of five Quakers who unexpectedly rode into camp +as though straight "from the land of Goshen." These animals, +crossed with the Indian "pony" from New Spain, produced the wise, +wiry, and sturdy pack-horse, fit to transport nearly two hundred +pounds of merchandise across the rough and narrow Alleghany +trails. This animal and the heavy Conestoga horse from the same +breeding ground revolutionized inland commerce. + +The first American cow pony was not without his cowboy. Though +the drivers were not all of the same type and though the +proprietors, so to speak, of the trans-Alleghany pack-horse trade +came generally from the older settlements, the bulk of the hard +work was done by a lusty army of men not reproduced again in +America until the picturesque figure of the cow-puncher appeared +above the western horizon. This breed of men was nurtured on the +outer confines of civilization, along the headwaters of the +Susquehanna, the Potomac, the James, and the Broad--the country +of the "Cowpens." Rough as the wilderness they occupied, made +strong by their diet of meat and curds, these Tatars of the +highlands played a part in the commercial history of America that +has never had its historian. In their knowledge of Indian +character, of horse and packsaddle lore, of the forest and its +trails in every season, these men of the Cowpens were the kings +of the old frontier. + +An officer under Braddock has left us one of the few pictures of +these people*: + +* "Extracts of Letters from an Officer" (London, 1755). + + +"From the Heart of the Settlements we are now got into the +Cow-pens; the Keepers of these are very extraordinary Kind of +Fellows, they drive up their Herds on Horseback, and they had +need do so, for their Cattle are near as wild as Deer; a Cow-pen +generally consists of a very large Cottage or House in the Woods, +with about four-score or one hundred Acres, inclosed with high +Rails and divided; a small Inclosure they keep for Corn, for the +family, the rest is the Pasture in which they keep their calves; +but the Manner is far different from any Thing you ever saw; they +may perhaps have a Stock of four or five hundred to a thousand +Head of Cattle belonging to a Cow-pen, these run as they please +in the Great Woods, where there are no Inclosures to stop them. +In the Month of March the Cows begin to drop their Calves, then +the Cow-pen Master, with all his Men, rides out to see and drive +up the Cows with all their new fallen Calves; they being weak +cannot run away so as to escape, therefore are easily drove up, +and the Bulls and other Cattle follow them; and they put these +Calves into the Pasture, and every Morning and Evening suffer the +Cows to come and suckle them, which done they let the Cows out +into the great Woods to shift for their Food as well as they can; +whilst the Calf is sucking one Tit of the Cow, the Woman of the +Cow-Pen is milking one of the other Tits, so that she steals some +Milk from the Cow, who thinks she is giving it to the Calf; soon +as the Cow begins to go dry, and the Calf grows Strong, they mark +them, if they are Males they cut them, and let them go into the +Wood. Every Year in September and October they drive up the +Market Steers, that are fat and of a proper Age, and kill them; +they say they are fat in October, but I am sure they are not so +in May, June and July; they reckon that out of 100 Head of Cattle +they can kill about 10 or 12 steers, and four or five Cows a +Year; so they reckon that a Cow-Pen for every 100 Head of Cattle +brings about 40 pounds Sterling per Year. The Keepers live +chiefly upon Milk, for out of their Vast Herds, they do +condescend to tame Cows enough to keep their Family in Milk, +Whey, Curds, Cheese and Butter; they also have Flesh in Abundance +such as it is, for they eat the old Cows and lean Calves that are +like to die. The Cow-Pen Men are hardy People, are almost +continually on Horseback, being obliged to know the Haunts of +their Cattle". "You see, Sir, what a wild set of Creatures Our +English Men grow into, when they lose Society, and it is +surprising to think how many Advantages they throw away, which +our industrious Country-Men would be glad of: Out of many hundred +Cows they will not give themselves the trouble of milking more +than will maintain their Family." + +With such a race of born horsemen, every whit as bold and +resourceful as the voyageurs, to bear the brunt of a new era of +transportation, all that was needed to challenge French trade +beyond the Alleghanies was competent and aggressive leadership. +The situation called for men of means, men of daring, men closely +in touch with governors and assemblies and acquainted with the +web of politics that was being spun at Philadelphia, +Williamsburg, New York, London, and Paris. Generations of +tenacious struggle along the American frontier had developed such +men. The Weisers, Croghans, Gists, Washingtons, Franklins, +Walkers, and Cresaps were men of varied descent and nationality. +They had the cunning, the boldness, and the resources to +undertake successfully the task of conquering commercially the +Great West. They were the first men of the colonies to be +unafraid of that bugbear of the trader, Distance. We may aptly +call them the first Americans because, though not a few were +actually born abroad, they were the first whose plans, spirit, +and very life were dominated by the vision of an America of +continental dimensions. + +The long story of French and English rivalry and of the war which +ended it concerns us here chiefly as a commercial struggle. The +French at Niagara (1749) had access to the Ohio by way of Lake +Erie and any one of several rivers--the Allegheny, the Muskingum, +the Scioto, or the Miami. The main routes of the English were the +Nemacolin and Kittanning paths. The French, laboring under the +disadvantages of the longer distance over which their goods had +to be transported to the Indians and of the higher price +necessarily demanded for them, had to meet the competition of the +traders from the rival colonies of Pennsylvania and Virginia, +each of them jealous of and underbidding the other. + +When Celoron de Blainville was sent to the Allegheny in 1749, by +the Governor of New France, his message was that "the Governor of +Canada desired his children on Ohio to turn away the English +Traders from amongst them and discharge them from ever coming to +trade there again, or on any of the Branches." He sent away all +the traders whom he found, giving them letters addressed to their +respective governors denying England's right to trade in the +West. To offset this move, within two years Pennsylvania sent +goods to the value of nine hundred pounds in order to hold the +Indians constant. The Governor had already ordered the traders to +sell whiskey to the Indians at "5 Bucks" per cask and had told +the Indians, through his agent Conrad Weiser, that if any trader +refused to sell the liquor at that price they might "take it from +him and drink it for nothing." There was but one way for the +French to meet such competition. Without delay they fortified the +Allegheny and began to coerce the natives. Driving away the +carpenters of the Ohio Company from the present site of +Pittsburgh, they built Fort Duquesne. The beginning of the Old +French War ended what we may call the first era of the pack-horse +trade. + +The capture of Fort Duquesne by the English army under General +Forbes in 1758 and the final conquest of New France two years +later removed the French barrier and opened the way to expansion +beyond the Alleghanies. Thereafter settlements in the Monongahela +country grew apace. Pittsburgh, Uniontown, Morgantown, +Brownsville, Ligonier, Greensburg, Connellsville--we give the +modern names--became centers of a great migration which was +halted only for a season by Pontiac's Rebellion, the aftermath of +the French War, and was resumed immediately on the suppression of +that Indian rising. The pack-horse trade now entered its final +and most important era. The earlier period was one in which the +trade was confined chiefly to the Indians; the later phase was +concerned with supplying the needs of the white man in his +rapidly developing frontier settlements. Formerly the principal +articles of merchandise for the western trade were guns, +ammunition, knives, kettles, and tools for their repair, +blankets, tobacco, hatchets, and liquor. In the new era every +known product of the East found a market in the thriving +communities of the upper Ohio. As time went on the West began to +send to the East, in addition to skins and pelts, whiskey that +brought a dollar a gallon. Each pony could carry sixteen gallons +and every drop could be sold for real money. On the return trip +the pack-horses carried back chiefly salt and iron. + +Doddridge's "Notes", one of the chief sources of our information, +gives this lively picture: + +"In the fall of the year, after seeding time, every family formed +an association with some of their neighbors, for starting the +little caravan. A master driver was to be selected from among +them, who was to be assisted by one or more young men and +sometimes a boy or two. The horses were fitted out with +packsaddles, to the latter part of which was fastened a pair of +hobbles made of hickory withes,--a bell and collar ornamented +their necks. The bags provided for the conveyance of the salt +were filled with bread, jerk, boiled ham, and cheese furnished a +provision for the drivers. At night, after feeding, the horses, +whether put in pasture or turned out into the woods, were hobbled +and the bells were opened. The barter for salt and iron was made +first at Baltimore; Frederick, Hagerstown, Oldtown, and Fort +Cumberland, in succession, became the places of exchange. Each +horse carried two bushels of alum salt, weighing eighty-four +pounds to the bushel. This, to be sure, was not a heavy load for +the horses, but it was enough, considering the scanty subsistence +allowed them on the journey. The common price of a bushel of alum +salt, at an early period, was a good cow and a calf. + +Thus, with the English flag afloat at Fort Pitt, as Duquesne was +renamed after its capture, a new day dawned for the great region +to the West. Beyond the Alleghanies and as far as the Rockies, a +new science of transportation was now to be learned--the art of +finding the dividing ridge. Here the first routes, like the +"Great Trail" from Pittsburgh to Detroit, struck out with an +assurance that is in marvelous agreement with the findings of the +surveyors of a later day. The railways, when they came, found the +valleys and penetrated with their tunnels the watersheds from the +heads of the streams of one drainage area to the streams of +another. Thus on the Pennsylvania, the Baltimore and Ohio, the +Southern, the Chesapeake and Ohio, and other railroads, important +tunnels are to be found lying immediately under the Red Man's +trail which clung to the long ascending slope and held +persistently to the dividing ridges. + +Even this necessarily brief survey shows plainly how that +preeminently American institution, the ridge road, came about. +East and west, it was the legitimate and natural successor to the +ancient trail. With the coming of the wagon, whose rattle was +heard among the hills as early as Braddock's campaign, the +process of lowering these paths from the heights was inevitably +begun, and it was to the riverways that men first looked for a +solution of the difficult problems of inland commerce. Eventually +the paths of inland commerce constituted a vast network of +canals, roads, and railway lines in those very valleys to which +Washington had called the nation's attention in 1784. + + + +CHAPTER III. The Mastery Of The Rivers + +It would perhaps have been well, in the light of later +difficulties and failures, if the men who at Washington's call +undertook to master the capricious rivers of the seaboard had +studied a stately Spanish decree which declared that, since God +had not made the rivers of Spain navigable, it were sacrilege for +mortals to attempt to do so. Even before the Revolution, Mayor +Rhodes of Philadelphia was in correspondence with Franklin in +London concerning the experiences of European engineers in +harnessing foreign streams. That sage philosopher, writing to +Rhodes in 1772, uttered a clear word of warning: "rivers are +ungovernable things," he had said, and English engineers "seldom +or never use a River where it can be avoided." But it was the +birthright of New World democracy to make its own mistakes and in +so doing to prove for itself the errors of the Old World. + +As energetic men all along the Atlantic Plain now took up the +problem of improving the inland rivers, they faced a storm of +criticism and ridicule that would have daunted any but such as +Washington and Johnson of Virginia or White and Hazard of +Pennsylvania or Morris and Watson of New York. Every imaginable +objection to such projects was advanced--from the inefficiency of +the science of engineering to the probable destruction of all the +fish in the streams. In spite of these discouragements, however, +various men set themselves to form in rapid succession the +Potomac Company in 1785, the Society for Promoting the +Improvement of Inland Navigation in 1791, the Western Inland Lock +Navigation Company in 1792, and the Lehigh Coal Mine Company in +1793. A brief review of these various enterprises will give a +clear if not a complete view of the first era of inland water +commerce in America. + +The Potomac Company, authorized in 1785 by the legislatures of +Maryland and Virginia, received an appropriation of $6666 from +each State for opening a road from the headwaters of the Potomac +to either the Cheat or the Monongahela, "as commissioners... +shall find most convenient and beneficial to the Western +settlers." This was the only public aid which the enterprise +received; and the stipulated purpose clearly indicates the fact +that, in the minds of its promoters, the transcontinental +character of the undertaking appeared to be vital. The remainder +of the money required for the work was raised by public +subscription in the principal cities of the two States. In this +way 40,300 pounds was subscribed, Virginia men taking 266 shares +and Maryland men 137 shares. The stock holders elected George +Washington as president of the company, at a salary of thirty +shillings a year, with four directors to aid him, and they chose +as general manager James Rumsey, the boat mechanician. These men +then proceeded to attack the chief impediments in the Potomac-- +the Great Falls above Washington, the Seneca Falls at the mouth +of Seneca Creek, and the Shenandoah Falls at Harper's Ferry. But, +as they had difficulty in obtaining workmen and sufficient liquor +to cheer them in their herculean tasks, they made such slow +progress that subscribers, doubting Washington's optimistic +prophecy that the stock would increase in value twenty per cent, +paid their assessments only after much deliberation or not at +all. Thirty-six years later, though $729,380 had been spent and +lock canals had been opened about the unnavigable stretches of +the Potomac River, a commission appointed to examine the affairs +of the company reported "that the floods and freshets +nevertheless gave the only navigation that was enjoyed." As for +the road between the Potomac and the Cheat or the Monongahela, +the records at hand do not show that the money voted for that +enterprise had been used. + +The Potomac Company nevertheless had accomplished something: it +had acquired an asset of the greatest value--a right of way up +the strategic Potomac Valley; and it had furnished an object +lesson to men in other States who were struggling with a similar +problem. When, as will soon be apparent, New York men undertook +the improvement of the Mohawk waterway there was no pattern of +canal construction for them to follow in America except the +inadequate wooden locks erected along the Potomac. It is +interesting to know that Elkanah Watson, prominent in inland +navigation to the North, went down from New York in order to +study these wooden locks and that New Yorkers adopted them as +models, though they changed the material to brick and finally to +stone. + +Pennsylvania had been foremost among the colonies in canal +building, for it had surveyed as early as 1762 the first lock +canal in America, from near Reading on the Schuylkill to +Middletown on the Susquehanna. Work, however, had to be suspended +when Pontiac's Rebellion threw the inland country into a panic. +But the enterprise of Maryland and Virginia in 1785 in developing +the Potomac aroused the Pennsylvanians to renewed activity. The +Society for Promoting the Improvement of Roads and Inland +Navigation set forth a programme that was as broad as the +Keystone State itself. Their ultimate object was to capture the +trade of the Great Lakes. "If we turn our view," read the +memorial which the Society presented to the Legislature, "to the +immense territories connected with the Ohio and Mississippi +waters, and bordering on the Great Lakes, it will appear... +that our communication with those vast countries (considering +Fort Pitt as the port of entrance upon them) is as easy and may +be rendered as cheap, as to any other port on the Atlantic tide +waters." + +Pennsylvania, lying between Virginia and New York, occupied a +peculiar position. Her Susquehanna Valley stretched +northwest--not +so directly west as did the Potomac on the south and the Mohawk +on the north. This more northerly trend led these early +Pennsylvania promoters to believe that, while they might "only +have a share in the trade of those [the Ohio] waters," they could +absolutely secure for themselves the trade of the Great Lakes, +"taking Presq' Isle [Erie, Pennsylvania] which is within our own +State, as the great mart or place of embarkation." + +The plan which the Society proposed involved the improvement of +water and land routes by way of the Delaware to Lake Ontario and +Lake Otsego, and of eight routes by the Susquehanna drainage, +north, northwest, and west. A bill which passed the Legislature +on April 13, 1791, appropriated money for these improvements. +Work was begun immediately on the Schuylkill-Susquehanna Canal, +but only four miles had been completed by 1794, when the +Lancaster Turnpike directed men's attention to improved highways +as an alternative more likely than canals to provide the desired +facilities for inland transportation. The work on the canal was +renewed, however, in 1821, when the rival Erie Canal was nearing +completion, and was finished in 1827. It became known as the +Union Canal and formed a link in the Pennsylvania canal system, +the development of which will be described in a later chapter. + +In New York State, throughout the period of the Old French and +the Revolutionary wars, barges and keel boats had plied the +Mohawk, Wood Creek, and the Oswego to Lake Ontario. Around such +obstructions as Cohoes Falls, Little Falls, and the portage at +Rome to Wood Creek, wagons, sleds, and pack-horses had +transferred the cargoes. To avoid this labor and delay men soon +conceived of conquering these obstacles by locks and canals. As +early as 1777 the brilliant Gouverneur Morris had a vision of the +economic development of his State when "the waters of the great +western inland seas would, by the aid of man, break through their +barriers and mingle with those of the Hudson." + +Elkanah Watson was in many ways the Washington of New York. He +had the foresight, patience, and persistence of the Virginia +planter. His "Journal" of a tour up the Mohawk in 1788 and a +pamphlet which he published in 1791 may be said to be the +ultimate sources in any history of the internal commerce of New +York. As a result, a company known as "The President, Directors, +and Company of the Western Inland Lock Navigation in the State of +New York," with a capital stock of $25,000, was authorized by act +of legislature in March, 1792, and the State subscribed for +$12,500 in stock. Many singular provisions were inserted in this +charter, but none more remarkable than one which stipulated that +all profits over fifteen per cent should revert to the State +Treasury. This hint concerning surplus profits, however, did not +cause a stampede when the books were opened for subscriptions in +New York and Albany. In later years, when the Erie Canal gave +promise of a new era in American inland commerce, Elkanah Watson +recalled with a grim satisfaction the efforts of these early +days. The subscription books at the old Coffee House in New York, +he tells us, lay open three days without an entry, and at Lewis's +tavern in Albany, where the books were opened for a similar +period, "no mortal" had subscribed for more than two shares. + +The system proposed for the improvement of the waterways of New +York was similar to that projected for the Potomac. A canal was +to be cut from the Mohawk to the Hudson in order to avoid Cohoes +Falls; a canal with locks would overcome the forty-foot drop at +Little Falls; another canal over five thousand feet in length was +to connect the Mohawk and Wood Creek at Rome; minor improvements +were to be made between Schenectady and the mouth of the +Schoharie; and finally the Oswego Falls at Rochester were to be +circumvented also by canal. All the objections, difficulties, and +discouragements which had attended efforts to improve waterways +elsewhere in America confronted these New York promoters. They +began in 1793 at Little Falls but were soon forced to cease owing +to the failure of funds. Under the encouraging spur of a state +subscription to two hundred shares of stock, they renewed their +efforts in 1794 but were again forced to abandon the work before +the year had passed. By November, 1795, however, they had +completed the canal and in thirty days had received toll to the +amount of about four hundred dollars. + +The total actual work done is not clearly shown by the documents, +but it is evident that the measure of success achieved was not +equaled elsewhere on similar improvements on a large scale. From +1796 to 1804 the tolls received at Rome amounted to over fifteen +thousand dollars, and at Little Falls to over fifty-eight +thousand dollars--a sum which exceeded the original cost of +construction. Dividends had crept up from three per cent in 1798 +to five and a half per cent in 1817, the year in which work was +begun on the Erie Canal. + +No struggle for the mastery of an American river matches in +certain respects the effort of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation +Company to bridle the Lehigh and make it play its part in the +commercial development of Pennsylvania. The failures and trials +of the promoters of this company were no less remarkable than +was the great success that eventually crowned the effort. In 1793 +the Lehigh Coal Mine Company was organized and purchased some ten +thousand acres in the Mauch Chunk anthracite region, nine miles +from the Lehigh River. It then appropriated a sum of money to +build a road from the mines to the river in the expectation that +the State would improve the navigation of the waterway, for +which, it has already been noted, an appropriation had been made +in 1791, in accordance with the programme of the Society for +Promoting the Improvement of Roads and Inland Navigation. Nothing +was done, however, to improve the river, and the company, after +various attempts at shipping coal to Philadelphia, gave up the +effort and allowed the property, which was worth millions, to lie +idle. In 1807 the Lehigh Coal Mine Company, in another effort to +get its wares before the public, granted to Rowland and Butland, +a private firm, free right to operate one of its veins of coal; +but this operation also resulted in failure. In 1813 the company +made a third attempt and granted to a private concern a lease of +the entire property on the condition that ten thousand bushels of +coal should be taken to market annually. Difficulties immediately +made themselves apparent. No contractor could be found who would +haul the output to the Lehigh River for less than four dollars a +ton, and the man who accepted those terms lost money. Of five +barges filled at Mauch Chunk three went to pieces on the way to +Philadelphia. Although the contents of the other two sold for +twenty dollars a ton, the proceeds failed to meet expenses, and +the operating company threw up the lease. + +But it happened that White and Hazard, the wire manufacturers who +purchased this Lehigh coal, were greatly pleased with its +quality. Believing that coal could be obtained more cheaply from +Mauch Chunk than from the mines along the Schuylkill, White, +Hauto, and Hazard formed a company, entered into negotiation with +the owners of the Lehigh mines, and obtained the lease of their +properties for a period of twenty years at an annual rental of +one ear of corn. The company agreed, moreover, to ship every year +at least forty thousand bushels of coal to Philadelphia for its +own consumption, to prove the value of the property. + +White and his partners immediately applied to the Legislature for +permission to improve the navigation of the Lehigh, stating the +purpose of the improvement and citing the fact that their efforts +would tend to serve as a model for the improvement of other +Pennsylvania streams. The desired opportunity "to ruin +themselves," as one member of the Legislature put it, was granted +by an act passed March 20, 1818. The various powers applied for, +and granted, embraced the whole range of tried and untried +methods for securing "a navigation downward once in three days +for boats loaded with one hundred barrels, or ten tons." The +State kept its weather eye open in this matter, however, for a +small minority felt that these men would not ruin themselves. +Accordingly, the act of grant reserved to the commonwealth the +right to compel the adoption of a complete system of slack-water +navigation from Easton to Stoddartsville if the service given by +the company did not meet "the wants of the country." + +Capital was subscribed by a patriotic public on condition that a +committee of stockholders should go over the ground and pass +judgment on the probable success of the effort. The report was +favorable, so far as the improvement of the river was concerned; +but the nine-mile road to the mines was unanimously voted +impracticable. "To give you an idea of the country over which the +road is to pass," wrote one of the commissioners, "I need only +tell you that I considered it quite an easement when the wheel of +my carriage struck a stump instead of a stone." The public mind +was divided. Some held that the attempt to operate the coal mine +was farcical, but that the improvement of the Lehigh River was an +undertaking of great value and of probable profit to investors. +Others were just as positive that the river improvement would +follow the fate of so many similar enterprises but that a fortune +was in store for those who invested in the Lehigh mines. + +The direct result of the examiners' report and of the public +debate it provoked was the organization of the first interlocking +companies in the commercial history of America. The Lehigh +Navigation Company was formed with a capital stock of $150,000 +and the Lehigh Coal Company with a capital stock of $55,000. This +incident forms one of the most striking illustrations in American +history of the dependence of a commercial venture upon methods of +inland transportation. The Lehigh Navigation Company proceeded to +build its dams and walls while the Lehigh Coal Company +constructed the first roadway in America built on the principle-- +later adopted by the railway--of dividing the total distance by +the total descent in order to determine the grade. Not to be +outdone in point of ingenuity, the Lehigh Navigation Company, +then suffering from an unprecedented dearth of water, adopted +White's invention of sluice gates connecting with pools which +could be filled with reserve water to be drawn upon as navigation +required. By 1819 the necessary depth of water between Mauch +Chunk and Easton was obtained. The two companies were immediately +amalgamated under the title of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation +Company and by 1823 had sent over two thousand tons of coal to +market. + +As most of the efforts to improve the rivers, however, met with +indifferent success and many failures were recorded, the pendulum +of public confidence in this aid to inland commerce swung away, +and highway improvement by means of stone roads and toll road +companies came into favor in the interval between the nation's +two eras of river improvement and canal building. + + + +CHAPTER IV. A Nation On Wheels + +In early days the Indian had not only followed the watercourses +in his canoe but had made his way on foot over trails through the +woods and over the mountains. In colonial days, Englishman and +Frenchman followed the footsteps of the Indian, and as settlement +increased and trade developed, the forest path widened into the +highway for wheeled vehicles. Massachusetts began the work of +road making in 1639 by passing an act which decreed that "the +ways" should be six to ten rods wide "in common grounds," thus +allowing sufficient room for more than one track. Similar broad +"ways" were authorized in New York and Pennsylvania in 1664; +stumps and shrubs were to be cut close to the ground, and +"sufficient bridges" were to be built over streams and marshy +places. Virginia passed legislation for highways at an early +date, but it was not until 1669 that strict laws were enacted +with a view to keeping the roads in a permanently good condition. +Under these laws surveyors were appointed to establish in each +county roads forty feet wide to the church and to the courthouse. +In 1700, Pennsylvania turned her local roads over to the county +justices, put the King's highway and the main public roads under +the care of the governor and his council, and ordered each county +to erect bridges over its streams. + +The word "roadmaking" was capable of several interpretations. In +general, it meant outlining the course for the new thoroughfare, +clearing away fallen timber, blazing or notching the trees so +that the traveler might not miss the track, and building bridges +or laying logs "over all the marshy, swampy, and difficult dirty +places." + +The streams proved serious obstacles to early traffic. It has +been shown already that the earliest routes of animal or man +sought the watersheds; the trails therefore usually encountered +one stream near its junction with another. At first, of course, +fording was the common method of crossing water, and the most +advantageous fording places were generally found near the mouths +of tributary streams, where bars and islands are frequently +formed and where the water is consequently shallow. When ferries +began to be used, they were usually situated just above or below +the fords; but when the bridge succeeded the ferry, the primitive +bridge builder went back to the old fording place in order to +take advantage of the shallower water, bars, and islands. With +the advent of improved engineering, the character of river banks +and currents was more frequently taken into consideration in +choosing a site for a bridge than was the case in the olden +times, but despite this fact the bridges of today, generally +speaking, span the rivers where the deer or the buffalo splashed +his way across centuries ago. + +On the broader streams, where fording was impossible and traffic +was perforce carried by ferry, the canoe and the keel boat of the +earliest days gave way in time to the ordinary "flat" or barge. +At first the obligation of the ferryman to the public, though +recognized by English law, was ignored in America by legislators +and monopolists alike. Men obtained the land on both sides of the +rivers at the crossing places and served the public only at their +own convenience and at their own charges. In many cases, to +encourage the opening of roads or of ferries, national and state +authorities made grants of land on the same principle followed in +later days in the case of Western railroads. Such, for instance, +was the grant to Ebenezer Zane, at Zanesville, Lancaster, and +Chillicothe in the Northwest Territory. These monopolies +sometimes were extremely profitable: a descendant of the owners +of the famous Ingles ferry across New River, on the Wilderness +Road to Kentucky, is responsible for the statement that in the +heyday of travel to the Southwest the privilege was worth from +$10,000 to $15,000 annually to the family. But as local +governments became more efficient, monopolies were abolished and +the collection of tolls was taken over by the authorities. The +awakening of inland trade is most clearly indicated everywhere by +the action of assemblies regarding the operation of ferries, and +in general, by the beginning of the eighteenth century, tolls and +ferries were being regulated by law. + +But neither roads nor ferries were of themselves sufficient to +put a nation on wheels. The early polite society of the settled +neighborhoods traveled in horse litters, in sedan chairs, or on +horseback, the women seated on pillions or cushions behind the +saddle riders, while oxcarts and horse barrows brought to town +the produce of the outlying farms. Although carts and rude wagons +could be built entirely of wood, there could be no marked advance +in transportation until the development of mining in certain +localities reduced the price of iron. With the increase of travel +and trade, the old world coach and chaise and wain came into use, +and iron for tire and brace became an imperative necessity. The +connection between the production of iron and the care of +highways was recognized by legislation as early as 1732, when +Maryland excused men and slaves in the ironworks from labor on +the public roads, though by the middle of the century owners of +ironworks were obliged to detail one man out of every ten in +their employ for such work. + +While the coastwise trade between the colonies was still +preeminently important as a means of transporting commodities, by +the beginning of the eighteenth century the land routes from New +York to New England, from New York across New Jersey to +Philadelphia, and those radiating from Philadelphia in every +direction, were coming into general use. The date of the opening +of regular freight traffic between New York and Philadelphia is +set by the reply of the Governor of New Jersey in 1707 to a +protest against monopolies granted on one of the old widened +Indian trails between Burlington and Amboy. "At present," he +says, "everybody is sure, ONCE A FORTNIGHT, to have an +opportunity of sending any quantity of goods, great or small, at +reasonable rates, without being in danger of imposition; and the +sending of this wagon is so far from being a grievance or +monopoly, THAT BY THIS MEANS AND NO OTHER, a trade has been +carried on between Philadelphia, Burlington, Amboy, and New York, +which was never known before." + +The long Philadelphia Road from the Lancaster region into the +Valley of Virginia, by way of Wadkins on the Potomac, was used by +German and Irish traders probably as early as 1700. In 1728 the +people of Maryland were petitioning for a road from the ford of +the Monocacy to the home of Nathan Wickham. Four years later Jost +Heydt, leading an immigrant party southward, broke open a road +from the York Barrens toward the Potomac two miles above Harper's +Ferry. This avenue by way of the Berkeley, Staunton, Watauga, and +Greenbrier regions to Tennessee and Kentucky--was the longest and +most important in America during the Revolutionary period. The +Virginia Assembly in 1779 appointed commissioners to view this +route and to report on the advisability of making it a wagon road +all the way to Kentucky. In 1795, efforts were made in Kentucky +to turn the Wilderness Trail into a wagon road, and in this same +year the Kentucky Legislature passed an act making the route from +Crab Orchard to Cumberland Gap a wagon road thirty feet in width. + +>From Pennsylvania and from Virginia commerce westward bound +followed in the main the army roads hewn out by Braddock and +Forbes in their campaigns against Fort Duquesne. In 1755, +Braddock, marching from Alexandria by way of Fort Cumberland, had +opened a passage for his artillery and wagons to Laurel Hill, +near Uniontown, Pennsylvania. His force included a corps of +seamen equipped with block and tackle to raise and lower his +wagons in the steep inclines of the Alleghanies. Three years +later, Forbes, in his careful, dogged campaign, followed a more +northerly route. Advancing from Philadelphia and Carlisle, he +established Fort Bedford and Fort Ligonier as bases of supply and +broke a new road through the interminable forest which clothed +the rugged mountain ranges. From the first there was bitter +rivalry between these two routes, and the young Colonel +Washington was roundly criticized by both Forbes and Bouquet, his +second in command, for his partisan effort to "drive me down," as +Forbes phrased it, into the Virginia or Braddock's Road. This +rivalry between the two routes continued when the destruction of +the French power over the roads in the interior threw open to +Pennsylvania and her southern neighbors alike the lucrative +trade of the Ohio country. + +>From the journals of the time may be caught faint glimpses of +the +toils and dangers of travel through these wild hill regions. Let +the traveler of today, as he follows the track that once was +Braddock's Road, picture the scene of that earlier time when, in +the face of every natural obstacle, the army toiled across the +mountain chains. Where the earth in yonder ravine is whipped to a +black froth, the engineers have thrown down the timber cut in +widening the trail and have constructed a corduroy bridge, or +rather a loose raft on a sea of muck. The wreck of the last wagon +which tried to pass gives some additional safety to the next. +Already the stench from the horse killed in the accident deadens +the heavy, heated air of the forest. The sailors, stripped to the +waist, are ready with ropes and tackle to let the next wagon down +the incline; the pulleys creak, the ropes groan. The horses, weak +and terror-stricken, plunge and rear; in the final crash to the +level the leg of the wheel horse is caught and broken; one of the +soldiers shoots the animal; the traces are unbuckled; another +beast is substituted. Beyond, the seamen are waiting with tackle +attached to trees on the ridge above to assist the horses on the +cruel upgrade--and Braddock, the deceived, maligned, +misrepresented, and misjudged, creeps onward in his brave +conquest of the Alleghanies in a campaign that, in spite of its +military failure, deserves honorable mention among the +achievements of British arms. + +Everywhere, north and south, the early American road was a +veritable Slough of Despond. Watery pits were to be encountered +wherein horses were drowned and loads sank from sight. Frequently +traffic was stopped for hours by wagons which had broken down and +blocked the way. Thirteen wagons at one time were stalled on +Logan's Hill on the York Road. Frightful accidents occurred in +attempting to draw out loads. Jonathan Tyson, for instance, in +1792, near Philadelphia saw a horse's lower jaw torn off by the +slipping of a chain. + +Save in the winter, when in the northern colonies snow filled the +ruts and frost built solid bridges over the streams, travel on +these early roads was never safe, rapid, nor comfortable. The +comparative ease of winter travel for the carriage of heavy +freight and for purposes of trade and social intercourse gave +the colder regions an advantage over the southern that was an +important factor in the development of the country. + +No genuine improvement of roads and highways seems to have been +attempted until the era heralded by Washington's letter to +Harrison in 1784. But the problem slowly forced itself upon all +sections of the country, and especially upon Pennsylvania and +Maryland, whose inhabitants began to fear lest New York, +Alexandria, or Richmond should snatch the Western trade from +Philadelphia or Baltimore. The truth that underlies the proverb +that "history repeats itself" is well illustrated by the fact +that the first macadamized road in America was built in +Pennsylvania, for here also originated the pack-horse trade and +the Conestoga horse and wagon; here the first inland American +canal was built, the first roadbed was graded on the principle of +dividing the whole distance by the whole descent, and the first +railway was operated. Macadam and Telford had only begun to show +the people of England how to build roads of crushed stone--an art +first developed by the French engineer Tresaguet--when +Pennsylvanians built the Lancaster Turnpike. The Philadelphia and +Lancaster Turnpike Road Company was chartered April 9, 1792, as a +part of the general plan of the Society for the Improvement of +Roads and Inland Navigation already described. This road, +sixty-two miles in length, was built of stone at a cost of +$465,000 and was completed in two years. Never before had such a +sum been invested in internal improvement in the United States. +The rapidity with which the undertaking was carried through and +the profits which accrued from the investment were alike +astonishing. The subscription books were opened at eleven o'clock +one morning and by midnight 2226 shares had been subscribed, each +purchaser paying down thirty dollars. At the same time Elkanah +Watson was despondently scanning the subscription books of his +Mohawk River enterprise at Albany where "no mortal" had risked +more than two shares. + +The success of the Lancaster Turnpike was not achieved without a +protest against the monopoly which the new venture created. It is +true that in all the colonies the exercise of the right of +eminent domain had been conceded in a veiled way to officials to +whose care the laying out of roads had been delegated. As early +as 1639 the General Court of Massachusetts had ordered each town +to choose men who, cooperating with men from the adjoining town, +should "lay out highways where they may be most convenient, +notwithstanding any man's property, or any corne ground, so as it +occasion not the pulling down of any man's house, or laying open +any garden or orchard." But the open and extended exercise of +these rights led to vigorous opposition in the case of this +Pennsylvania road. A public meeting was held at the Prince of +Wales Tavern in Philadelphia in 1793 to protest in round terms +against the monopolistic character of the Lancaster Turnpike. +Blackstone and Edward III were hurled at the heads of the "venal" +legislators who had made this "monstrosity" possible. The +opposition died down, however, in the face of the success which +the new road instantly achieved. The Turnpike was, indeed, +admirably situated. Converging at the quaint old "borough of +Lancaster," the various routes--northeast from Virginia, east +from the Carlisle and Chambersburg region and the Alleghanies, +and southeast from the upper Susquehanna country--poured upon the +Quaker City a trade that profited every merchant, landholder, and +laborer. The nine tollgates, on the average a little less than +seven miles apart, turned in a revenue that allowed the +"President and Managers" to declare dividends to stockholders +running, it is said, as high as fifteen per cent. + +The Lancaster Turnpike is interesting from three points of view: +it began a new period of American transportation; it ushered in +an era of speculation unheard of in the previous history of the +country; and it introduced American lawmakers to the great +problem of controlling public corporations. + +Along this thirty-seven-foot road, of which twenty-four feet were +laid with stone, the new era of American inland travel +progressed. The array of two-wheeled private equipages and other +family carriages, the stagecoaches of bright color, and the +carts, Dutch wagons, and Conestogas, gave token of what was soon +to be witnessed on the great roads of a dozen States in the next +generation. Here, probably, the first distinction began to be +drawn between the taverns for passengers and those patronized by +the drivers of freight. The colonial taverns, comparatively few +and far between, had up to this time served the traveling public, +high and low, rich and poor, alike. But in this new era members +of Congress and the elite of Philadelphia and neighboring towns +were not to be jostled at the table by burly hostlers, drivers, +wagoners, and hucksters. Two types of inns thus came quickly into +existence: the tavern entertained the stagecoach traffic, while +the democratic roadhouse served the established lines of +Conestogas, freighters, and all other vehicles which poured from +every town, village, and hamlet upon the great thoroughfare +leading to the metropolis on the Delaware. + +Among American inventions the Conestoga wagon must forever be +remembered with respect. Originating in the Lancaster region of +Pennsylvania and taking its name either from the horses of the +Conestoga Valley or from the valley itself, this vehicle was +unlike the old English wain or the Dutch wagon because of the +curve of its bed. This peculiarly shaped bottom, higher by twelve +inches or more at each end than in the middle, made the vehicle a +safer conveyance across the mountains and over all rough country +than the old straight-bed wagon. The Conestoga was covered with +canvas, as were other freight vehicles, but the lines of the bed +were also carried out in the framework above and gave the whole +the effect of a great ship swaying up and down the billowy hills. +The wheels of the Conestoga were heavily built and wore tires +four and six inches in width. The harness of the six horses +attached to the wagon was proportionately heavy, the back bands +being fifteen inches wide, the hip straps ten, and the traces +consisting of ponderous iron chains. The color of the original +Conestoga wagons never varied: the underbody was always blue and +the upper parts were red. The wagoners and drivers who manned +this fleet on wheels were men of a type that finds no parallel +except in the boatmen on the western rivers who were almost their +contemporaries. Fit for the severest toil, weathered to the color +of the red man, at home under any roof that harbored a demijohn +and a fiddle, these hardy nomads of early commerce were the +custodians of the largest amount of traffic in their day. + +The turnpike era overlaps the period of the building of national +roads and canals and the beginning of the railway age, but it is +of greatest interest during the first twenty-five years of the +nineteenth century, up to the time when the completion of the +Erie Canal set new standards. During this period roads were also +constructed westward from Baltimore and Albany to connect, as the +Lancaster Turnpike did at its terminus, with the thoroughfares +from the trans-Alleghany country. The metropolis of Maryland was +quickly in the field to challenge the bid which the Quaker City +made for western trade. The Baltimore-Reisterstown and +Baltimore-Frederick turnpikes were built at a cost of $10,000 and +$8,000 a mile respectively; and the latter, connecting with roads +to Cumberland, linked itself with the great national road to Ohio +which the Government built between 1811 and 1817. These famous +stone roads of Maryland long kept Baltimore in the lead as the +principal outlet for the western trade. New York, too, proved her +right to the title of Empire State by a marvelous activity in +improving her magnificent strategic position. In the first seven +years of the nineteenth century eighty-eight incorporated road +companies were formed with a total capital of over $8,000,000. +Twenty large bridges and more than three thousand miles of +turnpike were constructed. The movement, indeed, extended from +New England to Virginia and the Carolinas, and turnpike companies +built all kinds of roads--earth, corduroy, plank, and stone. + +In many cases the kind of road to be constructed, the tolls to be +charged, and the amount of profit to be permitted, were laid down +in the charters. Thus new problems confronted the various +legislatures, and interesting principles of regulation were now +established. In most cases companies were allowed, on producing +their books of receipts and expenditures, to increase their tolls +until they obtained a profit of six per cent on the investment, +though in a number of cases nine per cent was permitted. When +revenues increased beyond the six per cent mark, however, the +tendency was to reduce tolls or to use the extra profit to +purchase the stock for the State, with the expectation of +ultimately abolishing tollgates entirely. The theories of state +regulation of corporations and the obligations of public +carriers, extending even to the compensation of workmen in case +of accident, were developed to a considerable degree in this +turnpike era; but, on the other hand, the principle of permitting +fair profit to corporations upon public examination of their +accounts was also recognized. + +The stone roads, which were passable at all seasons, brought a +new era in correspondence and business. Lines of stages and +wagons, as well known at that time as are the great railways of +today, plied the new thoroughfares, provided some of the comforts +of travel, and assured the safer and more rapid delivery of +goods. This period is sometimes known in American history as "The +Era of Good Feeling" and the turnpike contributed in no small +degree to make the phrase applicable not only to the domain of +politics but to all the relations of social and commercial life. + +While road building in the East gives a clear picture of the rise +and growth of commerce and trade in that section, it is to the +rivers of the trans-Alleghany country that we must look for a +corresponding picture in this early period. The canoe and pirogue +could handle the packs and kegs brought westward by the files of +Indian ponies; but the heavy loads of the Conestoga wagons +demanded stancher craft. The flatboat and barge therefore served +the West and its commerce as the Conestoga and turnpike served +the East. + + + +CHAPTER V. The Flatboat Age + +In the early twenties of the last century one of the popular +songs of the day was "The Hunters of Kentucky." Written by Samuel +Woodworth, the author of "The Old Oaken Bucket," it had +originally been printed in the New York Mirror but had come into +the hands of an actor named Ludlow, who was playing in the old +French theater in New Orleans. The poem chants the praises of the +Kentucky riflemen who fought with Jackson at New Orleans and +indubitably proved + +That every man was half a horse +And half an alligator. + +Ludlow knew his audience and he saw his chance. Setting the words +to Risk's tune, "Love Laughs" at Locksmiths, donning the costume +of a Western riverman, and arming himself with a long "squirrel" +rifle, he presented himself before the house. The rivermen who +filled the pit received him, it is related, with "a prolonged +whoop, or howl, such as Indians give when they are especially +pleased." And to these sturdy men the words of his song made a +strong appeal: + +We are a hardy, freeborn race, + Each man to fear a stranger; +Whate'er the game, we join in chase, + Despising toil and danger; +And if a daring foe annoys, + No matter what his force is, +We'll show him that Kentucky boys + Are Alligator-horses. + +The title "alligator-horse," of which Western rivermen were very +proud, carried with it a suggestion of amphibious strength that +made it both apt and figuratively accurate. On all the American +rivers, east and west, a lusty crew, collected from the waning +Indian trade and the disbanded pioneer armies, found work to its +taste in poling the long keel boats, "corralling" the bulky +barges--that is, towing them by pulling on a line attached to the +shore--or steering the "broadhorns" or flatboats that transported +the first heavy inland river cargoes. Like longshoremen of all +ages, the American riverman was as rough as the work which +calloused his hands and transformed his muscles into bands of +tempered steel. Like all men given to hard but intermittent +labor, he employed his intervals of leisure in coarse and brutal +recreation. Their roistering exploits, indeed, have made these +rivermen almost better known at play than at work. One of them, +the notorious Mike Fink, known as "the Snag" on the Mississippi +and as the "Snapping Turtle" on the Ohio, has left the record, +not that he could load a keel boat in a certain length of time, +or lift a barrel of whiskey with one arm, or that no tumultuous +current had ever compelled him to back water, but that he could +"out-run, out-hop, out-jump, throw down, drag out, and lick any +man in the country," and that he was "a Salt River roarer." + +Such men and the craft they handled were known on the Atlantic +rivers, but it was on the Mississippi and its branches, +especially the Ohio, that they played their most important part +in the history of American inland commerce. Before the beginning +of the nineteenth century wagons and Conestogas were bringing +great loads of merchandise to such points on the headwaters as +Brownsville, Pittsburgh, and Wheeling. As early as 1782, we are +told, Jacob Yoder, a Pennsylvania German, set sail from the +Monongahela country with the first flatboat to descend the Ohio +and Mississippi. As the years passed, the number of such craft +grew constantly larger. The custom of fixing the widespreading +horns of cattle on the prow gave these boats the alternative name +of "broadhorns," but no accurate classification can be made of +the various kinds of craft engaged in this vast traffic. +Everything that would float, from rough rafts to finished barges, +was commandeered into service, and what was found unsuitable for +the strenuous purposes of commercial transportation was palmed +off whenever possible on unsuspecting emigrants en route to the +lands of promise beyond. + +Flour, salt, iron, cider and peach brandy were staple products of +the Ohio country which the South desired. In return they shipped +molasses, sugar, coffee, lead, and hides upon the few keel boats +which crept upstream or the blundering barges which were +propelled northward by means of oar, sail, and cordelle. It was +not, however, until the nineteenth century that the young West +was producing any considerable quantity of manufactured goods. +Though the town of Pittsburgh had been laid out in 1764, by the +end of the Revolution it was still little more than a collection +of huts about a fort. A notable amount of local trade was carried +on, but the expense of transportation was very high even after +wagons began crossing the Alleghanies. For example, the cost from +Philadelphia and Baltimore was given by Arthur Lee, a member of +Congress, in 1784 as forty-five shillings a hundredweight, and a +few months later it is quoted at sixpence a pound when Johann D. +Schoph crossed the mountains in a chaise--a feat "which till now +had been considered quite impossible." Opinions differed widely +as to the future of the little town of five hundred inhabitants. +The important product of the region at first was Monongahela +flour which long held a high place in the New Orleans market. +Coal was being mined as early as 1796 and was worth locally +threepence halfpenny a bushel, though within seven years it was +being sold at Philadelphia at thirty-seven and a half cents a +bushel. The fur trade with the Illinois country grew less +important as the century came to its close, but Maynard and +Morrison, cooperating with Guy Bryan at Philadelphia, sent a +barge laden with merchandise to Illinois annually between 1790 +and 1796, which returned each season with a cargo of skins and +furs. Pittsburgh was thus a distributing center of some +importance; but the fact that no drayman or warehouse was to be +found in the town at this time is a significant commentary on the +undeveloped state of its commerce and manufacture. + +After Wayne's victory at the battle of the Fallen Timber in 1794 +and the signing of the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, which ended +the earlier Indian wars of the Old Northwest and opened for +settlement the country beyond the Ohio, a great migration +followed into Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, and the commercial +activity of Pittsburgh rapidly increased. By 1800 a score of +profitable industries had arisen, and by 1803 the first bar-iron +foundry was, to quote the advertisement of its owner, +"sufficiently upheld by the hand of the Almighty" to supply in +part the demand for iron and castings. Glass factories were +established, and ropewalks, sail lofts, boatyards, anchor +smithies, and brickyards, were soon ready to supply the rapidly +increasing demands of the infant cities and the countryside on +the lower Ohio. When the new century arrived the Pittsburgh +district had a population of upwards of two thousand. + +One by one the other important centers of trade in the great +valley beyond began to show evidences of life. Marietta, Ohio, +founded in 1788 by Revolutionary officers from New England, +became the metropolis of the rich Muskingum River district, which +was presently sending many flatboats southward. Cincinnati was +founded in the same year as Marietta, with the building of Fort +Washington and the formal organization of Hamilton County. The +soil of the Miami country was as "mellow as an ash heap" and in +the first four months of 1802 over four thousand barrels of flour +were shipped southward to challenge the prestige of the +Monongahela product. Potters, brickmakers, gunsmiths, cotton and +wool weavers, coopers, turners, wheelwrights, dyers, printers, +and ropemakers were at work here within the next decade. A +brewery turned out five thousand barrels of beer and porter in +1811, and by the next year the pork-packing business was +thoroughly established. + +Louisville, the "Little Falls" of the West, was the entrepot of +the Blue Grass region. It had been a place of some importance +since Revolutionary days, for in seasons of low water the rapids +in the Ohio at this point gave employment to scores of laborers +who assisted the flatboatmen in hauling their cargoes around the +obstruction which prevented the passage of the heavily loaded +barges. The town, which was incorporated in 1780, soon showed +signs of commercial activity. It was the proud possessor of a +drygoods house in 1783. The growth of its tobacco industry was +rapid from the first. The warehouses were under government +supervision and inspection as early as 1795, and innumerable +flatboats were already bearing cargoes of bright leaf southward +in the last decade of the century. The first brick house in +Louisville was erected in 1789 with materials brought from +Pittsburgh. Yankees soon established the "Hope Distillery"; and +the manufacture of whiskey, which had long been a staple industry +conducted by individuals, became an incorporated business of +great promise in spite of objections raised against the "creation +of gigantic reservoirs of this damning drink." + +Thus, about the year 1800, the great industries of the young West +were all established in the regions dominated by the growing +cities of Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Louisville. But, since the +combined population of these centers could not have been over +three thousand in the year 1800, it is evident that the adjacent +rural population and the people living in every neighboring creek +and river valley were chiefly responsible for the large trade +that already existed between this corner of the Mississippi basin +and the South. + +In this trade the riverman was the fundamental factor. Only by +means of his brawn and his genius for navigation could these +innumerable tons of flour, tobacco, and bacon have been kept from +rotting on the shores. Yet the man himself remains a legend +grotesque and mysterious, one of the shadowy figures of a time +when history was being made too rapidly to be written. If we ask +how he loaded his flatboat or barge, we are told that "one squint +of his eye would blister a bull's heel." When we inquire how he +found the channel amid the shifting bars and floating islands of +that tortuous two-thousand-mile journey to New Orleans, we are +informed that he was "the very infant that turned from his +mother's breast and called out for a bottle of old rye." When we +ask how he overcame the natural difficulties of trade--lack of +commission houses, varying standards of money, want of systems of +credit and low prices due to the glutting of the market when +hundreds of flatboats arrived in the South simultaneously on the +same freshet--we are informed that "Billy Earthquake is the +geniwine, double-acting engine, and can out-run, out-swim, chaw +more tobacco and spit less, drink more whiskey and keep soberer +than any other man in these localities." + +The reason for this lack of information is that our descriptions +of flatboating and keel boating are written by travelers who, as +is always the case, are interested in what is unusual, not in +what is typical and commonplace. It is therefore only dimly, as +through a mist, that we can see the two lines of polemen pass +from the prow to the stern on the narrow running-board of a keel +boat, lifting and setting their poles to the cry of steersman or +captain. The struggle in a swift "rife" or rapid is momentous. If +the craft swerves, all is lost. Shoulders bend with savage +strength; poles quiver under the tension; the captain's voice is +raucous, and every other word is an oath; a pole breaks, and the +next man, though half-dazed in the mortal crisis, does for a few +moments the work of two. At last they reach the head of the +rapid, and the boat floats out on the placid pool above, while +the "alligator-horse" who had the mishap remarks to the scenery +at large that he'd be "fly-blowed before sun-down to a certingty" +if that were not the very pole with which he "pushed the +broadhorn up Salt River where the snags were so thick that a fish +couldn't swim without rubbing his scales off." Audubon, the +naturalist-merchant of the Mississippi, has left us a clear +picture of the process by which these heavy tubs, loaded with +forty or fifty tons of freight, were forced upstream against a +swift current: + +"Wherever a point projected so as to render the course or bend +below it of some magnitude, there was an eddy, the returning +current of which was sometimes as strong as that of the middle of +the great stream. The bargemen, therefore, rowed up pretty close +under the bank and had merely to keep watch in the bow lest the +boat should run against a planter or sawyer. But the boat has +reached the point, and there the current is to all appearance of +double strength and right against it. The men, who have rested a +few minutes, are ordered to take their stations and lay hold of +their oars, for the river must be crossed, it being seldom +possible to double such a point and proceed along the same shore. +The boat is crossing, its head slanting to the current, which is, +however, too strong for the rowers, and when the other side of +the river has been reached, it has drifted perhaps a quarter of a +mile. The men are by this time exhausted and, as we shall suppose +it to be 12 o'clock, fasten the boat to a tree on the shore. A +small glass of whiskey is given to each, when they cook and eat +their dinner and, after resting from their fatigue for an hour, +recommence their labors. The boat is again seen slowly advancing +against the stream. It has reached the lower end of a sandbar, +along the edge of which it is propelled by means of long poles, +if the bottom be hard. Two men, called bowsmen, remain at the +prow to assist, in concert with the steersman, in managing the +boat and keeping its head right against the current. The rest +place themselves on the land side of the footway of the vessel, +put one end of their poles on the ground and the other against +their shoulders and push with all their might. As each of the men +reaches the stern, he crosses to the other side, runs along it +and comes again to the landward side of the bow, when he +recommences operations. The barge in the meantime is ascending at +a rate not exceeding one mile in the hour." + +Trustworthy statistics as to the amount and character of the +Western river trade have never been gathered. They are to be +found, if anywhere, in the reports of the collectors of customs +located at the various Western ports of entry and departure. +Nothing indicates more definitely the hour when the West awoke +to its first era of big business than the demand for the creation +of "districts" and their respective ports, for by no other means +could merchandise and produce be shipped legally to Spanish +territory beyond or down the Mississippi or to English territory +on the northern shores of the Great Lakes. + +Louisville is as old a port of the United States as New York or +Philadelphia, having been so created when our government was +established in 1789, but oddly enough the first returns to the +National Treasury (1798) are credited to the port of Palmyra, +Tennessee, far inland on the Cumberland River. In 1799 the +following Western towns were made ports of entry: Erie, Sandusky, +Detroit, Mackinaw Island, and Columbia (Cincinnati). The first +port on the Ohio to make returns was Fort Massac, Illinois, and +it is from the collector at this point that we get our first hint +as to the character and volume of Western river traffic. In the +spring months of March, April, and May, 1800, cargoes to the +value of 28,581 pounds, Pennsylvania currency, went down the +Ohio. This included 22,714 barrels of flour, 1017 barrels of +whiskey, 12,500 pounds of pork, 18,710 pounds of bacon, 75,814 +pounds of cordage, 3650 yards of country linen, 700 bottles, and +700 barrels of potatoes. In the three autumn months of 1800, for +instance, twenty-one boats ascended the Ohio by Fort Massac, with +cargoes amounting to 36 hundredweight of lead and a few hides. +Descending the river at the same time, flatboats and barges +carried 245 hundredweight of drygoods valued at $32,550. When we +compare these spring and fall records of commerce downstream we +reach the natural conclusion that the bulk of the drygoods which +went down in the fall of the year had been brought over the +mountains during the summer. The fact that the Alleghany +pack-horses and Conestogas were transporting freight to supply +the Spanish towns on the Mississippi River in the first year of +the nineteenth century seems proved beyond a doubt by these +reports from Fort Massac. + +The most interesting phase of this era is the connection between +western trade and the politics of the Mississippi Valley which +led up to the Louisiana Purchase. By the Treaty of San Lorenzo in +1795 Spain made New Orleans an open port, and in the next seven +years the young West made the most of its opportunity. But before +the new century was two years old the difficulties encountered +were found to be serious. The lack of commission merchants, of +methods of credit, of information as to the state of the market, +all combined to handicap trade and to cause loss. Pittsburgh +shippers figured their loss already at $60,000 a year. In +consequence men began to look elsewhere, and an advocate of big +business wrote in 1802: "The country has received a shock; let us +immediately extend our views and direct our efforts to every +foreign market." + +One of the most remarkable plans for the capture of foreign trade +to be found in the annals of American commerce originated almost +simultaneously in the Muskingum and Monongahela regions. With a +view to making the American West independent of the Spanish +middlemen, it was proposed to build ocean-going vessels on the +Ohio that should carry the produce of the interior down the +Mississippi and thence abroad through the open port of New +Orleans. The idea was typically Western in its arrogant +originality and confident self-assertion. Two vessels were built: +the brig St. Clair, of 110 tons, at Marietta, and the Monongahela +Farmer, of 250 tons, at Elizabeth on the Monongahela. The former +reached Cincinnati April 27, 1801; the latter, loaded with 750 +barrels of flour, passed Pittsburgh on the 13th of May. +Eventually, the St. Clair reached Havana and thus proved that +Muskingum Valley black walnut, Ohio hemp, and Marietta +carpenters, anchor smiths, and skippers could defy the grip of +the Spaniard on the Mississippi. Other vessels followed these +adventurers, and shipbuilding immediately became an important +industry at Pittsburgh, Marietta, Cincinnati, and other points. +The Duane of Pittsburgh was said by the Liverpool "Saturday +Advertiser" of July 9, 1803, to have been the "first vessel which +ever came to Europe from the western waters of the United +States." Probably the Louisiana of Marietta went as far afield as +any of the one hundred odd ships built in these years on the +Ohio. The official papers of her voyage in 1805, dated at New +Orleans, Norfolk (Virginia), Liverpool, Messina, and Trieste at +the head of the Adriatic, are preserved today in the Marietta +College Library. + +The growth of the shipbuilding industry necessitated a +readjustment of the districts for the collection of customs. +Columbia (Cincinnati) at first served the region of the upper +Ohio; but in 1803 the district was divided and Marietta was made +the port for the Pittsburgh-Portsmouth section of the river. In +1807 all the western districts were amalgamated, and Pittsburgh, +Charleston (Wellsburg), Marietta, Cincinnati, Louisville, and +Fort Massac were made ports of entry. + +The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 gave a marked impulse to inland +shipbuilding; but the embargo of 1807, which prohibited foreign +trade, following so soon, killed the shipyards, which, for a few +years, had been so busy. The great new industry of the Ohio +Valley was ruined. By this time the successful voyage of Fulton's +steamboat, the Clermont, between New York and Albany, had +demonstrated the possibilities of steam navigation. Not a few men +saw in the novel craft the beginning of a new era in Western +river traffic; but many doubted whether it was possible to +construct a vessel powerful enough to make its way upstream +against such sweeping currents as those of the Mississippi and +the Ohio. Surely no one for a moment dreamed that in hardly more +than a generation the Western rivers would carry a tonnage larger +than that of the cities of the Atlantic seaboard combined and +larger than that of Great Britain! + +As early as 1805, two years before the trip of the Clermont, +Captain Keever built a "steamboat" on the Ohio, and sent her down +to New Orleans where her engine was to be installed. But it was +not until 1811 that the Orleans, the first steamboat to ply the +Western streams, was built at Pittsburgh, from which point she +sailed for New Orleans in October of that year. The Comet and +Vesuvius quickly followed, but all three entered the New +Orleans-Natchez trade on the lower river and were never seen +again at the headwaters. As yet the swift currents and flood +tides of the great river had not been mastered. It is true that +in 1815 the Enterprise had made two trips between New Orleans and +Louisville, but this was in time of high water, when counter +currents and backwaters had assisted her feeble engine. In 1816, +however, Henry Shreve conceived the idea of raising the engine +out of the hold and constructing an additional deck. The +Washington, the first doubledecker, was the result. The next year +this steamboat made the round trip from Louisville to New Orleans +and back in forty-one days. The doubters were now convinced. + +For a little while the quaint and original riverman held on in +the new age, only to disappear entirely when the colored +roustabout became the deckhand of post-bellum days. The riverman +as a type was unknown except on the larger rivers in the earlier +years of water traffic. What an experience it would be today to +rouse one of those remarkable individuals from his dreaming, as +Davy Crockett did, with an oar, and hear him howl "Halloe +stranger, who axed you to crack my lice?"--to tell him in his own +lingo to "shut his mouth or he would get his teeth sunburnt"--to +see him crook his neck and neigh like a stallion--to answer his +challenge in kind with a flapping of arms and a cock's crow--to +go to shore and have a scrimmage such as was never known on a +gridiron--and then to resolve with Crockett, during a period of +recuperation, that you would never "wake up a ringtailed roarer +with an oar again." + +The riverman, his art, his language, his traffic, seem to belong +to days as distant as those of which Homer sang. + + + +CHAPTER VI. The Passing Show Of 1800 + +Foreign travelers who have come to the United States have always +proved of great interest to Americans. From Brissot to Arnold +Bennett while in the country they have been fed and clothed and +transported wheresoever they would go--at the highest prevailing +prices. And after they have left, the records of their sojourn +that these travelers have published have made interesting reading +for Americans all over the land. Some of these trans-Atlantic +visitors have been jaundiced, disgruntled, and contemptuous; +others have shown themselves of an open nature, discreet, +conscientious, and fair-minded. + +One of the most amiable and clear-headed of such foreign guests +was Francis Baily, later in life president of the Royal +Astronomical Society of Great Britain, but at the time of his +American tour a young man of twenty-two. His journey in 1796-97 +gave him a wide experience of stage, flatboat, and pack-horse +travel, and his genial disposition, his observant eye, and his +discriminating criticism, together with his comments on the +commercial features of the towns and regions he visited, make his +record particularly interesting and valuable to the historian.* +Using Baily's journal as a guide, therefore, one can today +journey with him across the country and note the passing show as +he saw it in this transitional period. + +* "Journal of a Tour in Unsettled Parts of North America in 1796 +and 1797" by the late Francis Baily (London, 1856). + + +Landing at Norfolk, Virginia, Baily was immediately introduced to +an American tavern. Like most travelers, he was surprised to find +that American taverns were "boarding-places," frequented by +crowds of "young, able-bodied men who seemed to be as perfectly +at leisure as the loungers of ancient Europe." In those days of +few newspapers, the tavern everywhere in America was the center +of information; in fact, it was a common practice for travelers +in the interior, after signing their names in the register, to +add on the same page any news of local interest which they +brought with them. The tavern habitues, Baily remarks, did not +sit and drink after meals but "wasted" their time at billiards +and cards. The passion for billiards was notorious, and taverns +in the most out-of-the-way places, though they lacked the most +ordinary conveniences, were nevertheless provided with billiard +tables. This custom seems to have been especially true in the +South; and it is significant that the first taxes in Tennessee +levied before the beginning of the nineteenth century were the +poll tax and taxes on billiard tables and studhorses! + +>From Norfolk Baily passed northward to Baltimore, paying a fare +of ten dollars, and from there he went on to Philadelphia, paying +six dollars more. On the way his stagecoach stuck fast in a bog +and the passengers were compelled to leave it until the next +morning. This sixty-mile road out of Baltimore was evidently one +of the worst in the East. Ten years prior to this date, Brissot, +a keen French journalist, mentions the great ruts in its heavy +clay soil, the overturned trees which blocked the way, and the +unexampled skilfulness of the stage drivers. All travelers in +America, though differing on almost every other subject, +invariably praise the ability of these sturdy, weather-beaten +American drivers, their kindness to their horses, and their +attention to their passengers. Harriet Martineau stated that, in +her experience, American drivers as a class were marked by the +merciful temper which accompanies genius, and their perfection in +their art, their fertility of resource, and the gentleness with +which they treated female fears and fretfulness, were exemplary. + +In the City of Brotherly Love Baily notes the geniality of the +people, who by many travelers are called aristocratic, and +comments on Quaker opposition to the theater and the +inconsequence of the Peale Museum, which travelers a generation +later highly praise. Proceeding to New York at a cost of six +dollars, he is struck by the uncouthness of the public buildings, +churches excepted, the widespread passion for music, dancing, and +the theater, the craze for sleighing, and the promise which the +harbor gave of becoming the finest in America. Not a few +travelers in this early period gave expression to their belief in +the future greatness of New York City. These prophecies, taken in +connection with the investment of eight millions of dollars which +New Yorkers made in toll-roads in the first seven years of this +new century, incline one to believe that the influence of the +Erie Canal as a factor in the development of the city may have +been unduly emphasized, great though it was. + +>From New York Baily returned to Baltimore and went on to +Washington. The records of all travelers to the site of the new +national capital give much the same picture of the countryside. +It was a land worn out by tobacco culture and variously described +as "dried up," "run down," and "hung out to dry." Even George +Washington, at Mount Vernon, was giving up tobacco culture and +was attempting new crops by a system of rotation. Cotton was +being grown in Maryland, but little care was given to its culture +and manufacture. Tobacco was graded in Virginia in accordance +with the rigidity of its inspection at Hanover Court House, +Pittsburgh, Richmond, and Cabin-Point: leaf worth sixteen +shillings at Richmond was worth twenty-one at Hanover Court +House; if it was refused at all places, it was smuggled to the +West Indies or consumed in the country. Meadows were rapidly +taking the place of tobacco-fields, for the planters preferred to +clear new land rather than to enrich the old. + +At Washington Baily found that lots to the value of $278,000 had +been sold, although only one-half of the proposed city had been +"cleared." It was to be forty years ere travelers could speak +respectfully of what is now the beautiful city of Washington. In +these earlier days, the streets were mudholes divided by vacant +fields and "beautified by trees, swamps, and cows." + +Departing for the West by way of Frederick, Baily, like all +travelers, was intensely interested upon entering the rich +limestone region which stretched from Pennsylvania far down into +Virginia. It was occupied in part by the Pennsylvania Dutch and +was so famous for its rich milk that it was called by many +travelers the "Bonnyclabber Country." Most Englishmen were +delighted with this region because they found here the good old +English breed of horses, that is, the English hunter developed +into a stout coach-horse. Of native breeds, Baily found animals +of all degrees of strength and size down to hackneys of fourteen +hands, as well as the "vile dog-horses," or packhorses, whose +faithful service to the frontier could in no wise be appreciated +by a foreigner. + +This region of Pennsylvania was as noted for its wagons as for +its horses. It was this wheat-bearing belt that made the common +freight-wagon in its colors of red and blue a national +institution. It was in this region of rich, well-watered land +that the maple tree gained its reputation. Men even prophesied +that its delightful sap would prove a cure for slavery, for, if +one family could make fifteen hundred pounds of maple sugar in a +season, eighty thousand families could, at the same rate, equal +the output of cane sugar each year from Santo Domingo! + +The traveler at the beginning of the century noticed a change in +the temper of the people as well as a change in the soil when the +Bonnyclabber Country was reached. The time-serving attitude of +the good people of the East now gave place to a "consciousness of +independence" due, Baily remarks, to the fact that each man was +self-sufficient and passed his life "without regard to the smiles +and frowns of men in power." This spirit was handsomely +illustrated in the case of one burly Westerner who was "churched" +for fighting. Showing a surly attitude to the deacon-judges who +sat on his case, he was threatened with civil prosecution and +imprisonment. "I don't want freedom," he is said to have replied, +bitterly; "I don't even want to live if I can't knock down a man +who calls me a liar." + +Pushing on westward by way of historic Sideling Hill and Bedford +to Statlers, Baily found here a prosperous millstone quarry, +which sold its stones at from fifteen to thirty dollars a pair. +Twelve years earlier Washington had prophesied that the +Alleghanies would soon be furnishing millstones equal to the best +English burr. As he crossed the mountains Baily found that +taverns charged the following schedule: breakfast, eighteen +pence; dinner and supper from two shillings to two shillings and +sixpence each. Traversing Laurel Hill, he reached Pittsburgh just +at the time when it was awakening to activity as the trading +center of the West. + +In order to descend the Ohio, Baily obtained a flatboat, +thirty-six feet long and twelve feet broad, which drew eighteen +inches of water and was of ten tons burden. On the way +downstream, Charleston and Wheeling were the principal +settlements which Baily first noted. Ebenezer Zane, the founder +of Wheeling, had just opened across Ohio the famous landward +route from the Monongahela country to Kentucky, which it entered +at Limestone, the present Maysville. This famous road, passing +through Zanesville, Lancaster, and Chillicothe, though at that +time safe only for men in parties, was a common route to and from +Kentucky. + +On such inland pathways as this, early travelers came to take for +granted a hospitality not to be found on more frequented +thoroughfares. In this hospitality, roughness and good will, +cleanliness and filth, attempts to ape the style of Eastern towns +and habits of the most primitive kind, were singularly blended. +In one instance, the traveler might be cordially assigned by the +landlord to a good position in "the first rush for a chance at +the head of the table"; at the next stopping place he might be +coldly turned away because the proprietor "had the gout" and his +wife the "delicate blue-devils"; farther on, where "soap was +unknown, nothing clean but birds, nothing industrious but pigs, +and nothing happy but squirrels," Daniel Boone's daughter might +be seen in high-heeled shoes, attended by white servants whose +wages were a dollar a week, skirting muddy roads under a +ten-dollar bonnet and a six-dollar parasol. Or, he might emerge +from a lonely forest in Ohio or Indiana and come suddenly upon a +party of neighbors at a dreary tavern, enjoying a corn shucking +or a harvest home. Immediately dubbed "Doctor," "Squire," or +"Colonel" by the hospitable merrymakers, the passer-by would be +informed that he "should drink and lack no good thing." After he +had retired, as likely as not his quarters would be invaded at +one or two o'clock in the morning by the uproarious company, and +the best refreshment of the house would be forced upon him with a +hilarity "created by omnipotent whiskey." Sometimes, however, the +traveler would encounter pitiful instances of loneliness in the +widespreading forests. One man in passing a certain isolated +cabin was implored by the woman who inhabited it to rest awhile +and talk, since she was, she confessed, completely overwhelmed by +"the lone!" + +Every traveler has remarked upon the yellow pallor of the first +inhabitants of the western forests and doubtless correctly +attributed this sickly appearance to the effects of malaria and +miasma. The psychic influences of the forest wilderness also +weighed heavily upon the spirits of the settlers, although, as +Baily notes, it was the newcomers who felt the depression to an +exaggerated degree. As he says: + +"It is a feeling of confinement, which begins to damp the +spirits, from this complete exclusion of distant objects. To +travel day after day, among trees of a hundred feet high, is +oppressive to a degree which those cannot conceive who have not +experienced it; and it must depress the spirits of the solitary +settler to pass years in this state. His visible horizon extends +no farther than the tops of the trees which bound his plantation- +-perhaps five hundred yards. Upwards he sees the sun, and sky, +and stars, but around him an eternal forest, from which he can +never hope to emerge:---not so in a thickly settled district; he +cannot there enjoy any freedom of prospect, yet there is variety, +and some scope for the imprisoned vision. In a hilly country a +little more range of view may occasionally be obtained; and a +river is a stream of light as well as of water, which feasts the +eye with a delight inconceivable to the inhabitants of open +countries." + +In direct contradiction to this longing for society was the +passion which the first generation of pioneers had for the +wilderness. When the population of one settlement became too +thick, they were seized by an irresistible impulse to "follow the +migration," as the expression went. The easy independence of the +first hunter-agriculturalist was upset by the advance of +immigration. His range was curtailed, his freedom limited. His +very breath seems to have become difficult. So he sold out at a +phenomenal profit, put out his fire, shouldered his gun, called +his dog, and set off again in search of the solitude he craved. + +Severe winter weather overtook Baily as he descended the Ohio +River, until below Grave Creek floating ice wrecked his boat and +drove him ashore. Here in the primeval forest, far from "Merrie +England," Baily spent the Christmas of 1796 in building a new +flatboat. This task completed, he resumed his journey. Passing +Marietta, where the bad condition of the winter roads prevented a +visit to a famous Indian mound, he reached Limestone. In due time +he sighted Columbia, the metropolis of the Miami country. +According to Baily, the sale of European goods in this part of +the Ohio Valley netted the importers a hundred per cent. Prices +varied with the ease of navigation. When ice blocked the Ohio the +price of flour went up until it was eight dollars a barrel; +whiskey was a dollar a gallon; potatoes, a dollar a bushel; and +bacon, twelve cents a pound. At these prices, the total produce +which went by Fort Massac in the early months of 1800 would have +been worth on the Ohio River upwards of two hundred thousand +dollars! In the preceding summer Baily quoted flour at Norfolk as +selling at sixty-three shillings a barrel of 196 pounds, or +double the price it was bringing on the ice-gorged Ohio. It is by +such comparisons that we get some inkling of the value of western +produce and of the rates in western trade. + +After a short stay at Cincinnati, Baily set out for the South on +an "Orleans boat" loaded with four hundred barrels of flour. At +the mouth of Pigeon Creek he noted the famous path to "Post St. +Vincent's" (Vincennes), over which he saw emigrants driving +cattle to that ancient town on the Wabash. At Fort Massac he met +Captain Zebulon M. Pike, whose tact in dealing with intoxicated +Indians he commended. At New Madrid Baily made a stay of some +days. This settlement, consisting of some two hundred and fifty +houses, was in the possession of Spain. It was within the +province of Louisiana, soon to be ceded to Napoleon. New Orleans +supplied this district with merchandise, but smuggling from the +United States was connived at by the Spanish officials. + +>From New Madrid Baily proceeded to Natchez, which then contained +about eighty-five houses. The town did not boast a tavern, but, +as was true of other places in the interior, this lack was made +up for by the hospitality of its inhabitants. Rice and tobacco +were being grown, Baily notes, and Georgian cotton was being +raised in the neighborhood. Several jennies were already at work, +and their owners received a royalty of one-eighth of the product. +The cotton was sent to New Orleans, where it usually sold for +twenty dollars a hundred weight. From Natchez to New Orleans the +charge for transportation by flatboat was a dollar and a half a +bag. The bags contained from one hundred and fifty to two hundred +and fifty pounds, and each flatboat carried about two hundred and +fifty bags. Baily adds two items to the story of the development +of the mechanical operation of watercraft. He tells us that in +the fall of 1796 a party of "Dutchmen," in the Pittsburgh region, +fashioned a boat with side paddle wheels which were turned by a +treadmill worked by eight horses under the deck. This strange +boat, which passed Baily when he was wrecked on the Ohio near +Grave Creek, appeared "to go with prodigious swiftness." Baily +does not state how much business the boat did on its downward +trip to New Orleans but contents, himself with remarking that the +owners expected the return trip to prove very profitable. When he +met the boat on its upward voyage at Natchez, it had covered +three hundred miles in six days. It was, however, not loaded, "so +little occasion was there for a vessel of this kind." As this run +between New Orleans and Natchez came to be one of the most +profitable in the United States in the early days of +steamboating, less than fifteen years later, the experience of +these "Flying Dutchmen" affords a very pretty proof that +something more than a means of transportation is needed to create +commerce. The owners abandoned their craft at Natchez in disgust +and returned home across country, wiser and poorer. + +Baily also noted that a Dr. Waters of New Madrid built a schooner +"some few years since" at the head of the Ohio and navigated it +down the Ohio and Mississippi and around to Philadelphia, "where +it is now employed in the commerce of the United States." It is +thus apparent, solely from this traveler's record, that an +ocean-going vessel and a side-paddle-wheel boat had been seen on +the Western Waters of the United States at least four years +before the nineteenth century arrived. + +Baily finally reached New Orleans. The city then contained about +a thousand houses and was not only the market for the produce of +the river plantations but also the center of an extensive Indian +trade. The goods for this trade were packed in little barrels +which were carried into the interior on pack-horses, three +barrels to a horse. The traders traveled for hundreds of miles +through the woods, bartering with the Indians on the way and +receiving, in exchange for their goods, bear and deer skins, +beaver furs, and wild ponies which had been caught by lariat in +the neighboring Apalousa country. + +Baily had intended to return to New York by sea, but on his +arrival at New Orleans he was unable to find a ship sailing to +New York. He therefore decided to proceed northward by way of the +long and dangerous Natchez Trace and the Tennessee Path. Though +few Europeans had made this laborious journey before 1800, the +Natchez Trace had been for many years the land route of thousands +of returning rivermen who had descended the Mississippi in +flatboat and barge. In practically all cases these men carried +with them the proceeds of their investment, and, as on every +thoroughfare in the world traveled by those returning from +market, so here, too, highwaymen and desperadoes, red and white, +built their lairs and lay in wait. Some of the most revolting +crimes of the American frontier were committed on these northward +pathways and their branches. + +Joining a party bound for Natchez, a hundred and fifty miles +distant overland, Baily proceeded to Lake Pontchartrain and +thence "north by west through the woods," by way of the ford of +the Tangipahoa, Cooper's Plantation, Tickfaw River, Amite River, +and the "Hurricane" (the path of a tornado) to the beginning of +the Apalousa country. This tangled region of stunted growth was +reputed to be seven miles in width from "shore to shore" and +three hundred miles in length. It took the party half a day to +reach the opposite "shore," and they had to quench their thirst +on the way with dew. + +At Natchez, Baily organized a party which included the five +"Dutchmen" whose horse boat had proved a failure. For their +twenty-one days' journey to Nashville the party laid in the +following provisions: 15 pounds of biscuit, 6 pounds of flour, 12 +pounds of bacon, 10 pounds of dried beef, 8 pounds of rice, 1 1/2 +pounds of coffee, 4 pounds of sugar, and a quantity of pounded +corn, such as the Indians used on all their journeys. After +celebrating the Fourth of July, 1797, with "all the inhabitants +who were hostile to the Spanish Government," and bribing the +baker at the Spanish fort to bake them a quarter of a +hundredweight of bread, the party started on their northward +journey. + +They reached without incident the famous Grindstone Ford of Bayou +Pierre, where crayfishes had destroyed a pioneer dam. Beyond, at +the forks of the path where the Choctaw Trail bore off to the +cast the party pursued the alternate Chickasaw Trail by Indian +guidance, and soon noted the change in the character of the soil +from black loam to sandy gravel, which indicated that they had +reached the Piedmont region. Indian marauders stole one horse +from the camp, and three of the party fell ill. The others, +pressed for food, were compelled to leave the sick men in an +improvised camp and to hasten on, promising to send to their aid +the first Indian they should meet "who understood herbs." After +appalling hardships, they crossed the Tennessee and entered the +Nashville country, where the roads were good enough for coaches, +for they met two on the way. Thence Baily proceeded to Knoxville, +seeing, as he went, droves of cattle bound for the settlements of +west Tennessee. With his arrival at Knoxville, his journal ends +abruptly; but from other sources we learn that he sailed from New +York on his return to England in January, 1798. His interesting +record, however, remained unpublished until after his death in +1844. + +Not only to Francis Baily but to scores of other travelers, even +those of unfriendly eyes, do modern readers owe a debt of +gratitude. These men have preserved a multitude of pictures and a +wealth of data which would otherwise have been lost. The men of +America in those days were writing the story of their deeds not +on parchment or paper but on the virgin soil of the wilderness. +But though the stage driver, the tavern keeper, and the burly +riverman left no description of the life of their highways and +their commerce, these visitors from other lands have bequeathed +to us their thousands of pages full of the enterprising life of +these pioneer days in the history of American commerce. + + + +CHAPTER VII. The Birth Of The Steamboat + +The crowds who welcomed the successive stages in the development +of American transportation were much alike in essentials--they +were all optimistic, self-congratulatory, irrepressible in their +enthusiasm, and undaunted in their outlook. Dickens, perhaps, +did not miss the truth widely when, in speaking of stage +driving, he said that the cry of "Go Ahead!" in America and of +"All Right!" in England were typical of the civilizations of the +two countries. Right or wrong, "Go Ahead!" has always been the +underlying passion of all men interested in the development of +commerce and transportation in these United States. + +During the era of river improvement already described, men of +imagination were fascinated with the idea of propelling boats by +mechanical means. Even when Washington fared westward in 1784, he +met at Bath, Virginia, one of these early experimenters, James +Rumsey, who haled him forthwith to a neighboring meadow to watch +a secret trial of a boat moved by means of machinery which worked +setting-poles similar to the ironshod poles used by the rivermen +to propel their boats upstream. "The model," wrote Washington, +"and its operation upon the water, which had been made to run +pretty swift, not only convinced me of what I before thought next +to, if not quite impracticable, but that it might be to the +greatest possible utility in inland navigation." Later he +mentions the "discovery" as one of those "circumstances which +have combined to render the present epoch favorable above all +others for securing a large portion of the produce of the western +settlements, and of the fur and peltry of the Lakes, also." + +>From that day forward, scarcely a week passed without some new +development in the long and difficult struggle to improve the +means of navigation. Among the scores of men who engaged in this +engrossing but discouraging work, there is one whom the world is +coming to honor more highly than in previous years--John Fitch, +of Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky. As early as August, +1785, Fitch launched on a rivulet in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, +a boat propelled by an engine which moved an endless chain to +which little paddles were attached. The next year, Fitch's second +boat, operated by twelve paddles, six on a side--an arrangement +suggesting the "side-wheeler" of the future--successfully plied +the Delaware off "Conjuror's Point," as the scene of Fitch's +labors was dubbed in whimsical amusement and derision. In 1787 +Rumsey, encouraged by Franklin, fashioned a boat propelled by a +stream of water taken in at the prow and ejected at the stern. In +1788 Fitch's third boat traversed the distance from Philadelphia +to Burlington on numerous occasions and ran as a regular packet +in 1790, covering over a thousand miles. In this model Fitch +shifted the paddles from the sides to the rear, thus anticipating +in principle the modern stern-wheeler. + +It was doubtless Fitch's experiments in 1785 that led to the +first plan in America to operate a land vehicle by steam. Oliver +Evans, a neighbor and acquaintance of Fitch's, petitioned the +Pennsylvania Legislature in 1786 for the right of operating +wagons propelled by steam on the highways of that State. This +petition was derisively rejected; but a similar one made to the +Legislature of Maryland was granted on the ground that such +action could hurt nobody. Evans in 1802 took fiery revenge on the +scoffers by actually running his little five-horse-power carriage +through Philadelphia. The rate of speed, however, was so slow +that the idea of moving vehicles by steam was still considered +useless for practical purposes. Eight years later, Evans offered +to wager $3000 that, on a level road, he could make a carriage +driven by steam equal the speed of the swiftest horse, but he +found no response. In 1812 he asserted that he was willing to +wager that he could drive a steam carriage on level rails at a +rate of fifteen miles an hour. Evans thus anticipated the belief +of Stephenson that steam-driven vehicles would travel best on +railed tracks. + +In the development of the steamboat almost all earlier means of +propulsion, natural and artificial, were used as models by the +inventors. The fins of fishes, the webbed feet of amphibious +birds, the paddles of the Indian, and the poles and oars of the +riverman, were all imitated by the patient inventors struggling +with the problem. Rumsey's first effort was a copy of the old +setting-pole idea. Fitch's model of 1785 had side paddle wheels +operated by an endless chain. Fitch's second and third models +were practically paddle-wheel models, one having the paddles at +the side and the other at the stern. Ormsbee of Connecticut made +a model, in 1792, on the plan of a duck's foot. Morey made what +may be called the first real stern-wheeler in 1794. Two years +later Fitch ran a veritable screw propeller on Collect Pond near +New York City. Although General Benjamin Tupper of Massachusetts +had been fashioning devices of this character eight years +previously, Fitch was the first to apply the idea effectively. In +1798 he evolved the strange, amphibious creation known as his +"model of 1798," which has never been adequately explained. It +was a steamboat on iron wheels provided with flanges, as though +it was intended to be run on submerged tracks. What may have been +the idea of its inventor, living out his last gloomy days in +Kentucky, may never be known; but it is possible to see in this +anomalous machine an anticipation of the locomotive not +approached by any other American of the time. Thus, prior to 1800 +almost every type of mechanism for the propulsion of steamboats +had been suggested and tried; and in 1804, Stevens's twin-screw +propeller completed the list. + +It is not alone Fitch's development of the devices of the endless +chain, paddle wheel, and screw propeller and of his puzzling +earth-and-water creature that gives luster to his name. His +prophetic insight into the future national importance of the +steamboat and his conception, as an inventor, of his moral +obligations to the people at large were as original and striking +in the science of that age as were his models. + +The early years of the national life of the United States were +the golden age of monopoly. Every colony, as a matter of course, +had granted to certain men special privileges, and, as has +already been pointed out, the questions of monopolies and +combinations in restraint of trade had arisen even so early as +the beginning of the eighteenth century. Interwoven inextricably +with these problems was the whole problem of colonial rivalry, +which in its later form developed into an insistence on state +rights. Every improvement in the means of transportation, every +development of natural resources, every new invention was +inevitably considered from the standpoint of sectional interests +and with a view to its monopolistic possibilities. This was +particularly true in the case of the steamboat, because of its +limitation to rivers and bays which could be specifically +enumerated and defined. For instance, Washington in 1784 attests +the fact that Rumsey operated his mechanical boat at Bath in +secret "until he saw the effect of an application he was about to +make to the Assembly of this State, for a reward." The +application was successful, and Rumsey was awarded a monopoly in +Virginia waters for ten years. + +Fitch, on the other hand, when he applied to Congress in 1785, +desired merely to obtain official encouragement and intended to +allow his invention to be used by all comers. Meeting only with +rebuff, he realized that his only hope of organizing a company +that could provide working capital lay in securing monopolistic +privileges. In 1786 he accordingly applied to the individual +States and secured the sole right to operate steamboats on the +waterways of New Jersey, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, and +Virginia. How different would have been the story of the +steamboat if Congress had accepted Fitch at his word and created +a precedent against monopolistic rights on American rivers! + +Fitch, in addition to the high purpose of devoting his new +invention to the good of the nation without personal +considerations, must be credited with perceiving at the very +beginning the peculiar importance of the steamboat to the +American West. His original application to Congress in 1785 +opened: "The subscriber begs leave to lay at the feet of +Congress, an attempt he has made to facilitate the internal +Navigation of the United States, adapted especially to the Waters +of the Mississippi." At another time with prophetic vision he +wrote: "The Grand and Principle object must be on the Atlantick, +which would soon overspread the wild forests of America with +people, and make us the most oppulent Empire on Earth. Pardon me, +generous public, for suggesting ideas that cannot be dijested at +this day." + +Foremost in exhibiting high civic and patriotic motives, Fitch +was also foremost in appreciating the importance of the steamboat +in the expansion of American trade. This significance was also +clearly perceived by his brilliant successor, Robert Fulton. That +the West and its commerce were always predominant in Fulton's +great schemes is proved by words which he addressed in 1803 to +James Monroe, American Ambassador to Great Britain: "You have +perhaps heard of the success of my experiments for +navigating boats by steam engines and you will feel the +importance of establishing such boats on the Mississippi and +other rivers of the United States as soon as possible." Robert +Fulton had been interested in steamboats for a period not +definitely known, possibly since his sojourn in Philadelphia in +the days of Fitch's early efforts. That he profited by the other +inventor's efforts at the time, however, is not suggested by any +of his biographers. He subsequently went to London and gave +himself up to the study and practice of engineering. There he +later met James Rumsey, who came to England in 1788, and by him +no doubt was informed, if he was not already aware, of the +experiments and models of Rumsey and Fitch. He obtained the loan +of Fitch's plans and drawings and made his own trial of various +existing devices, such as oars, paddles, duck's feet, and Fitch's +endless chain with "resisting-boards" attached. Meanwhile Fulton +was also devoting his attention to problems of canal construction +and to the development of submarine boats and submarine +explosives. He was engaged in these researches in France in 1801 +when the new American minister, Robert R. Livingston, arrived, +and the two men soon formed a friendship destined to have a vital +and enduring influence upon the development of steam navigation +on the inland waterways of America. + +Livingston already had no little experience in the same field of +invention as Fulton. In 1798 he had obtained, for a period of +twenty years, the right to operate steamboats on all the waters +of the State of New York, a monopoly which had just lapsed owing +to the death of Fitch. In the same year Livingston had built a +steamboat which had made three miles an hour on the Hudson. He +had experimented with most of the models then in existence-- +upright paddles at the side, endless-chain paddles, and stern +paddle wheels. Fulton was soon inspired to resume his efforts by +Livingston's account of his own experiments and of recent +advances in England, where a steamboat had navigated the Thames +in 1801 and a year later the famous sternwheeler Charlotte Dundas +had towed boats of 140 tons' burden on the Forth and Clyde Canal +at the rate of five miles an hour. In this same year Fulton and +Livingston made successful experiments on the Seine. + +It is fortunate that, in one particular, Livingston's influence +did not prevail with Fulton, for the American Minister was +distinctly prejudiced against paddle wheels. Although Livingston +had previously ridden as a passenger on Morey's sternwheeler at +the rate of five miles an hour, yet he had turned a deaf ear when +his partner in experimentation, Nicholas J. Roosevelt, had +insisted strongly on "throwing wheels over the sides." At the +beginning, Fulton himself was inclined to agree with Livingston +in this respect; but, probably late in 1803, he began to +investigate more carefully the possibilities of the paddle wheel +as used twice in America by Morey and by four or five +experimenters in Europe. In 1804 an eight-mile trip which Fulton +made on the Charlotte Dundas in an hour and twenty minutes +established his faith in the undeniable superiority of two +fundamental factors of early navigation--paddle wheels and +British +engines. Fulton's splendid fame rests, and rightly so, on his +perception of the fact that no mere ingenuity of design could +counterbalance weakness, uncertainty, and inefficiency in the +mechanism which was intended to make a steamboat run and keep +running. As early as November, 1803, Fulton had written to +Boulton and Watt of Birmingham that he had "not confidence in any +other engines" than theirs and that he was seeking a means of +getting one of those engines to America. "I cannot establish the +boat without the engine," he now emphatically wrote to James +Monroe, then Ambassador to the Court of St. James. "The question +then is shall we or shall we not have such boats." + +But there were difficulties in the way. Though England forbade +the exportation of engines, Fulton knew that, in numerous +instances, this rule had not been enforced, and he had hopes of +success. "The British Government," Fulton wrote Monroe, "must +have little friendship or even civility toward America, if they +refuse such a request." Before the steamboat which Fulton and +Livingston proposed to build in America could be operated there +was another obstacle to be surmounted. The rights of steam +navigation of New York waters which Livingston had obtained on +the death of Fitch in 1798 had lapsed because of his failure to +run a steamboat at the rate of four miles an hour, which was one +provision of the grant. In April, 1803, the grant was renewed to +Livingston, Roosevelt, and Fulton jointly for another period of +twenty years, and the date when the boat was to make the required +four miles an hour was extended finally to 1807. + +Any one who is inclined to criticize the Livingston- +Roosevelt-Fulton monopoly which now came into existence should +remember that the previous state grants formed a precedent of no +slight moment. The whole proceeding was in perfect accord with +the spirit of the times, for it was an era of speculation and +monopoly ushered in by the toll-road and turnpike organizations, +when probably no less than two hundred companies were formed. It +was young America showing itself in an unmistakable manner-- +"conceived in liberty" and starting on the long road to learn +that obedience to law and respect for public rights constitute +true liberty. Finally, it must be pointed out that Fulton, like +his famous predecessor, Fitch, was impelled by motives far higher +than the love of personal gain. "I consider them [steamboats] of +such infinite use in America," he wrote Monroe, "that I should +feel a culpable neglect toward my country if I relaxed for a +moment in pursuing every necessary measure for carrying it into +effect." And later, when repeating his argument, he says: "I +plead this not for myself alone but for our country." + +It is now evident why the alliance of Fulton with Livingston was +of such epoch-making importance, for, although it may have in +some brief measure delayed Fulton's adoption of paddle wheels, it +gave him an entry to the waters of New York. Livingston and +Fulton thus supplemented each other; Livingston possessed a +monopoly and Fulton a correct estimate of the value of paddle +wheels and, secondly, of Boulton and Watt engines. It was a rare +combination destined to crown with success a long period of +effort and discouragement in the history of navigation. + +After considerable delay and difficulty, the two Americans +obtained permission to export the necessary engine from Great +Britain and shipped it to New York, whither Fulton himself +proceeded to construct his steamboat. The hull was built by +Charles Brown, a New York shipbuilder, and the Boulton and Watt +machinery, set in masonry, was finally installed. + +The voyage to Albany, against a stiff wind, occupied thirty-two +hours; the return trip was made in thirty. H. Freeland, one of +the spectators who stood on the banks of the Hudson when the boat +made its maiden voyage in 1807, gives the following description: + +"Some imagined it to be a sea-monster whilst others did not +hesitate to express their belief that it was a sign of the +approaching judgment. What seemed strange in the vessel was the +substitution of lofty and straight smoke-pipes, rising from the +deck, instead of the gracefully tapered masts...and, in place +of the spars and rigging, the curious play of the walking-beam +and +pistons, and the slow turning and splashing of the huge and naked +paddlewheels, met the astonished gaze. The dense clouds of smoke, +as they rose, wave upon wave, added still more to the wonderment +of the rustics.... On her return trip the curiosity she +excited was scarcely less intense...fishermen became +terrified, and rode homewards, and they saw nothing but +destruction devastating their fishing grounds, whilst the wreaths +of black vapor and rushing noise of the paddle-wheels, foaming +with the stirred-up water, produced great excitement...." + +With the launching of the Clermont on the Hudson a new era in +American history began. How quick with life it was many of the +preceding pages bear testimony. The infatuation of the public for +building toll and turnpike roads was now at its height. Only a +few years before, a comprehensive scheme of internal improvements +had been outlined by Jefferson's Secretary of the Treasury, +Albert Gallatin. When a boy, it is said, he had lain on the floor +of a surveyor's cabin on the western slopes of the Alleghanies +and had heard Washington describe to a rough crowd of Westerners +his plan to unite the Great Lakes with the Potomac in one mighty +chain of inland commerce. Jefferson's Administration was now +about to devote the surplus in the Treasury to the construction +of national highways and canals. The Cumberland Road, to be built +across the Alleghanies by the War Department, was authorized by +the president in the same year in which the Clermont made her +first trip; and Jesse Hawley, at his table in a little room in a +Pittsburgh boarding house, was even now penning in a series of +articles, published in the Pittsburgh Commonwealth, beginning in +January, 1807, the first clear challenge to the Empire State to +connect the Hudson and Lake Erie by a canal. Thus the two next +steps in the history of inland commerce in America were ready to +be taken. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. The Conquest Of The Alleghanies + +The two great thoroughfares of American commerce in the first +half of the nineteenth century were the Cumberland Road and the +Erie Canal. The first generation of the new century witnessed the +great burst of population into the West which at once gave Ohio, +Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin a place of national +importance which they have never relinquished. So far as pathways +of commerce contributed to the creation of this veritable new +republic in the Middle West, the Cumberland Road and the Erie +Canal, cooperating respectively with Ohio River and Lake Erie +steamboats, were of the utmost importance. The national spirit, +said to have arisen from the second war with England, had its +clearest manifestation in the throwing of a great macadamized +roadway across the Alleghanies to the Ohio River and the digging +of the Erie Canal through the swamps and wildernesses of New +York. + +Both of these pathways were essentially the fruition of the +doctrine to which Washington gave wide circulation in his letter +to Harrison in 1784, wherein he pictured the vision of a vast +Republic united by commercial chains. Both were essentially +Western enterprises. The highway was built to fulfil the promise +which the Government had made in 1802 to use a portion of the +money accruing from the sale of public lands in Ohio in order to +connect that young State with Atlantic waters. It was proposed to +build the canal, according to one early plan, with funds to be +obtained by the sale of land in Michigan. So firmly did the +promoters believe in the national importance of this project that +subscriptions, according to another plan, were to be solicited as +far afield as Vermont in the North and Kentucky in the Southwest. +All that Washington had hoped for, and all that Aaron Burr is +supposed to have been hopeless of, were epitomized in these great +works of internal improvement. They bespoke cooperation of the +highest existing types of loyalty, optimism, financial skill, and +engineering ability. + +Yet, on the other hand, the contrasts between these undertakings +were great. The two enterprises, one the work of the nation and +the other that of a single State, were practically +contemporaneous and were therefore constantly inviting +comparison. The Cumberland Road was, for its day, a gigantic +government undertaking involving problems of finance, civil +engineering, eminent domain, state rights, local favoritism, and +political machination. Its purpose was noble and its successful +construction a credit to the nation; but the paternalism to which +it gave rise and the conflicts which it precipitated in Congress +over questions of constitutionality were remembered soberly for a +century. The Erie Canal, after its projectors had failed to +obtain national aid, became the undertaking of one commonwealth +conducted, amid countless doubts and jeers, to a conclusion +unbelievably successful. As a result many States, foregoing +Federal aid, attempted to duplicate the successful feat of New +York. In this respect the northern canal resembled the Lancaster +Turnpike and tempted scores of States and corporations to +expenditures which were unwise in circumstances less favorable +than those of the fruitful and strategic Empire State. + +In the conception of both the roadway and the canal, it should be +noted, the old idea of making use of navigable rivers still +persisted. The act foreshadowing the Cumberland Road, passed in +1802, called for "making public roads leading from the navigable +waters emptying into the Atlantic, to the Ohio, to said State +Ohio and through the same"; and Hawley's original plan was to +build the Erie Canal from Utica to Buffalo using the Mohawk from +Utica to the Hudson. + +Historic Cumberland, in Maryland, was chosen by Congress as the +eastern terminus of the great highway which should bind Ohio to +the Old Thirteen. Commissioners were appointed in 1806 to choose +the best route by which the great highway could reach the Ohio +River between Steubenville, Ohio and the mouth of Grave Creek; +but difficulties of navigation in the neighborhood of the Three +Sister Islands near Charlestown, or Wellsburg, West Virginia, led +to the choice of Wheeling, farther down, as a temporary western +terminus. + +The route selected was an excellent compromise between the long +standing rival claims of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia to +the trade of the West. If Baltimore and Alexandria were to be +better served than Philadelphia, the advantage was slight; and +Pennsylvania gained compensation, ere the State gave the National +Government permission to build the road within its limits, by +dictating that it should pass through Uniontown and Washington. +In this way Pennsylvania obtained, without cost, unrivaled +advantages for a portion of the State which might otherwise have +been long neglected. + +The building of the road, however satisfactory in the main, was +not undertaken without arousing many sectional and personal hopes +and prejudices and jealousies, of which the echoes still linger +in local legends today. Land-owners, mine-owners, factory-owners, +innkeepers and countless townsmen and villagers anxiously watched +the course of the road and were bitterly disappointed if the new +sixty-four-foot thoroughfare did not pass immediately through +their property. On the other hand, promoters of toll and turnpike +companies, who had promising schemes and long lists of +shareholders, were far from eager to have their property taken +for a national road. No one believed that, if it proved +successful, it would be the only work of its kind, and everywhere +men looked for the construction of government highways out of the +overflowing wealth of the treasury within the next few years. + +In April, 1811, the first contracts were let for building the +first ten miles of the road from its eastern terminus and were +completed in 18191. More contracts were let in 1812, 1813, and +1815. Even in those days of war when the drain on the national +treasury was excessive, over a quarter of a million dollars was +appropriated for the construction of the road. Onward it +crawled, through the beautiful Cumberland gateway of the Potomac, +to Big Savage and Little Savage Mountains, to Little Pine Run +(the first "Western" water), to Red Hill (later called "Shades of +Death" because of the gloomy forest growth), to high-flung Negro +Mountain at an elevation of 2325 feet, and thence on to the +Youghiogheny, historic Great Meadows, Braddock's Grave, Laurel +Hill, Uniontown, and Brownsville, where it crossed the +Monongahela. Thence, on almost a straight line, it sped by way of +Washington to Wheeling. Its average cost was upwards of thirteen +thousand dollars a mile from the Potomac to the Ohio. The road +was used in 1817, and in another year the mail coaches of the +United States were running from Washington to Wheeling, West +Virginia. Within five years one of the five commission houses +doing business at Wheeling is said to have handled over a +thousand wagons carrying freight of nearly two tons each. The +Cumberland Road at once leaped into a position of leadership, +both in volume of commerce and in popularity, and held its own +for two famous decades. The pulse of the nation beat to the +steady throb of trade along its highway. Maryland at once +stretched out her eager arms, along stone roads, through +Frederick and Hagerstown to Cumberland, and thus formed a single +route from the Ohio to Baltimore. Great stagecoach and freight +lines were soon established, each patronizing its own stage house +or wagon stand in the thriving towns along the road. The +primitive box stage gave way to the oval or football type with +curved top and bottom, and this was displaced in turn by the more +practical Concord coach of national fame. The names of the +important stagecoach companies were quite as well known, a +century ago, as those of our great railways today. Chief among +them were the National, Good Intent, June Bug, and Pioneer lines. +The coaches, drawn by four and sometimes six horses, were usually +painted in brilliant colors and were named after eminent +statesmen. The drivers of these gay chariots were characters +quite as famous locally as the personages whose names were borne +by the coaches. Westover and his record of forty-five minutes for +the twenty miles between Uniontown and Brownsville, and "Red" +Bunting, with his drive of a hundred and thirty-one miles in +twelve hours with the declaration of war against Mexico, will be +long famous on the curving stretches of the Cumberland Road. + +Although the freight and express traffic of those days lacked the +picturesqueness of the passenger coaches, nothing illustrates so +conclusively what the great road meant to an awakening West as +the long lines of heavy Conestogas and rattling express wagons +which raced at "unprecedented" speed across hill and vale. +Searight, the local historian of the road, describes these large, +broad-wheeled wagons covered with white canvas as + +"visible all the day long, at every point, making the highway +look more like a leading avenue of a great city than a road +through rural districts.... I have staid over night with +William Cheets on Nigger [Negro] Mountain when there were about +thirty six-horse teams in the wagon yard, a hundred Kentucky +mules in an adjoining lot, a thousand hogs in their enclosures, +and as many fat cattle in adjoining fields. The music made by +this large number of hogs eating corn on a frosty night I shall +never forget. After supper and attention to the teams, the +wagoners would gather in the bar-room and listen to the music on +the violin furnished by one of their fellows, have a Virginia +hoe-down, sing songs, tell anecdotes, and hear the experiences of +drivers and drovers from all points of the road, and, when it was +all over, unroll their beds, lay them down on the floor before +the bar-room fire side by side, and sleep with their feet near +the blaze as soundly as under the parental roof." + +Meanwhile New York, the other great rival for Western trade, was +intent on its own darling project, the Erie Canal. In 1808, three +years before the building of the Cumberland Road, Joshua Forman +offered a bill in favor of the canal in the Legislature of New +York. In plain but dignified language this document stated that +New York possessed "the best route of communication between the +Atlantic and western waters," and that it held "the first +commercial rank in the United States." The bill also noted that, +while "several of our sister States" were seeking to secure "the +trade of that wide extended country," their natural advantages +were "vastly inferior." Six hundred dollars was the amount +appropriated for a brief survey, and Congress was asked to vote +aid for the construction of the "Buffalo-Utica Canal." The matter +was widely talked about but action was delayed. Doubt as to the +best route to be pursued caused some discussion. If the western +terminus were to be located on Lake Ontario at the mouth of the +Oswego, as some advocated, would produce not make its way to +Montreal instead of to New York? In 1810 a new committee was +appointed and, though their report favored the paralleling of the +course of the Mohawk and Oswego rivers, their engineer, James +Geddes, gave strength to the party which believed a direct canal +would best serve the interests of the State. It is worth noting +that Livingston and Fulton were added to the committee in 1811. + +The hopes of outside aid from Congress and adjacent States met +with disappointment. In vain did the advocates of the canal in +1812 plead that its construction would promote "a free and +general intercourse between different parts of the United States, +tend to the aggrandizement and prosperity of the country, and +consolidate and strengthen the Union." The plan to have the +Government subsidize the canal by vesting in the State of New +York four million acres of Michigan land brought out a protest +from the West which is notable not so much because it records the +opposition of this section as because it illustrates the +shortsightedness of most of the arguments raised against the New +York enterprise. The purpose of the canal, the detractors +asserted, was to build up New York City to the detriment of +Montreal, and the navigation of Lake Ontario, whose beauty they +touchingly described, was to be abandoned for a "narrow, winding +obstructed canal...for an expense which arithmetic dares not +approach." It was, in their minds, unquestionably a selfish +object, and they believed that "both correct science, and the +dictates of patriotism and philanthropy [should] lead to the +adoption of more liberal principles." It was a shortsighted +object, "predicated on the eternal adhesion of the Canadas to +England." It would never give satisfaction since trade would +always ignore artificial and seek natural routes. The attempting +of such comparatively useless projects would discourage worthy +schemes, relax the bonds of Union, and depress the national +character. But though these Westerners thus misjudged the +possibilities of the Erie Canal, we must doff our hats to them +for their foresight in suggesting that, instead of aiding the +Erie Canal, the nation ought to build canals at Niagara Falls and +Panama! + +The War of 1812 suspended all talk of the canal, but the subject +was again brought up by Judge Platt in the autumn of 1816. With +alacrity strong men came to the aid of the measure. De Witt +Clinton's Memorial of 1816 addressed to the State Legislature may +well rank with Washington's letter to Harrison in the documentary +history of American commercial development. It sums up the +geographical position of New York with reference to the Great +Lakes and the Atlantic, her relationship to the West and to +Canada, the feasibility of the proposed route from an engineering +standpoint, the timeliness of the moment for such a work of +improvement, the value that the canal would give to the state +lands of the interior, and the trade that it would bring to the +towns along its pathway. + +The Erie Canal was born in the Act of April 14, 1817, but the +decision of the Council of Revision, which held the power of +veto, was in doubt. An anecdote related by Judge Platt tends to +prove that fear of another war with England was the straw that +broke the camel's back of opposition. Acting-Governor Taylor, +Chief Justice Thompson, Chancellor Kent, Judge Yates, and Judge +Platt composed the Council. The two first named were open +opponents of the measure; Kent, Yates, and Platt were warm +advocates of the project, but one of them doubted if the time was +ripe to undertake it. + +Taylor opposed the canal on the ground that the late treaty with +England was a mere truce and that the resources of the State +should be husbanded against renewed war. + +"Do you think so, Sir?" Chancellor Kent is said to have asked the +Governor. + +"Yes, Sir," was the reported reply. "England will never forgive +us for our victories, and, my word for it, we shall have another +war with her within two years." + +The Chancellor rose to his feet with determination and sealed the +fate of the great enterprise in a word. + +"If we must have war," he exclaimed, "I am in favor of the canal +and I cast my vote for this bill." + +On July 4, 1817, work was formally inaugurated at Rome with +simple ceremonies. Thus the year 1817 was marked by three great +undertakings: the navigation of the Mississippi River upstream +and down by steamboats, the opening of the national road across +the Alleghany Mountains, and the beginning of the Erie Canal. No +single year in the early history of the United States witnessed +three such important events in the material progress of the +country. + +What days the ancient "Long House of the Iroquois" now saw! The +engineers of the Cumberland Road, now nearing the Ohio River, +had enjoyed the advantage of many precedents and examples; but +the Commissioners of the Erie Canal had been able to study only +such crude examples of canal-building as America then afforded. +Never on any continent had such an inaccessible region been +pierced by such a highway. The total length of the whole network +of canals in Great Britain did not equal that of the waterway +which the New Yorkers now undertook to build. The lack of roads, +materials, vehicles, methods of drilling and efficient business +systems was overcome by sheer patience and perseverance in +experiment. The frozen winter roads saved the day by making it +possible to accumulate a proper supply of provisions and +materials. As tools of construction, the plough and scraper with +their greater capacity for work soon supplanted the shovel and +the wheelbarrow, which had been the chief implements for such +construction in Europe. Strange new machinery born of Mother +Necessity was now heard groaning in the dark swamps of New York. +These giants, worked by means of a cable, wheel, and endless +screw, were made to hoist green stumps bodily from the ground +and, without the use of axe, to lay trees prostrate, root and +branch. A new plough was fashioned with which a yoke of oxen +could cut roots two inches in thickness well beneath the surface +of the ground. + +Handicaps of various sorts wore the patience of commissioners, +engineers, and contractors. Lack of snow during one winter all +but stopped the work by cutting off the source of supplies. +Pioneer ailments, such as fever and ague, reaped great harvests, +incapacitated more than a thousand workmen at one time and for a +brief while stopped work completely. + +For the most part, however, work was carried on simultaneously on +all the three great links or sections into which the enterprise +was divided. Local contractors were given preference by the +commissioners, and three-fourths of the work was done by natives +of the State. Forward up the Mohawk by Schenectady and Utica to +Rome, thence bending southward to Syracuse, and from there by way +of Clyde, Lyons, and Palmyra, the canal made its way to the giant +viaduct over the Genesee River at Rochester. Keeping close to the +summit level on the dividing ridge between Lake Ontario streams +and the Valley of the Tonawanda, the line ran to Lockport, where +a series of locks placed the canal on the Lake Erie level, 365 +miles from and 564 feet above Albany. By June, 1823, the canal +was completed from Rochester to Schenectady; in October boats +passed into the tidewaters of the Hudson at Albany; and in the +autumn of 1825 the canal was formally opened by the passage of a +triumphant fleet from Lake Erie to New York Bay. Here two kegs of +lake water were emptied into the Atlantic, while the Governor of +the State of New York spoke these words: + +"This solemnity, at this place, on the first arrival of vessels +from Lake Erie, is intended to indicate and commemorate the +navigable communication, which has been accomplished between our +Mediterranean Seas and the Atlantic Ocean, in about eight years, +to the extent of more than four hundred and twenty-five miles, by +the wisdom, public spirit, and energy of the people of the State +of New York; and may the God of the Heavens and the Earth smile +most propitiously on this work, and render it subservient to the +best interests of the human race." + +Throughout these last seven years, the West was subconsciously +getting ready to meet the East halfway by improving and extending +her steamboat operations. Steamboats were first run on the Great +Lakes by enterprising Buffalo citizens who, in 1818, secured +rights from the Fulton-Livingston monopoly to build the +Walk-in-the-Water, the first of the great fleet of ships that now +whiten the inland seas of the United States. Regular lines of +steamboats were now formed on the Ohio to connect with the +Cumberland Road at Wheeling, although the steamboat monopoly +threatened to stifle the natural development of transportation on +Western rivers. + +The completion of the Erie Canal--coupled with the new +appropriation by Congress for extending the Cumberland Road from +the Ohio River to Missouri and the beginning of the Pennsylvania +and the Chesapeake and Ohio canals, reveal the importance of +these concluding days of the first quarter of the nineteenth +century in the annals of American transportation. Never since +that time have men doubted the ability of Americans to accomplish +the physical domination of their continent. With the conquest of +the Alleghanies and of the forests and swamps of the "Long House" +by pick and plough and scraper, and the mastery of the currents +of the Mississippi by the paddle wheel, the vast plains beyond +seemed smaller and the Rockies less formidable. Men now looked +forward confidently, with an optimist of these days, to the time +"when circulation and association between the Atlantic and +Pacific and the Mexican Gulf shall be as free and perfect as they +are at this moment in England" between the extremities of that +country. The vision of a nation closely linked by wellworn paths +of commerce was daily becoming clearer. What further westward +progress was soon to be made remains to be seen. + + + +CHAPTER IX. The Dawn Of The Iron Age + +Despite the superiority of the new iron age that quickly followed +the widespreading canal movement, there was a generous spirit and +a chivalry in the "good old days" of the stagecoach, the +Conestoga, and the lazy canal boat, which did not to an equal +degree pervade the iron age of the railroad. When machinery takes +the place of human brawn and patience, there is an indefinable +eclipse of human interest. Somehow, cogs and levers and +differentials do not have the same appeal as fingers and eyes and +muscles. The old days of coach and canal boat had a +picturesqueness and a comradeship of their own. In the turmoil +and confusion and odd mixing of every kind of humanity along the +lines of travel in the days of the hurtling coach-and-six, a +friendliness, a robust sympathy, a ready interest in the +successful and the unfortunate, a knowledge of how the other half +lives, and a familiarity with men as well as with mere places, +was common to all who took the road. As Thackeray so vividly +describes it: + +"The land rang yet with the tooting horns and rattling teams of +mail-coaches; a gay sight was the road in those days, before +steam-engines arose and flung its hostelry and chivalry over. To +travel in coaches, to know coachmen and guards, to be familiar +with inns along the road, to laugh with the jolly hostess in the +bar, to chuck the pretty chamber-maid under the chin, were the +delight of men who were young not very long ago. The road was an +institution, the ring was an institution. Men rallied around +them; and, not without a kind of conservatism expatiated on the +benefits with which they endowed the country, and the evils which +would occur when they should be no more decay of British spirit, +decay of manly pluck, ruin of the breed of horses, and so forth +and so forth. To give and take a black eye was not unusual nor +derogatory in a gentleman: to drive a stage-coach the enjoyment, +the emulation, of generous youth. Is there any young fellow of +the present time, who aspires to take the place of a stoker? One +sees occasionally in the country a dismal old drag with a lonely +driver. Where are you, charioteers? Where are you, O rattling +Quicksilver, O swift Defiance? You are passed by racers stronger +and swifter than you. Your lamps are out, and the music of your +horns has died away. + +Behind this change from the older and more picturesque days which +is thus lamented there lay potent economic forces and a strong +commercial rivalry between different parts of the country. The +Atlantic States were all rivals of each other, reaching out by +one bold stroke after another across forest, mountain, and river +to the gigantic and fruitful West. Step after step the inevitable +conquest went on. Foremost in time marched the sturdy +pack-horsemen, blazing the way for the heavier forces quietly +biding their time in the rear--the Conestogas, the steamboat, the +canal boat, and, last and greatest of them all, the locomotive. + +Through a long preliminary period the principal center of +interest was the Potomac Valley, towards whose strategic head +Virginia and Maryland, by river-improvement and road-building, +were directing their commercial routes in amiable rivalry for the +conquest of the Western trade. Suddenly out from the southern +region of the Middle Atlantic States went the Cumberland National +Road to the Ohio. New York instantly, in her zone, took up the +challenge and thrust her great Erie Canal across to the Great +Lakes. In rapid succession, Pennsylvania and Maryland and +Virginia, eager not to be outdone in winning the struggle for +Western trade, sent their canals into the Alleghanies toward the +Ohio. + +It soon developed, however, that Baltimore, both powerful and +ambitious, was seriously handicapped. In order to retain her +commanding position as the metropolis of Western trade she was +compelled to resort to a new and untried method of transportation +which marks an era in American history. + +It seems plain that the Southern rivals of New York City-- +Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Alexandria--had relied for a while +on the deterring effect of a host of critics who warned all men +that a canal of such proportions as the Erie was not practicable, +that no State could bear the financial drain which its +construction would involve, that theories which had proved +practical on a small scale would fail in so large an undertaking, +that the canal would be clogged by floods or frozen up for half +of each year, and that commerce would ignore artificial courses +and cling to natural channels. But the answer of the Empire State +to her rivals was the homely but triumphant cry "Low Bridge!"-- +the warning to passengers on the decks of canal boats as they +approached the numerous bridges which spanned the route. When +this cry passed into a byword it afforded positive proof that the +Erie Canal traffic was firmly established. The words rang in the +counting-houses of Philadelphia and out and along the Lancaster +and the Philadelphia-Pittsburgh turnpikes--"Low Bridge! Low +Bridge!" Pennsylvania had granted, it has been pointed out, that +her Southern neighbors might have their share of the Ohio Valley +trade but maintained that the splendid commerce of the Great +Lakes was her own peculiar heritage. Men of Baltimore who had +dominated the energetic policy of stone-road building in their +State heard this alarming challenge from the North. The echo ran +"Low Bridge!" in the poor decaying locks of the Potomac Company +where, according to the committee once appointed to examine that +enterprise, flood-tides "gave the only navigation that was +enjoyed." Were their efforts to keep the Chesapeake metropolis in +the lead to be set at naught? + +There could be but one answer to the challenge, and that was to +rival canal with canal. These more southerly States, confronted +by the towering ranges of the Alleghanies to the westward, showed +a courage which was superb, although, as time proved in the case +of Maryland, they might well have taken more counsel of their +fears. Pennsylvania acted swiftly. Though its western waterway-- +the roaring Juniata, which entered the Susquehanna near +Harrisburg--had a drop from head to mouth greater than that of +the entire New York canal, and, though the mountains of the +Altoona region loomed straight up nearly three thousand feet, +Pennsylvania overcame the lowlands by main strength and the +mountain peaks by strategy and was sending canal boats from +Philadelphia to Pittsburgh within nine years of the completion of +the Erie Canal. + +The eastern division of the Pennsylvania Canal, known as the +Union Canal, from Reading on the Schuylkill to Middletown on the +Susquehanna, was completed in 1827. The Juniata section was then +driven on up to Hollidaysburg. Beyond the mountain barrier, the +Conemaugh, the Kiskiminitas, and the Allegheny were followed to +Pittsburgh. But the greatest feat in the whole enterprise was the +conquest of the mountain section, from Hollidaysburg to +Johnstown. This was accomplished by the building of five inclined +planes on each slope, each plane averaging about 2300 feet in +length and 200 feet in height. Up or down these slopes and along +the intermediate level sections cars and giant cradles (built to +be lowered into locks where they could take an entire canal boat +as a load) were to be hauled or lowered by horsepower, and later, +by steam. After the plans had been drawn up by Sylvester Welch +and Moncure Robinson, the Pennsylvania Legislature authorized the +work in 1831, and traffic over this aerial route was begun in +March, 1834. In autumn of that year, the stanch boat Hit or Miss, +from the Lackawanna country, owned by Jesse Crisman and captained +by Major Williams, made the journey across the whole length of +the canal. It rested for a night on the Alleghany summit "like +Noah's Ark on Ararat," wrote Sherman Day, "descended the next +morning into the Valley of the Mississippi, and sailed for St. +Louis." + +Well did Robert Stephenson, the famous English engineer, say +that, in boldness of design and difficulty of execution, this +Pennsylvania scheme of mastering the Alleghanies could be +compared with no modern triumph short of the feats performed at +the Simplon Pass and Mont Cenis. Before long this line of +communication became a very popular thoroughfare; even Charles +Dickens "heartily enjoyed" it--in retrospect--and left +interesting impressions of his journey over it: + +"Even the running up, bare-necked, at five o'clock in the morning +from the tainted cabin to the dirty deck; scooping up the icy +water, plunging one's head into it, and drawing it out, all fresh +and glowing with the cold; was a good thing. The fast, brisk walk +upon the towing-path, between that time and breakfast, when every +vein and artery seemed to tingle with health; the exquisite +beauty of the opening day, when light came gleaming off from +everything; the lazy motion of the boat, when one lay idly on the +deck, looking through, rather than at, the deep blue sky; the +gliding on, at night, so noiselessly, past frowning hills, sullen +with dark trees, and sometimes angry in one red burning spot high +up, where unseen men lay crouching round a fire; the shining out +of the bright stars, undisturbed by noise of wheels or steam, or +any other sound than the liquid rippling of the water as the boat +went on; all these were pure delights."* + +* "American Notes" (Gadshill Edition), pp. 180-181. + + +Dickens also thus graphically depicts the unique experience of +being carried over the mountain peaks on the aerial railway: + +"There are ten inclined planes; five ascending and five +descending; the carriages are dragged up the former, and let +slowly down the latter, by means of stationary engines; the +comparatively level spaces between being traversed, sometimes by +horse, and sometimes by engine power, as the case demands. +Occasionally the rails are laid upon the extreme verge of a giddy +precipice; and looking from the carriage window, the traveler +gazes sheer down, without a stone or scrap of fence between, into +the mountain depths below. The journey is very carefully made, +however; only two carriages traveling together; and while proper +precautions are taken, is not to be dreaded for its dangers. + +"It was very pretty traveling thus, at a rapid pace along the +heights of the mountain in a keen wind, to look down into a +valley full of light and softness; catching glimpses, through the +tree-tops, of scattered cabins; children running to the doors; +dogs bursting out to bark, whom we could see without hearing; +terrified pigs scampering homewards; families sitting out in +their rude gardens; cows gazing upward with a stupid +indifference; men in their shirt-sleeves looking on at their +unfinished houses, planning out tomorrow's work; and we riding +onward, high abode them, like a whirl-wind. It was amusing, too, +when we had dined, and rattled down a steep pass, having no other +motive power than the weight of the carriages themselves, to see +the engine released, long after us, come buzzing down alone, like +a great insect, its back of green and gold so shining in the sun, +that if it had spread a pair of wings and soared away, no one +would have had occasion, as I fancied, for the least surprise. +But it stopped short of us in a very business-like manner when we +reached the canal; and, before we left the wharf, went panting up +this hill again, with the passengers who had waited our arrival +for the means of traversing the road by which we had come."* + +* Op. cit. + + +This Pennsylvania route was likewise famous because it included +the first tunnel in America; but with the advance of years, +tunnel, planes, and canal were supplanted by what was to become +in time the Pennsylvania Railroad, the pride of the State and one +of the great highways of the nation. + +In the year before Pennsylvania investigated her western water +route, a joint bill was introduced into the legislatures of the +Potomac Valley States, proposing a Potomac Canal Company which +should construct a Chesapeake and Ohio canal at the expense of +Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. The plan was of +vital moment to Alexandria and Georgetown on the Potomac, but +unless a lateral canal could be built to Baltimore, that city-- +which paid a third of Maryland's taxes--would be called on to +supply a great sum to benefit only her chief rivals. The bitter +struggle which now developed is one of the most significant in +commercial history because of its sequel. + +The conditions underlying this rivalry must not be lost sight of. +Baltimore had done more than any other Eastern city to ally +herself with the West and to obtain its trade. She had +instinctively responded to every move made by her rivals in the +great game. If Pennsylvania promoted a Lancaster Turnpike, +Baltimore threw out her superb Baltimore-Reisterstown boulevard, +though her northern road to Philadelphia remained the slough that +Brissot and Baily had found it. If New York projected an Erie +Canal, Baltimore successfully championed the building of a +Cumberland Road by a governmental godmother. So thoroughly and +quickly, indeed, did she link her system of stone roads to that +great artery, that even today many well-informed writers seem to +be under the impression that the Cumberland Road ran from the +Ohio to Washington and Baltimore. Now, with canals building to +the north of her and canals to the south of her, what of her +prestige and future? + +For the moment Baltimore compromised by agreeing to a Chesapeake +and Ohio canal which, by a lateral branch, should still lead to +her market square. Her scheme embraced a vision of conquest regal +in its sweep, beyond that of any rival, and comprehending two +ideas worthy of the most farseeing strategist and the most astute +politician. It called not only for the building of a transmontane +canal to the Ohio but also for a connecting canal from the Ohio +to the Great Lakes. Not only would the trade of the Northwest be +secured by this means--for this southerly route would not be +affected by winter frosts as would those of Pennsylvania and New +York--but the good godmother at Washington would be almost +certain to champion it and help to build it since the proposed +route was so thoroughly interstate in character. With the backing +of Maryland, Virginia, Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, and probably +several States bordering the Inland Lakes, government aid in the +undertaking seemed feasible and proper. + +Theoretically the daring scheme captured the admiration of all +who were to be benefited by it. At a great banquet at Washington, +late in 1823, the project was launched. Adams, Clay, and Calhoun +took the opportunity to ally themselves with it by robustly +declaring themselves in favor of widespread internal +improvements. Even the godmother smiled upon it for, following +Monroe's recommendation, Congress without hesitation voted thirty +thousand dollars for the preliminary survey from Washington to +Pittsburgh. Quickly the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company and the +connecting Maryland Canal Company were formed, and steps were +taken to have Ohio promote an Ohio and Lake Erie Company. + +As high as were the hopes awakened by this movement, just so deep +was the dejection and chagrin into which its advocates were +thrown upon receiving the report of the engineers who made the +preliminary survey. The estimated cost ran towards a quarter of a +billion, four times the capital stock of the company; and there +were not lacking those who pointed out that the Erie Canal had +cost more than double the original appropriation made for it. + +The situation was aggravated for Baltimore by the fact that +Maryland and Virginia were willing to take half a loaf if they +could not get a whole one: in other words, they were willing to +build the canal up the Potomac to Cumberland and stop there. +Baltimore, even if linked to this partial scheme, would lose her +water connection with the West, the one prized asset which the +project had held out, and her Potomac Valley rivals would, on +this contracted plan, be in a particularly advantageous position +to surpass her. But the last blow was yet to come. Engineers +reported that a lateral canal connecting the Potomac and +Chesapeake Bay was not feasible. It was consequently of little +moment whether the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal could be built +across the Alleghanies or not, for, even if it could have been +carried through the Great Plains or to the Pacific, Baltimore +was, for topographical reasons, out of the running. + +The men of Baltimore now gave one of the most striking +illustrations of spirit and pluck ever exhibited by the people of +any city. They refused to accept defeat. If engineering science +held a means of overcoming the natural disadvantages of their +position, they were determined to adopt that means, come what +would of hardship, difficulty, and expenditure. If roads and +canals would not serve the city on the Chesapeake, what of the +railroad on which so many experiments were being made in England? + +The idea of controlling the trade of the West by railroads was +not new. As early as February, 1825, certain astute +Pennsylvanians had advocated building a railroad to Pittsburgh +instead of a canal, and in a memorial to the Legislature they had +set forth the theory that a railroad could be built in one-third +of the time and could be operated with one-third of the number of +employees required by a canal, that it would never be frozen, and +that its cost of construction would be less. But these arguments +did not influence the majority, who felt that to follow the line +of least resistance and to do as others had done would involve +the least hazard. But Baltimore, with her back against the wall, +did not have the alternative of a canal. It was a leap into the +unknown for her or commercial stagnation. + +It is regrettable that, as Baltimore began to break this fresh +track, she should have had political as well as physical and +mechanical obstacles to overcome. The conquest of the natural +difficulties alone required superhuman effort and endurance. But +Baltimore had also to fight a miserable internecine warfare in +her own State, for Maryland immediately subscribed half a million +to the canal as well as to the newly formed Baltimore and Ohio +Railroad. In rival pageants, both companies broke ground on July +4, 1828, and the race to the Ohio was on. The canal company clung +doggedly to the idle belief that their enterprise was still of +continental proportions, since it would connect at Cumberland +with the Cumberland Road. This exaggerated estimate of the +importance of the undertaking shines out in the pompous words of +President Mercer, at the time when construction was begun: + +"There are moments in the progress of time, which are counters of +whole ages. There are events, the monuments of which, surviving +every other memorial of human existence, eternize the nation to +whose history they belong, after all other vestiges of its glory +have disappeared from the globe. At such a moment have we now +arrived." + +This oracular language lacks the simple but winning +straightforwardness of the words which Director Morris uttered on +the same day near Baltimore and which prove how distinctly +Western the new railway project was held to be: + +"We are about opening a channel through which the commerce of the +mighty country beyond the Allegheny must seek the ocean--we are +about affording facilities of intercourse between the East and +West, which will bind the one more closely to the other, beyond +the power of an increased population or sectional differences to +disunite." + +The difficulties which faced the Baltimore enthusiasts in their +task of keeping their city "on the map" would have daunted men of +less heroic mold. Every conceivable trial and test which nature +and machinery could seemingly devise was a part of their day's +work for twelve years struggles with grades, locomotives, rails, +cars. As Rumsey, Fitch, and Fulton in their experiments with +boats had floundered despondently with endless chains, oars, +paddles, duck's feet, so now Thomas and Brown in their efforts to +make the railroad effective wandered in a maze of difficulties +testing out such absurd and impossible ideas as cars propelled by +sails and cars operated by horse treadmills. By May, 1830, +however, cars on rails, running by "brigades" and drawn by +horses, were in operation in America. It was only in this year +that in England locomotives were used with any marked success on +the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad; yet in August of this year +Peter Cooper's engine, Tom Thumb, built in Baltimore in 1829, +traversed the twelve miles between that city and Ellicott's Mills +in seventy-two minutes. Steel springs came in 1832, together with +car wheels of cylindrical and conical section which made it +easier to turn curves. + +The railroad was just beginning to master its mechanical problems +when a new obstacle confronted it in the Potomac Valley. It could +not cross Maryland to the Cumberland mountain gateway unless it +could follow the Potomac. But its rival, the canal, had inherited +from the old Potomac Company the only earthly asset it possessed +of any value--the right of way up the Maryland shore. Five years +of quarreling now ensued, and the contest, though it may not have +seriously delayed either enterprise, aroused much bitterness and +involved the usual train of lawsuits and injunctions. + +In 1833 the canal company yielded the railroad a right of way +through the Point of Rocks--the Potomac chasm through the Blue +Ridge wall, just below Harper's Ferry on condition that the +railroad should not build beyond Harper's Ferry until the canal +was completed to Cumberland. But probably nothing but the +financial helplessness of the canal company could have brought a +solution satisfactory to all concerned. A settlement of the long +quarrel by compromise was the price paid for state aid, and, in +1835 Maryland subsidized to a large degree both canal and +railroad by her famous eight million dollar bill. The railroad +received three millions from the State, and the city of Baltimore +was permitted to subscribe an equal amount of stock. With this +support and a free right of way, the railroad pushed on up the +Potomac. Though delayed by the financial disasters of 1837, in +1842 it was at Hancock; in 1851, at Piedmont; in 1852, at +Fairmont; and the next year it reached the Ohio River at +Wheeling. + +Spurred by the enterprise shown by these Southerners, +Pennsylvania and New York now took immediate steps to parallel +their own canals by railways. The line of the Union Canal in +Pennsylvania was paralleled by a railroad in 1834, the same year +in which the Allegheny Portage Railway was constructed. New York +lines reached Buffalo in 1842. The Pennsylvania Railroad, which +was incorporated in 1846, was completed to Pittsburgh in 1854. + +It is thus obvious that, with the completion of these lines and +the building of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway through the +"Sapphire Country" of the Southern Alleghanies, the new railway +era pursued its paths of conquest through the very same mountain +passageways that had been previously used by packhorseman and +Conestoga and, in three instances out of four, by the canal boat. +If one motors today in the Juniata Valley in Pennsylvania, he can +survey near Newport a scene full of meaning to one who has a +taste for history. Traveling along the heights on the highway +that was once the red man's trail, he can enjoy a wide prospect +from this vantage point. Deep in the valley glitters the little +Juniata, route of the ancient canoe and the blundering barge. +Beside it lies a long lagoon, an abandoned portion of the +Pennsylvania Canal. Beside this again, as though some monster had +passed leaving a track clear of trees, stretches the right of way +of the first "Pennsylvania," and a little nearer swings the +magnificent double-tracked bed of the railroad of today. Between +these lines of travel may be read the history of the past two +centuries of American commerce, for the vital factors in the +development of the nation have been the evolution of +transportation and its manifold and far-reaching influence upon +the expansion of population and commerce and upon the rise of new +industries. + +Thus all the rivals in the great contest for the trade of the +West speedily reached their goal, New York with the Erie and the +New York Central, and Pennsylvania and Maryland with the +Pennsylvania and the Baltimore and Ohio. But what of this West +for whose commerce the great struggle was being waged? When the +railheads of these eager Atlantic promoters were laid down at +Buffalo on Lake Erie and at Pittsburgh on the Ohio they looked +out on a new world. The centaurs of the Western rivers were no +less things of the far past than the tinkling bells borne by the +ancient ponies of the pack-horse trade. The sons of this new West +had their eyes riveted on the commerce of the Great Lakes and the +Mississippi Valley. With road, canal, steamboat, and railway, +they were renewing the struggle of their fathers but for prizes +greater than their fathers ever knew. + +New York again proved the favored State. Her Mohawk pathway gave +her easiest access to the West and here, at her back door on the +Niagara frontier, lay her path by way of the Great Lakes to the +North and the Northwest. + + + +CHAPTER X. cv +As one stands in imagination at the early railheads of the West-- +on the Ohio River at the end of the Cumberland Road, or at +Buffalo, the terminus of the Erie Canal--the vision which +Washington caught breaks upon him and the dream of a nation made +strong by trans-Alleghany routes of commerce. Link by link the +great interior is being connected with the sea. Behind him all +lines of transportation lead eastward to the cities of the coast. +Before him lies the giant valley where the Father of Waters +throws out his two splendid arms, the Ohio and the Missouri, one +reaching to the Alleghanies and the other to the Rockies. +Northward, at the end of the Erie Canal, lies the empire of the +Great Lakes, inland seas that wash the shores of a Northland +having a coastline longer than that of the Atlantic from Maine to +Mexico. + +Ships and conditions of navigation were much the same on the +lakes as on the ocean. It was therefore possible to imagine the +rise of a coasting trade between Illinois and Ohio as profitable +as that between Massachusetts and New York. Yet the older +colonies on the Atlantic had an outlet for trade, whereas the +Great Lakes had none for craft of any size, since their northern +shores lay beyond the international boundary. If there had been +danger from Spain in the Southwest, what of the danger of +Canada's control of the St. Lawrence River and of the trade of +the Northwest through the Welland Canal which was to join Lake +Ontario to Lake Erie? But in those days the possibility of +Canadian rivalry was not treated with great seriousness, and many +men failed to see that the West was soon to contain a very large +population. The editor of a newspaper at Munroe, New York, +commenting in 1827 on a proposed canal to connect Lake Erie with +the Mississippi by way of the Ohio, believed that the rate of +Western development was such that this waterway could be expected +only "some hundred of years hence." Even so gifted a man as Henry +Clay spoke of the proposed canal between Lake Michigan and Lake +Superior in 1825 as one relating to a region beyond the pale of +civilization "if not in the moon." Yet in twenty-five years +Michigan, which had numbered one thousand inhabitants in 1812, +had gained two hundredfold, and Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois had +their hundreds of thousands who were clamoring for ways and means +of sending their surplus products to market. + +Early in the century representatives of the Fulton-Livingston +monopoly were at the shores of Lake Ontario to prove that their +steamboats could master the waves of the inland sea and serve +commerce there as well as in tidewater rivers. True, the luckless +Ontario, built in 1817 at Sackett's Harbor, proved unseaworthy +when the waves lifted the shaft of her paddle wheels off their +bearings and caused them to demolish the wooden covering built +for their protection; but the Walk-in-the-Water, completed at +Black Rock (Buffalo) in August, 1818, plied successfully as far +as Mackinac Island until her destruction three years later. Her +engines were then inherited by the Superior of stronger build, +and with the launching of such boats as the Niagara, the Henry +Clay, and the Pioneer, the fleet builders of Buffalo, Cleveland, +and Detroit proved themselves not unworthy fellow-countrymen of +the old seafarers of Salem and Philadelphia. + +But how were cargoes to reach these vessels from the vast regions +beyond the Great Lakes? Those thousands of settlers who poured +into the Northwest had cargoes ready to fill every manner of +craft in so short a space of time that it seems as if they must +have resorted to arts of necromancy. It was not magic, however, +but perseverance that had triumphed. The story of the creating of +the main lakeward-reaching canals is long and involved. A period +of agitation and campaigning preceded every such undertaking; and +when construction was once begun, financial woes usually brought +disappointing delays. When a canal was completed after many +vicissitudes and doubts, traffic overwhelmed every method +provided to handle it: locks proved altogether too small; boats +were inadequate; wharfs became congested; blockades which +occurred at locks entailed long delay. In the end only lines and +double lines of steel rails could solve the problem of rapid and +adequate transportation, but the story of the railroad builders +is told elsewhere.* + +* See "The Railroad Builders," by John Moody (in "The Chronicles +of America"). + + +Ohio and Illinois caught the canal fever even before the Erie +Canal was completed, and the Ohio Canal and the Illinois-Michigan +Canal saw preliminary surveying done in 1822 and 1824 +respectively. Ohio particularly had cause to seek a northern +outlet to Eastern markets by way of Lake Erie. The valleys of the +Muskingum, Scioto, and Miami rivers were producing wheat in large +quantities as early as 1802, when Ohio was admitted to the Union. +Flour which brought $3.50 a barrel in Cincinnati was worth $8 in +New York. There were difficulties in the way of transportation. +Sometimes ice prevented produce and merchandise from descending +the Ohio to Cincinnati. At other times merchants of that city had +as many as a hundred thousand barrels awaiting a rise in the +river which would make it possible for boats to go over the falls +at Louisville. As these conditions involved a delay which often +seemed intolerable, the project to build canals to Lake Erie met +with generous acclaim. A northward route, though it might be +blocked by ice for a few months each winter, had an additional +value in the eyes of numerous merchants whose wheat, sent in bulk +to New Orleans, had soured either in the long delay at Louisville +or in the semi-tropical heat of the Southern port. + +The Ohio Legislature in 1822 authorized the survey of all +possible routes for canals which would give Ohio an outlet for +its produce on Lake Erie. The three wheat zones which have been +mentioned were favored in the proposed construction of two canals +which, together, should satisfy the need of increased +transportation: the Ohio Canal to connect Portsmouth on the Ohio +River with Cleveland on Lake Erie and to traverse the richest +parts of the Scioto and Muskingum valleys, and to the west the +Miami Canal to pierce the fruitful Miami and Maumee valleys and +join Cincinnati with Toledo. De Witt Clinton, the presiding +genius of the Erie Canal, was invited to Ohio to play godfather +to these northward arteries which should ultimately swell the +profits of the commission merchants of New York City, and amid +the cheers of thousands he lifted the first spadefuls of earth in +each undertaking. + +The Ohio Canal, which was opened in 1833, had a marked effect +upon the commerce of Lake Erie. Before that date the largest +amount of wheat obtained from Cleveland by a Buffalo firm had +been a thousand bushels; but in the first year of its operation +the Ohio Canal brought to the village of Cleveland over a quarter +of a million bushels of wheat, fifty thousand barrels of flour, +and over a million pounds of butter and lard. In return, the +markets of the world sent into Ohio by canal in this same year +thirty thousand barrels of salt and above five million pounds of +general merchandise. + +Ever since the time when the Erie Canal was begun, Canadian +statesmen had been alive to the strong bid New York was making +for the trade of the Great Lakes. Their answer to the Erie Canal +was the Welland Canal, built between 1824 and 1832 and connecting +Lake Erie with Lake Ontario by a series of twenty-seven locks +with a drop of three hundred feet in twenty-six miles. This +undertaking prepared the way for the subsequent opening of the +St. Lawrence canal system (183 miles) and of the Rideau system by +way of the Ottawa River (246 miles). There was thus provided an +ocean outlet to the north, although it was not until 1856 that an +American vessel reached London by way of the St. Lawrence. + +With the Hudson and the St. Lawrence in the East thus competing +for the trade of the Great Lakes, it is not surprising that the +call of the Mississippi for improved highways was presently +heard. From the period of the War of 1812 onward the position of +the Mississippi River in relation to Lake Michigan was often +referred to as holding possibilities of great importance in the +development of Western commerce. Already the old portage-path +links between the Fox and Wisconsin and the Chicago and Illinois +rivers had been worn deep by the fur traders of many generations, +and with the dawning of the new era enthusiasts of Illinois were +pointing out the strategic position of the latter route for a +great trade between Lake Michigan and the Gulf of Mexico. Thus +the wave of enthusiasm for canal construction that had swept New +York and Ohio now reached Indiana and Illinois. Indian ownership +of land in the latter State for a moment seemed to block the +promotion of the proposed Illinois and Michigan Canal, but a +handsome grant of a quarter of a million acres by the Federal +Government in 1827 came as a signal recognition of the growing +importance of the Northwest; and an appropriation for the +lighting and improving of the harbor of the little village of +Chicago was hailed by ardent promoters as sure proof that the +wedding of Lake Michigan and the Mississippi was but a matter of +months. + +All the difficulties encountered by the advocates of earlier +works of this character, in the valleys of the Potomac, the +Susquehanna, and the Mohawk, were the portion of these dogged +promoters of Illinois. Here, as elsewhere, there were rival +routes and methods of construction, opposition of jealous +sections not immediately benefited, estimates which had to be +reconsidered and augmented, and so on. The land grants pledged to +pay the bonds were at first of small value, and their advance in +price depended on the success of the canal itself, which could +not be built unless the State underwrote the whole enterprise--if +the lands were not worth the bonds. Thus the argument ran in a +circle, and no one could foresee the splendid traffic and +receipts from tolls that would result from the completed canal. + +The commissioners in charge of the project performed one +interesting service in these early days by putting Chicago on the +map; but the two terminals, Ottawa on the Illinois and Chicago on +Lake Michigan--both plotted in 1830--were very largely figures of +speech at that time. The day of miracles was at hand, however, +for the little town of one hundred people at the foot of Lake +Michigan. The purchase of the lands of the Potawatomies, the +Black Hawk War in 1832, which brought steamboats to Chicago for +the first time, and the decision of Illinois in 1836 to pledge +her good name in favor of the Illinois and Michigan Canal made +Chicago a city of four thousand people by the panic year of 1837. +So absorbed were these Chicago folk in the building of their +canal and in wresting from their lake firm foothold for a city +(reclaiming four hundred feet of lake bed in two years) that the +panic affected their town less than it did many a rival. Although +the canal enterprise came to an ominous pause in 1842, after the +expenditure of five millions, the pledge of the State stood the +enterprise in good stead. Local financiers, together with New +York and Boston promoters, advanced about a quarter of a million, +while French and English bankers, notably Baring Brothers, +contributed about three-quarters of a million. With this +assistance the work was carried to a successful ending. On April +10,1848, the first boat passed over the ninety-mile route from +Chicago to Ottawa, and the Great Lakes and the Mississippi Basin +were united by this Erie Canal of the West. Though its days of +greatest value were soon over, no one can exaggerate the +importance of this waterway in the growth and prosperity of +Chicago between 1848 and 1860. By 1857 Chicago was sending north +and south annually by boat over twenty million bushels of wheat +and corn. + +The awakening of the lands behind Lake Erie, Lake Huron, and Lake +Michigan brought forth innumerable demands for roads, canals, and +railways to the ports of Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, +Milwaukee, and Chicago. There were actually hundreds of these +enterprises undertaken. The development of the land behind Lake +Superior was particularly spectacular and important, not only +because of its general effect on the industrial world but also +because out of it came the St. Mary's River Ship Canal. Nowhere +in the zone of the Great Lakes has any region produced such +unexpected changes in American industrial and commercial life as +did the region of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota contributory +to Lake Superior. If, as the story goes, Benjamin Franklin said, +when he drew at Paris the international boundary line through +Lake Superior, that this was his greatest service to America, he +did not exaggerate. The line running north of Isle Royale and +thence to the Lake of the Woods gave the United States the lion's +share of that great inland seaboard and the inestimably rich +deposits of copper and iron that have revolutionized American +industry. + +>From earliest days rumors of deposits of bright copper in the +land behind Lake Superior had been reported by Indians to fur +traders who in turn had passed the story on to fur company agents +and thus to the outside world. As a result of her "Toledo War"-- +as her boundary dispute was called--Michigan had reluctantly +accepted the northern peninsula lying between Lake Superior and +Lake Michigan in lieu of the strip of Ohio territory which she +believed to be hers. If Michigan felt that she had lost by this +compromise, her state geologist, Douglass Houghton, soon found a +splendid jewel in the toad's head of defeat, for the report of +his survey of 1840 confirmed the story of the existence of large +copper deposits, and the first rush to El Dorado followed. Amid +the usual chaos, conflict, and failure incident to such +stampedes, order and system at last triumphed and the richest +copper mines of the New World were uncovered. Then came the +unexpected finding of the mammoth iron-ore beds by William A. +Burt, inventor of the solar compass. The circumstance of this +discovery is of such national importance that a contemporary +description by a member of Burt's party which was surveying a +line near Marquette, Michigan, is worth quoting: + +"I shall never forget the excitement of the old gentleman when +viewing the changes of the variation. He kept changing his +position to take observations, all the time saying "How would +they survey this country without my compass" and "What could be +done here without my compass." At length the compassman called +for us all to "come and see a variation which will beat them +all." As we looked at the instrument, to our astonishment, the +north end of the needle was traversing a few degrees to the south +west. Mr. Burt called out "Boys, look around and see what you can +find." We all left the line, some going to the east, some going +to the west, and all of us returned with specimens of iron ore." + +But it was not enough that this Aladdin's Land in the Northwest +should revolutionize the copper and steel industry of the world, +for as soon as the soil took to its bosom an enterprising race of +agriculturists it bade fair to play as equally important a part +in the grain industry. Copper and iron no less came out of the +blue of this cold northern region than did the mighty crops of +Minnesota wheat, corn, and oats. In the decade preceding the +Civil War the export of wheat from Lake Superior rose from +fourteen hundred bushels to three and a quarter millions of +bushels, while in 1859 nearly seven million bushels of corn and +oats were sent out to the world. + +The commerce of Lake Superior could not await the building of a +canal around the foaming rapids of the St. Mary's River, its one +outlet to the lower lakes. In the decade following the discovery +of copper and iron more than a dozen ships, one even of as much +as five hundred tons, were hauled bodily across the portage +between Lake Huron and Lake Superior. The last link of navigation +in the Great Lake system, however, was made possible in 1852 by a +grant by Congress of 750,000 acres of Michigan land. Although +only a mile in length, the work proved to be of unusual +difficulty since the pathway for the canal had to be blasted +throughout practically its whole length out of solid rock. It was +completed in 1855, and the princely empire "in the moon" was in a +position to make its terms with the coal fields of Pennsylvania +and to usher in the iron age of transportation and construction. + +It is only in the light of this awakening of the lands around the +Great Lakes that one can see plainly the task which fell to the +lot of the successors of the frail Walk-in-the-Water and sturdier +Superior of the early twenties. For the first fifteen years the +steamboat found its mission in carrying the thousands of +emigrants pouring into the Northwest, a heterogeneous multitude +which made the Lake Erie boats seem, to one traveler at least, +filled with "men, women and children, beds, cradles, kettles, and +frying pans." These craft were built after the pattern of the +Walk-in-the-Water--side-wheelers with a steering wheel at the +stern. No cabins or staterooms on deck were provided; and amid +such freight as the thriving young towns provided were to be +found the twenty or thirty cords of wood which the engines +required as fuel. + +The second period of steamboating began with the opening of the +Ohio Canal and the Welland Canal about 1834 and extended another +fifteen years to the middle of the century, when it underwent a +transformation owing to the great development of Chicago, the +completion of the Illinois and Michigan and St. Mary's canals, +and the new railways. This second period was marked by the +building of such steamers as the Michigan, the Great Western, and +the Illinois. These were the first boats with an upper cabin and +were looked upon with marked suspicion by those best acquainted +with the severe storms upon the Great Lakes. The Michigan, of 475 +tons, built by Oliver Newberry at Detroit in 1833, is said to +have been the first ship of this type. These boats proved their +seaworthiness and caused a revolution in the construction of lake +craft. Later in this period freight transportation saw an equally +radical advance with the building of the first propellers. The +sloop-rigged Vandalia, built by Sylvester Doolittle at Oswego on +Lake Ontario in 1842, was the first of the propeller type and +was soon followed by the Hercules, the Samson, and the Detroit. + +One very great handicap in lake commerce up to this time had been +the lack of harbors. Detroit alone of the lake ports was +distinctly favored in this respect. The harbors of Buffalo, +Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Chicago were improved slowly, but it +was not until the great Chicago convention of 1846 that the +nation's attention was focused on the needs of Western rivers and +harbors, and there dawned a new era of lighthouses and buoys, +breakwaters and piers, and dredged channels. Another handicap to +the volume of business which the lake boats handled in the period +just previous to the Civil War was the inadequacy of the feeders, +the roads, riverways, and canals. The Erie Canal was declared too +small almost before the cries of its virulent opponents had died +away, and the enlargement of its locks was soon undertaken. The +same thing proved true of the Ohio and Illinois canals. The +failure of the Welland Canal was similarly a very serious +handicap. Although its locks were enlarged in 1841, it was found +by 1850 that despite the improvements it could not admit more +than about one-third of the grain-carrying boats, while only one +in four of the new propellers could enter its locks. + +As late as the middle forties men did not in the least grasp the +commercial situation which now confronted the Northwest nor could +they foresee that the land behind the Great Lakes was about to +deluge the country with an output of produce and manufactures of +which the roads, canals, ships, wharfs, or warehouses in +existence could handle not a tenth part. They did not yet +understand that--this trade was to become national. It was well +on in the forties before the Galena lead mines, for instance, +were given up as the terminal of the Illinois Central Railroad +and the main line was directed to Chicago. The middle of the +century was reached before the Lake Shore was considered at +Cleveland or Chicago as important commercially as the neighboring +portage paths which by the Ordinance of 1787 had been created +"common highways forever free." The idea of joining Buffalo, +Cleveland, and Chicago with the interior--an idea as old as the +Indian trails thither--still dominated men's minds even in the +early part of the railroad epoch. Chicago desired to be connected +with Cairo, the ice-free port on the Mississippi; and Cleveland +was eager to be joined to Columbus and Cincinnati. The +enthusiastic railway promoters of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois +drew splendid plans for uniting all parts of those States by +railway lines; but the strategic position of the cities on the +continental alignment from New York to the Pacific by way of +South Pass never came within their horizon. The ten million +dollar Illinois scheme did not even contemplate a railway running +eastward from Chicago. But the future of the commerce of the +Great Lakes depended absolutely upon this development. There was +no hope of any canals being able to handle the traffic of the +mighty empire which was now awake and fully conscious of its +power. The solution lay in joining the cities to each other and +to the Atlantic world markets by iron rails running east and +west. + +This railroad expansion is what makes the last decade before the +Civil War such a remarkable series of years in the West. In the +half decade, 1850-55, the Baltimore and Ohio and Pennsylvania +railways reached the Ohio River; the links of the present Lake +Shore system between Buffalo and Chicago by way of Cleveland and +Toledo were constructed; and the Pennsylvania line was put +through from Pittsburgh to Chicago. The place of the lake country +on the continental alignment and the imperial situation of +Chicago, and later of Omaha, came to be realized. The new view +transformed men's conceptions of every port on the Great Lakes in +the chain from Buffalo to Chicago. At a dozen southern ports on +Ontario, Erie, Huron, and Michigan, commerce now touched the +swiftest and most economical means of transcontinental traffic. +This development culminated in the miracle we call Chicago. In +1847 not a line of rail entered the town; its population then +numbered about twenty-five thousand and its property valuation +approximated seven millions. Ten years later four thousand miles +of railway connected with all four points of the compass a city +of nearly one hundred thousand people, and property valuation had +increased five hundred per cent. The growth of Buffalo, +Cleveland, and Detroit during this period was also phenomenal. + +When the crisis of 1861 came, the service performed by the +Walk-in-the-Water and her successors was seen in its true light. +The Great Lakes as avenues of migration had played a providential +part in filling a northern empire with a proud and loyal race; +from farm and factory regiment on regiment marched forth to fight +for unity; from fields without number produce to sustain a nation +on trial poured forth in abundance; enormous quantities of iron +were at hand for the casting of cannon and cannon balls; and, +finally, pathways of water and steel were in readiness in the +nick of time to carry these resources where they would count +tremendously in the four long years of conflict. + + + +CHAPTER XI. The Steamboat And The West + +Two great fields of service lay open before those who were to +achieve by steam the mastery of the inland waterways. On the one +hand the cotton kingdom of the South, now demanding great stores +of manufactured goods, produce, and machinery, was waiting to be +linked to the valleys and industrial cities of the Middle West; +and, on the other hand, along those great eastward and westward +rivers, the Ohio and Missouri, lay the commerce of the prairies +and the Great Plains. But before the steamboat could serve the +inland commerce of the West, it had to be constructed on new +lines. The craft brought from the seaboard were of too deep draft +to navigate shallow streams which ran through this more level +country. + +The task of constructing a great inland river marine to play the +dual role of serving the cotton empire and of extending American +migration and commerce into the trans-Mississippi region was +solved by Henry Shreve when he built the Washington at Wheeling +in 1816. Shreve was the American John Hawkins. Hawkins, that +sturdy old admiral of Elizabethan days, took the English ship of +his time, trimmed down the high stern and poop decks, and cut +away the deep-lying prow and stern, after the fashion of our +modern cup defenders, and in a day gave England the key to sea +mastery in the shape of a new ship that would take sail and +answer her rudder beyond anything the maritime world until then +had known. Shreve, like Hawkins, flagrantly ignoring the +conventional wisdom of his day and craft, built the Washington to +sail on the water instead of in it, doing away altogether with a +hold and supplying an upper deck in its place. + +To few inventors, indeed, does America owe a greater debt of +thanks than to this Ohio River shipbuilder. A dozen men were on +the way to produce a Clermont had Fulton failed; but Shreve had +no rival in his plan to build a flat-bottomed steamboat. The +remarkable success of his design is attested by the fact that in +two decades the boats built on his model outweighed in tonnage +all the ships of the Atlantic seaboard and Great Lakes combined. +Immediately the Ohio became in effect the western extension of +the great national highway and opened an easy pathway for +immigration to the eastern as well as the western lands of the +Mississippi Basin. The story goes that an old phlegmatic negro +watched the approach of one of the first steamboats to the wharf +of a Southern city. Like many others, he had doubted the +practicability of this new-fangled Yankee notion. The boat, +however, came and went with ease and dispatch. The old negro was +converted. "By golly," he shouted, waving his cap, "the +Mississippi's got her Massa now." + +The Mississippi had indeed found her master, but only by slow +degrees and after intervals of protracted rebellion did she +succumb to that master. Luckily, however, there was at hand an +army of unusual men--the "alligator-horses" of the flatboat era-- +upon whom the steamboat could call with supreme confidence that +they would not fail. Theodore Roosevelt has said of the Western +pioneers that they "had to be good and strong--especially, +strong." If these men upon whom the success of the steamboat +depended were not always good, they were beyond any doubt +behemoths in strength. + +The task before them, however, was a task worthy of Hercules. The +great river boldly fought its conquerors, asking and giving no +quarter, biding its time when opposed by the brave but crushing +the fearful on sight. In one respect alone could it be depended +upon--it was never the same. It is said to bring down annually +four hundred million tons of mud, but its eccentricity in +deciding where to wash away and where to deposit its load is +still the despair of river pilots. The great river could destroy +islands and build new ones overnight with the nonchalance of a +child playing with clay. It could shorten itself thirty miles at +a single lunge. It could move inland towns to its banks and leave +river towns far inland. It transferred the town of Delta, for +instance, from three miles below Vicksburg to two miles above it. +Men have gone to sleep in one State and have wakened unharmed in +another, because the river decided in the night to alter the +boundary line. In this way the village of Hard Times, the +original site of which was in Louisiana, found itself eventually +in Mississippi. Were La Salle to descend the river today by the +route he traversed two and a half centuries ago, he would follow +dry ground most of the way, for the river now lies practically +everywhere either to the right or left of its old course. + +If the Mississippi could perform such miracles upon its whole +course without a show of effort, what could it not do with the +little winding canal through its center called by pilots the +"channel"? The flatboatmen had laboriously acquired the art of +piloting the commerce of the West through this mazy, shifting +channel, but as steamboats developed in size and power the man at +the wheel had to become almost a superman. He needed to be. He +must know the stage of water anywhere by a glance at the river +banks. He must guess correctly the amount of "fill" at the head +of dangerous chutes, detect bars "working down," distinguish +between bars and "sand reefs" or "wind reefs" or "bluff reefs" by +night as well as by day, avoid the" breaks" in the "graveyard" +behind Goose Island, navigate the Hat Island chutes, or find the +"middle crossing" at Hole-in-the-Wall. He must navigate his craft +in fogs, in storms, in the face of treacherous winds, on black +nights, with thousands of dollars' worth of cargo and hundreds of +lives at stake. + +As the golfer knows each knoll and tuft of grass on his home +links, so the pilot learned his river by heart. Said one of these +pilots to an apprentice: + +"You see this has got to be learned .... A clear starlight night +throws such heavy shadows that if you didn't know the shape of a +shore perfectly you would claw away from every bunch of timber +because you would take the black shadow of it for a solid cape; +and you see you would be getting scared to death every fifteen +minutes by the watch. You would be fifty yards from shore all the +time when you ought to be within fifty feet of it. You can't see +a snag in one of those shadows, but you know exactly where it is, +and the shape of the river tells you when you are coming to it. +Then there's your pitch-dark night; the river is a very different +shape on a pitch-dark night from what it is on a starlight night. +All shores seem to be straight lines, then, and mighty dim ones, +too; and you'd run them for straight lines only you know better. +You boldly drive your boat right into what seems to be a solid, +straight wall (you knowing very well that in reality there is a +curve there) and that wall falls back and makes way for you. Then +there's your gray mist. You take a night when there's one of +these grisly, drizzly, gray mists, and then there isn't any +particular shape to a shore. A gray mist would tangle the head of +the oldest man that ever lived. Well, then, different kinds of +MOONLIGHT change the shape of the river in different ways.... +You only learn the shape of the river; and you learn it with such +absolute certainty that you can always steer by the shape that's +IN YOUR HEAD and never mind the one that's before your eyes."* + +* Mark Twain, "Life on the Mississippi," pp. 103-04. + + +No wonder that the two hundred miles of the Mississippi from the +mouth of the Ohio to St. Louis in time contained the wrecks of +two hundred steamboats. + +The river trade reached its zenith between 1840 and 1860, in the +two decades previous to the Civil War, that period before the +railroads began to parallel the great rivers. It was a time which +saw the rise of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, and +Arkansas, and which witnessed the spread of the cotton kingdom +into the Southwest. The story of King Cotton's conquest of the +Mississippi South is best told in statistics. In 1811, the year +of the first voyage which the New Orleans made down the Ohio +River, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Mississippi exported five +million pounds of cotton. In 1834 these same States exported +almost two hundred million pounds of cotton. To take care of this +crop and to supply the cotton country, which was becoming +wealthy, with the necessaries and luxuries of life, more and more +steamboats were needed. The great shipyards situated, because of +the proximity of suitable timber, at St. Louis, Cincinnati, and +Louisville became busy hives, not since paralleled except by such +centers of shipbuilding as Hog Island in 1917-18, during the time +of the Great War. The steamboat tonnage of the Mississippi Valley +(exclusive of New Orleans) in the hustling forties exceeded that +of the Atlantic ports (exclusive of New York City) by 15,000 +tons. The steamboat tonnage of New Orleans alone in 1843 was more +than double that of New York City. + +Those who, if the old story is true, ran in fear to the hills +when the little New Orleans went puffing down the Ohio, in 1811, +would have been doubly amazed at the splendid development in the +art of boat building, could they have seen the stately Sultana or +Southern Belle of the fifties sweep swiftly by. After a period of +gaudy ornamentation (1830-40) steamboat architecture settled +down, as has that of Pullman cars today, to sane and practical +lines, and the boats gained in length and strength, though they +contained less weight of timber. The value of one of the greater +boats of this era would be about fifty thousand dollars. When +Captain Bixby made his celebrated night crossing at Hat Island a +quarter of a million dollars in ship and cargo would have been +the price of an error in judgment, according to Mark Twain,* a +good authority. + +*Op. cit., p. 101 + + +The Yorktown, built in 1844 for the Ohio-Mississippi trade, was +typical of that epoch of inland commerce. Her length was 182 +feet, breadth of beam 31 feet, and the diameter of wheels 28 +feet. Though her hold was 8 feet in depth, yet she drew but 4 +feet of water light and barely over 8 feet when loaded with 500 +tons of freight. She had 4 boilers, 30 feet long and 42 inches in +diameter, double engines, and two 24-inch cylinders. The +stateroom cabin had come in with Captain Isaiah Sellers's Prairie +in 1836, the first boat with such luxuries ever seen in St. +Louis, according to Sellers. The Yorktown had 40 private cabins. +It is interesting to compare the Yorktown with The Queen of the +West, the giant British steamer built for the Falmouth-Calcutta +trade in 1839. The Queen of the West had a length of 310 feet, a +beam of 31 feet, a draft of 15 feet, and 16 private cabins. The +building of this great vessel led a writer in the New York +American to say: "It would really seem that we as a nation had no +interest in this new application of steam power, or no energy to +appropriate it to our own use." The statement--written in a day +when the Mississippi steamboat tonnage exceeded that of the +entire British Empire--is one of the best examples of provincial +ignorance concerning the West. + +On these steamboats there was a multiplicity of arrangements and +equipments for preventing and for fighting fire. One of the +innovations on the new boats in this particular was the +substitution of wire for the combustible rope formerly used to +control the tiller, so that even in time of fire the pilot could +"hold her nozzle agin' the bank." Much of the great loss of life +in steamboat fires had been due to the tiller-ropes being burned +and the boats becoming unmanageable. + +The arrival of the railroad at the head of the Ohio River in the +early fifties brought the East into an immediate touch with the +Mississippi Valley unknown before. But however bold railway +engineers were in the face of the ragged ranges of the +Alleghanies, they could not then outguess the tricks of the Ohio, +the Mississippi, or the Missouri, and railway promoters could not +afford to take chances on having their stations and tracks +unexpectedly isolated, if not actually carried away, by swirling, +yellow floods. The Mississippi, too, had been known at times to +achieve a width of seventy miles, and tributaries have overflowed +their banks to a proportionate extent. It was several decades ere +the Ohio was paralleled by a railway, and the Mississippi for +long distances even today has not yet heard the shrill cry of the +locomotive. So the steamboat entered its heyday and encountered +little competition. Until the Civil War the rivers of the West +remained the great arteries of trade, carrying grain and +merchandise of every description southward and bringing back +cotton, rice, and sugar. + +The rivalries of the great lines of packets established in these +days of the steamboat, however, equaled anything ever known in +railway competition, and, in the matter of fast time, became more +spectacular than anything of its kind in any line of +transportation in our country. With flags flying, boilers heated +white with abundance of pine and resin, and bold and skillful +pilots at the steering wheels, no sport of kings ever aroused the +enthusiasm of hundreds of thousands to such a pitch as did many +of the old-time races northward from New Orleans. + +The J. M. White and her performances stand out conspicuously in +the annals of the river. Her builder, familiarly known to a +generation of rivermen as Billy King, deserves to rank with Henry +Shreve. Commissioned in 1844 to build the J. M. White for J. M. +Converse of St. Louis, with funds supplied by Robert Chouteau of +that city, King proceeded to put into effect the knowledge which +he had derived from a close study of the swells made by +steamboats when under way. When the boat was being built in the +famous shipyards at Elizabeth, on the Monongahela, the wheel +beams were set twenty feet farther back than was customary. +Converse was struck with this unheard-of radicalism in design, +and balked; King was a man given to few words; he was resolved to +throw convention to the winds and trust his judgment; he refused +to build the boat on other lines. Converse felt compelled to let +Chouteau pass on the question; in time the laconic answer came: +"Let King put the beams where he pleases." + +Thus the craft which Converse thought a monstrosity became known +far and wide for both its design and its speed. In 1844 the J. M. +White made the record of three days, twenty-three hours, and nine +minutes between New Orleans and St. Louis.* Of course the secret +of Billy King's success soon became known. He had placed his +paddle wheels where they would bite into the swell produced by +every boat just under its engines. He had transformed what had +been a handicap into a positive asset. It is said that he +attempted to shield his prize against competition by destroying +the model of the J. M. White, as well as to have refused large +offers to build a boat that would beat her. But it is said also +that an exhibition model of the boat was a cherished possession +of E. M. Stanton, Secretary of War, and that it hung in his +office during Lincoln's administration. + +* This performance is illustrated by the following comparative +table showing the best records of later years between New Orleans +and St. Louis, a distance estimated in 1844 as 1300 miles but in +1870 as 1218 miles, owing to the action of the river in +shortening its course. + +YEAR BOAT TIME +1844 J. M. White 3 d. 23 h. 9 m. +1849 Missouri 4 d. 19 h. -- +1889 Dexter 4 d. 9 h. -- +1870 Natchez 8 d. 21 h. 58 m. +1870 R. E. Lee 3 d. 18 h. 14 m. + + +The steamboat now extended its service to the West and North. The +ancient fur trade with the Indians of the upper Mississippi, the +Missouri, and the Arkansas, had its headquarters at St. Louis, +whence the notable band of men engaged in that trade were +reaching out to the Rockies. The roll includes Ashley, Campbell, +Sublette, Manuel Lisa, Perkins, Hempstead, William Clark, +Labadie, the Chouteaus, and Menard--men of different races and +colors and alike only in their energy, bravery, and initiative. +Through them the village of St. Louis had grown to a population +of four thousand in 1819, when Major Long's expedition passed up +the Missouri in the first steamboat to ascend that river. This +boat, the Western Engineer, was built at Pittsburgh and was +modeled cunningly for its work. It was one of the first stern +wheelers built in the West; and the saving in width meant much on +streams having such narrow channels as the Missouri and the +Platte, especially when barges were to be towed. Then, too, its +machinery, which was covered over or boarded up, was shrouded in +mystery. A fantastic figure representing a serpent's open mouth +contained the exhaust pipe. If the New Orleans alarmed the +population of the Ohio Valley, the sensation caused among the red +children of the Missouri at the sight of this gigantic snake +belching fire and smoke must have thoroughly satisfied the whim +of its designer. + +The admission of Missouri to statehood and the independence of +Mexico mark the beginning of real commercial relations between +St. Louis and Santa Fe. In 1822 Captain William Becknell +organized the first wagon train which left the Missouri (at +Franklin, near Independence) for the long dangerous journey to +the Arkansas and on to Santa Fe. In the following year two +expeditions set forth, carrying out cottons and other drygoods to +exchange for horses, mules, furs, and silver. + +Despite the handicaps of Indian opposition and Mexican tariffs, +the Santa Fe trade became an important factor in the growth of +St. Louis and the Missouri River steamboat lines. In 1825 the +pathway was "surveyed" from Franklin to San Fernando, then in +Mexico. This Santa Fe trade grew from fifteen thousand pounds of +freight in 1822 to nearly half a million pounds twenty years +later. + +By 1826 steamboat traffic up the Missouri began to assume +regularity. The navigation was dangerous and difficult because +the Missouri never kept even an approximately constant head of +water. In times of drought it became very shallow, and in times +of flood it tore its wayward course open in any direction it +chose. "Of all variable things in creation," wrote a Western +editor, "the most uncertain are the action of a jury, the state +of a woman's mind, and the condition of the Missouri River." A +further handicap, and one which was unknown on the Ohio and rare +on the Mississippi, was the lack of forests to supply the +necessary fuel. The Missouri, it is true, had its cottonwoods, +but in a green state they were poor fuel, and along vast +stretches they were not obtainable in any quantity. + +The steamboat linked St. Louis with that vital stretch of the +river lying between the mouth of the Kansas and the mouth of the +Nebraska. From this region the great Western trail ran on to +California and Oregon. In the early thirties Bonneville, Walker, +Kelley, and Wyeth successively essayed this Overland Trail by way +of the Platte through the South Pass of the Rockies to the +Humboldt, Snake, and Columbia rivers. From Independence on the +Missouri this famous pathway led to Fort Laramie, a distance of +672 miles; another 800-mile climb brought the traveler through +South Pass; and so, by way of Fort Bridger, Salt Lake, and +Sutter's Fort, to San Francisco. The route, well known by +hundreds of Oregon pioneers in the early forties, became a +thoroughfare in the eager days of the Forty-Niners.* + +* For map see "The Passing of the Frontier," by Emerson Hough (in +"The Chronicles of America"). + + +The earliest overland stage line to Great Salt Lake was +established by Hockaday and Liggett. After the founding of the +famous Overland Stage Company by Russell, Majors, and Waddell in +1858, stages were soon ascending the Platte from the steamboat +terminals on the Missouri and making the twelve hundred miles +from St. Joseph to Salt Lake City in ten days. Stations were +established from ten to fifteen miles apart, and the line was +soon extended on to Sacramento. The nineteen hundred miles from +St. Joseph to Sacramento were made in fifteen days although the +government contract with the company for handling United States +mail allowed nineteen days. A host of employees was engaged in +this exciting but not very remunerative +enterprise--station-agents +and helpers, drivers, conductors who had charge of passengers, +in addition to mail and express and road agents who acted as +division superintendents. In 1862 the Overland Route was taken +over by the renowned Ben Holliday, who operated it until the +railway was constructed seven years later. Freight was hauled by +the same company in wagons known as the "J. Murphy wagons," which + +were made in St. Louis. These wagons went out from Leavenworth +loaded with six thousand pounds of freight each. A train usually +consisted of twenty-five wagons and was known, in the vernacular +of the plains, as a "bull-outfit"; the drivers were +"bull-whackers"; and the wagon master was the "bull-wagon boss." + +The old story, however, was repeated again here on the boundless +plains of the West. The Western trails streaming out from the +terminus of steamboat traffic between Kansas City and Omaha had +scarcely time to become well known before the railway conquerors +of the Atlantic and Great Lakes regions were planning the +conquest of the greater plains and the Rockies beyond. The +opening of the Chinese ports in 1844 turned men's minds as never +before to the Pacific coast. The acquisition of Oregon within a +few years and of California at the close of the Mexican War +opened the way for a newspaper and congressional discussion as to +whether the first railway to parallel the Santa Fe or the +Overland Trail should run from Memphis, St. Louis, or Chicago. +The building of the Union Pacific from Omaha westward assured the +future of that city, and it was soon joined to Chicago and the +East by several lines which were building toward Clinton, Rock +Island, and Burlington. + +But the construction of a few main lines of railway across the +continent could only partially satisfy the commercial needs of +the West. True, the overland trade was at once transferred to the +railroad, but the enormous equipment of stage and express +companies previously employed in westward overland trade was now +devoted to joining the railway lines with the vast regions to the +north and the south. The rivers of the West could not alone take +care of this commerce and for many years these great +transportation companies went with their stages and their wagons +into the growing Dakota and Montana trade and opened up direct +lines of communication to the nearest railway. On the south the +cattle industry of Texas came northward into touch with the +railways of Kansas. Eventually lateral and trunk lines covered +the West with their network of lines and thus obliterated all +rivalry and competition by providing unmatched facilities for +quick transportation. + +In the last days previous to the opening of the first +transcontinental railway line a unique method of rapid +transportation for mail and light parcels was established when +the famous "Pony Express" line was put into operation between St. +Joseph and San Francisco in 1860. By relays of horsemen, who +carried pouches not exceeding twenty pounds in weight, the time +was cut to nine days. The innovation was the new wonder of the +world for the time being and led to an outburst on the part of +the enthusiastic editor of the St. Joseph Free Democrat that +deserves reading because it breathes so fully the Western spirit +of exultant conquest: + +"Take down your map and trace the footprints of our +quadrupedantic animal: From St. Joseph, on the Missouri, to San +Francisco, on the Golden Horn two thousand miles--more than half +the distance across our boundless continent; through Kansas, +through Nebraska, by Fort Kearney, along the Platte, by Fort +Laramie, past the Buttes, over the Mountains, through the narrow +passes and along the steep defiles, Utah, Fort Bridger, Salt Lake +City, he witches Brigham with his swift pony-ship through the +valleys, along the grassy slopes, into the snow, into the sand, +faster than Thor's Thialfi, away they go, rider and horse--did +you see them? They are in California, leaping over its golden +sands, treading its busy streets. The courser has unrolled to us +the great American panorama, allowed us to glance at the home of +one million people, and has put a girdle around the earth in +forty minutes. Verily the riding is like the riding of Jehu, the +son of Nimshi for he rideth furiously. Take out your watch. We +are eight days from New York, eighteen from London. The race is +to the swift."* + +* Quoted in Inman's "The Great Salt Lake Trail," p. 171. + + +The lifetime of many and many a man has covered a period longer +than that interval of eighty-six years between 1783, when George +Washington had his vision of "the vast inland navigation of these +United States," and the year 1869, when the two divisions of the +Union Pacific were joined by a golden spike at Promontory Point +in Utah. In point of time, those eighty-six years are as nothing; +in point of accomplishment, they stand unparalleled. When +Washington's horse splashed across the Youghiogheny in October, +1784, the boundary lines of the United States were guarded with +all the jealousy and provincial selfishness of European kingdoms. +But overnight, so to sneak these limitations became no more than +mere geometrical expressions. "Pennamite," "Erie," and "Toledo" +wars between the States, suggesting a world of bitterness and +recrimination, are remembered today, if at all, only by the +cartoonist and the playwright. The ancient false pride in mock +values, so cherished in Europe, has quite departed from the +provincial areas of the United States, and Americans can fly in a +day, unwittingly, through many States. Problems that would have +cost Europe blood are settled without turmoil in the solemn +cloisters of that American "international tribunal," the Supreme +Court, and they appear only as items of passing interest in our +newspapers. + +In unifying the nation the influence of the Supreme Court has +been priceless, for it has given to Americans, in place of the +colonial or provincial mind, a continental mind. But great is the +debt of Americans to the men who laid the foundations of +interstate commerce. No antidote served so well to counteract the +poison of clannish rivalry as did their enthusiasm and their +constructive energy. These men, dreamers and promoters, were +building better than they knew. They thought to overcome +mountains, obliterate swamps, conquer stormy lakes, master great +rivers and endless plains; but, as their labors are judged today, +the greater service which these men rendered appears in its true +light. They stifled provincialism; they battered down Chinese +Walls of prejudice and separatism; they reduced the aimless +rivalry of bickering provinces to a businesslike common +denominator; and, perhaps more than any class of men, they made +possible the wide-spreading and yet united Republic that is +honored and loved today. + + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + +The history of the early phase of American transportation is +dealt with in three general works. John Luther Ringwalt's +"Development of Transportation Systems in the United States" +(1888) is a reliable summary of the general subject at the time. +Archer B. Hulbert's "Historic Highways of America," 16 vols. +(1902-1905), is a collection of monographs of varying quality +written with youthful enthusiasm by the author, who traversed in +good part the main pioneer roads and canals of the eastern +portion of the United States; Indian trails, portage paths, the +military roads of the Old French War period, the Ohio River as a +pathway of migration, the Cumberland Road, and three of the +canals which played a part in the western movement, form the +subject of the more valuable volumes. The temptation of a writer +on transportation to wander from his subject is illustrated in +this work, as it is illustrated afresh in Seymour Dunbar's "A +History of Travel in America," 4 vols. (1915). The reader will +take great pleasure in this magnificently illustrated work, +which, in completer fashion than it has ever been attempted, +gives a readable running story of the whole subject for the whole +country, despite detours, which some will make around the many +pages devoted to Indian relations. + +For almost every phase of the general topic books, monographs, +pamphlets, and articles are to be found in the corners of any +great library, ranging in character from such productions as +William F. Ganong's "A Monograph of Historic Sites in the +Province of New Brunswick" ("Proceedings and Transactions" of the +Royal Society of Canada, Second Series, vol. V, 1899) which +treats of early travel in New England and Canada, or St. George +L. Sioussat's "Highway Legislation in Maryland and its Influence +on the Economic Development of the State" ("Maryland Geological +Survey," III, 1899) treating of colonial road making and +legislation thereon, or Elbert J. Benton's "The Wabash Trade +Route in the Development of the Old Northwest" ("Johns Hopkins +University Studies in Historical and Political Science," vol. +XXI, 1903) and Julius Winden's "The Influence of the Erie Canal +upon the Population along its Course" (University of Wisconsin, +1901), which treat of the economic and political influence of the +opening of inland water routes, to volumes of a more popular +character such as Francis W. Halsey's "The Old New York Frontier" +(1901), Frank H. Severance's "Old Trails on the Niagara Frontier" +(1903) for the North, and Charles A. Hanna's "The Wilderness +Trail", 2 vols. (1911), and Thomas Speed's "The Wilderness Road" +("The Filson Club Publications," vol. II, 1886) for Pennsylvania, +Virginia, and Kentucky. The value of Hanna's work deserves +special mention. + +For the early phases of inland navigation John Pickell's "A New +Chapter in the Early Life of Washington" (1856), is an excellent +work of the old-fashioned type, while in Herbert B. Adams's +"Maryland's Influence upon Land Cessions to the United States" +("Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political +Science, Third Series," I, 1885) a master-hand pays Washington +his due for originating plans of trans-Alleghany solidarity; this +likewise is the theme of Archer B. Hulbert's "Washington and the +West" (1905) wherein is printed Washington's "Diary of September, +1784," containing the first and unexpurgated draft of his classic +letter to Harrison of that year. The publications of the various +societies for internal improvement and state boards of control +and a few books, such as Turner Camac's "Facts and Arguments +Respecting the Great Utility of an Extensive Plan of Inland +Navigation in America" (1805), give the student distinct +impressions of the difficulties and the ideals of the first great +American promoters of inland commerce. Elkanah Watson's "History +of the...Western Canals in the State of New York" (1820), +despite inaccuracies due to lapses of memory, should be specially +remarked. + +For the rise and progress of turnpike building one must remember +W. Kingsford's "History, Structure, and Statistics of Plank +Roads" (1852), a reliable book by a careful writer. The +Cumberland (National) Road has its political influence carefully +adjudged by Jeremiah S. Young in "A Political and Constitutional +Study of the Cumberland Road" (1904), while the social and +personal side is interestingly treated in county history style in +Thomas B. Searight's "The Old Pike" (1894). Motorists will +appreciate Robert Bruce's "The National Road" (1916), handsomely +illustrated and containing forty-odd sectional maps. + +The best life of Fulton is H. W. Dickinson's "Robert Fulton, +Engineer and Artist: His Life and Works" (1913), while in Alice +Crary Sutcliffe's "Robert Fulton and the 'Clermont'" (1909), the +more intimate picture of a family biography is given. For the +controversy concerning the Fulton-Livingston monopoly, note W. A. +Duer's "A Course of Lectures on Constitutional Jurisprudence" and +his pamphlets addressed to Cadwallader D. Colden. The life of +that stranger to success, the forlorn John Fitch, was written +sympathetically and after assiduous research by Thompson Westcott +in his "Life of John Fitch the Inventor of the Steamboat" (1858). +For the pamphlet war between Fitch and Rumsey see Allibone's +Dictionary. + +The Great Lakes have not been adequately treated. E. Channing and +M. F. Lansing's "The Story of the Great Lakes" (1909) is reliable +but deals very largely with the routine history covered by the +works of Parkman. J. O. Curwood's "The Great Lakes" (1909) is +stereotyped in its scope but has certain chapters of interest to +students of commercial development, as has also "The Story of the +Great Lakes." The vast bulk of material of value on the subject +lies in the publications of the New York, Buffalo, Michigan, +Wisconsin, Illinois, and Chicago Historical Societies, whose +lists should be consulted. These publications also give much data +on the Mississippi River and western commercial development. S. +L. Clemens's "Life on the Mississippi" (in his "Writings," vol. +IX,1869-1909) is invaluable for its graphic pictures of +steamboating in the heyday of river traffic. A. B. Hulbert's +"Waterways of Western Expansion" ("Historic Highways," vol. IX, +1903) and "The Ohio River" (1906) give chapters on commerce and +transportation. For the beginnings of traffic into the Far West, +H. Inman's "The Old Santa Fe Trail" (1897) and "The Great Salt +Lake Trail" (1914) may be consulted, together with the +publications of the various state historical societies of the +trans-Mississippi States. + +Various bibliographies on this general subject have been issued +by the Library of Congress. Seymour Dunbar gives a good +bibliography in his "A History of Travel in America," 4 vols. +(1915). The student will find quantities of material in books of +travel, in which connection he would do well to consult Solon J. +Buck's "Travel and Description, 1765-1865" ("Illinois State +Historical Library Collections," vol. IX, 1914). + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Paths of Inland Commerce, by Archer B. Hulbert + diff --git a/old/tpoic10.zip b/old/tpoic10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..22e5ec7 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/tpoic10.zip |
